Readers have probably noticed that I have been writing more month-by-month preview articles for individual concert organizations. Due to the pandemic, my “busy weekend” articles tended to vanish almost entirely; and what used to be a regular weekly “bleeding edge” account of more adventurous performances has been much more sporadic as a result of COVID-19. All this is my way of introducing an account of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) performances in Davies Symphony Hall for the current month. Since scheduling tends to vary from one week to the next, I shall abandon the usual bold-face date headers and embed the hyperlinks where they are most appropriate. That said, Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct all four of the SFS concert programs for October as follows:
This week’s program will feature two SFS premieres. One of these is “Graffiti,” composed by Unsuk Chin as a reflection on street art. Each of the three performances will be accompanied by the painting of an on-site original mural prior to the concert. Each mural, in turn, will be created by a Bay Area artist from the group The Writerz of Doom. A different artist will contribute to each of the performances; and the participating artists will be Jude Capili, Alex Douhovnikoff, and Domingo Magobet. “Graffiti” will be preceded by the United States premiere on Hannah Kendall’s “Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Gama.” The composition was named after Tuxedo, created by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as a reflection on da Gama’s voyages as the first seeds of globalization. The program will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major.
This concert will be given three performances, all at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 7, Friday, October 8, and Saturday, October 9. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Elizabeth Seitz one hour prior to each concert. Doors will open fifteen minutes before the talk begins. Ticket prices range from $20 to $165 and may also be purchased by calling the SFS Box Office at 415-864-6000.
The title of the second week’s program will be Exotic Birds: Debussy, Messiaen & Saariaho. The title is the English translation of Olivier Messiaen’s “Oiseaux exotiques,” which incorporates the songs of 47 species of birds. Messiaen composed this piece for piano and orchestra, and the piano soloist will be Jeremy Denk. The other “avian” composition on the program will be Kaija Saariaho’s concerto for flute and orchestra, “Aile de songe” (wing of the dream). The soloist will be flutist Clare Chase, who performed the last movement of this concerto, entitled “Terrestre,” for the SoundBox program streamed by SFSymphony+ this past July 8. These two avian offerings will be framed by two familiar compositions by Claude Debussy. The opening selection will be “Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune” (prelude to the afternoon of a faun); and the program will conclude with the three-movement suite La Mer.
This concert will be given four performances, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 14, Friday, October 15, and Saturday, October 16, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 17. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Peter Grunberg one hour prior to each concert. Doors will open fifteen minutes before the talk begins.
These performances will be preceded by the first Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal of the season. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 14, with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Grunberg at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. General admission is $30 with $40 for reserved seats in the Premier Orchestra section, Rear Boxes and Side Boxes, and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.
The third program on the month will feature the United States premiere of a violin concerto composed by Bryce Dessner, one of Salonen’s Collaborative Partners. SFS co-commissioned this concerto along with the Hessischer Rundfunk Symphonieorchester, the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Southbank Centre in London. The program will begin with Beethoven’s Opus 72a, the second “Leonore” overture composed for the composer’s only opera before he changed the name from Leonore to Fidelio. The program will conclude with Franz Schubert’s D. 485 (usually numbered as his fifth) symphony in B-flat major.
This concert will be given three performances, all at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 21, Friday, October 22, and Saturday, October 23. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Scott Foglesong one hour prior to each concert.
The final program of the month will see the return of pianist Yefim Bronfman to Davies. He will be the soloist in a performance of Beethoven’s Opus 37 (third) piano concerto in C minor. This will be complemented, at the beginning of the program, by Anders Hillborg’s “Kongsgaard Variations.” This was composed to extol the virtues of music and wine, using a few bars (pun intended?) of Beethoven as a point of departure. The performance will be the SFS premiere of the orchestral version of this piece. The Hillborg premiere will be followed by a very late composition by Richard Strauss, the second of two sonatinas for sixteen wind instruments. This particular sonatina (TrV 291), in the key of E-flat major, was given the title “Fröhliche Werkstatt” (happy workshop).
This concert will be given three performances, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, October 28, and at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, October 29, and Saturday, October 30. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. The Inside Music talk will again be given by Foglesong one hour prior to each concert.
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