BEETHOVEN’S 9TH, GALLOPING IN WHEN MOST NEEDED: A NIGHT TO TREASURE
It was a night all will recall, dripping with nostalgia and sentiment as the semi-retired MTT returned to conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
With the elderly, ailing podium laureate back, the tributes by the full house were never more pronounced. Yes, a love-in, by any measure.
And with not one but two wars raging on the far side of Earth, never were Beethoven’s choral messages of hope, “All men will be brothers,” with the following “Be embraced, ye millions,” more needed. The messages struck home to the heart.
No mere concert, this was an epic night to treasure, with the imposing SFS Chorus’ 110-plus members outdoing themselves in the exuberant finale to cap the 75-minute performance.
Shuffling on and off the stage with halting steps, Michael Tilson Thomas appeared to be the most beloved music director here since World War Two. Who else would have been honored with an eight-minute (!) standing ovation at the end, silenced only when the maestro withdrew to the wings for the last time, solicitously led by the singers? Else the sell-out crowd at Davies might still be clapping.
His conducting was not lax, but rather relaxed—soulful and low-key, with a personalized baton beat that only these veteran SFS players could read and respond to. Their affection too was palpable, as with the ensemble’s amiable chuckles when violist Jonathan Vinocour had to leap up to help him with his printed score, to the maestro’s gratitude. And again, during the plaudits, when his players donned blue-rimmed glasses out of nowhere, matching his own.
If the trumpets and timpani were unflinchingly zealous Oct. 19, no one could miss the delicacy of the Scherzo, the silky strings in the Adagio with the eloquent woodwind ensemble, or the superior cellos leading into that unprecedented choral finale.
And that finale was glorious, doing something I hadn’t heard at the SFSC in three decades: pronouncing the consonants, so that the printed German texts could be followed. Credit the new SFSC director Jenny Wong for the warmly welcomed improvement as she too was celebrated by MTT at the conclusion.
The finale had a robust launching by baritone Dashon Burton, who set the rafters ringing, followed by a consistent set of soloists: tenor Ben Bliss, soprano Angel Blue and mezzo Tamara Mumford.
MUSIC NOTES—The shorter companion piece scheduled, “Shango Memory” by the late Berkeley black composer and professor Olly Wilson, was dropped without explanation…MTT, 78, was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer during the pandemic. He had retired as music director in 2020, after 25 years at the helm… He’s scheduled to lead three more SFS programs in the first two months of 2024….The choral texts came from poetry by Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), who, like the SFS, must have had a crystal ball to foresee how timely his texts would be at this very moment.
BEETHOVEN’S 9TH SYMPHONY by S.F. Symphony and Chorus, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, Davies Hall, S.F., Oct. 19-22. For SFS info: (415) 864-6000, or go online, www.sfsymphony.org.
