BYCHKOV ENERGIZES HIS RACHMANINOFF 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Nov.. 6-13, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 33
           Guest conductor Semyon Bychkov is a stocky, heavy-set man spending most of his career in Europe leading wide-ranging repertoire. He is however something of a magician when it comes to Rachmaninoff. I won’t write kudos to “The Bells” as heard at the S.F. Symphony on Nov. 6, but I’d move mountains to catch Bychkov repeating the ardently romantic Symphony No. 2, giving the highly popular piece  a much-needed freshness.
            This a huge symphonic work, its four movements running 59 minutes, with E minor key signature affording a bittersweet autumnal sadness, dissipated by the exuberant last movement. A sense of melancholy is predominant, perhaps the foremost trait that the Russian composer inherited from Tchaikovsky. There is even a familiar “Dies Irae” quotation from the mass of the dead in the finale, but buried so deep it is rarely observed.
             No one exploited the richness of full-orchestral sound festooned with brass better than Rachmaninoff. And no one created more alluring, more melodious  middle movements than this man who spent his last 25 years in Southern California, always battling the contention that he was a better pianist than composer.
            Conducting from memory, the Russian Bychkov, 57, took on this challenge of the Second and distributed it, as if manna from heaven. He got a  fervent response not just from the audience, but also the musicians, who played with high inspiration. There were attractive solos along the way from clarinetist Carey Bell, English hornist Russ deLuna and French hornist Bob Ward. 
            The Russian cantata on an American poem (!) “The Bells” (1913) was another story. It’s a weird concoction, a fervent poem by Edgar Allan Poe adapted  and translated by a Russian for Rachmaninoff’s musical treatment.  Despite all its bright imagery of bells on many levels, the performance never took hold until the bass soloist from St. Petersburg, Mikhail Petrenko, sang the passionate final stanzas with operatic zeal (oh, to hear Petrenko in a Mussorgsky opera!).
            The large symphony chorus lent heft to the outpouring, from the exultations to the laments. Two other soloists---tenor Frank Lopardo and soprano Nuccia Focile---sang their parts dutifully, with more detachment than called for, as if they never realized that it's more about dramatization than musical execution. The pity of “The Bells” is that despite his long US residency, Rachmaninoff never redid the work to be sung in English, more closely tied to the Poe poetry.
            MUSIC NOTES---Bychkov returns to the SFS for a second (and equally abbreviated) week Nov. 12-14 for Glanert-Schumann-Sibelius….Ever wonder about those ancient artists’ publicity photos which you think must have been taken by Mathew Brady? Tenor Lopardo’s photo currently used was so old, I could not recognizable him on stage...Perhaps for the first time here, the Rachmaninoff symphony was performed uncut. Still, it held one's attention to the end. (Notes updated Nov. 20.) 

        San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in all-Rachmaninoff  through Nov. 8.  For info: (415) 864-6000, or go  online. Broadcasts on KDFC-FM (102.1) at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2009
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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