Euphoria reigned Thursday with the first of substantial massed ensembles performing in more than 15 months. To say that the audience was euphoric is an understatement. It was like raising the curtain after a long and painful closure.

For the first time, Davies Hall had opened to a full symphony orchestra, including both brass and woodwinds, heretofore banned by the pandemic. The performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto marked the downbeat on a very promising resumption and new era for all of our main-stage performing arts.

The event had its start-up pains to be sure, but these were compensated by a grand young figure as violin soloist, Augustin Hadelich. With his lyrical tones, never beefy, the tall German-American virtuoso played the socks off this great landmark among concertos, seemingly the master of the many technical challenges offered. And he contributed his own adept cadenza (solo display segment) for the opening movement, calling it “a chance for a more personal reflection.”

By way of encore he followed with a thoroughly American country-western work full of giddy rustic-fiddler swoops—–Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk—-that evoked yet another wave of ovations. At that point, we were about ready to jump up and sing in his honor the timeless folk song “Ach, Du lieber Augustin!”

If there was a mar on the evening, it was the brass section. Forced into a 15-month silence, the brass tried to make up for it overnight via overachieving and sounding out fortissimo. Does Music Director Salonen prefer it that way?

The four SFS horns however were at their best in their very German brass chorales of Richard Strauss’ pastoral “Serenade for Winds,” tuned perfectly to one another. These chorales permeate the repertory of others including Schumann, von Weber and of course the operatic Wagner. They balanced flawlessly with the woodwinds in this 13-piece ensemble.

Coming from British composer Daniel Kidane, 34, his “Be Still” was very modern and very soft, in the vein of Takemitsu or Arvo Pärt. “Time loses its function,” Salonen explained in introducing this all-strings exercise in pianissimo, with soothing sustained chords. The eight-minute piece is a statement about the extended lockdown, punctuated by a percussionist (Bryce Leafman) drawing a bow over metallic resonators, eerily and very quietly. Zen was back in full flower.

MUSIC NOTES—Counting the encore, the June 17 concert ran 90 minutes, the same amount of music as in conventional pre-Covid concerts. There is speculation that the SFS is sounding out the sentiments of patrons (and the unions) whether they prefer such no-intermission concerts during the regular season, at least on certain midweek nights where the next day’s office work is a factor. Also significant this spring has been the total absence of traditional white-tie outfits on the (male) musicians…Management announced that most of the S.F. Symphony players have been vaccinated.

San Francisco Symphony in concert under Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director, June 17-18, Davies Symphony Hall, S.F. No intermission. For info: (415) 864-6000. Or go online: www.sfsymphony.org.

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