Donald Runnicles Conducts Mahler First at SF Symphony

The magnificent 70-year-old Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles returned to the San Francisco Symphony for the first time in years with a program that was pure fin-de-siècle Vienna: Alban Berg's Seven Early Songs and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1. Runnicles was the Music Director at the SF Opera for 17 years (1992-2009) and has repeatedly returned there for large, ambitious productions such as Berlioz's Les Troyens and Strauss's Die Frau Ohne Schatten. On Friday evening's opening concert, Davies Hall was only about two-thirds full but seemingly all my classical music-loving friends were in attendance along with half of the administrative staff of the SF Opera from across the street. The concert was a triumph for the conductor and all the SF Symphony musicians, and if you would like a detailed account of the music, check out Lisa Hirsch's ecstatic review here. (All photos are by Kristen Loken.)

The Berg songs were written for voice and piano between 1905-1908, but when he went to study with Arnold Schoenberg, the older composer told him to stop writing art songs and concentrate on instrumental music. Twenty years later, Berg took a selection of seven of these early songs and rearranged them for a soprano and large orchestra. The soloist was American mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts, who was last seen in San Francisco as Offred in the operatic version of The Handmaid's Tale last year. It was a treat to see her looking so glamorous instead of being in the punishing outfits of Gilead, and she was in great voice, soaring easily over the large orchestra.

The Berg piece was less than 20 minutes long, followed by a 20 minute intermission, which felt a little weird. However, nobody felt cheated because the Mahler Symphony No. 1 that followed was deep, dense, and meaty enough to fill out a program on its own.

Runnicles seemed to be enjoying himself immensely and the same was true for the instrumentalists who all had their moments to individually shine in this intricate, eccentric, revolutionary score, composed in 1888 and then revised in 1906. Let's hope Runnicles returns again soon, both to the SF Symphony and the SF Opera, because he seems to be one of those conductors who only get better as they grow older.