The Labèque sisters, "the best piano duet in front of an audience today," (The New York Times) perform Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos. See this dynamic pair play a work that abounds with a dramatic force that lends itself perfectly to the Labèque's singular vitality and virtuosity. Then, hear Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony, famous for its use of folk songs evoking rustic scenes of the Ukrainian countryside.
The Thursday Matinee concerts are endowed by a gift in memory of Rhoda Goldman.
Guest artist signing: Piano duo, The Labèque sisters, will be available for autographs following the May 31, Jun 1 and Jun 2 concerts. Signing takes place in the orchestra lobby, near the Symphony Store.
Inside Music, an informative talk by Laura Stanfield Prichard, begins one hour prior to concerts. Free to ticketholders. Learn More.
The Prelude Series: A Pre-Concert Discussion
An engaging new way to enhance your classical music experience at Davies Symphony Hall. Join us 45 minutes before the performance in the First Tier Lobby to take part in a free pre-concert discussion.
Discussion topic: Reveling in Romanticism
Taneyev
Oresteia Overture 1889 | 18 mins
At a time when most Russian operas were either fairy-tale fantasies or nationalistic epics, Sergei Taneyev developed a work based on episodes from the classic Oresteia penned by the Greek author Aeschylus (525-456 BCE). In 1889, Taneyev wrote what he intended to be the opera’s overture; by the time he finished the opera he instead composed a more concise prelude and expanded the original overture into its own standalone concert piece (played at these concerts). LISTEN FOR: This music is tense and dramatic. An early listener described “wild sounds of the cymbals, harsh trills of the woodwinds, exclamations of the trombones, and fateful muted sounds of horns . . . against which . . . phrases quickly flash and change, or are incessantly repeated, as an inconsolable cry of the heart.” Toward the end, the piece reaches a plane of transcendent majesty.
Bruch
Concerto for Two Pianos in A-flat minor 1915 | 25 mins
Max Bruch was approached about writing a double piano concerto by a pair of American sisters from Baltimore, Ottilie and Rose Sutro, who had achieved reasonably successful careers as a piano-duo team. LOCAL TIDBIT: The sisters were nieces of Adolph Sutro, who had made a fortune engineering a mining tunnel in Nevada and founded San Francisco’s Sutro Baths and Cliff House; he also served from 1895 to 1897 as our city’s twenty-fourth mayor. The Sutro sisters gave the world premiere of this double concerto; at these concerts, you'll hear the first San Francisco Symphony performances featuring another sister act, Katia and Marielle Labèque. This piece opens dramatically and generously showcases the two pianos with music that is part wistful, part operatically passionate, and part free fantasia.
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 2, Little Russian 1872/1879 | 33 mins
This symphony’s nickname refers to “Little Russia,” an affectionate name for the Ukraine. Piotr Tchaikovsky’s younger sister had married and moved to her husband’s estate at Kamenka, near Kiev, the capital of Ukraine; it became a home away from home for Tchaikovsky, who longed for a stable family life (and sadly never achieved it on his own). It was at Kamenka that he began work on this symphony and where he first heard some of the Little Russian folk tunes that are quoted throughout. LISTEN FOR: Tchaikovsky was optimistic when he wrote this, and perhaps it shows—this is a symphony without any really slow music (at least nothing slower than the not-terribly-slow introduction!).
JEANETTE YU is Director of Publications at the San Francisco Symphony.
Program
Oresteia Overture
Concerto for Two Pianos
Symphony No. 2, Little Russian
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2
Semyon Bychkov
Internationally recognized for an approach to music making that combines innate musicality with the rigors of Russian music pedagogy, Semyon Bychkov began his tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic at the start of the 2018-19 season.
Following early concerts with the Czech Philharmonic in 2013 that sparked their relationship, Mr. Bychkov initiated The Tchaikovsky Project, an intensive exploration of the venerated composer’s seminal works through a series of concerts, residencies, and recordings for Decca Classics. The Tchaikovsky Project culminates in 2019 with residencies in Paris and Vienna, and a box-set of Tchaikovsky’s complete symphonic repertory. In addition to a nine-city tour of the US, Mr. Bychkov inaugurates his tenure with the orchestra with concerts in London, Bruges, six cities in Germany, and a residency at Vienna's Musikverein.
Mr. Bychkov conducts the major orchestras and at the major opera houses in the US and Europe. In addition to his title with the Czech Philharmonic, he holds the Günter Wand Conducting Chair with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with which he appears annually at the BBC Proms, and the honorary Klemperer Chair of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. He was named "Conductor of the Year" at the 2015 International Opera Awards.
Spanning four centuries, his repertory is wide-ranging. The coming season brings two weeks of concerts with the New York Philharmonic, which includes the US premiere of Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No. 2, and the Cleveland Orchestra where he will conduct works of Detlev Glanert, Martinů, and Smetana. In Europe, his concerts include performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich and Berlin philharmonics, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Mr. Bychkov was born in Saint Petersburg, studied at the Leningrad Conservatory, and at age twenty, won the Rachmaninoff Conducting Competition. Denied the prize of conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic, he immigrated to the United States, where his first appointments as music director were with the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic. He went on to become music director of Orchestre de Paris, principal guest conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic, and chief conductor of both the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and the Dresden Semperoper. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 1989.
Piano Duo
Pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque’s musical ambitions started at an early age. They rose to international fame with their recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a thriving career with performances worldwide. Daughters of pianist Ada Cecchi (who was, herself, a pupil of Marguerite Long), the duo had a childhood filled with music.
The 2017-18 season includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Konzerthaus with Camerata Salzburg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with Bryce Dessner, a European tour with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov, Easter Festival Salzburg with Dresden Staatskapelle, and the world premiere of Bryce Dessner’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the London Philharmonic. In 2019 they will premiere a new concerto written for them by Nico Muhly.
Katia and Marielle Labèque’s commitment to contemporary music has led to collaborations with many composers, including Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen. The two have also appeared with Baroque music ensembles such as the English Baroque Soloists, Il Giardino Armonico, Musica Antiqua Köln, Venice Baroque, and on tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
The duo’s KML Recordings label recently joined with Deutsche Grammophon. Their most recent recording is Invocations, featuring Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Debussy’s Épigraphes Antiques. Other releases include Sisters, a DVD of the documentary The Labèque Way, a Gershwin and Bernstein album, and their project Minimalist Dream House (celebrating fifty years of minimalist music). Upcoming releases include Moondog Minimalist Dream House.
Katia and Marielle Labèque made their San Francisco Symphony debut in 1985 and performed most recently here in an April 2014 recital.
(May 2018)
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