Tag Archives: Franz Schubert

SPECTACULAR CHAMBER MUSIC @ The Legion of Honor Museum

SPECTACULAR CHAMBER CONCERT @ THE LEGION

The Gunn Theater in the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum was the site for a magnificent performance, Dec. 3. 2023. Gunn Theater holds three hundred and sixteen in a jewel box setting. The San Francisco Symphony presents chamber music concerts there through the season always featuring outstanding musicians. The music selections are usually something different, something new even if, as in this program, the music is very old.

The program was all trios; two by Bach and one by Schubert. Anton Nel was the harpsichordist for the Sonata No. 3 in E major for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1016 and the Sonata No. 3 in G minor for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1029. Alexander Barantschik, Concertmaster of the SF Symphony, was the violinist who leads the music in this Sonata. It was an audio treat to hear the harpsichord, especially as the Gunn Theater is far smaller than the Davies Hall. It awakens a different way to listen for the notes. In the Sonata No. 3 in E major the violin opens the experience with an expressive sound that seems to reach across broad vistas. It is followed by a delightful, light Allegro as though accessible to young people or even presented for the folk instead of the elite. Bach goes back to an Adagio – ma non tanto (but not too much)– which opens into keys unusual in a Bach sonata; that’s the new in the old. At the end, Bach allows the sound more energy and, as though on the brink of cliff, the music sweeps through the air on a lift off of counterpoint. Barantschik presented a marvelous touch from the elegance of the first Adagio to the delicacy of the second movement to the energy and reach of the finale.

Johann Sebastian Bach, composer (1685-1750)

In the Sonata No. 3 in G minor for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV. Peter Wyrick played the cello, and demonstrated that the Viola da Gamba has a higher pitched string than the cello so he added a string to his cello. It gave the audience the feeling that they could notice how he bowed diagonally to make the higher sound. This trio was livelier than the one in E major. The playing of the harpsichord and cello was a pleasing sound as the two sound sources found places to alternate or reach over each other’s music. The three movements ranged from Vivace to Adagio to an exciting Allegro conclusion. Did you think that Bach could not be exciting? Listen to these elegant and totally innovative pieces; you will have an exciting surprise.

The trio included Alexander Barantschik, Concertmaster of the SF Symphony, on the Naoum Blinder Chair, Violin. He has been concertmaster of the London and Bamberg Symphony Orchestras, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. He was concertmaster for major symphonic cycles with Michael Tilson Thomas, Rostropovich, and Bernard Haitink.

Peter Wyrick, ’cellist on the Lyman & Carol Casey Second Century Chair, served as Associate Principal Cello, 2022-2023. Previously, he was principal cello of New York’s Mostly Mozart Orchestra and associate principal cello of the New York City Opera. His chamber music collaborations include Yo -Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Anton Nel, pianist, has an active performing life having performed with the Cleveland, Orchestra, Chicago , Dallas, and Seattle Symphonies as well as international venues such as Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, Suntory Hall, and in China, Korea, and South Africa, his home. He holds the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. In summers he is at the Aspen Festival and School and the Ravinia Festival and its Steans Institute.

Franz Schubert, composer, 1797-1828) (posthumous painting by Rieder, 1875)

Franz Schubert’s remarkable Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D. 898 is a soaring, gorgeous forty minute long sail to happiness. I know that art connoisseurs are suspicious of happiness and beauty, but this is art of a different species. Schubert’s genius is above it all. When he wrote this music, he was thirty years old. He had only one year more to live and to create music that is essential for us, two hundred and twenty-six years later.

From the opening Allegro moderato, Schubert shows his originality by playing with the sonata form. He writes in “wrong keys” several times. It is a gentle wake up call to the listeners, “do not let the beauty lull you so much that you will miss the floating sensation and the changing scenery of sound. The composer, Robert Schumann, was especially taken by the first movement as “graceful and virginal.” The second movement, Andante, is slower, and this writer must use the term that pops up in others’ descriptions; it is dreamlike. And yet, this dream is not one for sleep or inactivity. It carries us along on a breath as though riding on a kite through a forest. The Scherzo offers surprise musical changes keeping the listeners just enough off balance to laugh at ourselves. Schubert closes with a Rondo: Allegro vivace. It leads our imaginations and memories to cherish the moment, so lovely but never lasting. Schubert was aware that he was terribly ill. He still shared joy.

This threesome will perform again at the Gunn on Jan. 28. That concert is sold out, but it is worth it to see if someone seeking snow goes to Tahoe. There is another concert on June 2 with the same noble artists, music by Mozart, R. Strauss, and Smetana. It is too good to miss.

IGOR LEVIT IGNITES DAVIES HALL: Part III, Recital

The San Francisco Symphony invited the fabulous pianist, Igor Levit, to visit San Francisco for a two week Residence. This is unusual. This writer and officers of the Press division of the SFS could not find similar events. Levit, relatively young at 36, is a sought after recording artist, performer with the world’s great orchestras, and recipient of prestigious awards. He is hot and, from hearing his remarkable performances, there is no indication that his place in the music world will cool off. His recital on June 27 featured music by Johannes Brahms; jazz pianist and composer, Fred Hersch; Richard Wagner, arranged by the late and wonderful Hungarian pianist, Zoltan Kocsis; and Franz Liszt.

Levit’s Themes: The program was more than a collection of great works for the piano. The selections dovetailed with the previous programs played with the SFS. There are underlying themes connecting the music. Brahms’ Six Chorale Preludes were arranged by Ferruccio Busoni, the composer/inventor of the amazing Concerto in C major, performed by Levit and the SFS on June 22, 24, 25. Levit admires Busoni for his individuality, over the top piano technique, and his ability to arrange great music by Bach, Brahms, Bizet, Beethoven, and others. Levit has expressed his fellow feelings with Busoni who was also a searching intellect. Levit said Busoni is “basically saying the the job of the creator is to set the music free again. That means making your own choices, because how could you possibly believe that what you hold in your hands, the dots and the lines on paper, could ever be the last word?” This means that a sensitive, knowledgeable arranger – like Kocsis and Busoni both great pianists and intellects – are in a way recreating the music, like a fine conservator must not only fix an injured painting, but will be doing the painting again.

Levit also said that “the musical form, which is closest to me, is the variation.” Busoni’s Concerto in C major is gigantic and its third movement contains four variations. This is one of the aspects of the Concerto which excites Levit and his audience. As written in Part II of these articles, Levit finds the truth of the music in the variations. Busoni salutes great composers from the past in the Concerto, and Levit is able to recall/recreate their styles when he plays those references. In his performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, the Emperor, one could hear that two variations, one for the piano and one for the orchestra, are at the heart of the movement both in the sounds of the music and the structure Beethoven chose for these moments.

Johannes Brahms, composer (1833-1897)

Brahms’ Six Chorale Preludes was quiet and so beautiful that it nearly ached. These Preludes were part of his final, great work, Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ. These were composed in May and June, 1896. However, they were not performed until 1902. How sad that the great Brahms could not be present for the premiere. In 1902, Busoni selected six for which to create piano transcriptions. The chosen ones are Nos. 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11. While Busoni occasionally complained that Brahms did not progress out of his own style, Busoni respected him and his music. I remembered listening to a recording of the Six Chorale Preludes many years ago and feeling Brahms’ longing, resolution, and an acceptance that was not giving up. After hearing Levit play Busoni a few days before, it was very fine to hear Levit play this quiet, philosophical music in which dissonance entwines and moves the character of the preludes.

Fred Hersch, composer/Jazz pianist

Fred Hersch’s Songs Without Words, Book II, was a delightful addition to the program. Delightful does not mean simple. The music all has a “singing quality,” writes the composer, and it seems to this listener that some of them could be in the Variations folder. They are original and yet have references to sources such as Chopin’s Minute Waltz. In this collection, Hersch wrote The Two Minute Waltz that “is a humorous take,” he wrote, which could be “from a Rodgers and Hammerstein” musical. Among other references are the choro of Brazilian music which Hersch refers to as nearly a Brazilian “version of Ragtime.” Hersch’s Songs Without Words, Book II include Little Nocturne, Canzona, Soliloquy, The Old Country, The Two-Minute Waltz, and Choro de Carnaval. The Soliloquy is one voice which speaks from the left hand playing alone. In 2000, Hersch released the first set of six Songs Without Words, acknowledging and honoring the title given by Felix Mendelssohn for his classical beauties. It all ties together: on the Beethoven program, June 17, Consolation, from Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, Op.30 was the encore Levit performed. Igor Levit planned a program that demonstrate his involvements to the audience. We noticed. My undergraduate college had a many decades old popular observation: Everything correlates. Levit saw to it that all three programs, despite having totally different music on each one, definitely correlate

.Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Variations or similarities: The second half of the concert presented mysteries, revelations, and thrills with two big pieces by big composers: Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Having been alerted in the first half that this is not “only” music, one wondered what Igor Levit had up his sleeve. Wagner’s piece came first on the program but historically came second. Take a look at the dates. Liszt, born in 1811, in Raiding, Hungary. Wagner, born 1813, in Leipzig, Germany. The Wagner selection, Prelude from Tristan und Isolde, had its first performance, in Prague,1859. Liszt completed his Piano Sonata in B minor, 1852-53. There is a reason for Levit performing the Prelude from Tristan und isolde and continuing with barely a breath between it and the beginning of Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor. For one thing, the Liszt Sonata begins with music that sounds so much like the end of the Wagner Prelude. Remember: Liszt’s piece was completed six years before Wagner’s. The opera Tristan und Isolde did not appear until six years after Wagner’s Prelude debuted, though the Prelude is named Prelude from Tristan und Isolde, even though there was no opera to be “from.”

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) composer, famous pianist

Tristan and isolde: Listening to the Prelude, one could imagine the tumultuous and sexy relationship of Tristan and Isolde. It is both a long and short story. It is long because it can be traced to origins in the 12thc. CE. Or, if one wants, there are suggestions of a similar story back in the 6thc. CE, and that’s not counting its many variations. Deep into the Romantic movements in the 19thc., the story continues; it is very long. The variations can count, adding alternative motivations and outcomes that have branches of their own. The Tristan/Isolde love situation could merge into the Arthur/Guenevere/Lancelot problem. Let’s not go there now. The short version is universal: Tristan travels to Ireland to bring Isolde (Yseult, Isseult, you choose) to Cornwall to marry King Mark, Tristan’s uncle. On the voyage, T and I take a love potion. Was it intentional or accidental? Did Isolde give the potion to Tristan rather than to the man who was supposed to receive it? The point is: T & I became lovers despite King Mark’s commitment and T’s loyalty. Was it a potion for eternal love or did it have a three year use-by date? Let’s go back: they loved each other but should not. There are, of course, variations across many centuries of how they die.

Both of these pieces have great drama. Liszt’s Sonata is noted among his repertory as one of the most unusual, maybe one of the most outstanding of his works. It is specifically a piece for the piano, composed and performed by Franz Liszt, recognized as the most famous pianist of the era and perhaps beyond. How do these two pieces end and begin? Very low chords with silence between. The listener anticipates but must wait before another low chord sounds. And the end – beginning is a quiet sound like “bump.”

In 1867, only two years after the premiere of the opera, Tristan und Isolde, Lizst transcribed for piano Islode’s final aria. The transcription became famous across Europe before the opera had been heard in most places. Putting forward another variation, Liszt, only two years older than Wagner, was Wagner’s father-in-law.

The Sonata in B minor could have four movements. For the performance by Igor Levit, this program shows six: Lento assai- Allegro energico -Andante sostenuto -Allegro energico -Stretta quasi presto -Allegro moderato. It propels itself as one breath, thought, and energy. There were listeners who did not realize the Prelude and Sonata had been played together without a recognizable break for applause. The playing throughout was magnificent and revealing of what might be behind the powerful sounds. Mr. Levit Schubert’s Six Moments Musicaux, No. 3 in F minor (ending in F major), arranged by Leopold Godowsky as his encore. Franz Schubert belongs in this company of great composers who were also very great pianists. No one in the cheering, roaring audience wanted to leave.

*quotations from igor Levit from Corinna da Fornseca-Wolheim interview in SF Symphony program book, June, 2023. Quote from Fred Hersch provided by Mr Hersch in SF Symphony program book, June, 2023.

San Francisco Symphony Soars with Schubert and Mahler

Schubert

It is possible that the SF Symphony has played as well as it did on April 9, 2016, on other occasions, but how could they have played better? It was an amazing, wonderful performance with every section playing at the top and San Francisco’s Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas, conducting. The program itself might be matched for brilliance but hardly bettered: Symphony in B minor, the Unfinished, by Franz Schubert, and Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler. Written nearly a century apart, the two masterpieces made a powerful, emotion wrenching and heart lifting experience. While Schubert’s Symphony in B Minor is called Unfinished, it does not sound like it lacks anything. There are two movements. The first is enlivened by one of the most beautiful tunes every composed. The frequent short hand for why Schubert is so great is that glorious melodies seemed to well up in him faster than anyone could write them, certainly faster than someone who would live only 31 years (Thirty one years! Turn off the television right now. Do something. Go for a walk in a garden. Read. Listen to Schubert). Behind the beautiful tune there is darkness. Schubert breaks the melody; the suspension creates a dramatic halt of breath. Sadness darts behind the melody. There is a sense of mystery in the sadness. Perhaps Schubert stopped with these two movements because he realized he had said what he wanted to say with this music. Perhaps he could not decide where to go next, maybe because these movements are perfect as they are.

Gustav Mahler received a gift in 1907, the book The Chinese Flute translated into German. The Chinese poems inspired Mahler to write Das LIed von der Erde, The Song of the Earth. The collection includes the work of several poets of the Eighth Century. There are drinking songs, wistful songs longing for love, songs in which the poet tries to accommodate knowledge of human mortality in his delight in nature, such as in The Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow. These beautiful, perceptive, delicate and yet powerful poems reached across the centuries and continents to Mahler’s heart. It was a troubled heart at this time. An avid athlete, he had learned he had a heart ailment which would strictly limit his activities and surely kill him. He had also just lost a daughter, under 5 years old, to diphtheria and scarlet fever.

At this performance, the singers were mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and tenor Simon O’Neill. They both performed with power and sensitivity to the poetry. Their performances were a great match to the SF Symphony’s remarkable performance. Mahler’s music engulfed Davies Symphony Hall in love and wonder at life, whole hearted engagement with our earth despite our own limitations. The San Francisco Symphony was scheduled to perform this program at Carnegie Hall, April 14, with the same singers. Surely it was a concert to knock the socks off the New Yorkers. Pictures from top: Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler, Simon O’Neill, Sasha Cooke.