Pablo Heras-Casado Conducts the San Francisco Symphony in Lully, Adès and Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony, Leila Josefowicz plays the Stravinsky Concerto
In the rather too large historical canon of unnecessary musical deaths, I've always been sorry that Jean-Baptiste Lully stabbed himself in the foot with his conducting staff during a concert. He was at the height of his powers, and the resulting infection killed him. Lully's music conveys an innate danceable grace that most Baroque music lacks — and a very human sense of sentiment — a sweet nostalgia rather like Mendelssohn's, in fact. Pablo Heras-Casado's program last Friday at the SFS was deliberately laid out as a neoclassic feast.