San Francisco Sym (SFS) & MTT - 1st concert

I attended the opening concert of SFS and MTT tonight. It opened with a short piece by Copland "Fanfare for the Common Man". It is a familiar piece, but you never know it is composed by Copland. Looks like I have to listen to more pieces by American composers. The second piece was Petruschka by Stravinsky. I am not a fan of Stravinsky. Petruschka was also not my cup of tea. So I didn't pay much attention (plus I was quite sleepy).

The second half was Tchaikovsky Sym No.4 - a shallow piece. I enjoyed the sound of SFS produced. MTT was also putting much into it. The loud ending gained the approval of the audience. But I wasn't impressed.

The encore pieces were nothing special, except that one of them was "Choi Wun Chui Yuet" (colourful cloud chasing the moon) - this is a PR thing by MTT. The other two pieces were by Bizet and Brahms.

MTT's conducting was full of energy. But the orchestra was not paying full attention to him: the brass and the percussion were not together in the Copland.

I always look at the last row of the 1st violin to determine how good the orchestra is. And the lady sitting there failed to impress me.

I hope the two concerts on Friday and Saturday would be better. I very much look forward to the Mahler on Saturday.