two concerts

1. Thursday I reviewed the San Francisco Symphony again. I'm not sure why they wanted this concert covered: it was as close to a pops concert as an SFS regular season program will get. I decided to say so boldly at the beginning. I thought about comparing EPS's approach in the Symphonie fantastique to MTT's in a fabulous recording that he made with SFS, but it didn't fit comfortably in the review. Nor did a reference to the fleeting reminiscences of Saint-Saëns that I heard in the Liszt, when, of course, the reminiscence is the other way around. Saint-Saëns was a great admirer of Liszt.

2. Friday B. and I ventured over to Stanford for a song recital by a couple of voice students, Jin-Hee Lee (soprano) and Danny Ritz (billed as a tenor, but he sounded more like a light baritone to us). Is this the first time I've been to Campbell, the Stanford Music Dept's tiny recital hall, since before the pandemic? Maybe so.
We were attracted to this because of the heavy offering of musical theater songs, especially Sondheim and Rodgers-and-Hart. There was also a chunk of French art songs, most of which B. knew. Lee was better on the art songs, Ritz at the musical theater. Most of the songs were on the theme of love. In the duets ("Tonight," "If I Loved You"), the singers' friends who made up most of the audience hooted and cheered whenever the singers ventured to act a little, holding hands or gazing into each other's eyes. You can venture your own view on whether that means they're also a couple offstage or not.