Benjamin Frandzel

Music@Menlo continued its traversal of geographically inspired programs Saturday night with a focus on music from Vienna. Looking at the festival’s range of programs, this approach seems, as often as not, to raise a new banner under which the organization presents a fair amount of familiar repertoire.

The San Francisco Symphony program was a bit of an odd one. It was not bad, certainly, but was strangely bifurcated, veering from some rather fluffy 19th-century French music, by Litolff and Adam, to major works by Chopin and Debussy. Under Michael Tilson Thomas’ direction, the orchestra sounded grand in less than grand music, as well as in works of substance; and piano soloist Garrick Ohlsson was magnificent in everything he touched.

ChamberBridge’s Sunday recital at Old First Church in San Francisco was a model of compositional and interpretive invention, with the San Francisco–based duo of soprano Lara Bruckmann and pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann providing vivid performances of newly commissioned work by a mix of American and Swiss composers.

The Cabrillo Festival’s second night brought program music of various sorts to the full house that on Saturday filled the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Music Director Marin Alsop and her high-energy orchestra provided sharp, dynamic performances of three works that drew on eclectic sources of inspiration and were generally quite accessible.

Like the amazing week that preceded it, the Oakland East Bay Symphony's concert last Friday night at the Paramount Theatre was all about moving forward through history. Conductor Michael Morgan surprised by reversing the typical program order, placing the ballet and concerto in the second half and opening with the weightiest piece, Brahms' Symphony No. 3.