The prolific composer Jake Heggie, 57, has amiable music coursing through his veins, resulting in some 300 songs written to date. You may recall Schubert in Vienna, and Brahms in Pörtschach, with so many melodies in the air, all they had to do was write them down. Or so was the claim. And Heggie gets his lyrical inspiration right here in San Francisco. But that make-no-waves facet of his does not transfer readily to composing operas with action, drama, and…
However much the musical treatment of diarist Anne Frank might lean to positives, the reality of her legacy lies in the subliminal tragedy of her life and fate. Composer Michael Tilson Thomas’ musical readings in the 40-minute “From the Diary of Anne Frank” are eloquently understated. In sound and style, the music director has clearly drunk from the same well as his mentor, the (symphonic) Leonard Bernstein. The orchestra interspersed phrases around diva Isabel Leonard’s narrations of Frank’s writing excerpts….
An all-Eastern-European program added variety to the S.F. Symphony’s current-season offerings, focusing on suppressed music of the century 1850-1950. The three works could hardly have been less alike. At the center-point stood the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, with a dazzling performance by violinist Karen Gomyo of Berlin. Despite her stunning evening gown, I couldn’t take my ears off her performance as she played virtually nonstop 40 minutes in the highly challenging opus from 1948. The high virtuosity and limited…