The SF Symphony performs French interpretations of classic texts, featuring Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé in a unique orchestral arrangement by renowned Iceland Symphony Chief Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier. Inspired by the ancient Greek tale of two lovers, hear what Ravel described as “a vast musical fresco, faithful to the Greece of my dreams.” Also on the program, Ravel’s mesmerizing Shéhérazade performed by the incomparable mezzo-soprano Susan Graham.
Inside Music, an informative talk by James Keller, begins one hour prior to concerts. Free to ticketholders. Learn More.
Guest artist signing: Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham will be available for autographs following the April 20 concert. Signing takes place in the orchestra lobby, near the Symphony Store.
Ravel in America
Discover more about the life and work of composer Maurice Ravel and his connection to the San Francisco Symphony in a special exhibition located on the First Tier. Learn More.
RAVEL IN SAN FRANCISCO
Maurice Ravel’s two appearances conducting the San Francisco Symphony at the Curran Theatre in 1928 introduced local audiences to his Shéhérazade and his orchestrations of Debussy’s Sarabande and Danse. Tonight's concert pays homage to Ravel’s remarkable tour of 90 years ago.
DEBUSSY (orchestrated by Ravel)
Sarabande and Danse 1894 and 1890/orch. 1992 | 10 mins
In 1922, Ravel was asked to orchestrate two unrelated piano movements by Claude Debussy (1862-1918)—a Sarabande and a Danse. The Sarabande was originally conceived by Debussy as part of a set of three movements called Images. He later plucked the Sarabande from Images and incorporated it, practically unaltered, into his beloved piano suite Pour le Piano. When it premiered, Pour le Piano was hailed as revolutionary in its approach to piano writing. Debussy’s Danse originally launched in 1890 as a tarantella (a lively folk number danced by Italian or Austrian/Slovenian peasants to work venom from a tarantula bite out of their systems). Today, this spirited piece mostly lives on through Ravel’s orchestration, paired with the stately Sarabande, as presented at these performances.
RAVEL
Shéhérazade 1903 | 19 mins
Ravel’s Shéhérazade owes its existence to the composer’s affiliation with Les Apaches, a high-spirited group of Parisian writers, musicians, and artists who would gather on Saturday evenings to share their latest work, discuss cultural events of the moment, and do whatever else creative types do on Saturday nights. DID YOU KNOW? Apaches member Tristan Klingsor (1874-1966) had just published a volume of symbolist poems titled Shéhérazade, and Ravel pounced on three for his rather mysterious settings, in which the composer himself observed that “the influence of Debussy is fairly obvious.” “Here again,” he said, “I yielded to the profound attraction that the East has always held for me since my childhood.”
Daphnis et Chloé (concert version arrangement by Yan Pascal Tortelier) 1912 | 40 mins
Ravel described his Daphnis et Chloé as “a great choreographic symphony. . . a vast musical fresco . . . faithful to the Greece of my dreams, which identifies quite willingly with that imagined and depicted by late eighteenth-century French artists.” Its themes and its orchestration—its “color”—are quite a thing to behold’ the sound of this score is sublimely exceptional. In Daphnis et Chloé Ravel employs the largest orchestra he would ever require, but rather than merely using it as a show of force, he often spotlight solo players in a way that recalls chamber music. SFS piccolo player Catherine Payne comments: “Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé is an incredibly lush and evocative score about love and desire. Featuring one of the most gorgeous flute solos ever composed and terrific writing for all the members of the section, flutists spend hundreds of hours practicing the ferociously difficult parts. The sounds Ravel manages to coax from the orchestra are extraordinary and always affect me deeply. There is nothing more dramatic than ‘hearing’ the sunrise at the beginning of the final section of the piece as the music is slowly warmed by brightening rays of light (complete with piccolo bird calls) until the sun bursts over the horizon in an ecstatic orchestral climax.”
Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who shares that “Ravel is the composer I hold closest to my heart,” has selected portions of the full concert version of Daphnis et Chloé. For more from Mr. Tortelier on Ravel, click here.
Jeanette Yu is Director of Publications at the San Francisco Symphony.
Program
Danse
Sarabande from Pour le Piano
Daphnis et Chloé
Shéhérazade
Mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham’s operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written for her. She maintains a strong international presence at such key venues as New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet, the Sydney Opera House, Santa Fe Opera, and the Hollywood Bowl. She won a Grammy award for her collection of Ives songs, and her broad recital repertory is represented on her most recent Onyx album, Virgins, Vixens & Viragos. She was awarded the French government’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, in honor of her commitment to French music. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 1991.
To launch the 2017-18 season, Ms. Graham sang Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust with the Boston Symphony. She also joins that orchestra for Mahler’s Third Symphony in Boston, at Tanglewood, and in Europe. Opera performances this season include the title role in Lehár’s The Merry Widow at the Metropolitan Opera, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti at Lyric Opera of Chicago, in a special production to mark the composer’s birth centennial, and her title role debut in Blitzstein’s Regina at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. She also graces a gala concert to celebrate Tulsa Opera’s seventieth anniversary, and gives solo recitals at Atlanta’s Emory University and Washington University in Saint Louis.
Last season, Ms. Graham partnered with Renée Fleming for the San Francisco Symphony’s opening-night gala. She starred in Washington National Opera’s revival of Dead Man Walking, returned to Santa Fe Opera as Prince Orlofsky in a new production of Die Fledermaus, and portrayed Dido in Berlioz’s Les Troyens at Chicago’s Lyric Opera. Her concert highlights included selections from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn at Carnegie Hall, Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Der Rosenkavalier at the Boston Symphony. She gave US recitals of Frauenliebe und -leben Variations, her program inspired by the Schumann song cycle, and expanded her discography with a Nonesuch Records DVD/Blu-ray release of Berg’s Lulu from the Metropolitan Opera.
Ms. Graham’s solo discography includes Un frisson français, recorded with Malcolm Martineau for Onyx; C’est ça la vie, c’est ça l’amour!, an album of 20th-century operetta rarities on Erato; and La Belle Époque, an award-winning collection of songs by Reynaldo Hahn with pianist Roger Vignoles, from Sony Classical. She recorded Mahler songs with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for SFS Media. Among the mezzo’s additional honors are Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year and an Opera News Award.
(April 2018)
Conductor
Yan Pascal Tortelier began his musical career as a violinist and, at age fourteen, won first prize for violin at the Paris Conservatory, making his soloist debut with the London Philharmonic shortly afterward. Following general musical studies with Nadia Boulanger, Mr. Tortelier studied conducting with Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 1998.
This season, Mr. Tortelier continues as Chief Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Previously he was principal conductor and artistic director of the Ulster Orchestra (1989 to 1992), principal guest conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony (2005 to 2008), and principal conductor of the São Paulo Symphony (2009 to 2011). Following his work as chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 1992 to 2003, he was given the title of Conductor Emeritus and continues to work and record with the orchestra regularly. He also holds the position of Principal Guest Conductor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
He began the 2017-18 season with two weeks with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, before traveling to Valladolid to conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León. Other season highlights include performances with the Polish National Radio Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Royal Northern College of Music, and Buenos Aires Philharmonic.
Mr. Tortelier has collaborated with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala Milan, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston and Chicago symphonies, Sydney and Melbourne symphonies, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, and Malaysian Philharmonic. Recent highlights have included appearances in North America with the orchestras of Pittsburgh, Dallas, Montreal, Saint Louis, and Baltimore.
Mr. Tortelier has enjoyed a long association with Chandos Records, resulting in an extensive catalogue of recordings, notably with the BBC Philharmonic and Ulster Orchestra, and including award-winning cycles of the orchestral music of Debussy, Ravel (featuring his own orchestration of Ravel’s Piano Trio), Franck, Roussel, and Dutilleux. He has also conducted acclaimed discs of repertory ranging from Hindemith and Kodály to Lutosławski, and Karłowicz. Recent releases for Chandos include the Ravel piano concertos coupled with Debussy’s Fantaisie, with pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and a disc of works by Florent Schmitt with the São Paulo Symphony. In the 2013-14 season, Mr. Tortelier added to his catalogue with the release of an entire disc of Stravinsky, once again collaborating with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.
(April 2018)
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