Both conventional and contemporary wisdom about programs for classical music say that pairing two late-Classical symphonies written in Vienna is simply a bad idea: unacceptably monotonous on one hand, unjustly restricted to the dead white men of a minuscule spatiotemporal region on the other. So, what could possibly have been the rationale behind pairing Schubert’s Sixth with Beethoven’s Seventh? Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the San Francisco Symphony answered this question emphatically by presenting a unified vision of the classical symphony after the Eroica. Their shared conception of the two symphonies was infused with vigor yet peppered with charm, taking full advantage of the machined precision of the orchestra’s strings and the lyricism of its winds—notably its new principal flute, Yubeen Kim.
Despite their order on the program and their numbers, Schubert began his Sixth in 1817, four years after the premiere of Beethoven’s Seventh in Vienna. Schubert’s Sixth clearly makes use of Beethoven’s formal innovations: for instance, it lacks a genuine ‘slow movement’, and it has a scherzo in place of the traditional minuet and trio. As a result, Schubert’s Sixth and Beethoven’s Seventh are structural siblings, from their slow but grandiose openings to their lightly lilting second movements. These historical and formal similarities highlight, by contrast, the differences in the symphonies’ characters. Schubert’s Sixth exhibits the stylistic influence of Rossini’s opere buffe, especially in its overture-like first movement and quasi-operatic second movement. The emotional tone of Beethoven’s Seventh is somewhat more dramatic, ranging from the sincere to the exuberant.
The Sixth is not one of Schubert’s best symphonies (if I may say so myself), but Saraste gave it charm enough. Matching his confident stride to the podium, Saraste began the Schubert with a flourish that infused the opening note with an energy begging to burst out of a single dotted half note. Throughout, the performance was highly precise, with sprinkles of drama where they were called for. In the first movement, the tempo never wavered; the energy and excitement came from close attention to the strings’ tone as much as from dynamics. Saraste’s conducting, his hands moving in parallel almost like tai chi, gave the strings a breathy accent as the theme passed between sections, and the strings played the second theme with incredibly precise rhythm.
In the Andante, the strings gave the opening theme just enough breath to make it sound like an aria, with hints of enunciation in the ornaments at the ends of phrases, but it never became fully operatic, and nothing in it could be called rubato. The middle section had an invigorating momentum that carried over into the return of the opening. The scherzo was brisk, its bar (a dotted half) equal to the quarter note of the Andante. Its tight precision made the slight bumps in the E-flat section, though not in its return in A-flat, all the more noticeable as the exception that proved the rule, and its second theme could have been much more luxuriant, with another dash of the Andante’s operatic lilt. In both the scherzo and the finale, the modulations back to the main theme had excellent energy. The finale gives the performers less to work with, but the section of thirds in the winds was charming, and so was the rest.
Saraste took the Vivace of the Beethoven at a red-hot tempo, nearly in one, though it cooled quickly. The movement was vigorous, energetic, and precise, with an incredible flute solo, and the modulations of the development had particular energy. An open E in the second violins marred the recapitulation, but the winds shone again in its D minor section, which Saraste gave room to breathe; the flute and oboe deserve special mention.
The Allegretto was a touch too fast for me, as is popular now, and its articulation was short: any shorter and the notes would have been staccato. (I prefer the grace notes on the beat.) The cello soli was nice but a bit covered, and they could have been a bit more charming without falling into funeral-march territory. The return of the opening section was especially rushed, given its faster notes and the triplets in the winds.
The scherzo again had great energy, at a shockingly fast tempo, though its second theme was again a bit pushed. The horns’ dotted rhythm, trailing off before the end of each B section, was impeccable. The finale followed attacca, at a tempo nearly at the edge of too fast. The horn fanfare was brilliant, but the orchestra pushed the tempo significantly after it, and consistently. It was electrifying all the same, and the push to the end held nothing back: Saraste’s arms looked like a train engine speeding out of the depot.