Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Too Loud


Davies Symphony Hall


Karina Canellakis guest-conducted at San Francisco Symphony last week. Here are the reviews that I'm aware of:

Not in my review, but something I definitely thought: "Guest conductors beware: Davies doesn't respond well to quadruple forte." I was well aware of the general loudness of the program, and I'd noticed the last several guests also tending to go overboard. Of those, Gustavo Dudamel was the worst because his Mahler completely missed the dynamic range from double-piano to mezzo-forte, and the work really suffered as a result.

With Canellakis, there was an absence of musical layering that blunted the potential effects of the works and made them too much of the same thing. I definitely did a mental compare-and-contrast with Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose conducting always has much more nuance than I heard last week. Well, except for that Strauss thing.

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