DSO Concludes Season with Hilary Hahn

Hilary Hahn playing her Bach encore (screen shot from yesterday’s live-stream)

Last night the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) concluded its concert season with a YouTube live-stream of the performance led by Jader Bignamini. The concert soloist was violinist Hilary Hahn in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 219 (fifth) violin concerto, known as the “Turkish.” This was the entirety of the first half of the program; and the intermission was followed by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 27, his second symphony, composed in the key of E minor. As might be expected, Hahn followed her concerto performance with an encore, the solo Sarabande movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004 partita for solo violin in D minor.

That performance was definitely the high point of the evening. Hahn’s command of Mozart’s rhetoric could not have been better, and I would not be surprised to learn that her cadenza for the second movement of the concerto was her own. Her command of unaccompanied Bach was just as engaging. All this made for a listening experience to be remembered, in contrast to the lumbering qualities of Rachmaninoff’s symphony, which is best forgotten, even if it is the most performed of his three symphonies!

As a result, the Detroit season did not conclude on the best of notes (so to speak); hopefully, the fall season will return to live-streaming with a more engaging offering.

Amadeus Mozart Performed on Three Guitars

Some readers may recall that near the end of last month the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released an Omni on-Location video of guitarist Giulia Ballaré playing her own transcription of “In a Landscape,” one of the early solo piano compositions by John Cage. This morning saw the premiere of the latest video to be released. The music could not be more distant (in both space and time) from Cage. Instead, the composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and the music is a transcription for three guitars of the overture to his K. 492 opera, The Marriage of Figaro.

I have to confess that I first encountered this opera at an early age (which was a time when the only operas that interested my parents were by Mozart). So it may well be that this was the first opera overture I ever heard. It was a good start with the string section hustling and bustling to prepare the opera-goer for all the twists and turns in the libretto’s narrative.

Zuzanna Bonarska, Wiktoria Bloch, and Wojciech Niemotko playing Niemotko’s transcription of the Overture for Mozart’s K. 492 opera

That said, I was more than a little impressed that all of that hustling and bustling could be distilled down into three guitars. Those familiar with the overture will probably appreciate the agility of the three guitarists (Zuzanna Bonarska, Wiktoria Bloch, and Wojciech Niemotko, who prepared the transcription). Mind you, in most productions of Mozart’s opera Susanna accompanies Cherubino on guitar when he sings “Voi che sapete che cosa è amor;” but this trio is only interested in Mozart’s music, rather than the narrative of his opera! My guess is that opera lovers will be impressed with how this guitar trio works its way into the setting for K. 492.

Yo-Yo Ma’s One-Night-Only Visit to Davies

Yo-Yo Ma with his cello (from the event page for last night’s performance)

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in March of 1970 and has been making return visits to Davies Symphony Hall since then. In addition to performing in a symphonic setting, he has also given chamber music recitals in in Davies, the most recent of which was in April of 2024, when he was accompanied at the piano by Kathryn Stott. Last night he returned to Davies for a one-night-only performance with SFS under the baton of James Gaffigan.

The concerto selection was Edward Elgar’s Opus 85, his only cello concerto, composed in the key of E minor. Ma announced from the stage that the performance would be in memory of Michael Tilson Thomas. Indeed, Ma’s relationship with SFS has been an adventurous one. Nevertheless, what struck me the most about last night’s performance was his “first among equals” relationship with the SFS ensemble. Concertos are often treated as “ego trips;” but it was clear from the opening measures that being in a group mattered as much to the soloist as it did to the SFS players. From my vantage point, the result felt like the continuation of a decades-long partnership that has sustained as a friendship.

Perhaps because he did not want to “upstage” the ensemble, Ma concluded the evening with only one encore. This was Pablo Casals’ arrangement for solo cello of the Catalan Christmas song “El cant dels ocells” (the song of the birds). On the “other side” of the program, Gaffigan began by leading SFS in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final (“Jupiter”) symphony, K. 551 in C major. He was patient with the applause after each movement by an audience not familiar with concert etiquette. Interruptions aside, his account of the symphony could not have been better managed, leading up to the “all together now” plethora of themes and sonorities that populate the last of the four movements.

Last night’s evening may have been shorter than usual, but it could not have been sweeter!

Pop! Goes the One Found Sound Gala

Last night my wife and I returned to Heron Arts for the final concert presented by One Found Sound. The title of the program was Divas Live! As might be expected, it involved a generous share of performances of music composed and/or sung by women primarily in the pop repertoire, such as Gloria Estefan, Dolly Parton, and Cher (the first three accounted for on the program). Those that share my own preferences could enjoy the efforts of three instrumental “divas,” two violinists and a violist in the One Found Sound ensemble.

Violinist Darren Sagawa (photograph from the Web site for the Carmel Bach Festival, where he is Music Librarian)

The first of these was Darren Sagawa (hence the scare quotes above), who performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 373 rondo for violin and orchestra in C major. This was followed shortly thereafter by Annamarie Arai-López performing a movement from the “Summer” concerto in Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, RV 315. Finally, violist Alexandra Simpson delivered a dynamite account of a set of variations composed by Niccolò Paganini.

That said, pop ruled over the evening in both spirit and practice. This made for a long evening; but, for those that like diversity in their music, there was never a dull moment. The full ensemble was as attentive as ever with a festive spirit that was never lagging.

Winds Rule in SFS Chamber Music Program

Yuhsin Galaxy Su with her clarinet (from her Meet the Musicians Web page)

With the exception of the first offering on the program, this afternoon’s chamber music performance in Davies Symphony Hall was devoted to wind instruments with a bias in favor of the clarinet family. Yuhsin Galaxy Su played clarinet in two quintets, both composed in the first half of the twentieth century. The earlier of these was the second work on the program, Carl Nielsen’s “Serenata in vano,” for which she was joined by bassoonist Joshua Elmore, Jesse Clevenger on horn, cellist Anne Richardson, and Daniel G. Smith on bass. This was followed by another quintet, Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 39 in G minor, with the other four performers being James Button on oboe, violinist Florin Parvulescu, Katarzyna Bryla on viola, and bassist Bowen Ha. Su also performed in a trio of basset horns, joined by Matthew Griffith and Jerome Simas in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K.Anh. 229 divertimento in the key of B-flat major. The program began with a string quartet arrangement of two of the movements from Harry T. Burleigh’s Plantation Melodies Old and New. The quartet members were violinists Kelly Leon-Pearce and John Chisholm, Gina Cooper on viola, and cellist Barbara Bogatin.

As usual, the program was as engaging as it was diverse. The Burleigh arrangement was particularly noticeable in allowing each of the four quartet players to contribute to the theme. In the second of the two movements of An Ante-Bellum Sermon, that theme was “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” bringing a new perspective on a familiar spiritual. Particularly engaging, however, was Su’s capacity to address the eighteenth century with as much spirit as the twentieth. Clearly, she could fit into the ensemble of three basset horns as comfortably as a wind quintet.

That said, I found it particularly satisfying that the program concluded with the basset horn trio. Each of the four works on the program took its own unique approach to instrumental sonorities; but, even though it was the earliest work on the program, the Mozart divertimento came across as a real eyebrow-raiser! It made me appreciate that the SFS musicians knew better than to stick with the usual string quartet and wind quintet combinations. Clearly, this series is as adventurous in exploring sonorities as it is in presenting a diverse perspective of chamber music instrumentation.

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.

Amaral Brightens Shenson Spotlight Series

Violinist Nathan Amaral (from the San Francisco Symphony Web page for last night’s recital)

Some readers may have noticed that my headlines for the first two Shenson Spotlight Series recitals, presented by the San Francisco Symphony, in January and February both included the adjective “dim.” I am happy to report that things brightened up last night in Davies Symphony Hall with the debut recital by violinist Nathan Amaral, accompanied at the piano by Sophiko Simsive. The program was framed by two major (in both key and reputation) violin sonatas, beginning with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and concluding with César Franck. Amaral was born in Brazil and selected the second “Valsa de esquina” by Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone to separate these two European sonatas.

I first became aware of Mignone through Nelson Freire’s Brasileiro album, which I had written about during my tenure with Examiner.com. Last night he was just the right composer to reflect on the soloist’s Brazilian heritage. Personally, I found it to be a perfectly well-conceived “centerpiece,” which could competently “rub shoulders” with both Mozart and Franck. Furthermore, because the Mozart and Franck sonatas both show up frequently in violin recitals, there was something refreshing in Mignone’s rhetoric in departing from the more familiar “classics.”

That said, Amaral did far more than just doing justice to both Mozart and Franck. There is a diversity of intensity in Franck’s rhetoric, which Amaral captured perfectly without ever overplaying it. The Mozart sonata, on the other hand, was conceived as a modest delight, making it the perfect selection for engaging the attentive listener. For all of these selections, Simsive knew how to establish just the right framework for the rhetorical phrasing in the violin solo passages. The result was a selection of three duo performances in which the attentive listener had much to benefit from both of the performers.

As might be expected, Amaral prepared an encore. This was Florence Price’’s “Adoration.” This piece has been championed by violinist Randall Goosby, who has performed it in San Francisco during his past visits. I have come to enjoy that short piece and was glad to listen to an interpretation by another violinist!

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.

Music in the Mishkan Concluding 27th Season

Alexander Malinas, a former recipient (in June of 2024) of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) Highsmith Competition for Orchestra Composition (from an SFCM Web page)

Some readers may recall that only two performances were planned for the 27th season of chamber music presented by Music in the Mishkan. The program for the second program in the season was planned by violinist Randall Weiss. He will perform with violist Dmitri Yevstifeev, Victoria Ehrlich on cello, and pianist Amy Zanrosso for piano quartets that will both begin and conclude the program. The opening selection will be one of the best-known of those quartets, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 478 in G minor. The conclusion will be less familiar, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 41 piano quartet in B-flat major. Between these “bookends” Weiss, Ehrlich, and Zanrosso will present the world premiere performance of Alexander Malinas’ “VaYeira,” composed for piano trio. This will subsequently be the first work to be presented in the composer’s Senior Recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which will take place at the end of this month at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 25.

As usual, the performance will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 12. The venue will be the Sha’ar Zahav synagogue, which is located in the Mission at 290 Dolores Street. Ticket prices are $30 for members and $35 for others. There will be no physical tickets, but a list will be kept at the door. A Web page has been created for payment to register for attendance. Electronic mail will be sent to confirm registration; it will include a Zoom hyperlink for those preferring to watch at home.

Clarinet Quintets Two Centuries Apart

Cover of the album being discussed, presumably on the Dorset coast of England, near where the album was recorded

A new Orchid Classics album of quintets for clarinet and strings is due for release from Orchid Classics one week from today. The composers are from two centuries on either side of the nineteenth century: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gordon Jacob. The latter’s quintet was composed in 1940.

I must confess that I know very little about Jacob other than his textbook The Elements of Orchestration, which was used for the orchestration class I took at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since my “primary” instrument was the clarinet, I was well aware of Mozart’s K. 581 quintet, even if I never had an opportunity to work on it with a willing string quartet. The album concludes with a “bonus track” of sorts. K. 516c is a fragment of the first movement of an earlier Mozart quintet in B-flat major. On this album that single movement was provided with a completion by Duncan Druce.

From a purely personal point of view, there was little on the track to draw my attention. However, 75 minutes has become a familiar maximum duration for CD; and that last track comes to close to filling out that duration. Where the Jacob quintet is concerned, I am just beginning to get to know it; but I found myself enjoying its contrast against the all-too-familiar K. 581. It is also worth noting that Mozart extended the range of the clarinet in that quintet, which the clarinetist on the album, Richard Hosford, managed by switching to a basset clarinet when necessary. The members of the string quartet with which he performed, violinists Marieke Blankestijn and Ulrika Jansson, Iris Juda on viola, and cellist Ursula Smith, did not have to worry about any “out-of-range” notes in the score!

Edgar Meyer Returns to SFP Along with Dover

Edgar Meyer with his bass (photograph by Jim McGuire, courtesy of SFP)

Bassist Edgar Meyer presented his first recital with San Francisco Performances (SFP) in December of 1991, long before writing about the performance of music ever entered my mind. He returned last night making his twelfth appearance in Herbst Theatre. He contributed two of his own compositions, a set of two duets for cello and bass and a piece entitled “Quintet for Strings.” He was joined by the Dover String Quartet, whose members are violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, Hezekiah Leung on viola, and cellist Camden Shaw. Meyer’s addition was a departure from the usual string quintet.

Each of Meyer’s pieces was preceded by music from an earlier century. The program began with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 136 divertimento in D major. This is usually performed by a string ensemble, but the one-to-a-part performance by Dover struck me as a more engaging approach. The quartet also performed Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 80 (sixth) quartet in F minor. This was the one offering on the program that struck me as overwrought, possibly because it was composed in a dark period near the end of the composer’s life.

Meyer’s name will probably be familiar to those that have followed this site (as will as its Examiner.com predecessor) for some time. His performances have been consistently engaging, and his music has been performed by others here in San Francisco. Indeed, a little less than two years ago, two movements from his 1999 Concert Duo were performed by San Francisco Symphony bassist Daniel G. Smith and violinist David Chernyavsky. Sadly, the sense of playfulness that Smith and Chernyavsky evoked never quite came to the surface last night, whether in Meyer’s own music or in the earlier compositions.

Perhaps Dover did not provide the right partnership for Meyer, and I am hoping that I shall not have to wait too long to encounter both his music had his approach to performance in a more conducive setting.

Manfred Honeck Augments Performance of K. 626

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, Manfred Honeck returned to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony, where he had made his debut in May of 2017. The second half of the program was devoted to a somewhat augmented approach to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 626 Requiem, described in the program book as “presented in the context of a funeral liturgy.” The “augmentation” included other Mozart compositions along with Gregorian chant and readings of texts delivered by Adrian Roberts.

Mozart’s autograph of the K. 618 motet (from  the Wikimedia Commons Web page, public domain)

All the chant performances took place off-stage, sung by the members of St. Dominic’s Schola Cantorum under the directorship of Simon Berry. Of far greater significance was the full force of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus directed by Jenny Wong. They were joined by four vocal soloists: Ying Fang (soprano), Sasha Cooke (mezzo), David Portillo (tenor), and Stephano Park (bass). Nevertheless, it was the choral work that consistently rose above both soloists and instrumentalists to seize listener attention. In that context the high point of the entire evening came with the a cappella delivery of the K. 618 motet “Ave verum corpus.”

I suspect that I was not the only one to come away with the feeling that this performances as “all over the map.” Nevertheless, I was impressed by Honeck’s strong command of a wide dynamic range. Indeed, I found the “what’s next” context of dynamic levels to be the primary factor in my own attentive listening. Still, I hope that my next encounter K. 626 will be free of interjections!

The first half of the program accounted for two other First Viennese School composers, one on “either side” of Mozart. The program began with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 62 concert overture “Coriolan.” This introduced me to Honeck’s command of dynamics that continued to impress me throughout the program. The music was familiar, but it was definitely a sit-up-and-take-notice experience.

The same could be said of Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken I/93 symphony in D major. Once again, dynamic range ruled over the entire performance. However, this was another Haydn “surprise” symphony, with the interruption of what can only be called a “bassoon fart” in the second movement! Honeck seemed to enjoy leading this symphony, and I could certainly see why!

Stella Chen Returning to SF for Chamber Music

Cellist Brannon Cho, violinist Stella Chan, and violist Matthew Lipman (from the Groupmuse Web page for their coming recital)

Next month violinist and Bay Area native Stella Chan will return to San Francisco for the third program in the 2026 season presented by Chamber Music San Francisco. Unless I am mistaken, she was last in town in July of 2024, which she came to Davies Symphony Hall to make her debut as concerto soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. She will return next month as part of a trio, whose other members are violist Matthew Lipman and cellist Brannon Cho. The three of them have been performing as a trio since 2023.

They have prepared a “two centuries” program, which will be presented in reverse chronological order. The composer for the first half of the program will be Ernst von Dohnányi. His Opus 10 is a string trio, which was given its first performance in Vienna in 1904. The composer entitled the piece “Serenade,” and it consists of five movements. The second half of the program will be devoted to one of the major chamber music undertakings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His K. 563 divertimento in E-flat major is a six-movement composition, whose fourth movement is a set of seven variations on a theme in B-flat major.

The venue for this performance will be the Presidio Theater, which is located in the Presidio at 99 Moraga Avenue. This will be a Groupmuse event with a Web page for purchasing tickets. Ticket prices are $20 with the discounted $15 for Supermusers. The performance will begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 8. Ticket sales will close at noon on Thursday, March 5.

[added 2/18, 6:35 a.m.: As of this writing, only four Groupmuse tickets are available. Remaining tickets will be sold through the Chamber Music San Francisco Web page. Ticket prices are $69 and $35.]

Ax Returns to SFS under van Zweden’s Baton

Last night conductor Jaap van Zweden returned to Davies Symphony Hall to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a program coupling an eighteenth-century concerto with a nineteenth-century symphony. Both works were completed nearing the end of their respective centuries. The program began with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 503 piano concerto in C major, composed in 1786. The soloist for the performance was Emanuel Ax. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Anton Bruckner’s seventh symphony in E major (WAB 107), composed in 1883 and revised in 1885.

Pianist Emanuel Ax (photograph by Nigel Parry, courtesy of SFS)

C major tended to be Mozart’s key for high spirits, and Ax definitely delivered a spirited account. He last visited Davies in October of 2024 to give a Great Performers Series Concert divided equally between Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann. Particularly memorable, though, was his duo performance with Itzhak Perlman in Davies in January of 2016, when they gave a delightfully fresh account of Mozart’s K. 296 sonata in C major. Ax was clearly “on the ball” last night, and his engagement with van Zweden was consistently attentive. Nevertheless, for all the many times he returned for bows, it seemed as if his heart was not in the music as it had been in past visits.

Fortunately, van Zweden’s heart was definitely in his approach to Bruckner. Just about any Bruckner composition requires more than a few listening encounters before one can begin to appreciate his efforts. Having experienced that journey myself, I felt as if I could share my own appreciation with van Zweden’s. Mind you, I encounter performances of Bruckner’s music so seldom that I usually need a bit of time to “settle into” his rhetoric at the beginning of any of his compositions. Under van Zweden’s direction, that “settling” did not take very long. Once I could establish the “terrain” of his interpretation, I could appreciate the vast expanse of the composer’s rhetoric; and I found myself leaving Davies with the wistful reflection that I needed to hear more of this music.

Sam Weiser to Join Ian Scarfe at Century Club

Poster for the event being described, showing the two performers (screenshot from the Groupmuse Web page)

Some readers may recall that this afternoon pianist Ian Scarfe will begin the new year with his next visit to the Century Club of California. This may turn out to be a regular event, because, a little less than two weeks ago, I learned that Scarfe will return to the Century Club almost exactly one month later. However, while he will be performing with cellist James Joffe this afternoon, next month his duo partner will be violinist Sam Weiser, who, according to my records, last performed with Scarfe this past June for his Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, performed at Monument SF.

Next month’s program will be framed by two significant compositions in the sonata repertoire. The program will begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 304 two-movement violin sonata, which will be coupled with the last of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three Opus 30 violin sonatas, composed in the key of G major. The second half of the program will begin with Rebecca Clarke’s “Midsummer Moon,” followed by Amy Beach’s Opus 23 “Romance,” her first chamber music composition.

For those that do not already know, the Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. However, all arrangements must be made through a Groupmuse Web page. Ticket prices begin at $25, with $5 to hold a reservation. As of this writing, 73 of 75 spots are still available. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 22. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Drinks will be provided at the intermission (both with and without alcohol). However, the club itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Music in the Mishkan Announces 27th Season

Poster design for the Music in the Mishkan season (from last year’s announcement of the 26th season)

Violinist Randall Weiss recently announced plans for the 27th season of Music in the Mishkan. He is a long-time member of The Bridge Players. The season will consist of only two performances, which will be performed by the same piano quartet. The pianist will be Amy Zanrosso, and Weiss will be joined by violist Natalia Vershilova and Victoria Ehrlich on cello. Both concerts will be Sunday afternoon events, beginning at 4 p.m. Dates and program selections will be as follows:

February 15: In 1999 Lera Auerbach composed three cycles of 24 preludes accounting for all major and minor keys. According to my records, the chronological order of these cycles accounts for piano, cello, and violin, the last two being duo performances with piano accompaniment. For the first Mishkan performance, Weiss will perform selections from the violin cycle and Ehrlich will do the same drawing upon the cello cycle. These selections will be preceded by a violin sonata in D minor composed by Leon Reinach, who was murdered in the Holocaust. The remainder of the program will offer more familiar selections: Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 120 piano trio in D minor and Robert Schumann’s Opus 47 piano quartet in E-flat major.

April 12: The second program will feature the world premiere of a piano trio by Alex Malinas. It will begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 478 piano quartet in G minor. The second half of the program will be devoted to Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 41 piano quartet in B-flat major.

As in the past, these performances will take place at the Sha’ar Zahav synagogue. It is located in the Mission at 290 Dolores Street. Ticket prices are $30 for members and $35 for others. All purchases are processed through a single Web page. There will be no physical tickets, but a list will be kept at the door.

New Century Chamber Orchestra in January

Having pretty much accounted for the “seasonal holiday” events, this site can begin to prepare readers for performances next month. Currently, the only performances that have come to my attention will not take place until late in January. Fortunately, they will be worth the wait!

Violinist Simone Porter (from her Opus3 Artists Web page)

The first of these will be the third of the four performances in San Francisco by the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) with its Music Director Daniel Hope. American violinist Simone Porter will serve as guest leader of a program entitled Enlighten Me, and the ensemble will be joined by students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The repertoire will span music history from the twelfth century (with Hildegard von Bingen’s setting of the antiphon “O virtus sapientiae”) to “Cathedral of Light” by the contemporary composer Juhi Bansai. Other composers on the program will be Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Porter will also be the soloist in the performance of Bach’s BWV 1042 violin concerto in E major.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place on Saturday, January 24, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The venue will be the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which is located 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the underground Muni station. Tickets may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page with prices between $35 and $80.

“Kindermusik” Album for Father and Son

Having written yesterday about the “Holly, Jolly” spirit of Christmas at the Cadillac Hotel, I would now like to turn to a more secular approach to having fun with making music. The “makers” are probably familiar to most readers, the more familiar being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He shares a new harmonia mundi album, entitled Kindermusik [children’s music], with his father Leopold. While the overall program is not necessarily a coherent one, it lives up to the advance material I received, describing it as an exploration of “the mischievous world of the Mozarts, father and son.”

By way of disclaimer, I should begin by observing that I first came to know one of the selections on this album in my very early childhood, quite some time before I took my first music lessons. At that time I knew it as the “Toy Symphony,” composed by Joseph Haydn. As I grew older, I learned that it was the composer’s younger brother, Michael Haydn, that was the composer, followed only a little later by the discovery that the symphony’s three movements were previously found in the seven-movement G major cassation by Leopold. Thus, he takes full credit for the music on the new Kindermusik album, to which he also contributes the opening selection, a five-movement suite entitled Die musikalische Schlittenfahrt (a musical sleigh ride).

Each of these compositions is followed by a work by Leopold’s better-known son. The “sleigh ride” suite leads into K. 239, the “Serenata notturna;” and the “program” of the album concludes with the K. 522 “musical joke” (given the title “Ein musikalischer Spaß”). Thus, one may view the entire album as a “ride,” which concludes the journey with a raucous sense of humor. (When I say “raucous,” I single out the cadenza that gives the “last word” in K. 522.)

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

I must confess that this is the sort of music that is more fun in performance than on recording. Nevertheless, I was delighted to see how nicely the spirit of the music was captured in the design of the album cover. The chaotic array of toys could not be more apposite, while the black cat works his way along the bottom of the album hoping that he will not be blamed for the chaos. Any “secret Santa” that has to provide a gift for a music lover would do well to consider this Kindermusik album as an option!

DSO Couples Beethoven and Mozart Favorites

Pianist Francesco Piemontesi attentive to DSO conductor Jader Bignamini (screen shot from last night’s YouTube video of the webcast)

Yesterday my wife and I enjoyed our latest dinner with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) conducted by Jader Bignamini. The live-stream presented a straightforward “meat and potatoes” program (to go with our dinner meal) with Ludwig van Beethoven in the first half of the program and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart occupying the second. The program had the usual overture-concerto-symphony format; and the concerto soloist was pianist Francesco Piemontesi.

His concerto selection was Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 15 (first) piano concerto in C major. While this was a rather early piece, Beethoven provided a rich palette of instrumental sonorities from the orchestra accompanying the soloist. Piemontesi had a solid command of every one of the composer’s notes, extending them with his own cadenza. Sadly, the latter came across as an effort to upstage the composer, making for a rather unbalanced account of the overall listening experience. Indeed, from the listener’s point of view, the encore may have come across as more engaging than the concerto. That encore was the Adagio movement from Mozart’s K. 332 piano sonata in F major (which was not announced under the assumption that everyone recognized it).

Fortunately, the overall balance was more secure in the instrumental account of the overture, Beethoven’s Opus 62, “Coriolan Overture,” composed for a performance of Coriolan, the 1804 tragic drama by Heinrich Joseph von Collin. It would be fair to say that this is music that seethes with intensity. Fortunately, Bignamini knew how to convey that intensity without overplaying his hand. As usual, the camera work was as cognizant of the score as the conductor was, leading the viewer through the sources of the diversity of sonorities.

That diversity was just as evident to both ear and eye in the performance of Mozart’s K. 550 (40th) symphony in G minor. Indeed, it was the camera work that brought freshness to music that most listeners first encountered in childhood. The camera crew clearly “knew the score” as well as Bignamini did, not to mention many, if not most, of the listeners. Thus, it was the “visual journey” that breathed new life into one of the oldest of old favorites.

In other words, while the offering may have been “meat and potatoes,” the “seasoning” made for a thoroughly engaging (and possibly memorable) listening experience.

Perlman’s Great Performers Recital at Davies

Violinist Itzhak Perlman (from the San Francisco Symphony Web page for his recital)

Last night violinist Itzhak Perlman returned to Davies Symphony Hall for his latest recital in the San Francisco Symphony Great Performers Series. Perlman has not been a stranger to San Francisco; but, according to my archives, I have not encountered him since his Opening Night Gala performance with the San Francisco Symphony in September of 2018. He used that event to promote his Perlman Music Program, bringing six of the alumni in tow. Last night was a more traditional duo recital with pianist Rohan De Silva as accompanist.

Where violin recitals are concerned, “traditional” usually means “beginning with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” Sure enough, the evening began with the two-movement K. 301 sonata in G major. The rest of the program took a one-century leap into the last decades of the nineteenth century. The intermission was preceded by César Franck’s A major sonata and followed by the G major sonatina, Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 100.

There were, of course, encores: six of them, all probably familiar to those following violin recitals. Fritz Kreisler was represented by both the familiar “Liebesfreud” (love’s joy, the first of the three Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen pieces) and the less-encountered Opus 3, “Tambourin Chinois.” The other composer given two encores was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the “Chant sans paroles” and “Humoresque,” the second of the two Opus 10 pieces. Perlman then concluded the encores with the one that probably drew the most listeners, the theme that John Williams composed for the movie Schindler’s List.

Taken as a whole, this was an evening of satisfying diversity. However (perhaps because age is catching up on me), it was hard to come away without thinking this had been a “business as usual” encounter. Perlman is clearly as skilled and focused as ever. Nevertheless, there was little, if any, among the stimuli to excite the “little grey cells.” I almost (but not quite) felt that revisiting the album tracks would have been just as stimulating.