Naive and Sentimental Music at the SF Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony presented a bracing evening of modern music last weekend, starting with Convergence, a commissioned violin concerto from Swedish composer Jesper Nordin, featuring Finnish soloist Pekka Kuusisto, and conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Nordin tried to explain his piece to the audience beforehand, mentioning that he wasn't really a classical composer and that he used technology for most of his work, but a teacher had told him his strength was "in his deficiencies." He also demonstrated how his computer setup could create sounds by having the conductor wave his hand towards a monitor or by the violinist sawing away on his instrument.

There was also a an accompanying abstract video by Thomas Antoine Pénanguer that started by riffing on the psychedelic sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey which eventually morphed into what looked a bit like the Las Vegas Dancing Fountains at the Bellagio. In my brain, I even started hearing Andrea Bocelli's voice singing Time to Say Goodbye. (Production photos by Stefan Cohen.)

Pekka Kuusisto, who debuted with the SF Symphony two years ago playing Bryce Dessner's violin concerto, is an entertaining virtuoso who looks like a nerd gone wild. When the digital interactive sections arrived in this concerto, it felt like a waste of resources since there was a great violinist and a full orchestra on hand. Most of the electronic music seemed to be a doubling of Kuusisto's frenetic fiddling in the outer two movements and what sounded like Windham Hill wind chimes in the middle movement.

Opinion was divided afterwards, with about half of my friends and acquaintances very much enjoying the piece and another half thinking of it as ridiculous. Still, it was good to hear a new work, and much of it was plain fun.

It was also a good warmup for John Adams' massive 1998 orchestral work, Naive and Sentimental Music. I have been a fan of composer John Adams since the 1980s and was puzzled when this recording arrived and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. The problem, I finally realized, was that the soft to loud dynamics are so extreme that it's about impossible to make out, especially on a crappy sound system.

Esa-Pekka Salonen gave the premiere of the piece when he was Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and it was thrilling to hear him revive it 25 years later.

The 50-minute concerto for orchestra requires a huge orchestra, with music that veers from simple to outrageously complex. There were moments in the outer movements where it looked like each percussion player and every orchestra section were all playing different time signatures at once. This looks like seriously difficult music to perform, but the listening pleasure is worth it.

The soft, slow middle movement featured guitarist Justin Smith who was hidden in the middle of the orchestra, which led to thoughts of "what the heck is that instrument, and where is it coming from?"

The performance was marvelous and reminded me again why I love this orchestra and its new Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen.