HITTING THE HIGH NOTES

By Michael Walsh

IT CAN TAKE SEASONS FOR AN ORchestra to reflect the skills and tastes of a new conductor. Older players have to retire, and new section principals be appointed; in rehearsal, players must learn to deliver, say, a richer string sound or a brassier brass. That's why what is going on in San Francisco is creating such a buzz in the classical-music world. It has been just six months since Michael Tilson Thomas inherited the baton from the sober Swede Herbert Blomstedt, but already the San Francisco Symphony has undergone a transformation. Woodwinds dance merrily, the brass resonates nobly, and the strings speak as one; overall, performances crackle with newfound vigor.

Tilson Thomas' wizardry is on display in the orchestra's recent U.S. tour, which ended last week, and in a smashing new recording of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet recently released on the BMG label. Back at home in San Francisco, the maestro is regarded with the kind of fervor usually reserved for rock stars. The city is festooned with banners bearing his likeness, subscriptions are up 10%, and seats for Tilson Thomas' concerts are impossible to get. An openly gay man, he has also been hailed as an articulate and high-profile spokesman for San Francisco's large and powerful gay community.

In rehearsal, his relationship with his orchestra seems more that of a primus inter pares than a Prussian autocrat from the old school. He talks frequently, calling up vivid images to illustrate his interpretative intention. "This is an old fiddler who can hardly pick up his instrument," he says during the rehearsal of a plaintive string passage in Mahler. "And then he gets stronger and stronger, and suddenly it all comes back!" When he's happy with the ways things are going, he lets the band know. "You make the music," he shouts. "I listen to it and adjust it."

Although his competition for the job reportedly included such renowned conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Marek Janowski, Tilson Thomas was the favorite from the outset. He first guest-conducted the orchestra back in 1974, and over the years had led it more than 100 times. His easy and knowing way with music as disparate as Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Ravel and Stravinsky ballets, and American music from Charles Ives to Steve Reich also pleased the search committee, as did the fact that Tilson Thomas is an American.

Born in Los Angeles, the conductor comes from a theatrical background. His grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky were stars of the Yiddish theater in New York City, and young Michael grew up in a musical household. Boyhood piano lessons were followed at the University of Southern California by studies with pianist John Crown and composer-conductor Ingolf Dahl, a summer stint as an assistant at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in 1966, and an appointment as William Steinberg's assistant at the Boston Symphony Orchestra three years later.

Then, that October, came the myth-making break every young conductor dreams about: he was called in at mid-concert to replace the ailing Steinberg during a guest performance at Lincoln Center. Just as had happened 26 years earlier when his mentor Leonard Bernstein stepped in for Bruno Walter, the young stand-in performed brilliantly, the critics raved, and a new star moved to the front ranks of American conductors. His recordings were praised, and the Buffalo Philharmonic named him its musical director in 1971. But a 1978 marijuana bust at Kennedy airport tarnished his reputation, and by the time Tilson Thomas left the U.S. to become principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1987, he had become yesterday's sensation.

Now a vigorous 51, the prodigal has returned, older but wiser. "It was time for me to come back to the U.S. in my prime, or at least my majority," he says. "I find myself rediscovering all the love I had for music in the beginning, except that now I have experience as well." He is bursting with ideas, including plans to replace the orchestra's annual June festival with a more adventurous celebration of American music. He is also renotating and recording some of Aaron Copland's thorny early works, as well as continuing work on a major orchestral composition of his own. With his new-found maturity, not to mention a five-year contract, the wunderkind has grown up at last.