Challenge Fest

On Thursday, guest conductor Fabio Luisi brought a program to the San Francisco Symphony season that challenged performers and listeners alike. First he conducted Richard Strauss' multifaceted tone poem Don Juan, demanding a tempo in the faster portions as high as this month's Investor Panic index. Could the orchestra hold on? Later came Ravel's Tzigane, which starts off with a fiendishly difficult "cadenza" that gobbles up more than half the work. Could violinist Joshua Bell go the limit without hitting a wrong note or breaking his 1713 Gibson Strad?

After intermission came the test for everyone in the hall: Could the orchestra master the technical difficulties of the 75-year-old Symphony No. 4 of Franz Schmidt, which it had never played before? Could Luisi execute an interpretive volte-face and bring forth the splendors of the symphony's gargantuan arch form, as edificial as the Strauss was mercurial? And could the audience, like Michael Steinberg, the always-a-pleasure-to-read program annotator, appreciate that it was hearing one of the five "great wordless requiems"? Yes and no. The biggest yes was for the Strauss — a faultless Don Juan, perfectly executed by the orchestra and unbeatably well-sculpted by Luisi. All the passions and nuances were there, and the marionette-like Luisi, looking every bit like my image of the 1890s Gustav Mahler, was all over the orchestra members, nailing the downbeats spot on, cajoling every last ounce of libido out of them. I have never heard a better performance. Welcome relief came next with Camille Saint-Saëns' familiar 1863 Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. Luisi laid back and let Bell show his considerable stuff, to the great pleasure of the audience. The Ravel followed, and Bell wowed them with his bow, as well as with his neck-hand pizzicatos. Like the two concerted works for piano that Emanuel Ax played a few weeks ago, these pieces made a nice diversion from the standard three-movement concerto. Then came the three-way challenge: the unfamiliar Schmidt symphony. For Luisi's part, he did a remarkably good job of providing rhythmic and dynamic interest in the outer movements. The shattering climax of the central funeral march (which the composer wrote in response to his adult daughter's dying in childbirth) was satisfactorily achieved, with all stops out. However, the tempo for Schmidt's astounding procession was briskish. Luisi should not have been so anxious to see this coffin into the ground. The movement is of Brucknerian pacing, and must overwhelm not only by its dynamics, but also through the unbearable tension generated by a slow, even semisloggish pacing. For the orchestra's part, principal Mark Inouye shone in the trumpet solo that defines the work's enigmatic motto theme. The ensemble was ravishing when it needed to be, and Luisi was right there to shape ravishingness to the level of a million-calorie Viennese dessert. A minor disappointment came with the extremely difficult horn parts at the beginning of the fourth movement, which were a bit breathy. Surely the orchestra will be even better with the practice of more performances. But will it ever play Schmidt again after Luisi leaves town?

Peculiar Audience Response

Some in the audience didn't give the symphony a chance. Many left after intermission, others while the piece was playing. The end of the music occasioned what might pass for furor, when compared with the usual polite response that almost any work played by the San Francisco Symphony gets by default. About half of those remaining to the end began leaving before the first round of applause was done, while a small number cheered and hooted, demanding extra bows. The remainder clapped desultorily. What went wrong? First, those who didn't attend the preconcert talk were not prepared for what they were to hear. The program listing did not make it clear that the four movements would be played without pause (sorry, program type-formatters: dangling hyphens just don't do the job). Some audience members must have felt that they were in an interminable first movement. Second, this particular symphonic work is such serious business, though not morose by any means, that it should have constituted the first half of the program; the Strauss, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns are so scintillating that the Schmidt could not sound anything but leaden by comparison. Third, the music itself, if you're not used to Schmidt's style, sounds like a fish out of water, with 19th-century structural massiveness decked out in post-Wagnerian harmonic garb — and all of it written in 1933, a time when you'd expect to hear music reaching the acme of neoclassicism. Also, to be fair, there's a tad of the turgidity of Max Reger here and there. You have to lean back and pretend you're about to hear Bruckner, and then you'll be pleasantly surprised. For such rarely played works, I wish Luisi had followed the lead of many American conductors and given the audience a few words of advice before he commenced the piece. For those who did immerse themselves in the music, there is much to appreciate. The first and second themes have the most glorious contrast of any in the repertory. The first is haunting, quasi-abstract, otherworldly, and linear despite its jaggedness. It refuses to blend with any harmonization offered. The second, conversely, while starting off with leaps of yearning, resolves into luscious, unexpected triads that hit like a truckload of warm Mozart chocolates. The themes appear off and on throughout the symphony, and are contrasted by two others: a beautiful cello solo, and the funeral-march theme proper. Finally, there is an armory-solid, unified structure to admire: two outer movements that act as an exposition and recapitulation with coda, an ABA second movement centered by the towering funeral march, and a cheery, contrapuntal scherzo that doubles as a development section on the themes of the first movement. I challenge anyone to name a more unjustly neglected composer of Schmidt's milieu. San Francisco is fortunate to have heard him at last, whether he is appreciated at this moment or not.