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SF Symphony guest conductor Fabio Luisi did his best last week to steal the thunder of violin megastar Joshua Bell. He opened the program with a tone poem by Richard Strauss, Don Juan. Tone poem means a symphonic little piece which tells a story, and, more often than not, said story is rather hard to follow: the instrumental language of an orchestra, as powerful and evocative as it is, is still open to multiple conflicting interpretations. To each their own daydream. Not with Luisi's Don Juan: after a crisp, brilliant opening that said, here comes Don Juan, he does not fuss around, Luisi and the SFSO delivered a sexy, lush rendition of the piece. It was a propulsive, erect, fanfare-ish opening. The strings (and Barantschik in particular) were seductive, the brass blended with the orchestra. A oboe playfully riffed on a snake charmer melodic line.
We did smile, though, when a dialogue erupted between a flute and cello (quite explicitly a female voice and Don Juan), climaxing with panting sighs from the flute. (Is there such thing as PG-17 classical music?) Luisi himself stood slightly hunched forward, as if to step his body slightly ahead of the beat, to push the piece forward. The piece interrupts itself with a silent pause before the final coda, and the program notes mention the death of Don Juan. But with such a sexy rendition, we're sure it was only a petite mort.
Joshua Bell came onstage, wearing a shirt patterned after a tuxedo pants: black with a black shiny satin stripe. Josh, here's an idea: just pull up the pants to your shoulders! We kinda make fun because he looked so ... serious. Then again, he seriously delivered. The two pieces he played were bravura pieces. The orchestra fell in the background, and Bell stood front and center, never relenting the melodic lead. Luisi himself was happy to recede in the shadow. Bell just released a CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons were he himself conducted the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with his Stradivarius bow, and he really felt as if he was leading there as well. One violist actually looked at him for cues and not at Fabio. The Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Cappriccioso was a ridiculously virtuosic piece for the violinist, and Bell dispatched it with ease: superb intonation throughout, and amazing technical control. Ravel's Tzigane was even more a display of his talent: it opens with a long, gripping cadenza which introduces a few slurry gypsy melodies. Only a pizzicato sequence seemed to trip the unflappable soloist. He ended up the piece on a flurry of violin fireworks, even breaking a string for the final exclamation point.
The second half of the program was the Symphony No.4 of Franz Schmidt, a Hungarian composer who lived and worked in Vienna in the first half of the 20th century. The performance of it was earnest, and Fabio Luisi infused as much life as anyone could in the piece. He created eerie texture. We noticed in particular the timpani-like quality of some cello pizzicatos, or some really growly bass backgrounds. Mark Inouye did a good job book-ending the piece with his trumpet solos. We found the symphony only mildly interesting, though: we could not find a particularly distinct composition voice to Schmidt.
The SF Symphony series this week starts tomorrow, and features pianist Krystian Zimerman in the piano concerto Lutosławski dedicated to him, and Herbert Blomstedt conducting Bruckner's symphony No. 2.
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