I approached the latest Super Audio CD release from the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas with some hesitation. The arrival of the beautifully packaged and fully notated SACD recalled the pleasant but ultimately unsatisfying memory of the concerts at Davies Symphony Hall from which the majority of the present selection was derived.
Gorging on hors d'oeuvres and then missing the main meal was my lasting impression of the original experience, despite the charming and sometimes reflective qualities of the musical bon bons included in the delectable bill of fare. We know that was the point, after all, for there was never really a there meant to be there, but it was something of a slog sitting through an evening primarily made of highlights and encore pieces.
Celebrating the lost art of enjoying classical vignettes on their own smaller-scaled terms did dovetail rather nicely with the celebration of MTT's 20th season with the orchestra, and it added some needed cohesion to an unavoidably disjointed program. It is good to find the present compilation makes better sense as a recorded concert (which was the original idea, anyway) now that it can be heard at the listener's own discretion.
Playing it through from start to finish, especially at full volume, might emphasize the still disjointed nature of the different tracks, but the editors have carefully paced the disc, starting and ending with strong selections, and placing another wake-up number in the middle. That turning-point selection, "The Alcotts" from Henry Brant's/Charles Ives' A Concord Symphony, seems a little bit like an iceberg in the Sea of Tranquility, and it was also extracted from a previously released performance of the whole work. Much as I admired that recording (also live from DSH), it sticks out as a jarring mismatch here. The home listener can easily skip it, program it out, or better yet, enjoy it alone.
There wouldn't be any harm in listening to the gorgeously recorded and performed concert simply as background music, either. The familiar strains of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise and Faure's Pavane flow nicely with lesser-known but equally reflective pieces by Grieg and Delius.
Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye brilliantly opens Blumine by Gustav Mahler, which started as a theatrical piece and was later incorporated into the composer's Symphony No. 1 (then later dropped). It is an exquisite moment, and the surging and lush strings of the SFS that accompany him make it my personal favorite on the disc.
Yuja Wang starts the concert with the Scherzo from Litolff's Concerto symphonique No. 4, and MTT and his merry band end the parade with a rousing Cortege de Bacchus from Sylvia by Leo Delibes.
I can well imagine New Year's Eve with Masterpieces in Miniature on the CD player while we savor other morsels from the past. (Available for download from iTunes and from shopsfsymphony.org.)
"Masterpieces in Miniature"
?San Francisco Symphony
CD
$23.31
http://www.shopsfsymphony.org/shop/product.php?productid=2067&cat=83&page=1