San Francsico Symphony Orchestra

Music

Michael Francis debuts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

One of the consolations of living in a successful middle-class society, I think, is to experience the evaporation of self-consciously plug-ugly proletarian art and music. Many of the last century's early musical compositions seem today unnecessarily obsessed with wheezing 'round the campfire, banging on pots and pans, or otherwise ramming washtub crudities down the listener's throat. Even where it isn't that obvious, the blue-collar bias can be detected: "Barefoot Songs" by Tubin. "Hammersmith" by Holst, Milhaud's "Le Boeuf sur le toit,” and of course, almost everything by Copland. Just under the surface of most music from the 1920s and 30s, you could say, lies a post office mural. And like post office murals, sometimes it is great art, sometimes propaganda, and sometimes just not worthy of restoration.

Music

Eschenbach and David Fray with the San Francisco Symphony: Dalbavie, Beethoven, and Brahms

There's an improvisational mindset in the American character which can sometimes be hard on a European musician who composes according to a "system". We are a nation of pragmatic, rather than theoretical listeners. We tend to disregard instruction manuals and learn by getting behind the wheel. We expect music to be ergonomic. Dodecaphony isn't driveable, we find, so we leave it on the lot. The tires are twelve-sided, and all the knobs and levers are in the wrong places. Sorry! No sale. And now we distrust everything cerebral coming down the pike!

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