Next month will see the beginning of the 2019 season of Chamber Music San Francisco (CMSF). As was the case last year, the San Francisco season will consist of ten concerts that will take place between February and May; but there will also be a “bonus event” in the form of a lecture/demonstration. All performances will take place in Herbst Theatre, located in the Veterans Building on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Concerts will alternate between evenings at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Specifics are as follows:
Sunday, February 10, 3 p.m., Calefax: Calefax is an Amsterdam-based quintet playing a non-standard assembly of reed instruments: oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, bassoon, and bass clarinet. As might be guessed, much of their repertoire involves arrangements for the unique sonorities they offer. This will be their debut in Herbst Theatre; and they will mark the occasion with their own distinctive approach to landmark keyboard compositions, the BWV 988 set of (“Goldberg”) variations by Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner suite for solo piano.
Saturday, February 23, 8 p.m., Cuarteto Casals: Named in honor of the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals, this string quartet has been acknowledged as ambassadors of Catalan culture by the Generalitat of Catalunya. This is one of an increasing number of quartets in which the two violinists share leadership duties from the first chair. The second half of their program will be devoted to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 131 quartet in C-sharp minor. The first half will be shared by Joseph Haydn (Hoboken III/39 in C major, known as “The Bird”) and Felix Mendelssohn (Opus 80 in F minor).
Sunday, March 3, 3 p.m., Steven Isserlis: Cellist Isserlis will present the West Coast debut of a program he has designed entitled Composers & Their Muses. He has identified three familiar composers, Robert Schumann, Bohuslav Martinů, and César Franck, each of whom had been inspired by a female composer: Clara Schumann, Vítězslava Kaprálová, and Augusta Holmès. The relationship between the Schumanns is well known; Kaprálová and Holmès were pupils of Martinů and Franck, respectively. Isserlis’ accompanist will be pianist Connie Shih.
Saturday, March 16, 8 p.m., Pacifica Quartet: No strangers to Herbst Theatre, the members of the Pacifica Quartet will share with Cuarteto Casals the concept of a program framed by Beethoven and Mendelssohn. In their case, however, they will begin with early Beethoven (Opus 18, Number 6 in B-flat major) and conclude with Mendelssohn (Opus 44, Number 1 in D major). However, these “standards” of the classical repertoire will frame a composition not yet five years old, Shulamit Ran’s third quartet, composed in tribute to the Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum and other victims of the Holocaust and given the programmatic title “Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory.”
Pacifica will also participate in a lecture/demonstration entitled Shostakovich Walks the Tightrope. Professor Paul Phillips, Director of Orchestral Studies at Stanford University, will discuss the extent to which the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich may be given autobiographical interpretations. Pacifica will illustrate Phillips’ lecture by performing excerpts from the Opus 83 (fourth) in D major, Opus 110 (eighth) in C minor, and Opus 133 (twelfth) in D-flat major. This event will also take place in Herbst Theatre, beginning at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 15.
Sunday, March 31, 3 p.m., Nikolay Khozyainov: This pianist was the youngest finalist in the 2010 Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw. He will demonstrate his command of Frédéric Chopin with a performance of the third sonata in B minor preceded by the shorter “Berceuse.” Both Chopin selections will be preceded by music of the twentieth century. The program will begin with Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, followed by two selections based on ballet scores by Igor Stravinsky. Khozyainov will begin with Stravinsky’s own arrangement of three excerpts from the score for “Petrushka.” Khozyainov will then play his own solo piano arrangement of the final section from the score for “The Rite of Spring, the “Danse sacrale” (sacrificial dance) in which the Chosen One dances herself to death.
Sunday, April 14, 3 p.m., Nelson Goerner: Argentinian pianist Goerner will make his San Francisco debut with a “meat-and-potatoes” program. He will use the second half of his program to play the entire Opus 25 collection of études by Chopin. The major work on the first half will be Beethoven’s Opus 57 (“Appassionata”) sonata in F minor, preceded by the four short pieces in Johannes Brahms’ Opus 119.
Saturday, May 4, 8 p.m., Mischa Maisky: Cellist Maisky will return to CMSF and Herbst, once again accompanied at the piano by his daughter Lily; the selections for the program they have prepared have not yet been announced.
Thursday, May 9, 8 p.m., New York Philharmonic String Quartet: The next San Francisco debut will be that of a string quartet formed from four leading members of the New York Philharmonic, Concertmaster Frank Huang, Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples, Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps, and Principal Cello Carter Brey. They will devote the second half of the program to a Brahms quartet that deserves more attention that it tends to get, his second (Opus 51, Number 2) in A minor. The program will begin with Haydn’s Hoboken III/76, the second of the Opus 76 quartets dedicated to the Hungarian count Joseph Georg von Erdődy, known as the “Fifths” quartet. This will be followed by Shostakovich’s Opus 117 (ninth) quartet in E-flat major.
Sunday, May 12, 3 p.m., Brandenburg Concertos & More: This will be the annual Mother’s Day concert presented by the Archetti Baroque String Ensemble. In spite of the title, only one of Bach’s “Brandenburg” concertos will be performed, BWV 1049 (the fourth) in G major. However, it will be preceded by the BWV 1043 (“double”) concerto in D minor for two violins. Other composers on the program will be Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Pieter Hellendaal The Elder.
Sunday, May 19, 3 p.m., Alexandra Soumm: The season will conclude with the San Francisco debut of French/Russian violinist Alexandra Soumm. She has prepared a program that will dwell, for the most part, on shorter works through which she can account for the diversity of styles under her command. Her offerings will allow for a relatively equal balance between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A single Web page has been created for the different options for purchasing subscriptions. A Full Series subscription costs $360 and includes the Pacifica lecture/demonstration, as well as the recital. There is also the mini-series option that allows purchasing tickets for four or more concerts. Single tickets also on sale. The above hyperlinks connect to the appropriate City Box Office Web pages for single-ticket purchases. (Those hyperlinks may also be found on the subscription Web page.) Tickets may also be ordered by calling 415-392-4400.
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