Alban Berg’s 1935 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, beautifully rendered by soloist Gil Shaham and the San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, was dedicated “To the memory of an Angel” – Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and the Architect Walter Gropius. Berg adored Manon, and her death at age 18 from polio was the inspiration and trigger for an intense period of composing, creating the concerto in four months, much more quickly than he usually worked. The piece is his musical expression of feelings he couldn’t put into words. Gustav Mahler, whose 1901-02 Symphony No. 5 was the second work of the evening, was a harbinger of 20th century “new” music, a synthesis of his previous more experimental symphonies and traditional classical roots. It took some fiddling and revisions for Mahler to get the piece to a place he thought would be acceptable to audiences, but the result was a work that charted new ground for the new century. Maestro MTT and the orchestra gave a lush and emotionally charged performance of this groundbreaking piece, without which Berg and others may have composed quite different music.
