Music Reviews

Video editor Gershkow sums up straightforwardly the entire process. “The technical is the hammer and nails, but what the show is really about is the story. If that isn’t good, the rest doesn’t matter a bit. The technology helps us tell the story. In the old days, when technology was kind of simple, you didn’t have as many choices — so you didn’t have as many things that could go wrong. Now it’s much more complicated, but it’s also much better. What you heard and saw in 2001 is a lot different from what you hear and see in 2011.”

In the end, how well has Michael Tilson Thomas been Keeping Score with the San Francisco Symphony and his A/V team?

Says Thomas: “The large mission of this project is to let more people feel close to classical music, without in any way simplifying or dumbing down what the music is about, because I think what’s so extraordinary is its directness and its complexity. Part of my big message is that if you’re alive, you know all you need to know about the message of classical music, because more than any other music, it is about the way life really is.”