Like vir­tu­ally all San Fran­cisco Sym­phony con­certs, I attended because there was a new work being played, in this case Israeli-American com­poser Avner Dor­man’s Uriah: The Man The King Wanted Dead. A pro­gram­matic work based on a grue­some Old Tes­ta­ment story, Uriah com­ple­mented the other pro­gram­matic work of the evening, Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Appren­tice, made famous by the Dis­ney animation—but which I had never heard per­formed live, maybe also because of Disney.

Despite my inher­ent dis­like of late Roman­tic music, hands down the Dukas was a bet­ter piece than the Dor­man. Con­tinue read­ing “Review: Pro­gram­matic works at <span class=“caps”>SF</span> Sym­phony: Avner Dor­man (2010) vs. Paul Dukas (1897)” »