Suave soloists lift iffy concert
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra came to Davies Symphony Hall this week for two concerts as part of the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers series. Happily for the audiences, and for the general principle of truth in advertising, they brought their great performers with them.
That would be cellist Gautier Capuçon — who filled the hall with a resplendent and stylish account of Haydn’s C-Major Cello Concerto as the centerpiece of the orchestra’s first offering, on Sunday, Jan. 28 — and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who followed up the next night with an account of Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto that was every bit as suave.
Between them, the two Frenchmen provided a tagteam demonstration in how to make music sound both exciting and subtle, both extroverted and thoughtful, and masterful throughout. The orchestra, meanwhile, mostly stood by and helped out around the edges.
Perhaps it’s not fair to be too hard on the Royal Philharmonic, which is in the throes of some organizational upheaval. It was just last month that disturbing allegations of sexual assault were leveled at conductor Charles Dutoit, the orchestra’s chief conductor. Dutoit, who had been scheduled to conduct the current tour, resigned abruptly, and Thierry Fischer
— the Swiss-born music director of the Utah Symphony — stepped in to lead the San Francisco dates and others.
So let’s be generous and assume that the interpretive bluntness and technical unsteadiness that characterized too much of the orchestra’s playing in works by Debussy, Respighi and Stravinsky were the result of institutional disorientation. It’s not easy to get your mind right when charges of bad behavior are flying thick and fast.
But let’s also remember that it was just two years ago that the Philharmonic, playing then under Principal Guest Conductor Pinchas Zukerman, came through with an equally undercooked pair of concerts. Clearly there is talent aplenty in this orchestra, and just as clearly it is going to require new leadership and focus to have it playing at full capacity.
In his last-minute assignment, Fischer managed that only in fits and starts. Debussy’s “Petite Suite,” in the orchestral version by Henri Büsser, made an ingratiating opener for Sunday’s concert, and on Monday, Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome” opened and closed with limpid, fluid orchestral textures (concertmaster Duncan Riddell brought shimmery grace to his solos in the final movement).
But in the two Stravinsky ballets that took up the concerts’ respective second halves — “The Firebird” on Sunday, “Petrushka” on Monday — neither Fischer nor the ensemble consistently capitalized on the opportunities for instrumental display or dramatic vigor. “Firebird” came off as a flat-footed sequence of directionless episodes, and “Petrushka,” after a vivacious opening, started to come apart at the seams. The brass in particular jabbed and blared through both works, putting more emphasis on volume than integration.
Fortunately, the concertos served as artistic high points for both concerts. Capuçon, who can sometimes let his prodigious energy run away with him, channeled his gifts perfectly in the Haydn, and joined with the orchestra’s cellists and basses for a luminous encore of Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds.”
Thibaudet’s Liszt was equally rewarding, a virtuosic combination of full-bodied showmanship and tender introspection, and the latter trait came to the fore in a gorgeous encore of Liszt’s “Consolation” No. 3. The orchestra’s encores were a movement from Bizet’s “L’Arlésienne” and Chabrier’s “España.”