Pierre-Laurent Aimard to Continue Piano Series

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photograph by Julia Wesley, courtesy of SFP)

The end of this month will see the penultimate performance in this season’s San Francisco Performances (SFP) Piano Series. The pianist to perform will be Pierre-Laurent Aimard. If my records are correct, this will be his third SFP appearance, having given his second recital in March of 2018. Since that time, he has been no stranger to San Francisco, giving several performances in Davies Symphony Hall.

I had previously described Aimard’s SFP debut as “a program of considerable breadth.” That breadth will be found this time in the extent of the overall “time line,” while all the works will be focused on a single genre: the fantasia. At one end of the “time line,” he will perform music by the early Baroque Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, his SwWV 261 “Echo” fantasia. This will be coupled with the “other end” of the chronology with a performance of Elliott Carter’s “Night Fantasies.” Between these extremes, the Classical period will be represented by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (the H. 284 fantasy in C major), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (the K. 475 fantasy in C minor), and Ludwig van Beethoven (the Opus 77 fantasia in G minor). The only nineteenth-century composer will be Frédéric Chopin with his Opus 61 Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat major. This will be followed by the Carter and Sweelinck fantasies and then conclude with one more: “The Celestial Railroad,” which Charles Ives called a “Phantasy” for solo piano.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 27. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are being sold for $80 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $70 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $60 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page or by calling 415-392-2545.