Daniel Harding, Please Fly Me to Paris.

Daniel Harding

Photo: Polly Brown, Courtesy of Los Angeles Philharmonic

No kidding: my summer vacation starts with an Air France flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG), and Harding is a part-time pilot for Air France.

I expect that Harding, who is also a conductor, will be spending a little more time, okay, a lot more time, in California than he used to, because he's just been named the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, effective with the 2027-28 season. He succeeds Gustavo Dudamel, who, after 17 seasons, is on his way to the N.Y. Philharmonic.

The LA Phil, as it styles itself, is about to have an interesting leadership structure, with Harding starting out with 8 weeks, increasing to 12, as the music director;  Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was music director of the LA Phil from 1992 to 2009, as creative director, with approximately 6 weeks a year (he also has a gig at the Orchestre de Paris, and Harding lives in Paris – his four children are there – so perhaps they can have confabs in the City of Lights); and Dudamel with up to 4 weeks, plus there's conductor-in-residence Anna Handler, a position to which she was recently appointed.

Between Harding, Salonen, and Dudamel, they've got up to 22 weeks of the season covered, leaving the rest for guest conductors. I hope the three of them get along well. And I hope Handler gets in some conducting too.

The appointment didn't take me by surprise, because I read Mr. CK Dexter Haven's blog, All is Yar, and he handicapped the conductors he saw as candidates the other week, putting Harding on top. (Note that he also has a believable explanation of why San Francisco, not L.A., signed Elim Chan.) He has good access at the orchestra and has interviewed a number of incoming and outgoing musicians; I have fond memories in particular of a two-part interview with Michele Zukovsky when she retired from the principal clarinet chair after 55 years.

Is anyone taking bets on just how many reviews and articles about Harding will include piloting and flying metaphors?

Coverage elsewhere:

• LA Phil press release
• Adam Nagourney, NY Times (gift link)
• Mark Swed, L.A. Times (paywall)
• Richard S. Ginell, SFCV
• Brian Lauritzen, Classical California
• Laurie Niles, Violinist.com

The Best of 2025

Kang Wang as the title character

The Monkey King

San Francisco Opera

Photo: Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO

 

SFCV published the writers' collective opinions of the best performances of the year. The Bay Area list is here. My five choices were these:

• Esa-Pekka Salonen's Mahler 2
• Poiesis Quartet at Noe Music
• The Monkey King at San Francisco Opera
• Pivot Festival, Carla Kiehlstedt's 26 Little Deaths
• Tartuffe, Pocket Opera

It was a tough call. Here's the rest of my long list:

• La bohème at SFO; a seriously great run, beautifully directed, with two terrific casts.
• MTT 80, a deeply touching celebration of the man.
  
• Parsifal at SFO
• Rigoletto at SFO
• Bluebeard's Castle at Opera San José
• Turn of the Screw at SFCM, better staged and conducted than what I saw at Santa Fe over the summer.
• John Adams third piano concerto, After the Fall, at SFS. I couldn't include the concert on my short list because the second half was (&)%$)_@_ Carmina Burana.
• Dalia Stasevska at SFS, in the Thorvaldsdottir cello concerto and RWV's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.
• Cabrillo Festival, Becoming
• Hello, Star at OP. Just a perfect 45 minutes of opera begging for a larger orchestra. A wonderful libretto, beautiful music, great direction on a tiny stage.
• Donald Runnicles and Irene Roberts at SFS

As you can see, I named four of the last six operas at SFO as among the best things I saw; Dead Man Walking was also superb. SFO had a stupendous year and in fact has been on a roll since the centennial season. Hats off to Matthew Shilvock and his team for this long string of artistic successes, which has also included a fair number of sellouts.

As for the flip side, I am going to pass on flagging concerts I found disappointing or wrong-headed. There's not much doubt that the worst event of the year was Esa-Pekka Salonen's departure from San Francisco Symphony after just five years as music director. He reinvigorated the orchestra's programming, led many great concerts, hired many terrific musicians, and thanks to the short-sightedness of the board and management, which couldn't figure out how to fund his ambitions for the future, he is gone.

• Joshua Kosman's picks
• SFCV Los Angeles writers' picks
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center

Making the San Francisco Symphony Look Even Smaller

Photo: Minna Hatinen

Esa-Pekka Salonen writes on his Facebook page:

I am happy to announce that I will begin three new positions in coming seasons: Creative Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Creativity and Innovation Chair of the Philharmonie de Paris, and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de Paris. 

Over the course of my career, I am lucky to have found myself in many situations where the right parts have been in the right place to create genuine magic. More often than not, that place happened to be Los Angeles or Paris. 

We aspire to invent the musical worlds in which we want to live, and the LA Phil and Orchestre de Paris have done just that with Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Philharmonie de Paris. These are top-notch orchestras and the coolest halls, embedded within cities with the most curious and adventurous audiences. Most important, they are institutions who understand that the behind-the-scenes creative work is just as important as waving the stick.

I cannot wait to start creating together.

Chief/principal conductor of the Orchestre de Paris make him the successor to Klaus Mäkelä. Lucky Paris! Lucky L.A.!

• Press release, L.A. Phil
• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle, fulminating
• Michael Zwiebach, SFCV
• Joshua Barone, NY Times (gift link)
• Mark Swed, LA Times
• Aidin Vaziri, SF Chronicle (gift link)

 

SFS: Mahler 2nd Brass

Well, you know, they were great, but there's no space for listing them all in a review, so here they are:

Horns

1. Diego Incertis Sanchez
2. Jessica Valeri
3. Jesse Clevenger
4. Alicia Waite
5. Amy Sanchez
6. Bruce Roberts
7. Caitlyn Smith Franklin (playing Assistant)
8. Chris Cooper (offstage)
9. Alicia Mastromonaco (offstage)
10. Jack Bryant (offstage)
11. Dan Wions (offstage)

 

Trumpets

1. Mark Inouye
2. Guy Piddington
3. Aaron Schuman (also offstage)
4. Jeff Biancalana (also offstage)
5. Jack Farnham
6. Dave Burkhart
7. Ari Micich (offstage)
8. Owen Myoshi (offstage)

 

Trombones

1. Tim Higgins
2. Paul Welcomer
3. Chase Waterbury
4. Christopher Bassett

             Tuba

                   1. Jeffrey Anderson

The clarinet section had an extra player whose name I didn't get. I saw Associate Principal Matthew Griffith in the orchestra for the third performance and Steven Sanchez for the first and second, both on E-flat clarinet, I believe.

Esa-Pekka Salonen at SFS

Esa-Pekka Salonen and members of the San Francisco Symphony

June 12, 2025

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

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

June 6-8: Strauss, Smith, Sibelius

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Lisa Hirsch, Chronicle & SFCV
• Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio
• DB, Kalimac's Corner

Recent SFS Reviews

Davies Symphony Hall

I reviewed two recent San Francisco Symphony concerts.

• Giancarlo Guerrero: Saariaho, Stravinsky, Respighi. Note that Pines of Rome is on the September, 2025 season-opening gala, which will make the third time in three years that the orchestra has played this thing, and can't they find something better?
• Dalia Stasevska: Vaughan Williams, Thorvaldsdottir, Sibelius. The other commissioning orchestras of Anna Thorvaldsdottir's new cello concerto, Before we fall, the Iceland Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Odense Symphony, and BBC Proms. They are getting their money's worth. Other interesting information that had to be omitted: As far as I can tell, this is the composer's first concerto of any kind. And she herself is a cellist. (Watch for a full media roundup later this week.)

Meanwhile, at the LA Phil, Esa-Pekka Salonen led a tribute to Pierre Boulez, and you have to wonder whether SFS's administration nixed a similar program here.

 

San Francisco Symphony 2025-26

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Well, SFS's 2025-26 season dropped last week. I started buying a more or less full subscription when Salonen arrived, despite my status as a member of the press, and today I called the SFS box office and told them I wouldn't be renewing.

I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they put this season together. 

To start with, I have to assume that a bunch of programs originally assigned to Esa-Pekka Salonen were redistributed to other conductors. We know, for example, that the SFS music director typically conducts the gala, the first several weeks of programs, and the last several weeks of programs. That concert in June with Stephane Deneve leading two French works with major organ parts, both played by Olivier Latry? I would bet $100 that it was originally a Salonen concert and that one work on it was his own organ concerto, because Latry has played it with Salonen conducting. That concert in late September with Donald Runnicles, consisting of Mahler 6 and Berg songs? I leave more of this game to you.

To continue, what the actual fuck with the "focus on Beethoven and Mozart"? Four Beethoven symphonies will appear this season, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, and John Storgårds. 

And for some reason, they decided that van Zweden will conduct a full cycle of the Beethoven symphonies over three seasons. He is leading a total of four concerts in 2025-26, and....I don't get it. I've seen him conducted live twice, once with the CSO and once with SFS, and thought he did not have any special insights into what he led. I also reviewed his recordings of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (note that at that time he had never conducted a staged Wagner opera, only in concert) for the Wagner Society journal, and declined to continue with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. 

It's worth noting that Gaffigan gets three concerts. I know that some of the undoubted scramble to find guest conductors, 23 of them, depended on who was available when. I hesitate to read too much into how this shook out, except maybe for the apparent commitment to van Zweden over three seasons.

It is so much a season of dead white men: do we really need the fourth performance in the last five years of Beethoven's 9th, previously performed by Xian Zhang, MTT, and Daniel Stewart, or the fourth performance of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World, previously conducted by Xian Zhang, Joshua Weilerstein, and Dalia Stasevska?

No. We do not. And yet here it is.

Some statistics about the season (you bet I'm glad I hung onto that schedule for 2014-15):

• 49 composers whose works are performed, of whom....
• 37 are dead white men, 12 aren't
• 1 is a dead black man (Duke Ellington)
• 1 is a dead white women (Barbara Strozzi)
• 2 are living Black men
• 1 is a living Iranian-Canadian man
• 1 is a living Hispanic man
• 4 are living white men
• 2 are living white women
• In terms of number of works by a single composer:
• Mozart: 8 (this includes a big all-Mozart program conducted by Harry Bicket, featuring the wonderful soprano Golda Schultz)
• Beethoven: 5
• J.S. Bach: 4
• Dvořák: 4
• Tchaikovsky: 4
• Prokofiev: 3
• Saint-Saëns: 3
• Gershwin, Mahler, Ravel, Shostakovich: 2 each
• 26 weeks of orchestra series concerts, down from 28 last season and a staggering 39 in 2014-15. I have to note that 2014-15 included the big MTT Beethoven festival, which included several one-off programs, Fidelio, the staged Missa Solemnis, and other great stuff.
• Women conducting in the orchestral series next season: 4 (Canellakis, Young, Glover, Lu)
• 10 chamber music concerts, same as last year.
• 8 Great Performers concerts, down from 10 last year and 15 in 2014-15
• Two chamber orchestras are visiting, but no full-sized orchestras
• 8 special events, including the June program with Yo-Yo Ma, the opening gala and more.
• Prices are eye-watering for Ma, going up to $420, and gosh, $89 for a single ticket in the second tier to see a film with live orchestra.

Honestly, it feels as though MTT and Esa-Pekka Salonen never set foot in Davies.

Media round-up:

• Lisa Hirsch, S.F. Chronicle news report
• Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle rant analysis. You'll be shocked, shocked, to hear that I agree with every word and punctuation mark.
• Janos Gereben, SFCV
• Gabe Meline, KQED. His headline says it all: "San Francisco Symphony Announces 2025–26 Season of ‘Just Play the Hits’"

I don't disagree with either Janos or Joshua that there are bright spots in the season, from Gabriella Smith's SoundBox to Mahler by Donald! Runnicles! and Herbert Blomsted to the new work by Outi Tarkiainen to the Ibert flute concerto with the fabulous Yubeen Kim. But still. Who planned this thing? And, you know, here's what Matt Spivey, CEO (and former artistic administrator) said about the music director hunt:

“Most importantly, we’re looking for someone with exceptional talent and a strong artistic vision who will inspire our musicians, audiences and community,” Symphony CEO Matt Spivey told KQED on Wednesday. “We can’t share more specifics while the search is underway, but we’re looking forward to sharing more when we’re ready to make an official announcement.” 

Seriously, folks: you had someone who met those criteria and you let him go.
 

This Week at San Francisco Symphony.

Bassoonist Joshua Elmore, left; Percussionist Stan Muncy, right.

Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I reported on the appointment of Joshua Elmore as principal bassoon and Stan Muncy as section percussionist, as well as reviewing last night's banger of a program:

• S.F. Symphony appoints first Black principal in decades
• S.F. Symphony’s newly appointed principal Joshua Elmore solos in a thrilling performance
  

Various details that I could not fit into my review:

• Daniil Trifonov's encores were Samuel Barber, Mvt II from Piano Sonata, Op. 26, and Prokofiev, Gavotte from Cinderella, Op. 95 No. 2
• Xavier Muzik used a mirrorless Fujifilm X-Pro3 digital camera and a vintage Yashica Electro 35 film camera, mostly with Kodak Gold film, for the photos in the slideshow accompanying Strange Beasts. 
• There was a brief pause between Parts I and II of The Rite of Spring, planned by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The pause was also for principal trombone Timothy Higgins and guest associate principal trombone Gracie Potter to change places so that Higgins could play bass trumpet trombone.

Elswhere:

• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center

Previously:

• Joshua Kosman on Salonen's first Rite of Spring performance with SFS. I completely agreed with him about the weirdly soft-focus Stravinsky on the program, which I didn't find effective.
• Joshua Kosman on timpanist Elayne Jones. As it happens, SFS had a Black player before Jones, bassist Charles Burrell. Subsequently, these Black musicians were members of the orchestra:
• Violist Basil Vendrys, now principal viola of the Colorado Symphony
• Bassoonist Rufus Olivier, now principal bassoon of the SF Opera and SF Ballet Orchestras
• Nicole Cash, former associate principal horn

 

Adriana Mater

Cover art c/o Deutsche Grammophon

Black & white photo of Kaija Saariaho

Text on photo:

Kaija Saariaho

Adriana Mater

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Fleur Barron Axelle Fano Nicholas Phan  Christopher Purves

San Francisco Symphony    San Francisco Symphony Chorus

DG logo

The world premiere recording of Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater was released a few weeks ago by Deutsche Grammophon. It's drawn from performances at the San Francisco Symphony in June, 2023, just days after Saariaho's death from glioblastoma. The performers are listed above in my description of the artwork accompanying the release; I think that alt text doesn't actually work on Blogger.

The performances were a deeply emotional event for the performers and director Peter Sellars. Salonen and Saariaho had been friends since their school days and Sellars directed the premieres of her first two operas, L'amour de loin and Adriana. 

The recording is currently available only as a download, but physical media will become available next year.

UPDATE, February 8, 2025: This recording won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording. You can stream it on major platforms. I haven't seen anything yet about physical media; I'll buy the CDs if that format is available.

 

Ojai 2026

Photo: Minna Hatinen / San Francisco Symphony

The photo says it all: the Ojai Festival's 2026 music director will be by-then-former-SFS-music-director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The dates are June 11-14, 2026.

 

Where Has Mark Elder Been All Our Lives?

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

The literal answer is that Mark Elder spent the last 25 years, from 2000 to 2024, as the music director of the renowned Hallé Orchestra, in Manchester, England, UK. His career in the United States has been sparse, as far as I can tell: he conducted Die Meistersinger at SF Opera in 2015; he led 14 performances between 2004 and 2024 at the Boston Symphony; he didn't conduct the NY Philharmonic at all, and he conducted 79 performances at the Metropolitan Opera between 1988 and 2019.

He made his San Francisco Symphony debut last week in a concert that was absolutely sensational, one of the most exciting of the current season.

On paper, it was a distinctly odd-looking program:

• Berlioz, Overture to Les francs-juges
• Debussy, Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune
• Berlioz, Overture to Le Roi Lear
• R. Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra
• Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine

And...it all worked, even that bit where there was a four-minute piece following the evening's biggest work.

I was not real happy when Elder picked up a microphone as soon as he got on the podium; I've seen too many conductors who, well, blathered or just repeated what was in the program. But Elder kept it brief and was dryly humorous. He talked about the really weird items on the program, that is, the two Berlioz overtures. The last time Les francs-juges was heard at Davies was in 1988. The King Lear overture had never been played here before.

It was good to hear them –– they are slightly oddball, because they are Berlioz –– and they both got shapely performances. In between came a truly magnificent performance of the Debussy, which was last played by SFS in 2023 with MTT conducting.

Reader, I'm here to tell you: this was better than MTT's performance of it and right up there with the best Debussy I have heard. That Yubeen Kim, the orchestra's fabulous principal flute, was playing, made a big difference, of course. His gorgeous sound, and his personal and insightful phrasing, went a long way toward making the performance stand out from all others, but there was still more. The performance was scaled so that you felt you were listening to chamber music, and the interplay among the various instruments in the orchestra –– the two harps and the oboe in particular –– rounded out that sensation. The sheer sound of the orchestra was rich and yet transparent, a hard balance to achieve. 

Honestly, I should have known how good this would be from a purely sonic perspective. Elder's Meistersinger was also something special. It was amazingly slow, coming in at 5 hours and 45 minutes, which must be some kind of record. And yet, and yet, it never lost shape or momentum, and the sound? Well, I have never heard the SF Opera Orchestra sound better. As good, yes, but never better.

Now, Also sprach Zarathustra is by no means my favorite Strauss and not my favorite of Strauss's tone poems. But this performance was something special. The last time I heard it at Davies, Esa-Pekka Salonen was conducting, and –– I can only half believe that I'm saying this –– this was better than that performance.

It was coherent, which is tough to do in a work that opens like the sun rising and eventually becomes Viennese frippery, where you're sure you've been dropped into uncredited outtakes from Der Rosenkavalier, which, of course, wouldn't be composed for some years. But the orchestra played like it was the greatest piece of music ever written, and you know, that kind of fervor isn't common and isn't easy to elicit, even from a great group like SFS. Even I was convinced that I was hearing the greatest piece of music ever composed, and I know perfectly well that it is not. 

And it sounded fantastic. Elder didn't overload the hall; even at its loudest, there was no bombast or blaring or bad taste. (I'm imagining certain conductors in Also sprach and....there would have been a lot of bombast and bad taste.) The orchestra was in perfect balance and so beautifully layered. I mean, Strauss gives you the ingredients, right? He was a consummately great orchestrator! But not every conductor can make his music sound this good.

The audience applauded wildly; lots of people got solo bows; Elder left the stage when the applause was still going on. He came back on, picked up the microphone again, and said something like "I've always felt that some works need a bit of a chaser after them. We've just drunk four big steins of German beer, and here is the chaser." He then led a banger of an account of Short Ride, and you know what? He was absolutely right that it was a great end to the evening.

Two final comments: first, it was a bit like the old days, when MTT would pull an orchestral encore out of his hat at the end of an already-satisfying concert. I miss those days, I really do. Second, if I weren't a reasonably responsible adult, I would have bagged the concert I reviewed Saturday night and come back to hear this one a second time.

Elsewhere:

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. Comes down on Rebecca's side rather more than mine. Probably I'm wrong or missed problems in the performances.
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV and SF Chronicle. The review is rather the opposite of mine.
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

 

San Francisco Symphony Program Update: Salonen/Wang

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Photo by Minna Hatinen, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I have no idea what the motivation for this program update is. For the February 13-16, 2025 programs, Yuja Wang was originally going to be the soloist for these works by Igor Stravinsky:

• Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
• Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
• Movements for Piano and Orchestra 

A press release today from SFS says that instead, she'll be playing the following:

• Ravel, Piano Concerto for the Left Hand 
• Rautavaara, Piano Concerto No. 1

Works by Debussy complete the program and those are unchanged.

 

Enough Blame to Go Around

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Photo: (c) Minna Hatinen, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony's program last week, led by music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, was this:

• Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral"
• Salonen, Cello Concerto, Rainer Eudeikis, cello
• Debussy, La Mer

First, I blame Arturo Toscanini, for ruining Beethoven's 6th for me. His recording with the NBC Symphony is way, WAY too driven for the most genial of Beethoven's symphonies. I remember being absolutely shocked when I heard another conductor leading it. Toscanini, right about so much, was completely wrong about this.

Salonen's Beethoven has been first class, and I was hoping for revelations in this one, but alas, no, it was good, not great, and I even dozed off at one point. Okay, it was a longish week, during which I wrote two articles, and that was my fault, but still. Good, not great.

Second, I blame the terrible acoustics of Zellerbach Hall for the fact that the first time I heard Salonen's Cello Concerto, back sometime before the pandemic, I found it puzzling. I listened to it last week (there is a terrific recording of it by Salonen and the LA Phil, with soloist Yo-Yo Ma, for whom it was written) and could not understand why I had been puzzled.

Well, maybe I can, a little? The careful miking of the recording makes it easier to hear everything going on in the concerto, and there is a lot. It is a really beautiful and interesting piece, and it didn't sound as good in Davies as on the recording. STILL. It was beautifully played by SFS principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis, in his first solo outing with the orchestra, and you bet I'm glad that he was given this rather than, say, a Haydn concerto or the Dvořák. 

Something went very slightly wrong, and maybe half- or two-thirds of the way through, he broke a string. And someone promptly stepped forward with the right string, and he changed it right then and there. "I'm to blame for this," he said, to much laughter, and then he and Salonen picked right up where they'd left off. It was a great performance.

Lastly, I blame Salonen for not giving a solo bow to principal English horn Russ de Luna for his beautiful playing in La Mer. He had principal flute Yubeen Kim and principal oboe Eugene Izotov take solo bows -- which they deserved! They played beautifully! And so did de Luna, during a week when it's a great time to be an English horn player around Grove and Van Ness. (If you know, you know.)

Elsewhere:

• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV and SF Chronicle. Unlike me, she talks specifics about the cello concerto! 
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. "You know who else loved it? The audience that packed Davies on Friday night to celebrate Salonen and his nonpareil artistry as both a conductor and a composer. I don’t want to start penning weekly rants about Salonen’s departure, or the short-sightedness that has led to that incomprehensible institutional failure. But there was no way to witness the excitement of this event — the outpouring of love directed from the hall to the stage, the ovation that brought Salonen and Eudeikis back for curtain call after curtain call, the enthusiasm with which this superb but not especially accessible work was received — and not wonder about the choices and priorities that have brought the organization to its current impasse."
• Thomas May interviews Rainer Eudeikis about the cello concerto in The Strad.
• Russ de Luna in Aukland, as long as we're talking about great English horn playing.

 

Shostakovich and Brahms at San Francisco Symphony

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Last week, music director Esa-Pekka Salonen led the San Francisco Symphony in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, with soloist Sayaka Shoji, and Brahms's Symphony No. 4. I attended the Saturday night program because on Friday, I was reviewing Nicholas Phan and Jake Heggie's lovely SF Performances recital.

I had never heard the Shostakovich before. Salonen was fine; I liked the music well enough. (Unlike friends who never liked or who have gotten over Shostakovich, I came late to him and haven't sworn him off yet. Perhaps that day will come.) The concerto has the Shostakovich cheekiness (my partner asked whether this should be "cheesiness" and I said that lots of people think so) and also a big passacaglia as its third movement. That was the thread connecting the two works on the program, because the Brahms ends with a stupendous passacaglia of its own.

While Salonen and the orchestra were at their usual best, the soloist was Not Good. I'm sure that the notes were all there, but there was little music. This is stuff that needs to be played with verve and commitment to be convincing, and she just didn't do that. Her encore - Bach? - was deadly, played with dull and disjointed phrasing.

The Brahms was an entirely different story. I think that the only Brahms Salonen has played here was the so-called Variations on a Theme of Haydn (the theme isn't by Haydn), and I thought that was unmemorable. Last week's symphony, though, was a wow, for sure. He conducted it expansively and with almost Wagnerian grandeur: I heard a touch of Brünnhilde's awakening in the first movement, and detected Rheinmaidens in the last. He used every string available and the orchestra's sound was round and rich, very European, versus the lean and focused sound he often aims for. It was really something.

The third movement was brisker than I'm used to hearing and it worked extremely well; the fourth overwhelming in its power. Special kudos to principal flute Yubeen Kim for his gorgeous solo in the last movement.  

Elsewhere:

• Steven Winn, SFCV and SF Chronicle. He is way more positive about the soloist than Michael and me. Maybe she was better on Friday.
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center. How I wish I'd seen Christian Tetzlaff in this! Do check out Michael's recommended recordings by David Oistrakh. As a violinist friend once said to me, you can't go wrong with Oistrakh.
• DB at Kalimac's Corner. I believe the reports from DB and Steven, so I conclude that I saw the wrong night. 
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. He was there Saturday, so he got the lesser performance, and is kinda scathing about the Brahms.

Mahler 3 at San Francisco Symphony

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

SFS closed out the season last month with Mahler's Third Symphony, a 90+ minute monster. This was only Esa-Pekka Salonen's outing with the composer at SFS, following a Mahler 2 ("Resurrection") during the 2022-23 season. Sadly, the 2024-25 season will close with Mahler 2, Salonen's last program as music director.

• Lisa Hirsch, SF Chronicle
• David Bratman, SFCV
• DB at Kalimac's Corner
• Previously: Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle (Mahler 2)
• Previously: Lisa Hirsch, SFCV (Mahler 2)

I think we're all hearing the same thing in Salonen's Mahler: From Joshua's review in 2022: 

Where Thomas insinuates, Salonen speaks out bluntly. Where Thomas works in chiaroscuro — layering over the orchestral texture with faint shadows and whispers of countermelodies — Salonen works in bold, bright colors. Thomas is perhaps more attuned to the composer’s corrosive irony, Salonen to the forthrightness with which he proclaims his emotional themes.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong here. These are both legitimate ways to understand the slippery, protean voice that Mahler brings to all his orchestral music. A conductor has to choose, at least for the duration of a single performance, but we in the audience don’t.

How you feel about their different styles is very much a matter of taste. 

Salonen Conducts Schumann and Bruckner at SFS

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Photo by Minna Hatinen

Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

Well, this was something of a surprise: I liked the Bruckner much more than the Schumann.

• Lisa Hirsch, SF Chronicle
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV
• DB at Kalimac's Corner

Salonen Conducts Mahler 3rd at SFS

San Francisco Symphony Program

Black & white photo of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. 

Probably a rehearsal because he's wearing a t-shirt.

Photo: probably Minna Hatinen; the style matches her other photos of him

• Lisa Hirsch, SF Chronicle. In which San Francisco Symphony learns that all publicity is not good publicity. It is ham-handed to make threats against a 30-year-plus patron. They could have written a slightly sheepish request, but decided that a threat was the right way to go. Also, the bylaws don't specifically forbid signs in the hall, and I've seen quite a few recently. 
• David Bratman, SFCV
• Steve Winn, Musical America (paywalled; no link)

Ravel and Schoenberg at San Francisco Symphony

Arnold Schoenberg, Erwartung

Mary Elizabeth Williams in the process of knocking everyone's socks off.

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting SFS.

Photo: Kristen Loken, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

An extraordinary evening at San Francisco Symphony, with Esa-Pekka Salonen leading Ravel's delightful Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) ballet, with rapturous choreography by Alonzo King, danced (of course) by Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Arnold Schoenberg's harrowing Erwartung given an astounding performance by soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams, directed by Peter Sellars on his absolute best behavior. 

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center (Mercifully, I was in Row T and heard no clomping in the Ravel.)
• The Opera Tattler

 

Music Director Updates, Shocking and Not

Yes, it's true, I have not yet posted about the terrible news from my local orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, whose Board and CEO foolishly did not bend over backwards to retain Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director. I swear I'll get to it this weekend.

New news:

• Esa-Pekka Salonen to leave the San Francisco Symphony when his contract expires at the end of 2024-25.
• Klaus Mäkelä will be the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra WTF. As we know, every 28-year-old conductor should be in charge of two of the world's great orchestras plus a couple more that aren't quite on that level. I'll have more to say about this, too.
• Jaap van Zweden will be the new music director of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra from mid-2026. (Maybe he didn't really leave the New York Philharmonic to spend more time with his family; he is also the music director of the Seoul Philharmonic.)

Open positions:

• San Francisco Symphony
• Phoenix Symphony
• Cleveland Orchestra, as of June, 2027.
• Paris Opera is currently without a music director.
• Nashville Symphony, when Giancarlo Guerrero leaves.
• Deutsche Oper Berlin, when Donald Runnicles leaves.
• Hallé Orchestra, when Mark Elder leaves.
• Rottedam Philharmonic, when Lahav Shani leaves.
• Los Angeles Philharmonic, as of 2026-27, when Gustavo Dudamel leaves for NY.
• Sarasota Orchestra, following the death of Bramwell Tovey.
• Seattle Symphony, following Thomas Dausgaard's abrupt departure in January, 2022.
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where Riccardo Muti left at the end of 2022-23.
• Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: open in 2024 when Louis Langree steps down.
• Hong Kong Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Oakland Symphony, owing to the death of Michael Morgan in August, 2021.
• Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. The Teatro Regio has not named a new music director.
• Minnesota Opera: Michael Christie has left. MO has not named a new music director. 
• Marin Symphony, at the end of 2022-23.
• Vienna Staatsoper, when Philippe Jordan leaves at the end of 2025.

Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting). The big mystery, to me, is why an orchestra hasn't snapped up Susanna Mälkki. Slightly lesser mystery: Henrik Nanasi, whose superb Cosi fan tutte is still lingering in my ears.

• Esa-Pekka Salonen, if he wants such a position again
• Tito Muñoz 
• Andrey Boreyko
• Osmo Vänskä
• Susanna Mälkki, who left the Helsinki Philharmonic at the end of 2022-23.
• MGT (apparently does not want a full-time job, as of early 2022)
• Miguel Harth-Bedoya (seems settled in at Baylor)
• Lionel Bringuier
• Sian Edwards
• Ingo Metzmacher
• Jac van Steen
• Mark Wigglesworth
• Peter Oundjian
• Ilan Volkov
• Aleksandr Markovic
• Lothar Koenigs
• Henrik Nanasi
• Philippe Jordan, eventually
• Franz Welser-Möst, eventually

And closed:

• Marin Alsop becomes principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I believe succeeding Nathalie Stutzmann.
• Simon Rattle becomes principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharonic.
• John Storgards will becomes chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic.
• Update and correction: San Francisco Chamber Orchestra was unable to hire Cosette Justo Valdés. Instead, Jory Fankuchen, a violinist in the orchestra, has been named Principal Conductor and will lead this season's programs.
• Indianapolis Symphony hires Jun Markel, effective September 1, 2024.
• Andris Nelsons renewed his contract with the Boston Symphony. He's now on an evergreen rolling contract, which will continue as long as he and the orchestra are happy with each other. MTT had one of these at SFS.
• Shanghai Symphony, with the appointment of Long Yu.
• Virginia Symphony, with the appointment of Eric Jacobsen.
• Warsaw Philharmonic, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
• Bern Symphony, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
• Berlin State Opera, with the appointment of Christian Thielemann.
• Dresden Philharmonic, with the appointment of Donald Runnicles.
• New York Philharmonic, with the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel. Note that Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024 and there will be a two-season gap before Dudamel arrives.
• Helsinki Philharmonic: Jukka-Pekka Saraste to succeed Susanna Mälkki.
• Staatskapelle Dresden, with the appointment of Daniele Gatti.
• Seoul Philharmonic appoints Jaap van Zweden.
• Royal Opera appoints Jakub Hrůša to succeed Antonio Pappano in September, 2025.