San Francisco Classical Voice

The highlight of the evening was the San Francisco premiere of Britten's Double Concerto in b minor for Violin and Viola. Written in 1932, when Britten was just eighteen and a student at the Royal College of Music, the piece was never performed in the composer's lifetime. In fact, Britten never even completed the score beyond an orchestral “sketch.” But the sketch was detailed enough for Colin Matthews to “realize” it in 1997, and the finished work sounds unmistakably Brittenesque.

The opening bars are taut to the point of brittleness, pizzicato exclamations followed by crystalline string tremolos and floating responses in the winds. These glassy utterances are followed almost immediately by the entrance of the soloists. First, violist Geraldine Walther, the SFS's beloved principal, leapt in with suave assurance and throaty candor on a rising-fourth motive. As concertmaster Alexander Barantschik took up the line, it became a conversation between the two of them, with the rest of the orchestra in the role of background support. In fact, the orchestra had little to do but accompany the soloists for the first two movements, but Britten provided intensely virtuosic challenges for Barantschik and Walther. In the Allegro molto appassionato first movement, the influence of Stravinsky on the young composer was plain: rapid marcato passages, short motivic bursts twisting and turning in upon themselves. A mere five minutes later, the movement was done, vanishing in a quiet blur.

The Andante is a soulful, songful duet for the soloists, accompanied gently by pizzicato strings. Although Walther's open, generous playing wasn't always a match for Barantschik's more inward-looking approach – she seemed to be making an effort to draw him out, in fact – with one's eyes closed their opposing tones seemed somehow to compliment each other. Striking here is Britten's already inventive conception of harmony; at eighteen he seems justifiably self-assured. Everything flows naturally and yet, even 70 years later, there is nothing predictable or tired about it.

If the second movement is a rhapsodic song, the third is a boisterous dance. Fleet and nimble, the music is a celebration of the accented upbeat, the turning point of a witty and tricky rhythmic gesture that grounds the movement. Over this jaunty ostinato, violin and viola seem to argue, he with his rapid runs and she with her impassioned chords.

For many listeners (judging from the snores and empty seats surrounding us), Elgar's 20-minute In the South suffered from such a late start. But not in the playing. Here is a grand work of various moods, sunny and humorous, broadly tuneful and with a big English ending. Most importantly, the work features an achingly lovely extended solo for viola, and so the SFS — clearly unembarrassed by their riches – showcased yet another star from this superb section. Associate Principal viola Yun Jie Liu played with a piercing sweetness (and heart-stopping accuracy) that was memorable and moving. His subtle shadings did much to redeem this otherwise solid but square rendition.