Having used this past weekend to prepare readers for San Francisco Symphony (SFS) performances of both its Chamber Music Series and the “special solo piano recital” by pianist Lang Lang, this seems to be a good time to prepare listeners for other events in Davies Symphony Hall that do not involve SFS. The Great Performers Series will present ten programs, most of which will be solo recitals. However, the season will begin with a piano trio followed by an orchestral performance.
All performances will take place in Davies Symphony Hall. Tickets will be available for purchase through the hyperlinks for the dates; as usual, tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office, which is at the entrance to Davies on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Specifics are as follows:
Thursday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.: The series will begin with a piano trio, each of whose members is also a major solo recitalist. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will share the program with Lisa Batiashvili on violin and cellist Gautier Capuçon. The program will begin with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 8, his first piano trio, composed in the key of C minor and originally given the title “Poème.” This will be followed by Claude Debussy’s only piano trio. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 65, his third piano trio, in F minor.
Sunday, October 25, 2 p.m.: Rafael Payare will conduct the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal following his visit as a guest conductor for SFS in May of 2023. The first half of the program will be devoted entirely to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s only violin concerto, his Opus 35 composed in the key of D major. The second half of the program will shift to the key of E minor for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 93, his tenth symphony.
Tuesday, November 10, 7:30 p.m.: The first solo piano recital in the Series will be performed by Hélène Grimaud. She has prepared a program of two “last” piano sonatas, each of which is a major undertaking unto itself. The first half will be devoted to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 111, composed in the key of C minor. The intermission will be followed by Franz Schubert’s D. 960, composed in the key of B-flat major. It is worth noting that Grimaud prepared a title for her program, which could not have been more informative: The Last Testament!
Monday, November 30, 7:30 p.m.: Violinist Hilary Hahn will be joined at the piano by Yekwon Sunwoo. They, in turn, will be joined by baritone Matthias Goerne for the world premiere of Wir, composed by Reena Esmail on a commission by SFS. The text weaves together German poems by Paul Celan with “interstitial verse by Rebecca Gayle Howell.” The program will begin with Sunwoo accompanying Hahn in a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 24 (fifth) sonata in F major, often known as the “Spring” sonata.
Sunday, January 10, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Emanuel Ax will devote the second half of his program entirely to Frédéric Chopin. He will reflect on a diversity of genres, beginning with the Opus 61 Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat major followed by the Opus 60 Barcarolle in F-sharp major. Ax will then “turn back the clock” for the two nocturnes in Opus 27 and the Opus 31 scherzo, the second piece in this genre, composed in the key of B-flat minor. The first half of the program will also have a “reverse chronology,” beginning with Robert Schumann’s very early (Opus 2) Papillons suite, followed by the four impromptus collected in Franz Schubert’s D. 899, composed towards the end of the year prior to his death.
Tuesday, January 19, 7:30 p.m.: The title of this event is An Evening with Itzhak Perlman. It was conceived by director Dan Sullivan as a multimedia program. Violinist Perlman will be accompanied at the piano by Rohan De Silva. However, under Sullivan’s direction, he will interweave storytelling with personal photographs, along with clips from the documentary film entitled Itzhak.
Monday, March 1, 7:30 p.m.: Each half of pianist Seong-Jin Cho’s solo recital will conclude with music by Sergei Prokofiev. The intermission will be preceded by a selection of ten of the movements in the score for the Romeo and Juliet ballet; and the program will conclude with Prokofiev’s Opus 84, his eighth piano sonata composed in the key of B-flat major. This will make for a more-than-generous abundance of notes, so the program will begin with Jörg Widmann’s “Sonatine facile.” The second half of the program will open with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 396, his second “Fantasia,” a fragment composed in the key of C minor and completed by Maximilian Stadler.
Sunday, April 18, 7:30 p.m.: This will be the first of two consecutive evenings of solo piano recitals. The soloist will be Yuja Wang, who has been visiting Davies almost as long as I have! As of this writing, she has not yet finalized her program.
Monday, April 19, 7:30 p.m.: The pianist for the second evening will be Evgeny Kissin. He has prepared an all-Beethoven program. The second half will be devoted entirely to one of the later compositions, the Opus 120 set of variations, usually known as the “Diabelli Variations.” The first half will begin “almost at the beginning” with the first of the three Opus 2 piano sonatas, composed in the key of F major. This will be followed by the first of the two Opus 27 sonatas, given the title “Quasi una fantasia” and composed in the key of E-flat major.
Alisa Weilerstein with her cello (from the Web page for this season’s Davies performance)
Sunday, May 16, 7:30 p.m.: Cellist Alisa Weilerstein will perform a duo recital with Inon Barnatan at the piano keyboard. Each half of the program will conclude with a sonata for cello, which is the only one written by its respective composer. The first of these will be Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 65 in G minor; and the evening (and series) will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 19 (which also happens to be in G minor). The program will begin with Suite populaire Espagnole, an arrangement of six of the songs from Manuel de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas (seven Spanish folksongs), which Falla arranged with the assistance of Paul Kochanski. Maurice Maréchal subsequently adapted this arrangement as a duo for cello and piano. The second half of the program will begin with selections from Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 34, as set of short pieces given the title 24 Preludes. Those selections were arranged for cello and piano by Lera Auerbach.
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