Magnificent Bartok enthralls audience
Chopin outshined at the Symphony
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic
Friday, April 27, 2001
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/27/DD204402.DTL
It was nestled in between two truly flashy showpieces, and still the austere, cerebral beauty of Bartok's music emerged as the surprise crowd pleaser of Wednesday's deeply satisfying program by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.
To begin his season-ending stint in Davies Symphony Hall, Thomas programmed Bartok's magnificent "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta," a work that is by turns thorny and incendiary. Then he and the orchestra gave it such a probing, expansive reading that the audience erupted in delight.
This, mind you, on a program that also included Chopin's Second Piano Concerto with the redoubtable Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist, as well as Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 to serve as dessert (cheesecake, if you like).
And those displays of instrumental fireworks drew their customary applause.
But it was Bartok who touched Wednesday's listeners most deeply, prompting a response whose length and enthusiasm surprised even Thomas.
The reason, though, was not hard to detect. In a performance notable for its dark, sumptuous splendor and rhythmic urgency, conductor and instrumentalists alike brought out the depth and vigor of Bartok's four- movement score. Depth prevailed in the odd-numbered movements, vigor in the others. It is the first movement more than any other that makes or breaks this piece -- a brown-hued, deliberate fugue whose crabbed, tightly wound theme slowly fills out over the course of five minutes, like one of those tiny sponge animals that expands in water.
Rarely have the Symphony string sections sounded as focused and eloquent as they did in this movement. With Thomas propelling the music forward, the fugue's individual strands twined around one another in a dense, chromatic tapestry of breathtaking beauty.
The spare, enigmatic third movement, too, achieved a profound sense of mystery, helped along by evocative contributions from xylophonist Jack Van Geem and timpanist David Herbert. The music sparkled even in the face of one of the most prolonged and frankly disgusting bronchial outbursts I've ever heard from an audience member (and isn't it time for physical violence against these malefactors?).
For contrast, there was the ebullient splendor of the two fast movements -- witty and clipped in the second movement, dancelike and emotionally generous in the finale. All of it soared, rattled and raced with infectious exuberance.
The opening fugue, meanwhile, picked up echoes of the evening's opener, "Atmospheres" by Bartok's fellow Hungarian master Gyorgy Ligeti. This 1961 score is still best known for its use by Stanley Kubrick (without Ligeti's knowledge or approval) in "2001," so perhaps its inclusion this year was a sly jest.
But timely or not, "Atmospheres" was a brilliant and welcome presence. In 10 minutes of writing for a large orchestra, Ligeti explores the various shapes, colors and weights of clouds of sound. Pitch and rhythm are of minor concern; what is telling is the fascinating way clusters of sound move in and out of focus.
Ligeti's musical configurations range from the misty sheen of the opening moments to blazing, brass-laden thunderclouds that seem almost solid in their heft. And when he has the brass players blow air through their instruments, for once that tired '60s-era technique makes artistic sense.
The evening's only mild disappointment was the Chopin, in which Thibaudet's
playing sounded uncharacteristically brusque and unrefined. In place of his
usual brand of insinuating lyricism, there was mostly hard-edged passagework
and rhythmic force. Liszt brought the program to a delirious close.
ORCHESTRA
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY:
The subscription program repeats at 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow in Davies Symphony Hall. Tickets: $18-$85. Call (415) 864-6000 or go to www.sfsymphony.org.E-mail Joshua Kosman at jkosman@sfchronicle.com.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle