SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Berg, Schubert: San Francisco Symphony, Julia Fischer, violin; Yefim Bronfman, piano; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 5.6.2009 (HS)


The San Francisco Symphony continued its “Dawn to Twilight” series Friday evening with two disparate pieces. Focusing on Franz Schubert and Alban Berg, the series juxtaposes works from the 19th-century composer who helped usher in the Romantic Era in music to a 20th-century icon who ushered it out. That made sense in the first concert, but I am at a loss to see what the seldom-heard Chamber Concerto has to do with Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C major “The Great,” one of the composer’s most often-played orchestral works.

Unfortunately the performances, despite moments of greatness, did not add up to much, either, despite the presence of two superb soloists and especially fine playing by the orchestra’s winds.

In the case of the Chamber Concerto, written for piano, violin and a 13-member wind band, violinist Julia Fischer played with her usual clarity and deftness and pianist Yefim Bronfman dialed back his often-bombastic style to match Fischer’s grace. The winds made a sprightly ensemble, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas drawing out surprising beauties in the mostly 12-tone score. But it never added up to much more than a divertissement, a sort of Mozart serenade for the 20th century.

It was a pleasure to hear such effortless music making, but to what end? Perhaps as a sort of lightweight appetizer before the rich meat and potatoes of the Schubert symphony, which occupied the second half of the program, it sufficed. From a compositional standpoint, much is made of how Berg cleverly encoded his own name (along with his teacher Schoenberg’s and Webern’s) into the music. But to my ears these elements lack anything like the dramatic impact that Shostakovich got out the same trick (or even Bach, who built chorales out of his name).

Certainly Schubert had nothing like that in mind. His symphony builds on repetition. Performed without repeats, it got off to a promising start. Tilson Thomas chose stately tempos and conducted with some of the most expressive body language we have seen from him, perhaps to compensate for shorter rehearsal times imposed by having to do a different program every couple of days instead of repeating it several times as subscription concerts. In any event, the combination of easing up on the gas pedal and his dancing on the podium made for plenty of nuance in the phrasing.

One caution flag, however, was that all this gyrating seemed to take away some of the music’s rhythmic thrust. And in a piece with so many repeated phrases, rhythm builds the arc of tension and release as much as the harmonic development does. The second movement Andante moved along well enough, but the third movement Scherzo could have used more zip.

Tellingly, however, the forward motion flagged in the finale, which was more Allegro Moderato than the called-for Allegro Vivace. By the time the coda arrived, with its buildup of recurring triplets, the pace had slowed noticeably. Uncharacteristically for this orchestra and conductor, it jogged home easily rather than racing to the breathless finish Schubert envisioned.

Harvey Steiman


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