Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performs John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the San Francisco Symphony, June 23, 2022.
If you take a look at the photo above, you'll see a woman seated to the left of and behind Víkingur Ólafsson. She's the page turner. He's playing from a tablet of some kind and she's turning pages with a Bluetooth or other wireless device.
There was a cute incident before the concerto. Alexander Barantschik, the concertmaster, stood up to tune the orchestra, and she hit an A on the piano. However....it was the A below middle C, which is the wrong octave for tuning. The correct pitch is A above middle C, which is in the oboe's range. When there's a piano concerto, whoever is playing principal oboe picks up the C from the piano for the winds, then the concertmaster. picks up the C from oboe for the strings.
When the page turner hit the wrong note, Barantschik looked shocked, stood up very straight, and with a sly smile hit the right A. He smiled, she smiled, everybody laughed.
Anyway, it was one hell of a performance, and the pianist has a new fan. I would have gone back for a second performance if SF Civic Center weren't completely impassible on Pride Weekend.
Here's a pop quiz: which reviewer wrote "In the transition to the second movement, one minute you think you’re in a roaring bar; a minute later you notice that somehow you have relocated to a quiet, darkened lounge" and which one wrote "The slow movement, at its heart, is like a cocktail-lounge take on Ravel, turning its harmonies this way and that, and catching reflections of light from a mirror ball"? Both also used "tender" to describe the Sibelius. Reviewers do not read each other's reviews before filing their own.
I had a bit more to say about Radical Light because I reviewed its world premiere in 2007. It's a wonderful piece and I'm so glad to have heard it again.
- Joshua Kosman, SF Chron
- Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
2 comments:
And which reviewer of the Adams wrote "This struck me as clotted and undifferentiated clanging noise, succeeded eventually by some less clanging noise, followed by a resurrection of the clanging noise"?
That was me, after the LA Phil premiere of the work three years ago. Whether it was the performance, the acoustics, or just me - I was not at my most alert and receptive that day - I don't know. I haven't heard the SFS version.
There is a recording, should you wish to revisit the work.
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