There’s nothing like a trip to the chastity of the desert to clear the mind and do some productive cogitation. Even better, to relax afterward at a voluptuous oasis. Guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado took a fairly sparse but grateful crowd of San Francisco Symphony patrons on not one but two such pilgrimages Thursday afternoon at Davies Symphony Hall. Each half of his brilliantly structured and conducted program began with utterly engaging renditions of music to think by, and ended with outstandingly sensual performances by soloists.
The concert began with an especially brittle performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks concerto for chamber orchestra. Clarity of articulation was the watchword enforced by Heras-Casado, combined with carefully varied dynamics and motoric rhythms. The 14 Symphony players performing the work responded with spot-on excellence.
Next came Maurice Ravel’s popular Piano Concerto in G — but not rendered like any other I’d heard before in dozens of outings over the years. Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili debuted with a lusciously captivating engagement with Ravel’s famous score, coupled with über-flawless technique. The first movement, in particular, was a jaw-dropping surprise. Without sacrificing any familiar jazzy propulsiveness, Buniatishvili found just the right places to conjure out the numerous languorous delights, nuanced for a Moroccan sunset, topping off phrases with a balletic raise of her right hand: a revelatory accomplishment. The remaining movements were fine, too. I especially liked, for instance, the way Heras-Casado ensured that there was an extra pop on the final drumbeat of the finale.
Passé Style a Phantom?
After intermission came the first S.F. Symphony performance of Luigi Dallapiccola’s nine-minute Piccola musica notturna (Little night music) of 1954, a carefully performed and uncommonly excellent 12-tone work whose tone row’s leading four notes are easy to follow, since they’re clearly and often repeated and imply a G-major/minor tonality. James Keller’s excellent program notes on the work reveal that it closely follows the lines of a surreal poem by Antonio Machado that ends with what could easily be a description of a de Chirico painting: “I walk through this old town/alone, like a phantom.” The words could equally apply to the quality of this serial work, a standout among hundreds of audience-despised and now-abandoned outpourings from Arnold Schoenberg’s cult of the 1950s. Fortunately, time heals all wounds and usually preserves the best music for future generations, as old styles become less relevant.
Dallapiccola’s night stroll was strongly contrasted by the concluding music, Manual de Falla’s El amor brujo (Love, the sorcerer), thanks to another mesmerizing performance, this time by the Spanish flamenco singer Marina Heredia. Her deeply alluring voice felt simultaneously like the texture and comfort of being buried to the neck in hot beach sand with a tsunami looming on the horizon. But only her voice — and fingers, occasionally twitching as if they were addicts for castanets — betrayed her proud, aloof exterior. Fine as Heras-Casado’s direction and the orchestra’s playing was, their efforts were insufficient to match the earthiness of this soloist. Perhaps, contrary to what would seem to be best practice and fidelity to the score, the strings should have been asked to play closer to the bridge, to make their sound more raspy and strident in an attempt to parallel what Heredia was doing. Nevertheless, the result was thrilling.
No question, the soloists’ infusions in this memorable performance made the exotic oases all the more throbbing with life.