Symphony pays tribute to Burrell
Artistic inspiration can take root in the most unpredictable places. Sometime in the 1930s, by his own testimony, a young bass player named Charles Burrell heard a broadcast of the San Francisco Symphony playing Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony under Music Director Pierre Monteux, and decided that the life of a musician was what he wanted.
Burrell saw that dream become reality in 1959 when he joined the Symphony, and although his tenure here lasted only five years, it made him the first African American member of a major American orchestra. On Thursday, Feb. 7, the Symphony saluted Burrell on his 60th anniversary as the “Jackie Robinson of classical music” by dedicating its performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth to him.
Burrell, now 98 and living in Denver, couldn’t be in Davies Symphony Hall in person, but there was a suave video clip of him reminiscing on the musical life, as well as a proclamation from Mayor London Breed. And of course, there was music — not only Tchaikovsky’s Fourth led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, but a world premiere by composer Steven Mackey and a vivacious account of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with soloist Gil Shaham.
None of it, perhaps, showed the per-
formers entirely at their best — the well-worn Tchaikovsky, in particular, has been rendered more tautly and vigorously in Davies over the years. But as Burrell’s example shows, it can take just one musical experience, landing in just the right way, to plant the necessary seed.
Maybe that seed was an offshoot of Mackey’s “Portals, Scenes and Celebrations,” a 15-minute orchestral showpiece commissioned by the Symphony. It’s a joyous, brightly colored extravaganza, one in which seemingly every member of the orchestra gets a turn in the spotlight.
The piece is episodic by design — one musical vista opening onto the next — which means that if the current interlude doesn’t catch a listener’s fancy, then the next one will. Certainly Mackey is never at a loss for ideas; spiffy dance rhythms, ingratiating melodies and elaborate instrumental sonorities come tumbling forth in bold profusion.
The overall effect is continually engaging, and also slightly cloying, like that of eating a whole box of chocolates at one sitting. The parade of motifs and rhythms falls beguilingly on the ear, with what Thomas aptly described as a level of complexity that sounds deceptively easy, but not much of it lingers.
Shaham brought a welcome degree of vitality to the Prokofiev concerto, sometimes to the point of goosing Thomas and the orchestra into step with him. In the mid-tempo writing of the first movement, Shaham kept leaning into the rhythms of the music, as if exhorting his colleagues to keep up. The tension that resulted had a dramatic effect, and everyone found their groove more persuasively in the brisk central scherzo, leading to a shimmering, deftly wrought consummation in the finale.
As an encore, Shaham was joined by concertmaster Alexander Barantschik for a duet by the French Baroque composer Jean-Marie Leclair — except that surprisingly, Shaham took the modest second line, allowing Barantschik to deliver the main melody with beautiful aplomb. It was a class act all around.