MTT will Focus Only on Mahler Next Month

Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (photograph by Vahan Stepanyan, courtesy of SFS)

Yesterday the San Francisco Symphony announced that Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) has revised his conducting schedule for the first two months of the New Year. He had originally planned to lead three programs, but he has reduced that number to one. That last will consist entirely of Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony, and the series of performances will mark his final Subscription Series conducting for SFS.

Those that had followed MTT’s “Mahler journeys” during his tenure as Music Director are probably by now familiar with the Mahler fifth, which, like other “fifth symphonies” (beginning with Beethoven) is rich in both connotation and denotation. Furthermore, there is a symmetry in its five-movement structure, which makes for a thoroughly engaging listening experience. At the middle of the structure is the third movement, which is the Scherzo; but that movement may well be the longest-duration scherzo in the standard repertoire, if not in music history.

Where scherzos tend to be playful, this one is distinctively dark. In many ways, it is a response to the “call” of the first two movements. The first of these is a funeral march that usually lasts for about a quarter of an hour (again longer than what one finds in the repertoire of funeral marches). It is followed by a second movement with a disruptively turbulent introduction, which then settles back into another funeral march. On “the other side,” the scherzo is followed by the Adagietto movement, which is scored only for strings and solo harp. The symphony then concludes with a Rondo finale, whose thematic content reflects back on both the second and fourth movements. Taken as a whole, many would declare this to be Mahler’s most sophisticated symphonic structure; and I definitely go with that crowd in my own opinion!

This program will be given three performances, all at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 25, Friday, January 26, and Saturday, January 27. Ticket prices range from $75 to $249. They may be purchased online through the a hyperlink to a single SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street (now MTT Way) between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday. The Box Office is also open only for tickets to the performances two hours before the concert begins.

In addition, these performances will be preceded by a Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 25, with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Sarah Cahill at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m. Admission will be free for those holding tickets for one of the three concert performances. For others general admission is $35 with $45 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section, as well as all Boxes and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.

The first conductor to substitute for MTT will be Dalia Stasevska, who will be making her Orchestral Series debut. As originally planned, the concerto soloist will be Seong-Jin Cho, performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 37 (third) piano concerto in C minor. There will not be an “overture” prior to the concert; but there will be a change in the symphony to be performed after the intermission. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor will be replaced by Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 95 (“From the New World”) symphony in E minor.

This program will be given three performances, all at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 18, Friday, January 19, and Saturday, January 20. Ticket prices range from $25 to $225. They may be purchased online through the a hyperlink to a single SFS Web site or by any of the aforementioned alternatives.

These performances will also be preceded by a Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. The half-hour introductory talk by Laura Prichard will again take place at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.

The second conductor to substitute for MTT will be Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. In this case the concerto will occupy the entire second half of the program. The soloist will be violinist Julia Fischer, and she will play Johannes Brahms’ Opus 77 violin concerto in D major in place of the originally scheduled Opus 26 concerto in G minor by Max Bruch, his first violin concerto. This was the concerto selection that Salonen and Fischer performed earlier this month at the Nobel Prize Concert. As originally planned, the first half of the program will offer the music that Igor Stravinsky composed for the one-act ballet “Pulcinella” in 21 sections. The score includes arias for soprano (Sasha Cooke), tenor (Nicolas Phan), and bass (Luca Pisaroni), along with two sung trios.

This program will be given three performances, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 25. Ticket prices range from $25 to $169. They may be purchased online through the hyperlink to a single SFS Web site or by any of the aforementioned alternatives.