LANG LANG, PERLMAN, AND NATIONWIDE TELECAST
                    The S.F. Symphony Centennial Hits the Big Time  
                                                      By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Sept. 9-16, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 14, No. 2
            The San Francisco Symphony came up with a mind-blowing fillip to the centennial-concert celebration-------and it came as an after-thought.
            An orderly procession of familiar works were dutifully performed—and then this  encore, brilliantly produced. John Adams’ brief tour de force “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” with its irresistible minimalist rumdedumdedum got a visual accompaniment: A fast-flying San Francisco collage on video, projected on the walls of Davies Hall and flying by, as if seen from windows of an express train. This was multi-media at its best, 10 minutes of sheer euphoria, with the veteran composer there to acknowledge the enthusiastic plaudits at the end. The work had received its premiere with the SFS on that very stage, but the video was a grand and new complementary element, provided by the firm Obscura Digital.
            This orchestra that had been founded in 1911 in the shadow of the Great Quake has had more ups and downs than the bay tides (more about that later), but the SFS centennial is rounding out on an upbeat. This is definitely an elite orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, who not only has vitalized the ensemble but also brought in a wealth of modern music by Adams et al. In addition, he seems to make all the right, terse comments in his off-the-cuff remarks to the receptive black-tie patrons in the full house.
            This vitalization was particularly evident in Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” a virtuoso showpiece for every element of an orchestra, essentially putting every one through the high hurdles, fully visible, fully vulnerable. The corps came through magnificently at the Sept. 8 gala concert. The other 20th-century opus, Copland’s “Billy the Kid” Ballet Suite, was highly spirited and aptly pictorial.
            The evolution of serious music as a worldwide phenomenon was never more evident than with a Chinese pianist sitting down to play Eastern-European music next to  a Southern Californian conductor.  The young star Lang Lang----please, don’t ask me which is his surname-------toned down his renowned flamboyance in a exquisitely sensitive interpretation of that pot-boiler, Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. His phrasing, his dulcet touch, his ethereal diminuendos all made for a memorable appearance, notable for his on-going gaze at the conductor MTT. This was in marked contrast to so many soloists that are buried in their instrument, expecting the conductor to follow their every whim.
            The popular soloist Itzhak Perlman, now 66, returned here for the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (1844). The big challenge for him---and for virtually all violinists---is to match the formidable impact of the young Perlman, whom we already heard here in 1969.
            Today’s Perlman plays meticulously, with an intimate, articulate  tone, as if in your living room chamber music, assisted by an orchestra cut back to 18th-century proportions (with only three dozen string players in the mix) for audibility and balance. Still, he remains an icon of music, having achieved the pinnacles of stardom, now even appearing intermittently as a conductor too. Furthermore, he has done more for the handicapped, their access and their rights than any musician I can think of, and in every performance he totally overcomes any limitations of the polio which he had contracted at age four.
            The Perlman victory is an ongoing one, making waves felt by all of us in multiple dimensions.
            MUSIC NOTES---The jammed hall of revelers was further squeezed by some dozen video cameras around and about, doing multiple shoots for a forthcoming “Great Performances” replay on PBS television.
            The San Francisco Symphony Centennial Season concerts continue, starting Sept. 7. For info: (415) 864-6000, or go  online. Broadcasts on KDFC-FM at 8 p.m. on the second Tuesday following.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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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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