Hindemith and Muhly at the SF Symphony

It has been a weird September for the San Francisco Symphony this year. It began with the All San Francisco Concert dedicated to community nonprofits on September 12th, followed the next week with three performances of Verdi's Requiem that were canceled by management after the San Francisco Symphony Chorus voted to strike. Then there was the annual Opening Gala on September 25th featuring pianist Lang Lang that was not really the opening nor was it particularly gala, from most accounts. Finally, on Friday the 27th, regular symphonic concerts under departing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen began with a fascinating program featuring four pieces that most people, including myself, had never heard before. (Pictured above are Glenn Lym and JD Wade, two devoted fans of the San Francisco Symphony for decades.)

There were a few musicians from the orchestra, including Acting Associate Concertmaster Wyatt Underhill above, who were chatting with patrons on the sidewalk outside of Davies Hall about their current situation. On the SFS Musicians website (click here), there is a recent comment by retired Principal Horn Robert Ward: "In my almost 5 decades in the orchestra world, I have observed over and over that when an organization flounders, it is most often due to a Board that is unclear on its mission, unskilled in raising the money necessary, and uneducated about what it is that they are supposed to be stewarding. When I was still playing, I watched my colleagues take incredible musical risks, soar to heights that I didn't think were possible and inspire the audiences who were raptly listening. It is long past time for the Board to take a hard look in the mirror, accept responsibility for how badly it's going, and do what is necessary to right this ship. The musicians leave it all on the stage every night with the utmost commitment. It's time for the Board to do the same."

Though all the works in Friday's concert were written in the first half of the 20th century, the thematic through-line was Baroque music, beginning with a loud, short, satirical curtain-raiser, Paul Hindemith's 1921 Ragtime (Well Tempered) with a theme taken from J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Also in 1921, Elgar wrote a huge Victorian orchestral arrangement of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 53 to start the second half of the concert. The result sounded more like Elgar at his plushest rather than contrapuntal Bach but it was thoroughly enjoyable. (All the lovely stage photos are by Kristen Loken.)

The first half of the concert featured the world premiere of American composer Nico Muhly's first Piano Concerto, which was written for the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud.

The three-movement fast-slow-fast concerto looked back to the French Baroque of Couperin and Rameau, according to the composer. The music was all over the place, from minimalist chugging to "Wyndham Hill with an edge," as my concert companion put it. The orchestral sound throughout evoked a magical, shimmering quality and was a pleasure to hear. (In the photo above, from left to right, composer Nico Muhly, pianist Alexandre Tharaud, and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.)

My only criticism is that the orchestration often overwhelmed pianist Tharaud in the two fast movements and there wasn't much he could do about it.

The final work of the evening was Paul Hindemith's 1934 Mathis der Maler (Mathis the Painter) Symphony, which was carved out of his opera of the same name. The subject matter of the opera involves an artist pitted against clerical authoritarians in the 16th century, which was the last straw for the Nazis who understood his point and Goebbels banned its performance. Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was an interesting, prolific German composer whose life often mirrored that of the writer Thomas Mann. Both found early success and were the great German cultural hopes of music and literature until both quietly moved to Switzerland with their Jewish wives in the 1930s before crossing the Atlantic to the United States. Both of them landed at universities, with Hindemith at Yale and Mann at Princeton before both eventually returned to Switzerland for their final years after World War Two.

I listened to the Mathis der Maler Symphony on YouTube a couple of times before the concert and it didn't make much of an impression, but performed live by the San Francisco Symphony under the inspired conducting of Esa-Pekka Salonen felt like a revelation. The audience even burst into applause after the first movement, which felt right. It was yet another reminder of what we are about to lose in San Francisco