SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL CONCERT  REVIEW


Webern, Beethoven: Emmanuel Ax, piano; San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 9.12.2009 (HS)

With a couple of the most familiar pieces in the orchestral literature on the program, a small moment at intermission waved away any thoughts that the San Francisco Symphony might be “phoning it in.” With most of the audience in the lobby, piccolo player Catherine Payne, principal oboe William Bennett and co-principal bassoon Steve Dibner huddled together in the middle of the orchestra, perfecting a phrase from the finale of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor.

These musicians certainly had played the piece hundreds of times, but they devoted their full efforts to getting in sync. The moment, when it came, flew by fast, but such attention to detail, evident throughout the performance, lent an exciting edge to a vigorous re-telling of Beethoven’s famous search for C major.

If there were any tendency to cruise through this thoroughly explored music, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas was having none of it. Not a moment of laxity slowed the momentum. Tempos moved quickly without hurrying, even in the second movement Andante, when other conductors have been known to ignore the “con moto” part of the notation. The cellos, especially, rendered the sixteenth-note filigrees flawlessly as the forward motion continued.

The opening Allegro con brio, with its “victory” motto, can lurch from section to section in some performances. Here it fit together naturally, with a welcome sense of freshness and improvisation. What was riveting was the clarity with which the orchestra rendered each phrase. There was no attempt to produce a glossy sheen. Instead, instead a sense of opening up the music and scraping away all the dust and patina that had collected on it from hearing it so often.

That continued through the third movement Allegro and the transition into the blazing sun of C major that heralds the finale. Shaking the cobwebs off of an often-played piece has it rewards.

The same held true of Emmanuel Ax’s muscular, un-fussy turn at Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, which preceded intermission. The pianist seemed less interested in displaying his own technique than in fitting it together with the orchestra’s for a seamless interpretation. Rather than thundering into the first and last movement cadenzas, the extended solo moments seemed to emerge organically from the music, further developing the themes Beethoven had already worked.

Whether it was intentional or not, Ax’s tone struck me as distinctly reminiscent of the fortepiano’s slightly less flexible attack. In any event, he assiduously avoided much pedal, leading to a performance of pointed clarity.

To open matters, Tilson Thomas turned to Webern, who took the line of Viennese composers that included Beethoven about as far as anyone did. In a nice bit of programming, he began with Webern’s spare but charming orchestration of Six German Dances by Beethoven’s successor, Schubert. And then, for something completely different, Webern’s lapidary Symphony, Op. 21, with its snaky tone row that produces music of aching intensity in 10 short minutes.

Harvey Steiman