Esa-Pekka Salonen at SFS in the 2024–25 Season

 

Esa-Pekka Salonen (photograph by Andrew Eccles, courtesy of SFS)

Having accounted a week ago for Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in the concert preceding the Opening Night Gala, it is worth surveying other programs that he has prepared for the 2024–25 season. As usual, he will command a broad scope of repertoire. Nevertheless, there will definitely be a recognizable bias towards the twentieth century, as well as world premiere performances of new works. Here are some (but not all) of the offerings that will definitely be worth considering:

September 27–28: The first program to take place following the Gala will present the world premiere of a piano concerto by Nico Muhly, which, apparently, was inspired by traditional Baroque practices. The piano soloist for this performance will be Alexandre Tharaud. He is no stranger to those Baroque practices, having performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 988 set of (“Goldberg”) variations on an Aria theme for San Francisco Performances in April of 2019. Salonen seems to have decided that Muhly’s concerto should be coupled with music by Bach himself. He has selected one of Edward Elgar’s arrangements of a Bach organ composition. (Elgar was the organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church in Worcester during the middle of the nineteenth century.) The selection will be the BWV 537 fantasia and fugue in C minor. The entire program will be framed by two works by Paul Hindemith. The opening selection will be another nod to Bach, using one of the composer’s themes as a ragtime tune. (The title of the piece is simply “Ragtime.”) The program will conclude with Hindemith’s best-known symphony, “Mathis der Maler,” inspired by the paintings of Matthias Grünewald.

October 18–20: Salonen will present the first SFS performances of his cello concerto with Principal Cello Rainer Eudeikis as the soloist. (The concerto was originally composed for Yo-Yo Ma.) The concerto will be framed by music from the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Reversing the usual sequence, the program will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 68 (sixth) symphony in F major, best known as the “Pastoral” symphony. The concluding selection (which will not really be an overture) will be Claude Debussy’s La mer (the sea), which he described as “three symphonic sketches.”

February 13–16: This will be the next visit to SFS by pianist Yuja Wang. Salonen has prepared a program of three compositions for piano and orchestra by Igor Stravinsky. Each of these will be followed by one of the movements from Claude Debussy’s Images pour orchestre. The extent to which Debussy’s music may have influenced Stravinsky will be left as an exercise for the listener!

May 23–25: Salonen will return with more Stravinsky, this time a much earlier composition. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to the score for the one-act ballet “The Firebird.” Composed for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company, this was Stravinsky’s first work to receive significant attention. This will be the “symphony” portion of the program. The “overture” will be the first SFS performances of Magnus Lindberg’s “Chorale;” and the concerto will be Alban Berg’s violin concerto with Isabelle Faust as soloist.

June 6–8: According to my records, Salonen has not conducted the music of Jean Sibelius with SFS since February of 2023, when the symphony selection was Opus 82, the fifth in E-flat major. Nearing the conclusion of his tenure, Salonen will perform Sibelius’ final (seventh) symphony. The composer was so focused on this undertaking that it took him a decade to complete this single-movement work. It will be coupled with the world premiere of a work by Gabriella Smith, composed presumably in less time. The entire program will be framed by the two best-known tone poems by Richard Strauss, beginning with “Don Juan” and concluding with “Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks.”

June 12–14: Most readers probably know that this past season was concluded with Salonen conducting a performance of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony. Next June he will conclude the season with the second symphony. Like the third, this symphony will include performance by the SFS Chorus, prepared by Director Jenny Wong. This time, however, there will be two vocal soloists, soprano Heidi Stober and mezzo Sasha Cooke.

Each of the above dates is hyperlinked to an SFS Web page through which readers can be informed about ticket prices and availability, as well as support for online purchases. In addition, the final program of the season will have an Open Rehearsal on Thursday, June 12. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. Admission will be free for those holding tickets for one of the three concert performances. For others general admission is $45 with $55 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. All tickets may also be purchased at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office. The entrance is on the south side of MTT Way (formerly Grove Street), located between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue.