SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Somehow I have gotten through my whole musical experience without hearing Stravinsky’s original Pulcinella. I have long admired, even loved, the various suites Stravinsky extracted from this music, but the San Francisco Symphony’s performances this week under conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, complete with several scene-setting songs, made for an especially satisfying experience.

Some of the vocal music in the ballet, written in 1920, later found its way into an orchestral suite, which is heard far more often today. And Stravinsky liked the music so much that he recycled it under the title Suite Italienne for violin and piano in 1925, with revisions in 1932 for cello and 1934 for violin again.

I don’t know if it was the symphony’s performance that smoothed and polished the spiky edges of the more familiar suites, or if Stravinsky tarted up the harmonies in extracting the suite. But the style fit, especially with the excellent voices on stage to sing the eight vocal sections. Sasha Cooke, a mezzo soprano who recently scored a big hit at the Metropolitan Opera in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, caressed the supple lines of Contento forse vivere and the gorgeous Se too m’ami. Bass Eric Owens, who triumphed as Porgy at San Francisco Opera in June, did so well I wished Stravinsky had written more music for that voice here. Lyric tenor Bruce Sledge outlined the familiar lines of Mentre l’erbetta (the Serenata, or second movement, in the suite) and melded well with the other singers in the ensembles. Especially rewarding was the final minuet, here called Pupillette, fiammette d’amore. The voices blended immaculately.

The fleshed-out full ballet sprinkles these vocal diversions into a score that was Stravinsky’s first foray into neo-classicism. He did it at the ballet impresario Diaghilev’s request, at first reluctantly, then enthusiastically after familiarizing himself with the source music. Diaghilev had found it in a collection identified as that of the early 18th-century composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Scholars have since proved that about half of the music was not by Pergolesi at all, but by contemporaries. But no matter, Stravinsky effectively rewrote it, changing meter, rhythm, melodic details and especially by tweaking the harmonies into something deliciously pungent. In Pulcinella, the composer retains the rhythmic spring and danceable qualities of the early Baroque, while making it sound completely modern rather than a pastiche.

Tilson Thomas chose to let the music bounce along easily, rather than push tempos or bring out the pungency of the harmonies. The results suited the vocalists, and brought smiles of delight for harmonic clarity and refinement. This is actually the third time the orchestra has played this full score. Somehow I missed the previous performances.

On this program, the ballet music provided an apt capstone to a menu that started with the Octet for Wind Instruments. Completed in 1923, it continues Stravinsky’s fascination with neo-classicism. It drips with wit and verve on every page, challenging an ensemble of flute, oboe, two bassoons, two trumpets and two trombones to find a dynamic balance. They played without a conductor, and special kudos go to the plangent solos of oboist William Bennett, the skittering runs of bassoonist Steven Dibner and the sprightly clarity of the lead trumpet, Mark Inouye. They played it straight, as Stravinsky admonished in his own writings, producing ravishing music.

To complete the program, Tilson Thomas turned to a real classicist before intermission, conducting Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s familiar Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major from the piano bench. As a soloist, MTT will not make anyone forget Murray Perahia or Mitsiko Uchida, but he played with buoyancy if not particular delicacy. His cadenzas, as might be expected, showed his pianism in the best light. They had innovative turns without losing the Mozart style. The orchestra sounded fine around him, but one wonders whether he needed to gesticulate quite so much. Perhaps a bit more focus on the pianist’s part would have produced a more complete performance.

The program of faux classicism of the 20th century and a touch of the real thing from the 18th made for a particularly tasty evening, even if the new guy won this time.

Harvey Steiman