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Lutoslawski, Bruckner: Krystian Zimerman (piano), San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt, conductor; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 30.10.2008 (HS)

Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto
Bruckner: Symphony No.2 in C minor


In his tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, which preceded Michael Tilson Thomas', some of Herbert Blomstedt's most memorable performances involved symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler. Something about their grand landscapes and deep roots in the German tradition responds to his methodical approach, his sense for the overall shape of a piece and his knack for creating a steady buildup to a climax.

All of that was on display Thursday when Blomstedt, conductor laureate of the orchestra since 1995, took on Bruckner's rarely heard Symphony No. 2 on a program with Lutoslawski's colorful and vivid Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Krystian Zimerman playing the piece he debuted in 1988. It made for a satisfying concert.

The 2005 reconstruction of the 1872 original Bruckner symphony (but revised before the first performances in 1873) may lack the layers of invention and sense of rapturous meditation that can pervade the later works, but it has a lot of the composer's earmarks, from polyphony in the first movement to big brass chorales in the finale. The form is resolutely classical, and the music comes in big blocks or chunks, winding down to a stop before proceeding to the next section even more often than he was wont to do in his later symphonies.

Blomstedt seemed perfectly happy to let Bruckner have his say without trying to impose any extra ideas on the music. He conducted it like he believed in it as a great symphony, and the lack of artifice played well. The harmonies of the opening movement carried along the modest sweep of melodies welling up from it. The minor-key, dolorous Scherzo (it struck me as pointing toward Shostakovich's scherzos, but without the wit) lightened up only in its elegant trios, and the Adagio opened up into a quiet pool of A-flat major sonorities with a heartfelt song layered on top. The middle two movements were played in that order, which harks back to the composer's original format. The finale makes extensive use of sustained brass chorales, which the symphony's trumpets and trombones delivered with rich sonorities, and Blomstedt anchored the resplendent final pages with a certain gravitas.

The piano concerto, which opened the program, is another thing entirely. In his tenure here, Blomstedt always seemed to approach late-twentieth-century music with a sort of eat-your-spinach mentality. He always seemed impatient to get to the meat, or the Romantic-era symphony occupying the other half of the program. Here, though, he showed genuine gusto in the way he attacked Lutoslawski's score.

Lutoslawski's music often leaves much to chance. He prescribes certain pitches or rhythms, and lets the players take them as they will, anchored at certain moments signaled by the conductor. Later in his career, however, he used this device as a means to an end, starting off loosely and gradually bringing the elements together into a thoroughly defined conclusion. He does this in the piano concerto, starting off with swirls of woodwind and string gestures that gradually coalesce into something that seems to glance back to Bartok's atmospherics and rhythms along with Rachmaninov's broad gestures, but this composer's own harmonic language. It's a colorful mix.

The piano part is especially taxing, but Zimerman executed the difficult double octaves, complex dissonances, jagged rhythms and sudden recessions into quiet harmonies with ease. This start-and-stop pattern, where the music revs up only to sink back into something quiet to catch its breath, gives the concerto a sense of suspense and a gradual buildup to a climax. (The climax is perhaps the only thing it has in common with the Bruckner symphony.)  Blomstedt and Zimerman brought things to a riveting finish. 

Harvey Steiman

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