Ed. note: We've renamed "SFist Goes To The Symphony" and all other high-falutin' cultural reviews to "The Philistine." We were buzzed on Szechuan hot peppers when we came up with it!

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Dimitri Shostakovich's birth (1906-1975), the Symphony played an all-Shosty program with an all Russian guest list. The connection between Shostakovich and Rostropovich goes much deeper than just nationality: Rostro was a student of Shostakovich and a friend, and we'd say a muse too, but it makes it sounds totally like not what it was. Anyhow, they hung out together, Shostakovich wrotes some pieces just for his buddy, who then premiered, for instance, the two cello concertos as the soloist. Nowadays, Rostropovich still plays the cello, but he mostly conducts, turning a spry 79yo this year.

And what a pleasure it was to have him conduct the orchestra. We'll skip talking about the first piece, the Festive Overture, from 1954. It was a bombastic little marching piece, brasses a-blaring both on stage and up on the side terraces behind the stage. We felt really bad for the guys up there with a horn wailing in their ear: did their hearing recover in time to enjoy the rest of the show, or did they go deaf for the rest of the evening? This is the Shostakovich that we do not appreciate particularly: writing in a neo-classical style which some would call post-Stalinist. They'd be historically accurate, but we actually believe the piece to be more fitting to the style of a composer writing from a beach house in Malibu for next summer's pompous blockbusters.

Picture courtesy of Time Magazine

Nonetheless, the piece worked fine as an appetizer for the main dish: an absolutely perfect performance of the piano concerto no. 1 (from 1933, but much more forward-sounding than the overture), with Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman. Bronfman is a tall, stout man and Rostropovich a frail, diminutive elderly gentleman, yet Rostropovich commanded absolute respect from his soloist. We have griped about soloists taking a whole arm when the conductor gave them a finger of freedom. Not Wednesday night: Rostro was clearly the boss, and Bronfman was fully attentive to him. We talked to Yefim after the performance while he was signing cds in the hallway, and the guy definitely has some attitude, making his total reverence to Rostropovich's baton even more remarkable.

The Piano Concerto is a beautiful piece, and Rostropovich conducted it with a joyful exuberance. Shostakovich used many a playful quotation, and the humourous aspects were fully displayed. It is a piece for piano, strings-only orchestra, and a solo trumpet. As an example of a practical joke, the trumpet would play a sugar-coated nursery rhyme, which the piano would conclude with a big chord, saying in essence: clong. Get it? The audience did and chuckled. Another passage requires the strings to play with the wrong side of the bow. The fun energy of the piece reminded us of Darius Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a gleeful romp. The trumpet of Glenn Fischthal was delicately textured, some times string-like in its sound, sometimes perky. And Bronfman gave a magistral performance, assertive, controlled, playful. The cadenza of the Lento movement gave him ample opportunity to showcase his sensibility, and the fireworks of the final Allegro con Brio his splendid technique.

The second half of the concert was devoted to the Symphony No.5, Op. 47 (1937). In the Chronicle, Joshua Kosman wrote some required reading prior to going to the performance, about Shostakovich the symphonist. The Symphony No. 5 is an ample piece, somewhat monumental. Since Shostakovich enjoyed pastiche a lot, we can play the little game of influences, hearing some Mahler of course, but also some of the Richard Strauss of Also Sprach Zarathustra. First violin Mark Volkert (subbing for Alexander Barantschik, who is probably busy getting ready for his soloist performance next week in Shostakovich violin concerto no.2, conducted by Rostropovich too) distinguished himself, and so did the bass drum guy, but not for a good reason. Rostropovich actually waddled through the orchestra during the well deserved applause to stand up the performers who deserved special recognition, one by one. Eventually everyone was up, a fitting ending to a beautiful performance.

The SF Symphony performs this program two more times, tonight and tomorrow, 8pm
For box office and direction information, go to SF Symphony