Given in its eagerly-awaited world premiere performances by Yuja Wang, the San Francosco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg’s outstanding Piano Concerto No. 3 (2020-22) got a spectacular start this week at the Davies Symphony Hall. Destined to become a repertory item, the new concerto fuses together the composer’s virtuosic grasp of the musical form, exuberantly pianistic writing and riveting orchestral mastery, giving rise to a thirty minute score of special magnificence.
Although cast in three movements, the concerto does not follow the usual fast-slow-fast scheme. Instead, the score consists of three somewhat self-standing entities, tied together with shared musical material.
”At some point, I started thinking about those three movements coming off almost as if they were three concertos. Instead of the traditional balance between first movement, slow movement and finale, the movements are all quite compact, each in a different way.
Each movement opens with an intense dialogue between piano and strings, which then gives over to further dialogue between piano and winds, followed by a synthesis. I wanted to keep my orchestral writing more disciplined than, say, in the Second [Piano] Concerto, which was scored for a larger line-up; there was a lot of noise in that piece. Thus, I’ve experimented with some filigree in the new concerto”, the composer recalled in our recent talk.
Tailor-made to Yuja Wang, to whom the score is dedicated, Piano Concerto No. 3 is virtuoso affair for all involved.
”In terms of technique, Yuja is certainly one of the most amazing pianists of our time. She has come to a point, where nothing seems to pose a challenge for her any more. The speed, the accuracy, those elements are really on the surface of her artistry. Therefore it would have been far-fetched to write some kind of contemplative piece for her”, Lindberg pointed out.
Regarding to the concerto’s thematic line-up there are no main themes nor secondary themes for each movement. Instead, there are several recurring groups of motives and gestures, developed organically in time and texture throughout the entire three-movement span. In genuinely Lindbergian fashion, both the solo part and the orchestral writing are remarkably detailed. Interlocked in the most imaginative ways, the keyboard lines and the instrumental parts are awash with imagination, each contributing to the concerto’s terrific overall design.
Conceived in three tableaux, the movements are bound together by their shared opening textures. However, in each case, the music flows into a different direction, as if three parallel universes being born from shared parameters inherent in the instrumental line-up of a solo piano, duple winds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two percussion and strings.
The electrifying opening movement is set in motion with the soloist’s gorgeous opening statement of chords and scalar passages, leading to a long-held harmonic field, joined by strings. Out of the scintillating hue, motives emerge and permute in the most ingenious ways. Developed with agility by the soloist and the orchestra, the movement eventually lands on a tremendous, written-out cadenza. With a brief recap of the opening textures, the movement comes to its close.
A series of ascending musical lines set the second movement going. After a spellbinding build-up, a shorter second cadenza is heard. From here, the instrumental fabric becomes distilled into chamber music, almost, as the soloist and her orchestral colleagues are joined in subtle discussions. Yet, the movement is not allowed to end in tranquility, for there is an astounding orchestral tutti waiting around the corner. Thus, the last forty bars of the movement open up to whole another universe, one of tremendous white heat.
The third movement is the ultimate feast of virtuosity. Kinetic and resplendent, the solo part is a celebration of all things pianistic. In similar vein, Lindberg finds endless joys in writing for orchestra, including wonderful musical moments for timpani, bass drum and pitched percussion, most notably crotales, with gongs and metal plates added. With added rhythmic momentum, the concerto ends with a huge keyboard climb, with the soloist reaching the top of the instrument and giving the final chord a roaring triple forte, echoed by the full orchestra.
A thunderous world premiere for Lindberg’s concerto, the performance by Yuja Wang, the orchestra and Salonen was nothing short of triumph. As a longtime friend and champion of the composer, Salonen knows the music inside out, guiding the orchestra seamlessly through each tempo change and every harmonic detail, while keeping the machinery immaculately interlocked with the soloist. Performed with craft and commitment by the San Francisco Symphony musicians, the orchestral textures were abundant with inspiration and finesse.
In Wang’s hands, the solo part was set alight with each and every musical virtue embedded. The material was laid down with superlative articulation and utmost brilliance, resulting in pure, rousing joy of music-making.
Following thunderous standing ovation, the Wang returned to the stage to deliver two substantual encores, Philip Glass’s wistfully agile Etude No. 6 (1994) and the chase-scene-of-a-finale from Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 (1939-42), both given in cracking performances.
Pre-echoing the splendor of the Lindberg concerto, Carl Nielsen’s Helios Overture, op. 17 (1903) heralded the programme with its dazzling orchestral tapestries. The composer’s first take on the symphonic poem, Helios may not be as eventful as Richard Strauss’s proto-cinematic forays to the genre, but its gradually unfolding orchestral dramaturgy is utmost evocative, giving rise to an extraordinary ten-minute sounding canvas.
The music opens with ppp low-string pedal-point, providing harmonic ground for inspired horn calls and suble ostinati in the upper strings and winds. Out of the hue, first melodies emerge and a gorgeous climax is built, culminating in blazing trumpet fanfares and timpani rolls. Following the majestic central passage, a swift fugue ensues, bridging into the contemplative coda, where gentle solo lines are sounded out by wind and brass soloists, before the music lands on a flickering cello drone and goes out.
A ravishing outing from the orchestra and Salonen, Helios lived up to its title, setting the auditorium ablaze under a swift sonic sunrise. From the very treshold of silence to the symphonic zenith, the SFSO delivered an absolutely stirring reading, guided by Salonen’s well-shaped vision of the score. Inspired by the performance, one can but wonder, why this gem of orchestral music is not standard repertoire.
Béla Bartók’s final masterpiece, Concerto for Orchestra (1943/1945), in its turn, has been dearly loved by audiences and performers alike ever since its 1944 Boston Symphony world premiere under Serge Koussevitzky. Fashioned in the manner of a five-movement arch, constituting a remarkable re-invention of the symphonic scheme, the score comes off both as a showpiece par excellence and as a skillfully devised piece of sounding architecture.
Although the composer set out to write a symphony for Koussevitzky, the music was not to appear under such title. Instead, as suggested by his publisher, Bartók went forth to call his score Concerto for Orchestra, highlighting the abundant orchestral virtuosity at play in the music.
Scored for a large orchestra of triple winds and brass, apart from four horns and a solo tuba, timpani, two percussion, two harps and strings, Concerto for Orchestra makes great use of its extended instrumental line-up, in terms of dynamics, counterpoint and harmonic colour alike.
The Introduzione first movement is primed with a hazy Andante non troppo section. The celli and basses establish an ominous opening motive, while the muted upper stings are engaged in ghost-like tremolo lines. A solo flute makes its two brief appearances, before sounding out its first actual melody. From here, an orchestral build-up begins, as the music is transformed into an Allegro vivace of formidable virtuosity for full orchestra.
Marked Allegro scherzando, Bartók’s second movement, Giuco delle coppie is a witty affair. Introduced with a side-drum pattern and a bassoon duet, the movement consists of jest-like musical conversations between various instrumental groups. As the pace mounts, the full orchestra becomes engaged in the game, and a wild tutti is heard. On the closing bars, the lonely side-drum brings the movement to its end.
The central Elegia is one of the finest examples of Bartók’s trademark night music. A mixture of dream and nightmare, the movement harks back to the shadowland realm of the composer’s only opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (1911/1912-21) and its gloomy Pool of Tears sixth scene. Woven into the music, allusions to the opera are heard, in a profoundly sorrowful setting, resulting in a deeply moving musical tale.
In contrast, the Intermezzo interrotto fourth movement provides biting comic relief, as Bartók sets out to make fun of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (1941) by quoting the music in splendidly stumbling manner. A dexterous movement for the orchestra, the Intermezzo is pure jest.
In the Finale, all stops are pulled out, as the full orchestra is summoned to the wildest of dances, including a powerhouse fugue. A stunning conclusion of a stunning score, Bartók’s orchestral feast signs out with resplendence.
A fantastic performance from the orchestra and Salonen, this was a Concerto for Orchestra to remember. Clad in astonishing array of colour, presented in ever-translucent counterpoint, the score was driven by propulsive rhythms, with each change in tempi carefully executed, all derived from Salonen’s immaculate sonic blueprint. A riotous celebration of orchestral virtuosity from the San Francisco Symphony players, the performance was one for the books.
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
Carl Nielsen: Helios Overutre, op. 17 (1903) for orchestra
Magnus Lindberg: Piano Concerto No. 3 (2020-22), world premiere and San Francisco Symphony commission
Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 (1943/1945)
Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA
Saturday 15 October, 7.30 pm
© Jari Kallio
AIM - Adventures in Music 