Davies Symphony Hall
Photo by Lisa Hirsch
I recently reviewed concerts by San Francisco Symphony guest conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Karina Canellakis. One thing they had in common, in retrospect, was some kind of competition, perhaps internal, perhaps with an imagined other conductor, to make the SFS play as loudly as it possibly could with the forces required by each work they led. And, you know, that is loud.
Both are also, stylistically, purveyors of Big Conducting Gestures. Dudamel is so active a conductor that I honestly wondered whether he'd like a trampoline installed under the podium so that he could end Mahler 5 with a backflip over the orchestra and into the timpani, which would have amazed the audience and appalled principal timpani Edward Stephan.
Given the unnecessary decibels the two of them produced, and my feelings about their musicality, it was an enormous relief on multiple axes to see the French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann last night in a program of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Now, I'm a well-known lover of Brahms and also possibly known for avoiding most Tchaikovsky, but after last night I've realized that I need to revisit Tchaikovsky with a more open mind.
Readers, Stutzmann was everything that Dudamel and Canellakis were not: slightly reserved on the podium, conducting efficiently and gracefully with smallish, but effective, and evocative, gestures, and getting subtle and extremely beautiful musical results. Rather than setting the volume on high, she explored the ppp to mf range, and when the music did call for more volume, it had far more impact than fff does when it's sitting atop a minimum volume of mf. Also, her phrasing was gorgeous throughout the concert, so supple, and so sensitive to the musical line and harmonic flow of whatever she was conducting.
I'll also say that the pure sound she got from the orchestra, especially in the Tchaikovsky, was really something. MTT and E-PS, to my ear, mostly go for a slightly lean and transparent tone, a style I think of as American (though that could be wrong, and of course E-P is not American). Stutzmann aimed for a richer, warmer sound than I'm used to hearing at Davies; it was no less transparent, somehow, than the usual. Particularly in the Tchaikovsky, you could hear every layer of his writing; let's say that I came out of the program with a great deal of respect for his pure craft as a composer. (On the way home after I got off BART, I turned on the radio and found myself going "what the heck is this, it's great" and uhhh it was....Souvenirs of Florence, by Tchaikovsky.)
Last night's program started with three of Brahms's shorter works for chorus and orchestra, Nänie, Gesang der Parzen, and Schiksalslied. How I loved soaking for forty minutes in Brahms's magnificent writing for this combination! The second half of the show was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, Pathetique, and it was a big wow all around. Marvelous conducting and great playing from the orchestra. Special kudos to Catherine Payne, principal piccolo, sitting in the principal flute chair for this program - she has a beautiful sound - to principal clarinet Carey Bell, for his apparent ability to play in a thousand dynamic gradations, and to the aforementioned Edward Stephan, so consistently amazing in the sharpness of his playing and how it undergirds everything the orchestra does. Well, I loved everybody, really.
Stutzmann started her musical career as a singer, and now she has become quite a prominent conductor, with good reason. She is the incoming music director of the Atlanta Symphony and the principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. They are lucky to have her, and I hope that she'll be back at SFS sooner rather than later (she's not on the schedule for 2022-23, alas).
Updated: Joshua Kosman is on the same page.
The problem with Tchaikovsky is that too many conductors feel obliged to play his music who aren't really in sympathy with its style and character, so it comes out windy and superfluous. What's needed is a conductor who is in sympathy, and Stutzmann certainly is.
ReplyDeleteWhat most struck me about this Pathetique was the dark and ominous sound of the waltz and scherzo, which are usually played bright and cheerful. Uniquely in my experienced, they matched, instead of contrasting with, the outer movements, which were acidly fierce - but not wild or brutal, because of what you note, Stutzmann's restraint as a conductor. How few other conductors refrain from jumping in the air and spoiling the surprise of the sudden opening of the first movement development? Stutzmann's podium style here was ideal. On top of which, in the closing of the exposition she had coaxed the clarinet to play so quietly that it was almost subliminal. Magnificent work.
Yes, agree completely.
ReplyDeleteI have imagined a conversation in which someone asks me who my favorite Russian composer is, and I answer with some hesitation, probably Tchaikovsky. Then the same person asks for my least favorite Russian composer, and I say, that's easy, also Tchaikovsky.
ReplyDeleteThe problem for me is that I really dislike those bombastic, repetitious, and over-played symphonies and concertos (Pathetique excepted -- a very unusual and amazing piece), while the better I get to know the operas and ballets the more wonderful they seem. I've seen the three ballets many times each and 5 of the 10 operas, and while I understand why Pikovaya Dama and Onegin are the most performed -- mainly, they have the best librettos -- Orleanskaya Deva, Mazeppa, and especially Iolanta deserved to played a lot more in the West. I can only hope that some day The Enchantress or Cherevichki will come my way.
In March Pacific Opera Project, one of LA's shoestring opera companies, put on a very creditable 3-performance run of Iolanta, with an excellent cast, well-coached in Russian diction, and a surprisingly good half-size orchestra. I was struck all over again with the beauty and diversity of the melodies, the high level of technical skill in the ensemble writing and the overall musical shape, and of course the magical orchestrations.
Perhaps the problem is that when he wrote concert music he had to compose thematic developments, to which his style of extended melody does not lend itself. Also, in these pieces he's expressing the state of his soul (very Russian), and to squeeze out enough material he has to make himself as miserable as possible. I bet he was a lot more fun in real life than you could guess from the symphonies. In contrast, on stage he could return to what was apparently his favorite subject: the sexual awakening of a young girl. His identification with these girls -- Tatiana, Iolanta, Aurora, Clara, poor Lisa, and the rest -- suggests that most of his stage works are disguised coming-out stories. And the men they fall for are either Bad Boys, dangerous to women, or else rather featureless, idealized dreamboats. With that sort of attitude, it's no wonder he never had a serious relationship.
When you consider what he wrote in the last three or so years of his life -- Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Pathetique Symphony, Pikovaya Dama, Iolanta, an incredible roster of masterpieces -- his death at 53 seems like one of the great tragic premature deaths in music history. We could have had a lot more on that level.
VERY belatedly - I think that the coming SFO season's Onegin might be an implicit pledge to do more Russian opera, which was in its heyday here during Lotfi Mansouri's directorship. They did Orleanskaya and I thought it was okay at best. I'm hoping that the Carsen Onegin will sell me on the opera, which I saw in its last two bring-ups, in different productions, and didn't like that much. Of course, the singers playing Onegin himself were Anglophone. I wish they'd gotten Hvorostovsky for one of the productions.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen a Tchaikovsky ballet since I was a small child seeing The Nutcracker at City Center in NYC, pre-Lincoln Center. I keep meaning to....
Your suggestion of young girls' sexual awakening as a disguised coming-out makes perfect sense.