concert review: San Francisco Symphony

I was uncertain whether I'd recovered enough to invest in a trip up to the City for a concert, but I thought of it as a test run for Sunday when I really want to go. Also, it was a tempting 'comfort' program for me. And it worked out fine.

Karina Canellakis, whom I've heard before here leading some powerhouse Shostakovich, is a lean and intense conductor, and she leads lean and intense performances. The evening started with Dvořák's Scherzo Capricioso, a lively little piece with undercurrents of melancholy. Then Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto went by in a flash. It was so brisk and succinct that it was over almost before I knew it had started. Alexandre Kantorow as soloist whizzed through his part with the speed of a flashier player but a more subdued approach. For an encore he took a slower way through a florid and player-piano-like arrangement of Wagner's "Liebestod."

After intermission, the main event, Sibelius's vast tone poem cycle, Four Legends from the Kalevala. This is where the Canellakis who had Shostakovich in her heart came out. The sound quality was golden. This was an hour of pure, distilled, 200-proof Sibelius, every note exuding his distinctive sound world. It was fabulous all the way through and gripping despite the fact that not much happens. This is still a great orchestra.

I've seen lately various comments suggesting that the Four Legends really form a symphony. Nonsense. Having four movements does not a symphony make. It doesn't have the structure, the sound, the approach, or above all the complex developmental concepts, of a symphony, and most certainly not a Sibelian symphony. It's a series of shifting static sound pictures. In short, it's what Sibelius said it was, a set of tone poems. The first item, "Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island," is the most interesting and most varied. "The Swan of Tuonela," which would be the Adagio if this were a symphony, is the most lush and melodic, though there was a terseness to the approach here. "Lemminkäinen in Tuonela" is the most difficult to absorb, extended and more disconnected than "Maidens." It's the farthest thing from a scherzo, which a four-movement symphony would need. The finale, "Lemminkäinen's Return," is a bit disappointing. It still sounds great, but it's a hasty and bombastic wrapped-up conclusion, a problem that early Sibeius is prone to elsewhere as well.

The people sitting up behind me had, as they often do, brought a large dog. It might be a service animal though it had only a harness, not a vest. It was as always entirely well-behaved. At intermission and afterwards, passersby were asking if the dog liked the music. And the handlers would say, apparently so. As I went by to leave, one handler was cooing to the dog, "You like this better than the ballet, huh?" And I muttered, "Better music." At a look of inquiry I explained: the ballet orchestra here is OK. But the Symphony is something outstanding.