2012-04-28

Review: Guest conductor Stphane Denve and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet collaborate at Davies
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Review: Guest conductor Stphane Denve and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet collaborate at Davies
By Richard Scheinin rscheinin@mercurynews.com Poste d: 04/20/2012 12:28:23 PM PDT Update d: 04/21/2012 03:21:39 AM PDT

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After casually blazing through the bullet-train finale to Camille Saint-Sans' Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, looked tickled. The pianist bowed toward his cheering fans at Davies Symphony Hall, revealing a gleaming pendant, which peeked out from behind his open-necked collar -- a neat symbol for the dazzle and opulence of the performance, the piece and this entire program of French and French-driven works. If you enjoy the sparkle, the fragrances, the contours and colors of "the French school," this program, which repeats through Sunday, is a nobrainer. For the most part, this listener ate it up. The orchestra is conducted by Stphane Denve, a figure of rising note on the international circuit and a product of the Paris Conservatory -- as is Thibaudet, as was Saint-Sans. It's so very French, this program, and yet it's ultimate star -- surprise! -- is a Russian: Igor Stravinsky, whose "Firebird" captured Parisian audiences a century ago with its dazzle, its colors and magical effects, at once embodying Russian exotica and French chic.

Click phot o t o enlarge

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Photo courtesy San Francisco Symphony. ( San Francisco Symphony )

Denve has programmed the "Firebird" Suite, from 1919, Stravinsky's distillation of his earlier score for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes at the Paris Opera. Not to pigeon-hole Denve, but one suspects this Frenchman has significant insights into Stravinsky's courtship of the French. Thursday's performance was one of elegant contours in high definition, with gleaming atmospherics and a consistently shapely flow. It closed the concert, outshining the rest of a good program. "Firebird" outlines the Russian fairy tale of Prince Ivan, wandering at night through a forest and coming upon an enchanted garden, where he discovers the mythic bird. Denve began with coaxed sounds, first from the bass viols, then slithering through the orchestra: melody like steam escaping from silent underground caverns. Flutes soon leaped about, flickering like fireflies, and the Firebird's dance with Prince Ivan unfolded with chamberlike precision, featuring a chorale of winds. The "Lullaby" rode on the bassoon's prayerful melody -- principal Stephen Paulson was terrific -- while the Finale revealed the Firebird in its winged splendor: sun-dappled, a bloodrush of color and motion. The program began two hours earlier with Hector Berlioz's "Roman Carnival" Overture. This piece, too, felt authentic: lilting rhythms, with perfect pizzicato

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accompaniment to the gorgeous English horn melody, played by Russ deLuna. There's a certain French idiosyncrasy about Berlioz, and here it was in full flavor: one imagined the composer as a boy in the French countryside, discovering music through his encounters with rural bands and flute-playing shepherds. One problem: There wasn't enough dynamic variance; the softs, for instance, weren't nearly soft enough. Later in the program, Albert Roussel's Symphonic Fragments from "The Spider's Feast" was more exquisitely rendered: tickling atmospherics, reminiscent of Debussy or Ravel, with silky textures from the orchestra, performing on tiptoe. Denve has been championing Roussel in a series of recordings for the Naxos label, and this was fine-spun stuff -- but a curio, this ballet music, even at 20 minutes in length. Saint-Sans' concerto was appropriately flamboyant: rippling piano motion from Thibaudet, cresting in waves, flowingly sensuous. Shadowed by the orchestra, the pianist was both dancer and gunslinger, though a little loose with the sustain pedal, in the opening Allegro animato. He produced amazing harp-like effects in the Andante, which features a pentatonic song attributed by the composer to boatmen on the Nile. (Saint-Sans composed the concerto, nicknamed "Egyptian," while vacationing in Luxor.) A celebrated virtuoso -- and soloist at this work's premiere in 1896 -- he once said the Finale requires "fingers of steel." Not a problem for Thibaudet, whose fingers were a blur as he dispatched those final bullet-train flurries up

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2012-04-28

Review: Guest conductor Stphane Denve and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet collaborate at Davies

steel." Not a problem for Thibaudet, whose fingers were a blur as he dispatched those final bullet-train flurries up the keyboard. It was dazzling. It was opulent. Just like that pendant on his neck. Final note: For an encore, Thibaudet chose something sparing and refined, Frederic Mompou's "Jeunes filles au jardin" ("Girls in the garden"). The performance was clear, fragrant, jazzy. And seated in a chair at the back of the orchestra was Denve, the conductor, listening in. Clearly, he's a fan.
Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069.

San Francisco Symphony

Stphane Denve, guest conductor; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano When: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday Where: Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco Tickets: $15-$145, 415-864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org
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