French Music at the SF Symphony

Last week's all-French San Francisco Symphony program on Thursday afternoon did not start promisingly. Just as the 51-year-old Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan was waiting for audience silence before the quiet opening of Debussy's 1894 Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, a cell phone rang. After another pause, somebody emitted an explosive sneeze and the audience started giggling. There were two more cell phone alerts before Jordan finally gave up and embarked on an exquisitely transparent performance of the Prelude.

Rebecca Wishnia at the San Francisco Classical Voice website gave the concert a dismissive review, but I had a different experience and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Part of the reason was that I bought a last-minute rush ticket and was seated in the second row of the orchestra section, smack dab in front of the fabulous French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, complete with sparkly jacket.

He was the soloist in the 1896 Piano Concerto No. 5, "Egyptian" by Camille Saint-Saëns, with its evocative slow mvement depicting a journey on the Nile. The concerto has been derided as kitsch over the years, but I loved every minute of it, and Thibaudet gave an awesome performance, modulating his dynamics from delicate to forceful throughout.

For an encore Thibaudet was joined by conductor Jordan for the final movement from Ravel's 1910 Mother Goose Suite, entitled Le jardin féerique: Lent et grave (The Fairy Garden). It could not have been more charming.

After intermission, Jordan led an exciting account of Berlioz's 1830 Symphonie Fantastique. The five-movement work filled with famous tunes is completely eccentric. I heard Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Symphonie Fantastique a couple of times over the decades, and it was always unsatisfying because he tended to smooth out the strangeness of the work, but that was not the case with Jordan. The concluding two movements, March to the Scaffold and Dream of a Witches' Sabbath were thrilling and weird, just as they should be.