concert review: San Francisco Symphony

Has Marin Alsop ever conducted SFS before? If so I can't recall it. She's one of the great conductors of our time and SFS is still one of the great orchestras, so the two major works on this program were both pretty sizzling.

Gabriela Montero played her own Piano Concerto No. 1, which is subtitled "Latin" as in Latin America - she's a Venezuelan expatriate - but this was just a hint of flavoring, nothing of the "tourist music" air to it. The piano part is very active and continuous without being florid; the sound was attractive but not goopy; and the work had real heft, enough to make it fascinating to listen to all the way through. At times, Montero's playing reminded me of Rachmaninoff, at other times of Bach, without actually sounding in the least like either of them.

Then Alsop led a dramatic and atmospheric performance of Samuel Barber's dense and compact Symphony No. 1. Really brought this work to vividness - same condition as the Montero - and emphasized the extent to which its one movement contains seeds of the standard four. In this performance it sounded more like an ancestor to the Korngold Symphony than anything else.

Also on the program, Antropolis by Gabriela Ortiz, and this was tourist music. Had the same jumpy nature and constant percussion battery of other Mexican dancehall-inspired pieces like El Salon Mexico and Danzon No. 2 and Huapango without being anywhere near as attractive or tuneful as any of them.

Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, just because, I suppose, followed immediately by Joan Tower's Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is nowhere near as memorable and was probably there just for its cheeky title.