The last few weeks have felt like all Salonen, all the time, because they have been. I attended his last four concerts as music director of SFS, reviewed two of them, and wrote a scene piece about the last. He conducted splendidly across a wide range of music, introduced a new work by Gabriella Smith, and closed with three transcendent performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection."
You don't have to be a Christian to be deeply moved by Mahler's vision of renewal, and I regret that I missed the chance to sneak a riff on "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's [rye bread]" into my review. On the other hand, I'm not sure how many current readers are familiar with that classic advertising campaign from the 1960s and 70s.
I will note that I cried at different points in the different Mahler performances - I attended all of them and the open rehearsal, so, yes, four Mahler 2 performances in three days. At the rehearsal, the tears came in Sasha Cooke's first lines in the "Urlicht" movement; in the first performance, somewhere in the staggering last movement. I have never heard Cooke sing with greater beauty or feeling and I think I've heard most of her Bay Area performances.
Fun trivia about the performances: I wrote down the start and end times of the four movements, and over the three performances, the movement timings.....did not vary from each other by as much as a minute.
This round-up will cover all of Salonen's last four programs as music director, in reverse chronological order, but not all at once.
June 12-14: Mahler, Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, "Resurrection"
Gift links for the Chronicle and WSJ.
- Joshua Kosman, Chronicle
- Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle (remarks, okay, righteous fulminations on Salonen's departure)
- Lisa Hirsch, SFCV (review)
- Lisa Hirsch, Chronicle (reporting on the last concert)
- David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal
- Mark Swed, L.A. Times
- Richard Ginell, Classical Voice North America
- Thomas May, Memeteria (post contains a link to Musical America review)
- Harvey Steiman, Seen & Heard International
- Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
- Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
- Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio
- DB, Kalimac's Corner
- Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
- Lisa Hirsch, Chronicle & SFCV
- Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
- Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio
- DB, Kalimac's Corner
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