Youthful work gets virtuosic treatment
Pity the young composer who unveils his first major orchestral work — a Symphony No. 1, say — only to have it greeted by befuddlement, hostility or condescension. Or, in the case of Rachmaninoff ’s First Symphony, all of the above.
It turns out that what the piece really needed was an ardent champion, and it got one in the person of conductor Vasily Petrenko, who belatedly added the piece to the San Francisco Symphony’s repertoire over the weekend. Friday’s concert in Davies Symphony Hall was a characteristically virtuosic display of both sheer music-making and artistic reclamation.
That’s not to say that Rachmaninoff ’s four-movement opus is without its shortcomings. Far from it. Written by a 22-year-old novice, the score is beset by naive notions of form and thematic consistency, and its weaknesses include, most notably, a slow movement that lies dormant for some 10 or 12 minutes while the listener waits for something — anything — to happen.
But on the other side of the ledger lies a spirit of adventurousness and almost reckless freedom that is impossible to resist. This is music written by an artist whose seeming obliviousness to the pitfalls of his project leads him into very exciting places.
The orchestral writing boasts a rough-hewn energy reminiscent of Mussorgsky, with the brasses lumbering about like circus bears and the strings puffing out their chests in an effort to keep pace.
The brilliant young Russian maestro, whose every visit to San Francisco seems to produce a podium miracle, gave an impassioned performance.
There’s a scherzo that keeps changing its mind about how scherzo-like to be, and a finale that rages off in all directions before settling down to bring the symphony to a wondrously oddball conclusion.
Perhaps most striking and endearing is Rachmaninoff ’s conceit of introducing all four movements with the same compact thematic motif. It’s no secret, really, where he got this idea from — the notion is lifted from Tchaikovsky, and the motif itself, a kind of growly melodic turn, has its roots in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle — but the freshness and pride with which he waves this invention aloft at each junction are delightful.
Petrenko, the brilliant young Russian maestro whose every visit to San Francisco seems to produce a podium miracle of some sort or other, gave the piece as impassioned and committed a performance as anyone could ask, and the orchestra followed his lead with terrific alacrity. This was a reading that combined fastidious attention to detail — the spotlighted dialogue in the slow movement between violinist Mark Volkert and cellist Amos Yang was a marvel of close-knit precision — and dramatic breadth of scale.
The history books are quick to tell us that some of the failure of the First Symphony at its premiere in 1897 was due to the ham-handed conducting of Rachmaninoff ’s teacher Alexander Glazunov (who may have been in his cups on the occasion). An interpreter as attentive and eloquent as Petrenko might well have changed its fate.
Rachmaninoff was not the only composer to see his star rise during this event, either. Before intermission, Lalo’s “Symphonie espagnole” — a violin concerto in all but name, and a piece dangerously easy to underestimate — got a beautiful, muscular and entirely forthright account featuring violinist Joshua Bell.
This is actually one of Bell’s particular strengths — his ability to transform a piece that might seem merely pretty or charming and reveal its unsuspected depths without sacrificing anything in the way of tonal allure. He dispatched Lalo’s silky melodic phrases and delicate passage work with the suave charisma of a boulevardier, while still giving the score plenty of heft.
Petrenko and the orchestra were willing partners in the project, having led off with a similar exercise in ingratiating Iberiana. That was Glinka’s “Capriccio brillante on the Jota aragonesa,” a captivating orchestral showpiece based on Spanish themes that made another welcome addition to the Symphony’s repertoire.