Daniele Rustioni's debut with San Francisco Symphony
“Fasten your seat belts,” Daniele Rustioni told the audience from the podium at Davies Symphony Hall. He was about to conduct the San Francisco Symphony in Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, and he wanted everyone to know they were in for something different and unpredictable.
No, it wouldn’t be a wild ride through this familiar work — anything but, in fact. Instead of turbulence or the composer’s reputed “melancholia,” Rustioni, in his SFS debut, wanted to bring a “sunshine light” and “tremendous joy” to a work known for its lyrical and luminous aspect. He added, signaling like a flagman that there was no barrier between the stage and the audience, “We do this together.” It was a touching tribute to the symbiotic delights, for listeners and orchestra, of live music.
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More pensive, even darker matters in Brahms’s first movement didn’t get their full measure, as Rustioni pressed his case for sweetness and light. His podium presence reinforced it. So animated was the conductor that he hopped in the air more than a few times during the evening, bringing a sense of bustling momentum and even a martial rigor to the later material, with the horns and brasses bright but not overwhelming.
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Classical Voice San Francisco, Steven Winn
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