San Francisco Symphony (March 5, 2010)
I bought my tickets for last night’s concert with the San Francisco Symphony last fall when I was under the spell of an almost child-like excitement over this season’s programming of popular masterworks. In particular, the 2009-2010 season has seen the symphonies of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Rachmaninoff, as well as a few other big names from the middle Romantic era. The piece from last night’s concert that motivated my purchase was Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, performed by Christian Tetzlaff—a violinist of modest stature with a powerful sound....