SFS: 2023–24 Great Performers Series

The programs planned by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) for its 2023–24 Great Performers Series have now been finalized. As usual, these performances will take place in Davies Symphony Hall. This season there will be eight programs, five of which will be solo recitals (one with piano accompaniment), one piano trio, a performance by members of the SFS Brass section, and the return of members of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra, led by its Music Director, the violinist Joshua Bell. All programs will begin at 7:30 p.m. on the following dates, whose hyperlinks lead to the Web pages for ticket purchases:

Sunday, October 15: The series will begin with the piano trio recital. The recitalists will be violinist Lisa Batiashvili, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The program will consist of three trios, each from a different century. It will begin with Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken XV/28 trio in E major, which will be the earliest work on the program. This will be followed by the twentieth-century trio by Maurice Ravel. The second half of the program will account for the nineteenth century with a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 66 trio in C minor.

Sunday, November 19: The first solo recital will be by pianist Daniil Trifonov. He will confine himself to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with the A minor suite in the last of the three books that Jean-Philippe Rameau published until the title Pièces de clavecin (published in either 1726 or 1727). This will be followed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 332 piano sonata in F major. The second half of the program will move to the nineteenth century, first with Mendelssohn’s Opus 54 “Variations sérieuses.” The program will then conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 106 (“Hammerklavier”) sonata in B-flat major.

Sunday, March 10: This will be the Brass concert, whose program details have not yet been finalized.

Sunday, March 24: The second solo recital will be by violinist Ray Chen, who will be accompanied at the piano by Julio Elizalde. He will begin in the twentieth century with Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, which consists of excerpts from the music composed for the ballet “Pulcinella,” and Francis Poulenc’s violin sonata. After a brief pause in the eighteenth century (a chaconne in G minor by Tomaso Antonio Vitali), Chen will launch into the nineteenth century with Antonio Bazzini’s “La Ronde des Lutins.” This will be followed by Joseph Joachim’s arrangement of the seventh of the Hungarian dances by Johannes Brahms. The program conclude with the “Csárdás” by Vittorio Monti.

Sunday, April 7: Bell will lead the Academy of St Martin in the Fields musicians while taking the solo part of Felix Mendelssohn’s E minor violin concerto; the second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Robert Schumann’s Opus 61 (second) symphony in C major.

Sunday, April 21: Yefim Bronfman’s solo recital will focus on the nineteenth century with one exception. That exception will be Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Sisar.” The program will be framed by major sonatas by Franz Schubert (D. 784 in A minor) and Frédéric Chopin (Opus 58 in B minor). The Schubert sonata will be followed by Robert Schumann’s Opus 26 suite Faschingsschwank aus Wien (carnival jest from Vienna).

Tuesday, May 7: Evgeny Kissin will also frame his program with two major sonatas. The program will begin with Beethoven’s Opus 90 in E minor and conclude with Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 14 (second) sonata in D minor. Beethoven’s sonata will be paired with Johannes Brahms Opus 10 set of ballades. The Prokofiev sonata will be preceded by the Opus 16 Moments Musicaux by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Wednesday, May 15: The series will conclude with a solo recital by Yuja Wang, whose program has not yet been finalized