Shunske Sato Disappoints on PBO Podium

Shunske Sato with his violin (from the PBO event page for last night’s performance)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, violinist Shunske Sato led the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) in the final program of its 2025/26 season. The title of that program was Kinks and Quirks and, over the course of the evening, it became apparent it was served with a rhetoric that was more annoying than engaging. Sato performed on his violin throughout the program, but his instrument never managed to yield satisfying intonation while the full ensemble was clearly taking care of themselves.

The selections accounted for a prodigious spread of music history with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach at one end the Felix Mendelssohn at the other. The latter was represented by his MWV O 3 concerto for violin and strings in D minor. The low number identifies this as a very early work, and the composer completed it at the age of thirteen. Unfortunately, Sato’s intonation never managed to fit in with the ensemble work, making the listening experience a frustrating one.

Indeed, frustration was the order of the evening. The excerpts of the K. 345 music Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed for Baron Tobias Philipp von Gebler’s Masonic drama Thamos, König in Ägypten were given a brutal account under Sato’s leadership. Just as disappointing was the Bach selection, his H 665 (Wq 183:3), the first in a set of four symphonies given the collective title Orchester-Sinfonien mit zwölf obligaten Stimmen. At the other end of the evening, the program concluded with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony composed in the key of C major. This was the clearest account of the evening, but the performance was still undermined by the liberties Sato took with tempo.

To be fair, the program was true to its name, almost warning the attentive listener not to expect a substantive listening experience.

PBO to Close Season with “Kinks and Quirks”

Conductor Shunske Sato (photograph by Elvira Demerdzhy, courtesy of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra)

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra will conclude its 2025/26 season with a program entitled Kinks and Quirks. Violinist Shunske Sato will lead the ensemble, also serving as soloist in the performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s D minor concerto. Note that this is not the Opus 64 concerto in E minor, completed in 1844. The D minor concerto was composed in 1822 when the composer was thirteen years old!

The remaining works on the program will be more “mature.” It will begin with the third (in the key of F major) of four symphonies that Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed for the Baron Gottfried van Sweiten in the 1770s. This will be followed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 345, incidental music composed for Thamos, King of Egypt, a play by Tobias Philipp von Gebler. The program will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony, composed in the key of C major following his study of Emanuel Bach’s An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.

As usual, the San Francisco performance will take place in Herbst Theater, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 23. Ticket prices range from $20 to $125. They may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page, which includes a diagram showing where seats are still available.

Flutist Yubeen Kim’s SFCM Faculty Recital

Readers that have previously encountered Yubeen Kim’s name probably know that he is Principal Flute with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), a position he assumed in January of 2024. However, he is also on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM); and last night he performed a Faculty Artist Series recital in the Recital Hall of the 50 Oak Street building. Most of his selection required piano accompaniment, provided by Yu-Hsin Galaxy Su. (She is also a clarinetist, also performing with SFS.) Kim also performed duo work with another flutist, Julin Cheung, Assistant Principal Flute and Piccolo of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Flutists Yubeen Kim and Julin Cheung performing with Yu-Hsin Galaxy Su at the piano (screenshot from the livestream of last night’s performance)

Due to the small number of performers, a relatively small area of stage space was occupied. As a result, camera work was limited to making sure that all performers were in the frame. Those limited numbers eliminated any risk of the camera looking in the wrong place! The only major activity on the stage involved replacing the piano with a harpsichord for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s H 569 trio sonata in D minor (after which the piano returned to its proper place for the remainder of the program). Kim also performed an encore with Su, an arrangement of the “Méditation” intermezzo from Jules Massenet’s opera Thaïs, possibly performing from the vocal score.

Once again, the greatest shortcoming with the livestream was the audio. Once again I had to crank up the volume to eleven, as they say. However, because the Recital Hall is significantly smaller than the Concert Hall, the listening experience was not as frustrating as it had previously been; and Kim’s repertoire could not have been more engaging!

Cadillac Hotel to Host Something Different

Many readers probably know by now that this site does its best to keep up with the Concerts at the Cadillac events. These performances almost always include the Patricia Walkup Memorial Piano in the lobby of the Cadillac Hotel. Late next month, that piano will be the center of attention. Six amateur pianists, all living in the Bay Area, will contribute to a recital. As of this writing, the works to be performed and their respective performers will be as follows:

1. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Fantasia for keyboard in F-sharp minor, H 300 (Asako Tsumagari)
2. Frédéric Chopin: the sixth (E-flat minor) and eleventh (E-flat major) études from the Opus 10 collection (Christina Lee)
3. Franz Liszt: the last of the three nocturnes in the Liebesträume collection, S. 541/3 (Kaidi Zhang)
4. John Williams: the theme music for the film Schindler’s List (Daniel Abreu)
5. Sergei Rachmaninoff: the first movement of the Opus 36 piano sonata in B-flat minor (Jonathan Chu)
6. Alexander Scriabin: the last two movements in the Opus 23 piano sonata in F-sharp major (Calvin Huang) 

Photograph of Morton Feldman at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (from a Wikipedia Web page) 

I have to say that I am impressed by the breadth of repertoire prepared for this recital. My only misgiving is that I wish at least one of these pianists would have dared to be a bit more adventurous. For example, as can be seen on his Wikipedia page, there is a more-than-generous list of solo piano compositions by Morton Feldman. I have barely begun to account for them in my collection of recordings, and I am not sure I have experienced a performance by any of the local performers other than the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. (For those whose curiosity has been piqued, that performance can now be seen on a YouTube video.)

As usual, this show will begin at 1 p.m. on Friday, October 24. The Cadillac Hotel is located at 380 Eddy Street, on the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street. All Concerts at the Cadillac events are presented without charge. The purpose of the series is to provide high-quality music to the residents of the hotel and the Tenderloin District; but all are invited to visit the venue that calls itself “The House of Welcome Since 1907.”

PBO: a Coffee Break in the Financial District

As was reported at the end of last month, this morning saw a “preview” performance by eight musicians in the string section of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO). This was a “double string quartet,” whose members were violinists Kati Kyme, Maxine Nemerovski, Noah Strick, and Aaron Westman, violists Maria Caswell and Anna Washburn, and cellists Laura Gaynon and William Skeen, the latter doubling as Master of Ceremonies. The top of the program proclaimed (in a large type font) “Freshly Brewed Baroque;” but Skeen gave the audience a more appropriate overall title:  A Leipzig Lineage: 1615–1845. In other words, the program consisted entirely of music that had been performed in Leipzig over that span of 30 years.

The Flute Concert of Sanssouci, a painting by Adolph von Menzel depicting Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach accompanying Frederick the Great playing the flute (from the Wikipedia Web page for BWV 1079)

The composer most usually associated with Leipzig is Johann Sebastian Bach. His contribution to the program was the “Ricercar a 6,” the six-voice fugue in Bach’s BWV 1079, given the title The Musical Offering. (The “offering” was made by Bach to Frederick the Great, King Frederick II of Prussia.) This was coupled by the selection for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the H 661 fifth of the six symphonies given the collective title Hamburger Sinfonien. This father-son coupling was preceded by two earlier composers. The program began with the “Canzon à 6,” one of the selections in a 1609 collection of 25 pieces composed by Johann Hermann Schein. This was followed by an instrumental arrangement of the Advent hymn “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” by Johann Schelle.

The program then concluded with two selections from the nineteenth century. The first of these was a prelude-fugue coupling by Clara Schumann from her Opus 16 set of solo piano compositions, transcribed for a quartet of the PBO musicians: Kyme, Westman, Caswell, and Skeen. Finally, all eight musicians joined forces for the Finale movement of the Opus 20 octet in E major composed by Felix Mendelssohn.

The entire program was thus a journey from the late sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. This was an impressive undertaking, but no selection on the program ever overstayed its welcome. The program suggested that this was a “coffee break” event; but there was so much offered by the program that I never felt a need for caffeine to prompt my attention!

ABS Finale: Two Bachs and Their Contemporaries

Late yesterday afternoon the San Francisco Bach Festival, performed primarily by students of the 2025 American Bach Academy, with some assistance from their mentors, who are members of American Bach Soloists (ABS), concluded this year’s San Francisco Bach Festival with two members of the Bach family along with Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel. As might be expected, Johann Sebastian Bach dominated the program with three cantatas. In order of appearance, these were BWV 132 (Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn!) prior to the intermission, followed afterwards by BWV 10 (known as the “German Magnificat”) and one of the best-known cantatas, BWV 147 (Herz und Mund un Tat und Leben). All other selections on the program were instrumental.

Portrait of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach by Franz Conrad Löhr (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Sadly, circumstances were such that I could attend only the first half of this program. BWV 132 was preceded by George Frideric Handel’s HWV 329, the penultimate work in his Opus 6 concerto grosso collection, composed in the key of A major. The cantata was then followed by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s H. 661 (Wq 182:5), the fifth of six symphonies he composed for Baron van Swieten in 1773, known as the Hamburger Sinfonien.

Each of the works was given a convincing account. The cantata soloists were soprano Rachel Doehring Jackson, mezzo Meghan Ryan, tenor Cameron Falby, and baritone Sepp Hammer. In the absence of the American Bach Choir, the concluding Chorale movement was sung as a quartet. While this half of the program may have been convincing, the expressiveness of the performances was never particularly compelling. One might almost say that this was a “business as usual” account of the two Bachs and Handel, as if the freshness of past Festival interpretations was fading before the listeners’ ears.

Is the spirit of the late eighteenth-century beginning to elude the Festival?

SFBC Surveys Eight Bach Composers

A portion of the Wikipedia page of the Bach family tree

Yesterday afternoon at Calvary Presbyterian Church, the San Francisco Bach Choir (SFBC), led by Artistic Director Magen Solomon, launched its new season. The title of the program was Fruit from the Bach Family Tree, and it presented works by eight different members of that family, the earliest being Johannes Bach (born in 1604) and the latest being Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (died in 1795). What struck me about the overall listening experience was the sense that, at least where sacred choral music was concerned, there seemed to be a basic “Bach style” that cut across the generations.

By way of disclaimer, I should confess that the only choral selection that was even remotely familiar was the final one, Sebastian’s BWV 230 motet “Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden” (praise ye the Lord, all ye nations). As a result, my listening skills were only beginning to attune themselves to the other members of the Bach family (even Emanuel, whom I have come to know better through his instrumental music). Taken as a whole, the program was a throughly engaging journey of discovery; but I still must confess that the diversity of the composers themselves was more than a little daunting. Nevertheless, if Solomon’s intent was to demonstrate that there was far more to the Bach family than Sebastian and his sons Emanuel and Friedemann, she definitely made the case with her generous choice of selections.

Fortunately, those selections were interleaved with instrumental performances of Sebastian’s music. These were performed by William Skeen on cello and organist Arthurs Omura. For the most part, these were familiar “turf;” and I was particularly engaged with Omura’s account of six of the partitas from the BWV 767 collection of what were basically variations on the chorale “O Gott, du frommer Gott.” Skeen (of course) visited two of the solo cello movements, the Allemande from the BWV 1007 suite in G major and the Sarabande from the BWV 1012 suite in D major, both of which were welcome islands of familiarity!

Nevertheless, what mattered most was how Solomon conceived this program as a journey of discovery. The fact is that there is more to the Bach family than any of us will ever come to know over the course of our brief lifetime. The good news was that Solomon provided a series of representative offerings that allowed the attentive listening to appreciate just how abundant were those “fruits” from the family tree!

Princess Amalia and the Two Bachs

Those that have followed my work for some time know that I do my best not to miss opportunities to write about Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Indeed, one of my favorite quotations is about him, in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart declared “Bach is the father, and we are his children.” During my tenure with Examiner.com, I wrote about the 26 CDs that Ana-Marija Markovina recorded for hänssler to account for his complete works for piano solo; and on this site I concluded my articles about his complete piano concertos recorded by Michael Rische in October of 2022.

This Friday will see the latest release of music by “the father.” Those familiar with his biography know that his career amount to “a tale of two cities.” The first of these was Berlin, where he served Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia (who would late be known as Frederick the Great); and the second was the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, where, as a “civilian,” he was appointed Kapellmeister (music director). The title of the new album is Liebe Amalia…, which refers to Anna Amalia, Abbess of Quedlinburg, sister of Frederick the Great. She was Frederick’s sister but supported Bach after his departure from Berlin.

Antoine Pesne’s 1744 Portrait de la princesse Anna Amalia de Prusse on the cover of the album being discussed

As can be seen above, Amalia’s portrait graces the cover of this album. While most of the selections on Liebe Amalia… are by Bach, two of them are by Amalia. One of these is a three-movement flute sonata in F major. The other is a song entitled “An das Klavier” (to the keyboard), which is receiving is world premiere recording on this album. Two other composers also have selections on this album. One is a polonaise by Bach’s brother, Wilhelm Friedemann, and the other is a trio sonata by Johann Philipp Kirnberger. Taken as a whole, the album accounts for music that Emanuel would have arranged for performance in Hamburg.

The performer whose name earns the largest font on the album cover is flutist Jean Brégnac. He appears on most, but not all, of the tracks. The other major performer is Yoann Moulin, who alternates between harpsichord and clavichord. Due to a printing error in the booklet, one will only be able to ascertain which instrument he is playing by listening! There is also a fortepiano played by Daria Fadeeva, a second flute performed by Nicolas Bouils, cello continuo provided by Jennifer Hardy, and violin for the trio sonata played by Marie Rouquié.

Those who, like myself, cannot get enough of performances of Emanuel’s music will probably share my enthusiasm for this new release!

Aimard’s SFP Recital: Fantasias Past and Recent

Pierre-Laurent Aimard with his piano (photograph by Marco Borggreve, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard returned to Herbst Theatre for his third San Francisco Performances (SFP) appearance in a solo recital. His program was a broad survey of the fantasia genre, with the SwWV 261 “Echo” fantasia by the early Baroque Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck at one end of the time line and Elliott Carter’s “Night Fantasies,” composed between November of 1978 and April of 1980 at the other. Aimard coupled these (in chronological order) to begin his program, concluding the first half with the more familiar “Polonaise-Fantaisie”, Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 61 in the key of A-flat major.

The second half was devoted almost entirely to what Charles Rosen called “The Classical Style,” but not in chronological order. The selections were by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (the K. 475 fantasia in C minor), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (the sixth piece in the Wq 59 collection), and Ludwig van Beethoven (the Opus 77 fantasia in G minor). The program concluded with the “punch line” of Charles Ives’ “The Celestial Railroad,” identified as a “Fantasy” in its subtitle.

Aimard was not shy about addressing the audience, and his introductory remarks were as engaging as they were informative. Sweelinck’s “echo” effects were conceived for separate manuals on an organ, but Aimard’s approaches to keyboard touch provided a satisfying contrast between the “source” and “echo” passages. The “classical style” selections were particularly engaging. Aimard introduced K. 475 as a “compact opera for solo piano;” and, in the plethora of themes in Beethoven’s Opus 77, I could swear that one of them had been inspired by Papageno’s aria “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” in Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute. I also appreciated how Aimard cited the “musical independence” of “The Celestial Railroad.”

The only real challenge came from “Night Fantasies.” While one could appreciate that all of the other selections may have emerged from improvisatory explorations, Carter’s composition seemed to be the product of a seriously vast expanse of notes, each of which had been precisely calculated. One could almost call it pointillism in which even the slightest dot carried its own weight of significance. Carter was a Visiting Professor during my senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and I put a prodigious amount of effort in trying to get my head around the music that was performed in a recital at the conclusion of his visit. Several years later I happened to hear his string quartet on the radio and realized how quickly all of those efforts had evaporated.

Ironically, I have encountered “Night Fantasies” several times over the course of my listening history. Most recently, I wrote about it when Pina Napolitano released her Tempo e Tempi album in July of 2020. For all of that exposure, the music never seems to secure a place for itself in long-term memory. Sadly, last night’s impression never rose above the level of any of my previous encounters.

(I should also add that, during one of his MIT lectures, Carter confessed that he had no idea what to make of Ives. I have had a fair exposure to much of Ives music, thanks in some part to Michael Tilson Thomas; and, for me at least, “The Celestial Railroad” was like a walk in the park, even if the park was surreal. “Night Fantasies,” on the other hand, left me figuratively grouping around in the dark!)

The reception for last night’s performance was too enthusiastic for Aimard to avoid taking an encore. He used the occasion to introduce the little known Russian composer Andrei Volkonsky to the audience. HIs Wikipedia page describes him as “a key figure in Early Music Revival in Russia,” and this description was affirmed by Aimard’s encore. He played the third and fourth movements of “Musica Stricta (fantasia ricercata),” the composer’s Opus 11, composed in 1957, which applied twelve-tone syntax to the semantics of that “Early Music” period. This was “something completely different” from the program that Aimard had prepared, but it left me curious about when I would encounter further works by this composer!

Pierre-Laurent Aimard to Continue Piano Series

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photograph by Julia Wesley, courtesy of SFP)

The end of this month will see the penultimate performance in this season’s San Francisco Performances (SFP) Piano Series. The pianist to perform will be Pierre-Laurent Aimard. If my records are correct, this will be his third SFP appearance, having given his second recital in March of 2018. Since that time, he has been no stranger to San Francisco, giving several performances in Davies Symphony Hall.

I had previously described Aimard’s SFP debut as “a program of considerable breadth.” That breadth will be found this time in the extent of the overall “time line,” while all the works will be focused on a single genre: the fantasia. At one end of the “time line,” he will perform music by the early Baroque Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, his SwWV 261 “Echo” fantasia. This will be coupled with the “other end” of the chronology with a performance of Elliott Carter’s “Night Fantasies.” Between these extremes, the Classical period will be represented by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (the H. 284 fantasy in C major), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (the K. 475 fantasy in C minor), and Ludwig van Beethoven (the Opus 77 fantasia in G minor). The only nineteenth-century composer will be Frédéric Chopin with his Opus 61 Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major. This will be followed by the Carter and Sweelinck fantasies and then conclude with one more: “The Celestial Railroad,” which Charles Ives called a “Phantasy” for solo piano.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 27. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are being sold for $80 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $70 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $60 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page or by calling 415-392-2545.

New ECM Release of Jarrett Playing CPE Bach

The cover of the new ECM Records album of Keith Jarrett, with nothing to do with members of the Bach family or the keyboard instruments they played (courtesy of DL Media)

Some readers may recall that, this past March, ECM Records reissued Book of Ways, a two-CD album of Keith Jarrett improvising at the keyboard of a clavichord. Some may choose to approach this as context for the next Jarrett release, which will take place one week from today. While Book of Ways was a reissue, next week’s album is being released for the very first time, even though the tracks were recorded in May of 1994. The content consists of six keyboard sonatas composed by Carl Philiipp Emanuel (CPE) Bach, cataloged as Wq 49 and known collectively as the Württemberg Sonatas. Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-orders.

The accompanying booklet includes a Jarrett quote that left me thinking:

I heard the Württemberg Sonatas recorded by harpsichordists. And I felt there was space left for a piano version.

The six sonatas dedicated to Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, were published in 1744, when Bach was based in Berlin. This was when he was supported by his service to the court of Frederick the Great. Bach was also interested in pedagogy, and the first part of his Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (an essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments) was published in 1753. By this time he was applying his own techniques to the clavichord and the the fortepiano. Indeed, in that classic story of Frederick providing Bach’s father with a theme that became the basis for the BWV 1079 Musical Offering, the king picked out the theme on a fortepiano that he wanted to show off to the elder Bach. To be fair, however, anyone browsing Amazon will find that there is no shortage of performances of music by the younger Bach played on a harpsichord!

What matters more than whether strings are plucked or struck is the clarity of the sounds that result. In recording these Württemberg sonatas, Jarrett makes it a point to endow every note he strikes with the clarity it deserves. This is particularly important because Bach was never shy about writing lightning-fast passages. (I have been working my way through the Wq 61 collection, also consisting of six pieces, only two of which are sonatas; and those passages drive me crazy!)

When I wrote about Alexander Melnikov’s latest album Fantasie: Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards, I found out that, where this particular Bach was concerned, Melnikov chose to play the music on a tangent piano built in 1790 (which is about two year’s after Bach’s death). That makes for a sharp contrast with his performance of the elder Bach’s BWV 903 “chromatic” fantasia coupled with a fugue, which is played on a two-manual harpsichord. The fact is, however, that any one of these compositions can hold its own on a modern piano as long as the pianist gives the marks on paper the treatment they deserve. In that context Jarrett’s performances on this new album are both clear and engaging, and I shall leave it to musicologists seeking topics for publication to address any other issues!

Víkingur Ólafsson Performs his Latest Album

Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances concluded its Shenson Piano Series with a solo “recital” by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. The scare quotes are there to indicate that this was not your usual recital experience. The entire program was taken from the track listing of Ólafsson’s recent album, Mozart & Contemporaries, which is currently available through Amazon.com on both CD and vinyl. All 23 tracks of the album were performed as they had been ordered for recording, and the entire performance was played without any intermission. Furthermore, the program notes, which were written by Ólafsson himself, were taken directly from the booklet that accompanied the recording.

Since I have not listened to the recording, I do not know whether last night’s performance amounted to a “carbon copy.” My guess is that it did not. There was definitely a sense of the “immediate present” in Ólafsson’s explorations of Mozart’s “late period” piano music, presented in a context of four contemporary composers. One of these was Mozart’s First Viennese School “colleague,” Joseph Haydn, along with the predecessor that influenced both of them, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The other two were Italians from the same period, Baldassare Galuppi and Domenico Cimarosa.

Taken as a whole, the performance of the program was an uneven one. The “keystone” of the program was Mozart’s K. 545 sonata in C major, whose first movement is so familiar that it often elicits groans. Nevertheless, Ólafsson gave this music a fresh account that quickly dispelled any here-we-go-again risk.

On the other hand, the only Bach selection, the D minor Rondo from the last (Wq 61) of the six collections of sonatas, “free” fantasias, and rondos, went by a such a rapid pace that all of the phrasing got lost in a blur of sixteenth notes. (One has to wonder whether Mozart might have shown off his keyboard talents by playing that music at that same breakneck pace.) As a result, the program, taken as a whole, came across a bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: when each selection began, the listener was never sure what (s)he would get!

I would also take issue with the lack of an intermission. It seemed as if Ólafsson wanted his performance to liken the experience of listening to the CD. However, I would suggest that there are any number of features that make the concert experience decidedly different from inserting a CD into a player and pushing the start button. If nothing else, one can always hit the pause button (or eject the CD) before listening to the entire recording. Thus, I have no trouble confessing that fatigue was beginning to set in by the time Ólafsson had progressed to his second Mozart sonata (K. 457 in C minor), meaning that, as far as focus was concerned, the entire recital was far from a level playing field for the attentive listener.

Víkingur Ólafsson taking his bow at the conclusion of his recital (photograph by Michael Strickland, courtesy of the photographer)

Nevertheless, there was no doubting that the prevailing reception at the conclusion of the program was one of wild enthusiasm. Some of this may have involved familiarity with the album, but I suspect that it was more just a matter of having made it all the way through the journey. Still, the enthusiasm was received graciously and, eventually, with an encore, which predated all of the music just performed. Instead, Ólafsson turned to Johann Sebastian Bach, performing the second movement of his BWV 528 organ sonata (often called a trio sonata) in E minor. The contrast was decidedly welcome, but I suspect that many of us were glad that it was time to go home.

Víkingur Ólafsson to Make his SFP Debut

Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson (photograph by Ari Magg, courtesy of SFP)

Next month Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson will make his debut as a San Francisco Performances (SFP) recitalist, concluding the 2022–23 Shenson Piano Series and presenting the penultimate program of the entire SFP season. Approximately a year earlier, he was the concerto soloist for the final subscription program in the 2021–22 season of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen led SFS in a performance of the John Adams piano concerto entitled “Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?” In that context, the program he has prepared for SFP is decidedly “something completely different.”

If Ólafsson’s SFP recital were to be given a title, it would probably be something like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Company of his Contemporaries. Eight of the selections were composed by Mozart. Two of them are three-movement sonatas: K. 545 in C major and K. 457 in C minor. There will also be a solo piano account of the Adagio movement from the K. 516 string quartet in G minor. The program will conclude with the K. 618 choral motet, “Ave verum corpus,” presented in a transcription composed by Franz Liszt.

Among the other composers on the program, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is probably the most significant. He is represented only by a Rondo movement from one of his keyboard sonatas (Wq 61). However, he is also cited in an encomium attributed to Mozart: “[Emanuel] Bach is the father. We are the Children!” The program will also include the opening slow movements from two sonatas by Baldassare Galuppi, a three-movement sonata by Joseph Haydn (Hoboken XVI/32 in B minor), and two single-movement sonatas by Domenico Cimarosa, both arranged by Ólafsson.

This performance will take place in Herbst Theatre beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9. The entire recital will be performed without an intermission. The entrance to Herbst is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. This venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. All tickets are being sold for $80 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $65 for the Side Boxes, the center rear of the Dress Circle, and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $55 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. As available, single tickets will be sold at the door with a 50% discount for students and a 20% discount for seniors. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545.

Melnikov Couples Composers with Keyboards

Alexander Melnikov (photograph by Marco Borggreve, from the San Francisco Performances announcement of his visit in 2018)

This coming Friday harmonia mundi will release a new solo album by keyboardist Alexander Melnikov. He has been a familiar presence here in San Francisco, primarily through the auspices of San Francisco Performances. Past programming has included two solo recitals and, most recently, a performance by his trio, whose other members are violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras.

In all my articles about those occasions, I referred to him as a pianist. However, the title of his new album is Fantasie: Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards. That required a noun with a broader scope! As many are likely to assume, Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-orders of this new release.

The seven composers are as follows:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach
2. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. Felix Mendelssohn
5. Frédéric Chopin
6. Ferrucio Busoni
7. Alfred Schnittke

The earliest instrument is a two-manual harpsichord created by Hans Ruckers II in 1624, but this served as a model for a reproduction made by Markus Fischinger in 2019. The most recent instrument is the Steinway D-274. This instrument has become so popular among concert pianists that it has its own Wikipedia page, which cites it as “the flagship of the Steinway & Sons piano company.”

Melnikov is clearly serious in his appreciation of how the construction (and, as a result, the sonorities) of the instrument has evolved over the centuries. In fact, he owns three of the early models:

1. Christopher Kern’s 2014 reproduction of a fortepiano made by Anton Walter in 1795
2. A fortepiano made by Alois Graff in 1828, restored by Edwin Beunk
3. An 1885 Érard piano dating from around 1885, restored by Markus Fischinger

That list leads me to wonder if Melnikov does not have his own Steinway, probably because he does not have room for it! Whatever the case may be, he clearly believes that it is important to play on an instrument whose sonorities would have been familiar to the composer.

I have to confess that I have been interested it this “proper pairing” of instrument and composer for many decades. Indeed, when I was responsible for arranging guest lecturers to visit the research laboratory where I worked in Connecticut, I managed to persuade Malcolm Bilson to give a lecture-demonstration about the eighteenth-century fortepiano. He had no trouble preparing for this, since he arrived at our lab with his instrument in his VW microbus.

Melnikov’s recording reminded me that Bilson’s visit marked the tip of an iceberg larger than I realized had existed. At the risk of tempting virulent disagreement, I would suggest that, on the basis of sonorities, the “piano as we know it” began to take shape relatively early in the nineteenth century (which, on this album, would mean the Mendelssohn selection). On the other hand, even after three or four listening experiences, I feel as if I am just beginning to get my head around the “steps to Parnassus” that lead from the eighteenth century to the contemporary Steinway.

In other words, I expect to spend a fair amount of time with this album, taking it for granted that Melnikov will be able to guide me through the six stages of transition that link Schnittke to Bach.

SFP Gift Concert’s Journey of Discovery

Pianist James Baillieu (courtesy of SFP)

Last night in Herbst Theatre San Francisco Performances (SFP) presented its annual Subscriber and Member Concert, which serves as a “gift” to its most faithful attendees, made possible through the sponsorship of Camilla and George Smith. The performers were the duo of violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist James Baillieu, both of whom were making their respective San Francisco recital debuts. Their program was organized around compositions by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the second son of Johann Sebastian and the “godfather” of the First Viennese School composers.

The younger Bach was as prolific as his father, but he never seems to receive as much attention. Nevertheless, through the recordings available, I have come to know and love his solo keyboard music and his keyboard concertos. However, last night was my first encounter with his chamber music for violin and piano. I have to note at the outset that the piano was a Hamburg Steinway Model D; so this was not a “period instrument” performance. Nevertheless, one could appreciate both technical and rhetorical foundations in the approach that the performers took to the music, making for a thoroughly engaging journey of discovery.

The program was framed by two duo sonatas, Wq 71 in D major and Wq 76 in B minor. Between these was a performance of the more improvisatory Wq 80 fantasia in F-sharp minor. Finally, the encore selection presented the final movement (Allegretto) of the Wq 73 sonata in C major. Two nineteenth-century composers were interleaved into these offerings. Wq 71 was followed by Franz Schubert’s D. 574 duo in A major, and Wq 80 was followed by the original version for violin and piano of Robert Schumann’s Opus 94 collection of three pieces called “Romances.”

This “interleaving of centuries” made for a consistently engaging evening of well-prepared performances. The performers provided a bit of commentary on Bach’s influences, including a few quoted passages of texts by both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. However, the music spoke for itself, leaving the attentive listener with a generous appreciation of how “the son” forged paths into new territories that “the father” would not have begun to consider. However, there was a bittersweet taste to that appreciation when one realized how few opportunities there have been to listen to music composed by “the son” in concert and recital settings here in San Francisco.

Remaining Tickets Available for SFP Gift Concert

Those familiar with San Francisco Performances (SFP) probably know that every season subscribers and donors are rewarded with free tickets to the annual Gift Concert. That “gift” is made possible by sponsors George and Camilla Smith. Now that all of those tickets have been committed, the remaining tickets are are available for sale to the general public, all priced at $45.

This season’s SFP “gift artists,” violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist James Baillieu (from the SFP Web page for remaining tickets)

This year’s program will be performed by violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, accompanied at the piano by James Baillieu. The first half will be devoted to three duos by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. These will be the Wq 71 sonata in D major, the Wq 80 fantasia in F-sharp minor, and the Wq 76 sonata in B minor. The second half of the program will present a “pairing” of Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann. The Schubert selection will be the D. 574 sonata in A major. Like the violin sonatas of Beethoven, this sonata bore the title “for Pianoforte and Violin;” but it was not published until after Schubert’s death. The program will then conclude with the three pieces Schumann collected as “Romances.” That set was published as his Opus 94, scored originally for oboe and piano.

This concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18. It will take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. This venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. As already observed, all available tickets are being sold for $45. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545.

Michael Rische’s CPE Bach Project: Volume 7

from the Amazon.com Web page for this album

Once again, it has taken hänssler CLASSIC over two years to release another album of piano concertos composed by Carl Philipp Emanuel (CPE) Bach. The sixth volume appeared in the middle of April of 2020. The Amazon.com Web page for the seventh volume was created at the beginning of last month. To the best of my knowledge, as of this writing, the album is only available for MP3 download. Fortunately, that download Web page includes the booklet along with the album’s nine tracks.

The pianist is again Michael Rische. He is accompanied by the Berliner Barock Solisten, which he conducts from the keyboard; and, like all previous albums, the new release consists of three concertos. These are presented in order of their Wq numbers: number 5 in C minor, number 8 in A major, and number 30 in B minor. Unfortunately, the booklet notes written by Rische do not provide a particularly informative account of when and where each of these concertos was composed and performed for the first time.

The good news is that these three concertos are likely to have been significant inspirations for the next generation of composers, including Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Indeed, there is a provocative eccentricity in the opening gesture of Wq 5; and it takes a bit of time to establish that the key of the concerto really is in C minor. Rische’s notes even suggest that Wq 30 influenced the daring rhetoric that we encounter in Mozart’s K. 466 piano concerto in D minor.

With the release of this new album, Rische now accounts for 21 of Bach’s 52 piano concertos. Presumably, COVID has at least some impact on slowing down his productivity in recording the full canon of concertos; but, given that a similar amount of time elapsed between the fifth and sixth volumes, I am not expecting the “productivity rate” to accelerate! All I can do is enjoy each new album as it is released, and there is more than enough imaginative content in this seventh volume to keep my listening skills occupied.

Leonhardt Recordings Beyond Sebastian Bach

Gustav Leonhardt taking a bow at a recital at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in September of 2008 (photograph by Paul Ruet, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license)

As promised, my examination of The New Gustav Leonhardt Edition released by Warner Classics this past April, has advanced from a focus on Johann Sebastian Bach to the other German composers, whose music was performed for recordings made by Leonhardt. Those performances are realized in a variety of capacities, which include both conductor and instrumentalist. The instruments, in turn, are both harpsichord and organ, as well as cello on an album of sonatas for recorder composed by George Frideric Handel.

I am afraid that this is not the best organized of collections, particularly since one of the CDs includes three tracks of music by Henry Purcell. As might be guessed, the “extended” Bach family gets a generous amount of attention. Two CDs is devoted entirely to Carl Philipp Emanuel, one for three cello concertos and one for five symphonies. The symphonies are particularly interesting due to the number of attacca transitions from one movement to the next. More important, however, is that one can appreciate how these symphonies paved the way for the symphonies subsequently composed by the First Viennese School composers, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in particular. The other members of the Bach family one encounters are Johann Christian and Wilhelm Friedemann. However, their offerings in the collection are too modest to allow for establishing much of an acquaintance.

The other composer to receive more than one CD of attention is Johann Kuhnau. He is probably best known for having composed six Biblical Sonatas for solo keyboard. Each of these amounts to program music based  a story from the Old Testament. Leonhardt alternated between harpsichord and organ in playing these selections, each of which was introduced with his own narration of the story being represented. Sadly, neither those texts or versions translated into English are available. The best one can do is negotiate the movement titles, that basically guide the listener through each of the narratives. These are printed in German, and I must confess that I have not tested Google Translate on any of this content.

This raises an annoying element in Warner Classics packaging. The only background text is found in a booklet that is too skimpy to be of much use. For much of this content, Wikipedia turned out to be a rather useful source; and it is more readily accessible than the online version of Grove, which is “protected.” (Fortunately, I have access to that site through my public library card; but, since I like to provide hyperlinks for my readers, I find that Wikipedia satisfies more needs than I would have originally guessed!)

From a more positive point of view, I have found myself consistently satisfied with the performance technique, at least on the basis of what I have learned about performance practices by going to concerts and recitals. More often than not, even when the name of the composer may be unfamiliar, both structure and style tend to reflect my experiences of listening to more familiar composers. Nevertheless, such a background only satisfies the most superficial aspects of the content. Those wishing to approach Leonhardt’s recordings as “informed listeners” will not find very much useful guidance in the packaging of this collection.

Daniil Trifonov’s “Bach Family” Album on DG

At the beginning of this past October, Deutsche Grammophon released its latest album of solo performances by pianist Daniil Trifonov. By my reckoning, this is his third “themed” two-CD release, following up on Silver Age, which was released in October of 2020, and the first of his projects, Chopin Evocations, which was released in August of 2017. The title of the new album is Bach: The Art of Life.

Those familiar with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach will have no trouble associating that title with Bach’s final composition, The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, which was left unfinished at the time of his death on July 28, 1750. The contents of this work consists of fourteen fugues (the last being the one left unfinished) and four canons all based on the same D minor subject theme. The best one-sentence description of this final achievement can probably best be found in Christoph Wolff’s book, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Learned Musician as follows:

The governing idea of the work was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.

In other words, while Bach’s career was devoted almost entirely to composition and performance, BWV 1080 suggests that, at the end of his life, he had shifted his attention to a more intellectual pursuit.

Indeed, the manuscript pages give no indication of how his monumental collection of marks on paper should be performed. For the most part, each voice in a fugue or canon was assigned its own staff in both Bach’s manuscript and the first published edition, prepared by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. On the other hand, on the final page of that unfinished fugue in Bach’s own hand, he was notating a fugue in three voices on only two staves:

The page that Bach was writing when he died. The text following the music is by Emanuel, stating, in translation into English, “on this fugue, where the name B A C H is introduced in the countersubject, the composer died” (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

When I first decided to explore this music, I used the performing edition for piano that was prepared for Edition Peters by Carl Czerny. In all likelihood Trifonov used the same source for his recording sessions. The only exception would have been the final unfinished fugue, for which he composed his own completion. Those visiting the Wikipedia page for BWV 1080 will see that it has been kept up to date, including Trifonov’s version among past efforts by keyboardists and conductors. This amounts to a rather generous share of attention being given to a manuscript that was not intended for performance!

In the context of all that attention, I am happy to say that I find Trifonov’s approach to the music about as satisfying as one can expect. Mind you, there is something dramatic in breaking off the performance of that fourteenth fugue with the final vestiges of Bach’s own notation. However, the listening experience tends to run the gamut from annoyingly disconcerting to just plain silly. Trifonov’s “performing version” makes for a more engaging listening experience, even if much of it is speculative.

On his album the performance of BWV 1080 is preceded by what the “advance material” describes as “a family portrait.” This is devoted primarily to relatively brief accounts of music composed by four of Sebastian’s sons. Emanuel is represented by the fourth of the six short pieces cataloged as Wq 59, a rondo in C minor. Wilhelm Friedmann’s offering is the eighth (in the key of E minor) of the twelve polonaises catalogued as F. 12. The album begins with a two-movement sonata in A major by Johann Christian Bach, the fifth in his Opus 17 publication of six keyboard sonatas. However, most listeners will probably be drawn to the selection by Johann Christoph Friedrich, a set of variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je maman,” which makes a lovely complement to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s set of variations on the same theme.

Trifonov also includes twelve selections for the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. These include transcriptions of another one of Emanuel’s polonaises (in G minor), Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel’s song “Bist du bei mir” (if thou be near), and a G major minuet by Christian Petzold. The other nine selections are taken from Sebastian’s own music.

The album also includes two “latter day” accounts of “Bach the father.” The first of the two CDs in the collection concludes with Johannes Brahms’ piano arrangement of the concluding Chaconne movement from the BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. This is a particularly impressive undertaking, because Brahms explicitly composed it to be performed by the left hand alone. The second CD concludes with Myra Hess’ arrangement of the chorale movement from the BWV 147 cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (heart and mouth and deed and life), best known under the title “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

Taken as a whole, the album serves up a more than generous account of Sebastian’s music set in the context of four of his sons and two arrangements from the future, all given well-informed and satisfying accounts through Trifonov’s execution technique.

PBO’s Evening of Disappointing Excess

Cello soloist Keiran Campbell (courtesy of PBO)

Last night in Herbst Theatre the instrumentalists of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) presented the second of the six concerts planned for its 2021/22 concert season. The ensemble was led from the harpsichord by guest conductor Jonathan Cohen. Cellist Keiran Campbell appeared as guest soloist, and the program included the world premiere performance of “Giving Ground,” composed by Paul Stanhope.

The title of the program was Something Old, Something New, Something Mad. While it provided an accurate account of the diverse selections on the program, it also served as an omen for a presentation so tedious that it made the usual two-hour duration feel as if it went on forever. In fact the program consisted of ten selections, five on either side of the intermission; but there was so little spirit in the performances that the entire evening quickly began to feel like an eternal slog.

One problem may be that the resources were too heavy for the music being performed. Mind you, the overall scale of the ensemble was about what one would expect of PBO: ten violins divided equally between firsts and seconds, four violas, three cellos, and one bass, along with David Tayler on theorbo, Hanneke van Proosdij organ, and Cohen behind his harpsichord. However, by the time the intermission rolled around, I realized that I had been reflecting on the clarity that Voices of Music could deliver with an ensemble that was half the size with far more engaging transparency.

The gathering together of old, new, and mad emerged at the end of the program with “Giving Ground.” The title served as a nod to “La Folia,” which I have previously described as “one of the most famous ground bass lines.” Stanhope decided that the best way to confront such familiarity was by going cryptic. The result yielded the sort of opacity that can only be negotiated after mind has encountered several performances, after which one begins to become aware of what the shapes are and how they interact. Sadly, because this was the penultimate work on the program, I suspect that most of the minds in the audience were too fatigued to deal with this “first contact.” Fortunately, the program concluded with a much more familiar “La Folia” composition, Francesco Geminiani’s “La Folia” concerto grosso, which was basically an arrangement of the last of Arcangelo Corelli’s twelve violin sonatas.

Fortunately, the evening had a high point, which gloriously soared above all the other selections. This was Campbell’s performance of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Wq 172 cello concerto in A major. Those familiar with “Bach the son” are probably familiar with his preference for vigorous rhetorical stances. That vigor emerged in generous supply in the outer movements and even worked its way into the technical demands of the slower middle movement. Campbell clearly enjoyed presenting a performance guided by all of Bach’s rhetorical twists and turns, and the skill with which he negotiated all those technical demands was never short of downright awesome.

Had the rest of the evening reflected that engaging partnership of soloist, music, and conductor, the experience would have been more satisfying than a laundry list of old, new, and mad.