Just hours after being named principal bassoon of the San Francisco Symphony, Joshua Elmore sat in the first chair at Davies Symphony Hall, all eyes on him.
He began to play the most renowned orchestral solo ever written for his instrument, the high-pitched and exposed opening of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, as part of the program on Friday, Feb. 21, which repeats through Sunday, Feb. 23. And he carried it off with assurance, panache, rhythmic freedom, and a brightly focused, beautifully plangent tone.
This was only one of the riches on offer during the performance, which saw Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen leading his second go-round of The Rite at Davies — his first was in 2022 — and the playing crackled right from the start.
Salonen’s uncanny ability to bring clarity to the densest orchestral textures was on full display. The winds stood in high relief to each other in the Introduction to Part 1. Throughout the performance, you could pick out individual instruments and inner voices, even in the thickest passages.
Fast sections such as the “Ritual of Abduction” and the “Glorification of the Chosen One” snapped with propulsive energy. This was an exhilarating performance, driving mercilessly to the concluding ritual sacrifice.
Not that Salonen’s interpretation lacked for moments of comparative relaxation. “Spring Rounds” had weight and a sense of rhythmic elongation without dragging. The six solo violas in the “Mystic Circles of the Young Girls” could have seduced the entire audience.
The whole orchestra played with stunning, sharp-edged keenness. Timpanist Edward Stephan and newly appointed section percussionist Stan Muncy on bass drum drove the performance forward at every turn. The brass brought overwhelming force and precision.
Salonen gave every section its own bow. Amid all the bravura virtuosity, Blair Francis Paponiu on alto flute, Russ de Luna on English horn, Matthew Griffith on E-flat clarinet, and principal trumpet Mark Inouye stood out in particular. But as is traditional in performances of this great score, the principal bassoon, Elmore, took the first bow.
Stravinsky’s Rite, which concluded the program, was just one of the evening’s thrills. The orchestra opened the concert with the world premiere of Xavier Muzik’s Strange Beasts, commissioned through the Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project. Given the excellence of the works that have come out of this joint initiative with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, one can only hope that the EBCP survives in the current political climate.
Appropriately, Strange Beasts is inspired by the paradoxical comfort to be found in catastrophe, the composer writes in his program notes. It’s a score of well-balanced contrasts, opening with haunted music, followed by a brass chorale with elephantine rumblings and birdlike winds and woodblocks that swoop charmingly.
The clacking of woodblocks becomes a through line, recurring and underlining other instruments during the piece’s roughly 17 minutes. An anxious passage of harmonics flickers at the edge of audibility before coming into focus. The music accelerates in waves of sound and then drops off, closing with a single wavering bass clarinet line.
Strange Beasts was accompanied by a dizzying slideshow of Muzik’s own photographs of Los Angeles — the work’s title refers to both Godzilla-like monsters and the imposing structures of the composer’s adopted city. There are glimpses of a playground, Los Angeles City Hall, a Metro stop, freeways, various skyscrapers, and even the twisting forms of Walt Disney Concert Hall. I would have sworn that the slideshow moved to the beat of this engaging score, which I would love to hear again.
Soloist Daniil Trifonov then joined the orchestra for a dazzling romp through Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Composed when Prokofiev was barely 21, the original manuscript was lost in a fire, and the work had to be reconstructed years later. The resulting score seems barely playable by a human — part of the pianist’s first-movement cadenza is written on three musical staves instead of the usual two — but Trifonov made short work of the concerto.
He played with a great range of color on what sounded like a very mellow Steinway, particularly in the instrument’s upper register, which beautifully suited the ruminative first movement. Maybe the never-ending 16th notes of the Scherzo could have been a bit better defined, and maybe Trifonov’s touch could have been lighter during the Intermezzo. But otherwise, it would be hard to beat his performance — and it’s no wonder Friday’s audience called him back for two encores.
This story was first published in Datebook in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle.
