Uneven Temperaments

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It has been an exciting two weeks on the podium at the San Francisco Symphony. Two of the world’s most talked-about young conductors — Gustavo Dudamel and Alan Gilbert — came to town back-to-back to guest conduct the orchestra. I had the pleasure of observing both Dudamel’s Rachmaninov and Stravinsky last week (see review) and Gilbert’s program of Stucky, Mozart, and Nielsen on Saturday. While perhaps it is unfair to compare these two conductors, it was hard not to be disappointed by Gilbert’s follow-up performance.

Alan Gilbert

The 41-year-old Gilbert was recently tapped to be the next music director of the New York Philharmonic. His tenure starts in 2009, the same year Dudamel will take the helm at Los Angeles. Gilbert’s appointment has been praised by many critics, including most of the music desk at The New York Times. Above all, he is lauded for his bold programming and his commitment to new music. But his program on Saturday seemed more lackluster than bold, with odd choices that neither satisfied in themselves nor created a coherent larger group.

Gilbert’s dedication to new music was exhibited with the first work in the program, Steven Stuck’s brief Son et Lumière, a San Francisco Symphony premiere. Written in 1988, this charming and accessible work displayed the composer’s abilities at combining old formal devices (in this case, sonata form) with new musical material.

But whether it was a fault of the piece or a deficit in the performance, discerning foreground from background in the work proved difficult. Multiple sections of the orchestra simultaneously vied for attention, with Gilbert doing little to balance them. Similarly, the playing felt tentative, as if both orchestra and conductor lacked conviction as to where the high and low points of the piece lay.

Lacking in Brilliance

The Stucky was followed by Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18, a work that stands in the shadow of its more famous younger relatives, the well-known group of concertos that followed it. Soloist Richard Goode did little to enliven this work, which lacks the memorable melodic inventions and powerful scope of those later works. He delivered a rather subdued performance that failed to capture the audience’s engagement, judging by the muted applause and the lack of an encore.

The second half of the program featured Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 2, “The Four Temperaments,” a work that is rarely performed live (its most recent performance by the San Francisco Symphony was in 1989, under Herbert Blomstedt). On Saturday night I was tempted to conclude that its relative neglect is deserved.

Written in 1902 — one year after the premiere of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and the same year as the premiere of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande — Nielsen’s symphony is far more conservative in terms of orchestration, form, harmony, and rhythm than the more canonical works of that period. It also lacks the drama of the composer’s Fourth Symphony, “The Inextinguishable,” as well as the masterful scope of his Fifth Symphony.

Despite some wonderful playing from the orchestra (including a gorgeous set of chorale passages in the brass) and Gilbert’s obvious enthusiasm for the work, this was not a gripping performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Alexander Kahn is a Ph.D. candidate in music history and literature at UC Berkeley, where his research is focused on the Hollywood émigrés. He is also the assistant conductor of the Oakland Civic and the UC Berkeley symphony orchestras.

Comments

This is one of those reviews that seems to be more about the reviewer’s state of mind than the actual performances. The Stucky piece sounded as it did because that is how it was composed, for vivid and colorful impact, and it would not have benefited from some effort to clarify it. The Nielsen Second Symphony is not as concentrated as his Third or Fourth or Fifth Symphonies, but it is full of original and interesting touches, it builds to satisfying heights, and it is very effective in performance. Should we hear only a composer’s two or three best pieces? Of course not, at least with a composer of Nielsen’s considerable stature and achievement. The conducting and playing were aimed more at exuberance and impact than clarity, again, but those are preferable aims in Nielsen’s middle symphonies. The detail was all there to be heard if one listened for it.

The reviewer’s take on the Mozart is especially peculiar. Again, it is not as great as most of its successors, but every mature piano concerto of Mozart rewards our attention. Richard Goode is a stellar pianist and he certainly did do a lot to illuminate the concerto. Ironically, in view of the criticism of the other pieces, in this case it was the performer’s subtlety that the reviewer ignores. Goode’s many understated accents, hesitations, and dynamic gradations were a joy to hear. The conductor earned my gratitude by avoiding period performance style and engaging in many tastefully expressive accents and sonorities, using the abilities of modern instruments in the process. He was less interested in understatement and subtlety than the pianist, but the different emphases did not conflict. We heard an interesting and rewarding exploration of some of the possibilities of the piano’s and the orchestra’s parts in the concerto. There is no such thing as a definitive performance, and if Mr. Goode and Mr. Gilbert had somewhat different approaches, both were valid and the attentive listener could certainly appreciate both at once. It was a fulfilling and enjoyable concert.

Posted by Stephen Whitney on April 1, 2008 at 5:22 pm
One doesn’t have to like Nielsen - personal tastes will always vary - but to criticize a work for being insufficiently modernist for its date of composition seems very odd. Despite later attempts by composers of the Darmstadt school to enact them, there are no laws regulating minimum levels of modernism. (One does not wish, even in reverse, to emulate Stalin, who enacted maximum levels of modernism, with the strictest enforcement.)

Music should be judged on its own merits, regardless of its date of composition. Nielsen’s early work is in fact highly innovative, in his use of progressive tonality - it just wasn’t the standard handikit innovations of his day. The Second has drama and scope; they’re just expressed differently than in the Fourth and Fifth. Like all good composers, Nielsen had a style that changed over time, but that doesn’t make his work at the age of 37 immature.

To criticize a work on the basis of date is to imply that 18th or 19th century works are similarly definicient, but that the composers are to be excused on the grounds that they lived too early to know better. Such a teleological approach to musical history strikes me as very unfortunate.

Posted by David Bratman on April 2, 2008 at 10:22 am
K 456 and KV 415 are probably the weakest of the major Mozart Piano Concerti. And it is not just the ones later than 456 that are greater, as stated in the review. KV 450,also in B flat, 451, 449, and 271 come immediately to mind as wonderful examples of the composer’s greatness in this format.

Posted by Rodney on April 2, 2008 at 11:11 am