stately progressions at the Symphony

Thanks to the kind offices of Mr G/S Y, who got me a comp ticket, I ended up at the Symphony last Friday, for Ton Koopman’s debut as a conductor with the San Francisco Symphony. It was a very well-designed program, though a bit outside the usual symphony boundaries, curving from the baroque to the classical: JS Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Major (Mario Brunello as soloist), CPE Bach’s Symphony in G major, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. Nice choices all, though I probably wouldn’t have gone if a ticket hadn’t been handed to me.

This was one of the 6:30 Friday concerts, and the house was quite full, though there was a disruptive pause after the first movement of the Orchestral Suite to allow late-comers to mosy on in. I realize I sound like the perpetual malcontent, since I complain constantly about the standard 8:00 start time, but what I’ve always said is that concerts – all or most of them, not just the occasional Friday performance – should start at 7:30 or possibly 7:00. Starting at 6:30 is, honestly, a bit early. I know people will say I’m never happy, which is certainly a possibility, but since this isn’t what I suggested I feel free to complain, though I’m going to keep it minimal.

In a nod to performance practices both of the baroque and of our approach to the baroque, the forces were reduced by maybe half (though unfortunately they couldn’t also halve cavernous Davies Hall). I entered classical music through baroque and early music, back when what were then called “early instrument” ensembles were clearly here to stay, though still dismissed by some. The term I hear more often these days is “historically informed performance practice,” which is no doubt more accurate and has the advantage of emphasizing technique rather than tools: the style has infiltrated the mainstream.

What I’m getting at is that baroque music played on modern instruments, as the Orchestral Suite was, no matter how reduced the forces or “authentic” the style, always has a luxe and occasionally lush sound to me. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s just there, an example of how performance practices condition a listener’s ears. I recently watched two DVDs of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria; the first, led by Glen Wilson and Pierre Audi from Amsterdam in 1998, is what I think of when I think of how Monteverdi sounds, but that didn’t prevent me from enjoying Raymond Leppard’s 1973 Glyndebourne production, with its gussied up orchestration and an awesome performance as Penelope by Janet Baker. The Orchestral Suite reminded me how much baroque music is based on dance forms, and it also reminded me that at that period dance was a much statelier affair than it later became.

I didn’t note the instrumental troubles or other possible dramas and tensions among the players noted by those at the Wednesday concert. Brunello’s cadenzas in the Haydn sounded a bit quirky (I hadn’t heard the piece in quite a while and don’t know if they are standard or where they came from), but other than that it was all maybe a little too smooth. Koopman bobbed up and down, looking like a cartoon of an eccentric professor. I enjoyed the percolating CPE Bach, but oddly the Schubert symphony, which sounded like beefed-up Haydn (though without Haydn’s wit) lacked some spring for me – normally I love listening to Schubert, but this didn’t do much for me. Maybe I was just tired and had had enough. It was like walking down an endless colonnade, which is something one is not always in the mood for. Maybe I just associate Schubert more with forests, streams, and green fields.

Certainly there was much more whispering during the Schubert than during the other pieces; a woman in front of me, who had kept talking beforehand about someone who didn’t take all the repeats (in what piece I wasn’t clear, and she may not even have been talking about anything we were about to hear anyway) demonstrated her love of Schubert, which actually seemed quite sincere, by twitching and whispering at the start of each movement; and some of the local aristocrats added to the aura of authenticity by refusing to let the sawing and tootling of the servants interfere with their whispers.