Sebastian Lang-Lessing with the San Antonio Symphony. Below, Olga Kern, in a portrait by Chris Lee. 

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September 23, 2017 Some musical works are genuinely  revolutionary when they are  introduced and continue to sound  fresh, relevant and compelling for  generations – or centuries – to come.  Two French works, Hector Berlioz’s  Symphonie fantastique and Claude  Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of  a  Faun rank high among that elite  company, and both were given superb  performances by the San Antonio  Symphony under music director  Sebastian Lang-Lessing when the  orchestra opened its classical  subscription season, Sept. 22 in the  Tobin Center. Between them came a  first-rate account of a second-rate  staple, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano  Concerto No. 2, with the splendid  Russian-American pianist Olga Kern  doing the solo honors.  The more one hears Berlioz’s  phantasmagorical symphony, the more  modern it sounds. Indeed, one could  make a case that this work opened the  door to the modern era. The audience  for the first performance, in Decmeber  of 1830, included Franz Liszt, who was  moved by the work’s bold effects to  embark on his own proto-modern  experimentations. (The 1830 version  of the score has been lost; the work is  now known in its significantly revised  version, published in 1845 but dating  in large part from 1831-2, when Berlioz  was in Italy on his Prix de Rome  fellowship.)  The Symphonie fantastique remains a frequent presence on orchestral  programs. In recent years, the San Antonio Symphony played it in 2008 (when it was mismanaged by a guest conductor) and again in 2012, when Mr. Lang-Lessing led a sizzling, theatrically vivid account in the Majestic Theater. Five years on, the work took on a different character – much more attentive to subtleties of balance and voicing, and more seamless in its inexorable momentum than the 2012 performance had been.  The differences testify to the conductor’s artistic growth, the steady improvement in the orchestra (especially the strings, which sounded ravishing this time around),  and to the richly resonant but focused acoustics of the Tobin Center’s H-E-B Performance Hall, where even the finest subtleties could be heard – and where the fortissimo C-major chord at the very end could blast you out of your seat. What fun! (For this concert, the shell was set up at its full depth, projecting a darker sound than the shallower shell and more-forward seating the orchestra uses most often.) The orchestra sounded glorious from first to last. The strings poured out lustrous sound that never seemed forced. (An extra desk of violas helped, especially in the third movement.) The third-movement dialogue between English horn (Jennifer Berg) and offstage oboe (Paul Lueders) was beautifully paced, perfectly balanced and sonically lovely. The brass were magisterial in the fourth movement. There were virtually no weaknesses. How does an orchestra with a bologna-sandwich budget produce a pâté de foie gras sound?  Debussy’s Prelude (the other two movements originally planned never came about) was revolutionary in its time (1894) for its tonal ambiguity and free approach to rhythm.  Some consider this 10-minute piece, inspired by a Mallarmé poem, to be the launchpad for modernism proper. But it’s perfectly fine to think of it only as a shower of pure eroticism and delicately shimmering colors. Mr. Lang-Lessing took a slowish tempo that heightened the sense of expectation. Principal flute Mark Teplitsky's rich tone and  natural timing were deeply pleasurable in his starring role. He was abetted by splendid work from horns Jeff Garza and Adedeji Ogunfolu, by strings so silken they could have been featured in a lingerie ad, and by Mr. Lueders, who in this piece produced a narrow but assertive tone that contributed a welcome piquancy.  Rachmaninoff’’s fully mature music reveals a craftsman of the first order. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Ms. Kern’s vehicle in her 2016 appearance with this orchestra, is one example. The second piano concerto, dating from the composer’s late 20s, is not in that league. Its orchestral accompaniment is simpolitically cushy, and its gushing tunes. including the one that Frank Sinatra later popularized in song, are overschmaltzed. One must grudgingly acknowledge that the work is nonetheless, um, beloved, like Twinkies. Full moon and empty calories.  No complaints, of course, about Ms. Kern. Once again her luxurious, bell-like tone, limitless dexterity, huge power and highly flexible phrasing were fully evident.  The audience rewarded her with a thunderous ovation, and she returned the compliment with an adrenalin-rush encore, Serge Prokofiev’s Etude No. 4.                                                                                                          Mike Greenberg  

San Antonio Symphony, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Olga Kern