We caught the symphony on Thursday for a really cool program: Mostly Ives, with a Mendelssohn violin concerto squeezed in between for good measure. Those quicker than us with their opinions found the concerto rather pedestrian. But it's such a delicious yet cloying confection that even under the the jurisdiction of a particularly uninspired interpretation, is still satisfying. And the soloist, 22yo Sergey Khachatryan, did spark some fireworks in the final movement. In the program......

When going to the concert at Davies Symphony Hall last Thursday, we expected a feast for the ears. But visiting conductor Alan Gilbert made it quite a visual show as well: an unassuming man with the bulging pouch of a computer programmer, he looked a bit younger than his almost 40 years, and became quite possessed with the music, his hands fluttering like little birds in Dutilleux's Mystères de l'Instant. In Schumann's Manfred overture, his demeanor was by itself worth the admission price. Manfred, based on Byron's semi-autobiographical poem, is a tormented young man, and Gilbert was not only channeling that torment, he looked like he was rehearsing for the next sequel in the Karate Kid series. We are not here to solve chicken and egg problems: did Gilbert look this way because the orchestra sounded that way, or the other way around? In any case, the sound threads conductor and orchestra wove together were by all means appropriate. Dutilleux's 1989 opus, ten short pieces fused with no interruption as a single one, was played delicately by a small string orchestra plus percussions and cimbalom. The piece-shifting textures and tonal centers seemed to depict the difficulty of catching the instant, never settling long in the same mood: dramatic glissandos resolving in light pizzicatos, soloists passing the baton seamlessly to one another, here Alexander Barantschik at the violins, now Michael Grebanier at the cello. We thought of the sound of birds which Dutilleux claimed inspired him for the piece (they also inspired the other modern French composer Olivier Messiaen in a few works). We also thought of rain drops: ten short pieces, ten musical haikus, briefly evoking nature and going away. The cimbalom (we believe manned by Jay Stebley) stepped in and out, bringing a curious metallic, almost synthetic and oddly appealing sound to the piece. Picture from Alan Gilbert's press portfolio. He did not wear glasses Thursday though....