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Strauss, Saint-Saëns, Ravel and Schmidt: Fabio Luisi, conductor; Joshua Bell, violin; San Francisco Symphony, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 23.10.2008 (HS)


Conductor Fabio Luis introduced himself to San Francisco Symphony audiences with an impressively energetic subscription concert Thursday filled with fully realized music making. The intelligently conceived program bookended two violin showpieces, played with èlan by Joshua Bell, with Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Juan and another new treat for San Francisco audiences, the very Strauss-ian Symphony No. 4 of Franz Schmidt.

Currently conductor of the Vienna Symphony, Luisi coaxed a decidedly European sound and musical approach from this orchestra. Under music director Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony usually presents a bright, open, very American style. The musicians normally seem more interested in the rainbow of musical colors possible from clear articulation and flexibility to a conductor's conception than the rich texture and fine sense of detail that is Luisi's calling card.

What was apparent from the first measures of Don Juan was that Luisi not only has a physically demonstrative conducting style but he owns definite ideas of where he wants the music to go. The complex rhythms of Strauss' opening gestures showed breathtaking energy and precision, single notes getting crescendos and differentiated articulation that shaped phrases distinctively and placed them in startling relief. The sweet moments depicting the amorous side of the title character emerged with something that felt like a contented sigh, aided and abetted by a beautiful solo from  concertmaster Alexander Barantschik. Most significantly, though, Luisi found a consistent thread that tied the various episodes of the tone poem together. The sound he got, less bright and more burnished than the SFS's normal timbre, contributed to that sense of wholeness.

The same attention to detail and classical balance came through in the symphony written in 1933 by Schmidt, the Hungarian-born Viennese composer whose late-Romantic idiom calls to mind Strauss and perhaps some of such composers as Reger and Bruckner. The four movements proceed without pause, and ravish the ear with ear-pleasing melodies and lush harmonies. The most distinctive and memorable music is the slow movement, an Adagio that begins and ends with a longing, elegaic cello solo, nicely done by principal Michel Grebanier, against the quiet thrum of the tympani (and eventually the entire orchestra).

The symphony begins and ends with a haunting trumpet solo, which states a melody that returns through the entire piece in various guises. It morphs into something like a tarantella to start the third movement, a short and inconclusive scherzo. And finally, in the finale, a French horn picks it up and launches a mournful development that creates an achingly beautiful finale.

Luisi and the orchestra made a strong case for the symphony and for Schmidt's music in general. In mid-century Vienna, he was on the fringe because of his staunch refusal to join the crowd focusing on atonality or dissonance. Although much of the piece hews closely to the key of C, it moves laterally and unexpected into D flat and A flat, one element that makes it feel fresh. Although a portion of the audience left at intermission to avoid the dreaded music of a little-known 20th-century composer, they missed something that the most conservative listener would probably have loved.

In between the Strauss and Schmidt pieces came Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Capriccioso and Ravel's Tzigane, two pleasant if lightweight showcases for the considerable talents of Bell. He sailed through the music with his usual unaffected phrasing and pure sound, except for a few moments of iffy intonation on the long G-string phrases that open the Ravel piece. He even compensated brilliantly when a string broke midway through the Tzigane. He shot a glance past the curl of the dangling string at Luisi, who just kept going, so Bell soldiered on. Employing the remaining three strings, he got through it without further mishap, the musical equivalent of "I can do that with one hand tied behind my back."

Appealing as Bell's work was, however, most of the audience will remember the concert for a couple of remarkable debuts, those of Luisi and a guy named Schmidt.

Harvey Steiman

Note: An earlier version of this review mistakenly reported that Luisi would be the new music director of San Francisco Opera next year. Actually, Nicola Luisotti starts in that post in September 2009.

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