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Copland, Berg, Brahms: San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 7.1.2009 (HS)


ntroducing it as his favorite musical work to conduct, Michael Tilson Thomas supercharged a sensational performance of Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra, the centerpiece of San Francisco Symphony’s first subscriptions concerts of the year. The program was vintage MTT, surrounding the hyper-Romantic Berg opus with Copland’s sweet Our Town: Music from the Film Score and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.

There were all kinds of resonances to this sequence. For Berg, the Three Pieces represented his first foray into large-scale musical forms. For Brahms, it was his first symphony, and it came well into his career. For Copland it was only his second film score (“Of Mice and Men” was first). Musically, too, all three composers were looking over their shoulders. In 1940 America, Copland was still reconciling a newfound low-dissonance approach with his own modernist beginnings. In Vienna, Berg took Mahler as his model, and filled his score with refracted waltzes, marches and fanfares in homage to his countryman. In Germany, Brahms resisted the challenge of writing his first symphony in part because he felt the shadow of Beethoven. In short, these three works helped define all three composers’ mature styles. In Tilson Thomas’ hands, their individual personalities leapt from the stage.

Not surprisingly, Berg made the most outsized impression. In his remarks, the conductor could hardly contain his glee in presenting the music. That vitality informed every bar, leading to a performance of enormous energy and remarkable clarity. He conducted it almost as it were Mahler. Having just completed a recorded cycle of Mahler’s symphonies, he and the orchestra had plenty of recent memory to draw on for that, and it showed.

They lovingly shaped the broad arch of the Praeludium, from the whispers of percussion that open and close the movement to the shattering climax at its center. The growls and moans of the fitfully starting melodies created a morass from which the skewed version of the tune quoted from Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 emerged like steam from the ooze.

The second movement starts as a sad parody of a Mahler waltz and morphs into a slow march. MTT described these musical references as something we know, but seen from an unfamiliar angle as in an Orson Welles camera shot. Again, the clarity of the inner parts and patina of sound worked to keep the ear inclined to hear what might be coming next.

The finale began with a march tread that felt weighty in its inevitability. As the music becomes ever more complex, that clarity kept Berg’s ideas flowing like a rushing river, gathering energy for the outsized fanfares that out-Mahler Mahler in the climax. The final percussion thud was like a punch to the gut. It had the hair on the back of my neck tingling.

It was a good thing Copland’s music came first, as it relies mostly on the quiet scene-setting moments of the film score. It would have sounded innocuous after the hyperkinetic Berg. But the simple triads and homespun tunes laid down a plush carpet of sound, just the thing for Berg to contrast effectively with.

After the Three Pieces so powerfully mocked Mahler’s sentimentality, Tilson Thomas was in no mood to let the Brahms symphony veer off in the same direction. He started at a quick pace, never letting those tympani throbs in the opening get ponderous, minimizing ritards, always pushing forward. Aside from some ragged entrances, the Allegro was brilliant. Too bad that, apparently in the interest of moving forward, he skipped the repeat of the exposition. The momentum didn’t slow until the final measures.

William Bennett’s gorgeous oboe solo, and the return of the melody by concertmaster Alexandre Barantchik, highlighted the Andante, and the dances of the third movement arrived with refreshing simplicity, setting up a finale that let the tension wax and wane without descending into any mawkishness. The arrival of the pastoral C-major tune felt natural, and again the tempo kept it moving smartly. The brass covered itself with glory in the big final chorale, having arrived at that point with gradually increasing momentum throughout the movement.

The orchestra will be playing these pieces in Seattle, Los Angeles and several other stops  in a west coast tour Jan 20-29.

Harvey Steiman


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