United States Numerous: Nicola Benedetti (violin), San Francisco Symphony / Karina Canellakis (conductor). Davies Symphony Corridor, San Francisco, 9.10.2026. (HS)
Victoria Borisova-Ollas – The Kingdom of Silence
Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No.2 in G minor
Encore: Jay Ungar – ‘Ashokan Farewell’ (unaccompanied)
Rachmaninoff – Symphonic Dances
Karina Canellakis, now an annual customer to the San Francisco Symphony conductor’s podium, retains chalking up hits. Her capacity to cost up the orchestra with out shedding any of the mandatory balances makes her stand out from a parade, to date this season, of conductors who inspired over-the-top blasts and tough edges of their packages.
Her lineup this time mirrored the Russian roots of its three items. The vary stretched from a sonically eerie 2003 tone poem by Victoria Borisova-Ollas and the dazzle of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.2 within the first half to the shifting rhythms and orchestral colours of late Rachmaninoff. Her athletic conducting model communicates what she needs from the music with physique language as a lot as her baton. She drew effusive and crisp enjoying. When acceptable, a chilled palm stored the sound inside bounds.
The bubbling violinist Nicola Benedetti introduced her personal mixture of pinpoint technical precision and go-for-it expression to the concerto. She will not be one to face nonetheless whereas enjoying both: she was virtually dancing to the extra rhythmic parts of the concerto. One way or the other, she by no means let that really feel exaggerated, simply bringing life to the stage in addition to musical acumen.
The Prokofiev concerto opens with the violin ruminating on a easy minor triad. When Canellakis sneaked within the orchestra beneath it, the music started to intertwine with a simplicity that by some means felt prefer it was discovering itself. When the second theme arrived, Benedetti framed the Romantic melody with class. Within the quieter second motion, the delicate rhythmic steadiness between pizzicato strings and the soloist’s tune created a seraphic environment. Prokofiev’s harmonic shifts arrived with none additional emphasis, the virtuosic adornments had been performed gently and the subtlety was breathtaking. Then, within the vigorous finale, Benedetti grabbed the second to point out off, and it made for an appropriately flashy end.
After these, the encore calmed issues down with an unaccompanied association of ‘Ashokan Farewell’, American composer Jay Ungar’s fiddle piece. Although it’s best often known as the theme music of the 1991 PBS documentary The Civil Struggle, the Scotland-born Benedetti stated it conjured up a Scottish people tune for her. The association started with virtuosic prospers earlier than settling into the straightforward tune, to which she added double- and triple-stops with out shedding the melodic thread.
Good as all that was, the night’s spotlight was Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, a late work (1940) for the Russian-born composer who spent his final 25 years residing in the USA. Its 35-minute span and three-movement format felt extra like a coherent symphony than a group of brilliantly orchestrated ballet music (which the piece began out to be, however that’s one other story). Canellakis managed to corral these rhythmic incidents right into a logical and coherent narrative.
Particularly interesting had been the totally different colours she present in every dance phase. Within the opening motion, the woodwinds’ sound after they entered was ravishing, and every of the solos exacted a unique expression. It was a mesmerizing few moments, and when the strings picked up the identical music a way of vacation spot started to type.
Every new dance appeared to emerge from a hyperlink with the earlier one in a means that felt like new discoveries. Rachmaninoff’s assortment of authentic music might be mistaken for folks songs or different composers’ waltzes, however they’re authentic, together with a number of borrowed from his early works. Canellakis normal each with a freshness that would flip daring in a single and hesitant within the subsequent, smooth right here and stomping there, completely satisfied at one second after which introspective. The enjoying by means of all this was thrilling, the assured sound of an excellent orchestra flexing however by no means to extremes. It felt like your entire orchestra was improvising as one.
Born and educated in Russia, Victoria Borisova-Ollas has lived in Stockholm since transferring there in her 20s. The Kingdom of Silence explores moments earlier than loss of life in its personal means and depends on tone shade to do it as a lot as Rachmaninoff did. The 14-minute piece, beforehand carried out by this orchestra in 2006 beneath Vladimir Ashkenazy, began off with a way of repose, barely audible celesta and glockenspiel towards faraway violin tremolos, and steadily rose into some horrifying episodes earlier than settling into the peaceable music with which it started.
Alongside the best way, Borisova interrupts the circulate with fast trumpet fanfares, rumbling undercurrents and string glissandos. The sense of harshness arising and at last quieting got here by means of vividly.
Harvey Steiman
