The programming for the San Francisco Symphony's two appearances at the Proms, under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, seemed carefully planned to showcase both the orchestra's virtues and Tilson Thomas's clean, no-nonsense approach. Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony (which formed the second half of Saturday's concert) and Mahler's Seventh (performed on Sunday) are both works of ambiguity, their finales, in particular, presenting interpretative challenges. Theodor Adorno saw the forced jubilation of the Mahler as undermining the rest of the work and Rostropovich once said of the Shostakovich that 'anyone who thinks the finale is a glorification is an idiot'. Tilson Thomas took, by and large, an objective approach which was, I suppose, a safe bet. It was not, however, universally effective.
Saturday's concert opened with Ives' Third Symphony fascinatingly contrasted with the final scene of Richard Strauss's Salome. After the clean lines, modest orchestration and almost naïve dissonances (the wind often providing counterpoints simply on 'wrong' notes, rather than harmonically determined dissonance) of the Ives, the battalions of brass, wind and percussion joining the orchestra for the Strauss seemed to be bringing with them all the baggage of what by 1905, the year of Salome's completion, was the over-ripe, millennium-long European tradition.
However, Tilson Thomas, whose performance of the Ives had been almost ideal in its lithe, flowing and unsentimental clarity, brought much the same approach to the Strauss. In his programme note, Michael Kennedy quoted Strauss's description of his third opera as 'a scherzo with a fatal conclusion'; Strauss had also once encouraged his interpreters to 'conduct Salome and Elektra as if they were by Mendelssohn: Fairy Music'. These remarks, made partly tongue-in-cheek and partly to give singers a fighting chance to be heard, seem to have informed this performance. The conductor was indeed unusually sensitive to his Salome, only really letting the band off the leash when she wasn't singing.
It meant that, on the whole, Deborah Voigt was allowed to project successfully over the orchestra (inevitably she did get swallowed up by some of Strauss's larger waves of sound) but also led to some of the juicier moments almost passing unnoticed; I particularly missed the opportunity to linger on the horn's trill which accompanies Salome's final phrase, before the final tortuously dissonant rendition of the main theme, which was likewise given short shrift.
On the whole, Voigt gave a satisfying performance. Her voice has lost some of its shine and there was the occasional wobble intonation-wise, but it is still an impressive instrument and she brought dramatic conviction to her performance. She spat out her mocking phrases to Jochanaan with suitable contempt and, despite a couple of not entirely successful floated pianissimos, had a good stab at representing the tenderness of Salome's twisted love.
Incidentally, for those who wondered why the Albert Hall organ was passed over by the BRSO and Jansons on Wednesday in their 'Also Sprach Zarathustra', the answer came here as the unruly beast was unleashed, its unsubtle interjections bringing an unwelcome hint of Hammer Horror to Strauss's ultra-refined orchestration, making a mockery of its entry as Salome describes hearing 'geheimnisvolle Musik'.
Tilson Thomas's approach paid dividends in his Shostakovich. Although the Fifth Symphony was daringly emotional, composed and first performed as it was at the height of Stalin's Terror, this tightly controlled - and, one should add, fantastically well executed - performance was made all the more affecting in the way it eschewed heart-on-sleeve sentimentality. The more coolly scored episodes came off particularly well: the dialogue between flute and horn in the first movement's recapitulation and the beautiful wind solos against almost imperceptibly hushed, feather-light bed of string tremolandi in the Largo were particularly effective. The whole performance was characterised by lucid textures and some excellent playing, especially from the woodwind. The Scherzo was slow to pick up and seemed to do so only after Stephen Paulson's bassoon solo, which was so wonderfully subversive that it seemed to give the other players license to loosen up a bit. The relatively straight-laced and technically superlative rendition of the Finale put the seal on the validity of Tilson Thomas's approach, made clear by his totally straight, slightly detached beat as the movement reached its anti-apotheosis.
By and large, the same interpretation was applied to Mahler's Seventh, performed in the second concert. Here, however, despite the same virtues of excellent technical delivery and clarity, the objectivity of the approach was less consistently successful. The performance got off to a shaky start after, somewhat embarrassingly, everything had to wait for latecomers to find their places in the choir (the second movement was likewise delayed, as latecomers were ushered to their places) and despite the theatricality of some of Tilson Thomas's gestures on the podium, the rendition remained a little earthbound; the martial sequences were despatched a little too swiftly, though the cool beauty of the quieter episodes came off well.
The first Nachtmusik was admirable for its transparent textures but just seemed a little too controlled and polite. These characteristics also kept the twisted waltz of the third movement Scherzo from registering with quite the macabre and diabolic effect it should. Tilson Thomas conducted as though this really was Johann Strauss or Léhar, rather than the gruesomely contorted parody of those composers it should be. That said, the trombones really grabbed hold of their big moment and Paulson and his bassoonist colleagues really relished their off-beat accompaniments.
The rather different, second Nachtmusik sequence, a slightly gentler parody with its mandolin and guitar solos, was more successful. The Finale, however, proved most problematic. This is probably one of Mahler's weakest symphonic movements and in its forced jubilation and ramshackle, episodic composition it requires a certain amount of help in performance. The approach here was, as in the rest of the symphony, to present it in an extremely well played but, essentially, non-interventionist way. It was left, then, to stand on its own two feet without the support of a strong interpretative vision; without that support it seemed to tumble into confusion.
Tilson Thomas and his orchestra's recording of the Seventh has been very well received. I can imagine on record this is an interpretation that would bear repeated listening: it is technically superb without any unduly off-putting quirks of interpretation. Live, though, the approach just didn't quite convince.
By Hugo Shirley