When the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) announced its return to Davies Symphony Hall at the end of last month, the program selections had only been finalized through May 21. All program details have now been finalized. As a result, the remainder of the current season (with hyperlinks to the event pages from which tickets may be purchased) can be summarized as follows:
May 20–21: James Gaffigan will conduct the United States premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen’s “Talisman.” This will be followed by two pieces of chamber music subsequently rearranged for string orchestra. The first of these will be Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 4 “Verklärte Nacht” (transfigured night), originally a string sextet. The program will then conclude with Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” which began as the second movement of his Opus 11 string quartet.
May 27–28: The conductor will be Ken-David Masur, whose father Kurt was a frequent visitor to Davies Symphony Hall. He has prepared a program with a Japan-China-Russia axis. He will begin with Somei Satoh’s “Saga,” followed by “L’Eloignement” (the distance), by Qigang Chen. Chen was born in Shanghai but moved to Paris, where he became Olivier Messiaen’s last student. These two composers rooted in practices from the second half of the last century will be coupled with the nineteenth-century Russia of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; and the concert will conclude with the four-movement serenade in C major that he composed for string ensemble.
June 3–4: Joseph Young will conduct one of the more eccentric Russian undertakings of the twentieth century. In 1967 the Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonzo created the one-act ballet “Carmen Suite” for Maya Plisetskaya, prima ballerina assoluta with the ballet company of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Rather than taking music directly from Georges Bizet’s score for his opera Carmen, the ballet was set to arrangements by Rodion Shchedrin (Plisetskaya’s husband) of selections from that score rearranged for a string orchestra, timpanist, and four percussionists playing an awe-inspiring collection of instruments. The results were, to say the least, provocative; and when the recording was released, it quickly achieved you’re-not-gonna-believe-this status. This performance will probably not be new to many San Francisco residents, since the New Century Chamber Orchestra played it twice under the directorship of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, first in 2011 and again in 2014. This “romp” of a ballet score will be preceded by two more sober offerings, “Banner” by Jessie Montgomery and “An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave” by Carlos Simon.
June 10–11: Joshua Weilerstein (younger brother of cellist Alisa) has prepared what may be called a Bohemian-American program. As one might expect, it will include music by Antonín Dvořák, concluding the program with his E minor serenade for string ensemble. The American on the program will be Florence Price with a performance of the Andante moderato from her G major string quartet, arranged for string ensemble. The program will begin with Bohuslav Martinů's double concerto for two string orchestras, supplemented by piano and timpani. Martinů wrote this piece in 1938 on a commission by Paul Sacher to be performed by the Basel Chamber Orchestra. Within about three years, he escaped the Nazi invasion and became a New Yorker.
June 17–18: Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will return to conduct the final two programs of this abbreviated season. Violinist Augustin Hadelich will be guest soloist for the first of these concerts, performing Leonard Bernstein’s serenade inspired by Plato’s “Symposium.” The program will begin with the United States premiere performance of Daniel Kidane’s “Be Still.” The program will also include the all-strings BWV 1048 concerto in G major by Johann Sebastian Bach, the third of his “Brandenburg” concertos. [updated 5/24, 4:40 p.m.: This program has been changed because SFS will now be able to incorporate wind and brass instruments. “Be Still” will still be given its premiere performance. However, Hadelich will now perform the Opus 77 violin concerto in D major by Johannes Brahms; and the Bach selection will be replaced by the Opus 7 serenade for wind instruments by the young Richard Strauss.]
June 24–25: This program will feature another Montgomery composition, “Strum.” This may be familiar to those that attended the “virtual watch party” hosted by One Found Sound this past November. The program will begin with the Adagietto movement from Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony. The concluding selection will be “Metamorphosen,” which Richard Strauss called a “study,” scored for 23 solo string parts. [updated 5/24, 4:45 p.m.: This program has also been changed. “Metamorphosen” will still be performed. However, there will now be a selection of compositions for brass by Giovanni Gabrieli in arrangements by SFS Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins. The program will conclude with the Opus 97 (third) symphony in E-Flat major (“Rhenish”) by Robert Schumann.]
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