San Francisco Classical Voice

Great orchestral playing is rare. It is a momentous and thrilling event to hear a concert where the orchestral playing is stellar throughout, and so it was with Sunday's appearance at Davies Symphony Hall of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Imagine entering Davies Hall for a symphony concert, and seeing only a silent stage, empty of musicians. A few moments prior to the entrance of their conductor, the artists file on stage, followed by the associate concertmaster, who quickly tunes the orchestra. She is then joined by the concertmaster, who bows to the audience and assumes his seat. Finally, Conductor Daniele Gatti enters, and approaching the podium through the orchestra, he begins the concert. The audience has been put on notice that this is an orchestral event, and not a conductor's showcase.

This program was devoted to two works of Brahms, the Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Opus 56 to start, and the first Symphony in C minor, Opus 68. In between was the Mozart Piano Concerto, no. 23 in A major, with Ignat Solzhenitsyn, soloist. For the Mozart, the orchestra was reduced to chamber proportions. Solzhenitsyn responded by playing with a very modulated but energetic and upbeat sound, often blending with the lively and superb orchestral support as though this were chamber music they were performing. This worked especially well in the brilliant finale. What didn't work were the slower tempi, chosen by the soloist at several solo entrances and in the lugubrious handling of the first movement cadenza.

Daniele Gatti is a young conductor who has definite ideas about the music. A quality of restraint pervaded his reading of the Brahms Haydn Variations. He strove for a noble interpretation, with an eighteenth century formality of style, which both served the music, and allowed the program to unfold gradually, ultimately reaching the full emotional roil of the First Symphony.

In the Symphony, Gatti held the expressive range under severe reins until the Finale, laying out the material with an orderly, almost understated solemnity. Throughout, the orchestra presented itself gloriously. The solos were breathtaking, from the stunning range of color in the horns, to the sumptuous richness of the oboe, to the exquisitely heart-aching beauty of the violin. But these were merely high points. They would not have had such significance were it not that all the musicians were listening carefully and playing with energy, passion, and commitment. This level of intensity and involvement made an important difference in the quality of the listening experience.

In the Finale itself, the appearance of the main theme might have been more satisfying had the musical tensions preceding it been brought to a higher pitch. The final unfolding of dramatic action in the work was entirely successful however, and the complete mastery of the playing made structural quibbles irrelevant. An evening of such deeply satisfying music is an extraordinary and singular event, and reason enough for the highest praise, but there is more. At the conclusion of the Finale, Gatti did not turn to the audience, but remained in rapt connection with his orchestra, his function seemingly to have enabled them in the execution of their artistry. Rudolf Kolisch once remarked that the baton makes no sound. Gatti seems to understand this truth deeply, and by the act of letting his players speak for him, he has ennobled his role as conductor.

(Paul Hersh is a pianist and violist, and, since 1972, the James D. Robertson Professor of Piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.)

©2000 Paul Hersh, all rights reserved