Wednesday, October 6, 2021

SFS Singles: October, 2021

Yesterday this site reviewed the four programs that will be be given multiple performances by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) over the course of this month. However, SFS also arranges for performances by visiting artists through its Great Performers Series, as well as chamber music recitals by SFS musicians, which take place both in Davies Symphony Hall and at the Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor building. As indicated in the above headline, all of these programs are given only a single performance. Three of them will take place this month, two on the same day. Specifics are as follows with hyperlinks to the event pages from which tickets may be purchased:

Sunday, October 10, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: Readers may recall that, this past February, the Chamber Music Series streamed through SFSymphony+ a performance of “Bariolage.” This piece was composed in 2016 by Shinji Eshima, who currently plays bass for both the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, holding the position of Associate Principal Bass for the latter. He wrote it with two SFS musicians in mind, cellist Amos Yang and bassist Charles Chandler, on a commission by Michèle and Larry Corash. That fifteen-minute video is still available for streaming; but, presumably, Yang and Chandler will revisit the composition to launch the Davies chamber music programs with a “live” performance. Any additional information about performers has not yet been released; but the other two works to be performed will be “Perfectly Voiceless” by Devonté Hynes, originally composed for a dance performance and scored for percussion quartet, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 57 piano quintet in G minor.

Sunday, October 24, 2 p.m., Gunn Theater: The primary work on this program will be the concluding selection, Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 87 (second) piano quartet in E-flat major. The pianist will be Anton Nel, joined by Alexander Barantschik on violin, Jonathan Vinocour on viola, and Peter Wyrick on cello. The opening selections will both be duo sonatas. Barantschik will begin the program with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 378 violin sonata in B-flat major. Wyrick will then play Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 58 (second) cello sonata in D major.

Sunday, October 24, 7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: Violinist Ray Chen will perform with accompanying pianist Julio Elizalde. They will begin the program with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 30 sonata (described on the original cover page as a sonata for piano and violin) in G major. This will be followed by the arrangement for violin and piano of the divertimento that Igor Stravinsky extracted from his score for the ballet “Le baiser de la fée” (the fairy’s kiss), whose thematic material was appropriated from early piano pieces and songs by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The program will continue with the “Devil’s Trill Sonata,” the eighteenth-century sonata in G minor composed for solo violin with figured bass accompaniment. There have been several published realizations of that figured bass for piano accompaniment, and Elizalde will play the one prepared by Léopold Charlier. Chen will then play arrangements of two of the Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms, the seventh dance in A major by Joseph Joachim and the seventeenth in F-sharp minor by Fritz Kreisler. The program will then conclude with Pablo de Sarasate’s Opus 20 “Zigeunerweisen” (gypsy airs). This was originally composed for violin and orchestra, and Sarasate prepared his own arrangement for violin and piano.

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