OPEN REHEARSAL: EXOTIC BIRDS
October 14, 2021
Concert Extras
Pre-Concert Talk: Peter Grunberg will give an “Inside Music” talk from the stage one hour prior to the performance. Free to all concert ticket holders; doors open 15 minutes before.
At a Glance
After the first concert performance of Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune, the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé—whose poem inspired Claude Debussy’s work—sent to the composer a copy of the poem, inscribed with these lines: “Sylvan spirit, if with your primal breath/Your flute sounds well,/ Hear now the radiance/ When Debussy plays.”
Birdsong plays a central role in Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, in which forty-seven different examples are woven into the fabric of the piece. The composer referred to this work as “almost a piano concerto”—one that featured his wife, Yvonne Loriod, at its premiere—and he also cited the pair of clarinets and the xylophone as particularly “in the foreground” in both their musical input and their placement on the stage.
Kaija Saariaho’s 2001 flute concerto Aile du songe (Wing of the Dream) draws inspiration from a lengthy poem by the French writer Saint-John Perse, who often drew on imagery of birds. In her first movement, Saariaho parallels Perse’s contemplations of birds in the air, while the second considers birds on terra firma. Together, the movements describe the bird as (to quote the poet) “a tiny satellite of our planetary orbit.”
It was during youthful summer weeks spent at the beaches of Cannes that Debussy learned to love the sea, particularly its unpredictability, its ever-changing nature. La Mer was only the composer’s seventh major orchestral score, but it is so brilliantly assured that it sometimes seems like Debussy invented the modern orchestra.
After notes by James M. Keller and Michael Steinberg
For more information, including full program notes, visit the San Francisco Symphony’s digital program book platform at https://sfsymphony.ihubapp.org/ or text "SFS Concert” to 55741.
Birdsong plays a central role in Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, in which forty-seven different examples are woven into the fabric of the piece. The composer referred to this work as “almost a piano concerto”—one that featured his wife, Yvonne Loriod, at its premiere—and he also cited the pair of clarinets and the xylophone as particularly “in the foreground” in both their musical input and their placement on the stage.
Kaija Saariaho’s 2001 flute concerto Aile du songe (Wing of the Dream) draws inspiration from a lengthy poem by the French writer Saint-John Perse, who often drew on imagery of birds. In her first movement, Saariaho parallels Perse’s contemplations of birds in the air, while the second considers birds on terra firma. Together, the movements describe the bird as (to quote the poet) “a tiny satellite of our planetary orbit.”
It was during youthful summer weeks spent at the beaches of Cannes that Debussy learned to love the sea, particularly its unpredictability, its ever-changing nature. La Mer was only the composer’s seventh major orchestral score, but it is so brilliantly assured that it sometimes seems like Debussy invented the modern orchestra.
After notes by James M. Keller and Michael Steinberg
For more information, including full program notes, visit the San Francisco Symphony’s digital program book platform at https://sfsymphony.ihubapp.org/ or text "SFS Concert” to 55741.
Program
Claude
Debussy
Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun)
Olivier
Messiaen
Oiseaux exotiques
Kaija
Saariaho
Aile du songe [San Francisco Symphony Premiere]
Claude
Debussy
La Mer
OPEN REHEARSALS ARE ENDOWED BY A BEQUEST FROM THE ESTATE OF KATHARINE HANRAHAN.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Conductor
Esa-Pekka Salonen is known as both a composer and conductor. He is currently the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, where he works alongside eight Collaborative Partners from a variety of disciplines, ranging from composers to roboticists. He is the Conductor Laureate for the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor from 2008 until 2021, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is currently in the midst of Multiverse Esa-Pekka Salonen, a two-season residency as both composer and conductor, at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. As a member of the faculty of LA's Colburn School, he develops, leads, and directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded— and from 2003 until 2018 served as the Artistic Director for—the annual Baltic Sea Festival, which invites celebrated artists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea.
Since joining the San Francisco Symphony in 2020, Salonen’s tenure has been defined by an impulse to embrace the possibilities of the orchestra and expand the institution beyond the confines of the subscription season. In addition to an unprecedented leadership model in which he is joined by eight Collaborative Partners—whose diversity of expertise reflects the scope of experience he envisions as the future of classical music and its audience—Salonen has led a series of collaborations across disciplines and practices which unite the Symphony’s musicians, administrative staff, and hands-on facility workers into a singular engine dedicated to engaging classical music in novel ways.
Salonen also brings his longstanding affinity for emerging technologies to the Symphony. In his first two seasons, he has spearheaded a complete overhaul of Davies Hall’s complement of audio and visual recording equipment, launched the SFSymphony+ streaming platform with a series of signature projects including an AI-infused take on the music of Györgi Ligeti, and the Grammy-nominated Throughline, and reshaped the Symphony into a powerhouse of the unexpected, equally comfortable with live performance and expansive new media projects.
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career, both as a conductor and composer. His recent recordings include Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, recorded with Lise Davidsen and the Philharmonia Orchestra; Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, also with the Philharmonia; Stravinsky’s Persephone, featuring Andrew Staples, Pauline Cheviller, and the Finnish National Opera, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca; his Piano Concerto (with Yefim Bronfman), Violin Concerto (with Leila Jofesowicz), and Cello Concerto (with Yo-Yo Ma) all appear on recordings conducted by Salonen himself.
Salonen is the recipient of many major awards, including the UNESCO Rostrum Prize for his work Floof in 1992, and the Siena Prize, given by the Accademia Chigiana, in 1993; he is the first conductor to receive it. In 1995 he received the Royal Philharmonic Society's Opera Award and two years later, its Conductor Award. Salonen was awarded the Litteris et Artibus medal, one of Sweden's highest honors, by the King of Sweden in 1996. In 1998 the French government awarded him the rank of Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In addition to receiving both the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland and the Helsinki Medal, he was named Commander, First Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the President of Finland. Musical America named him its Musician of the Year in 2006, and he was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. His Violin Concerto won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He was the recipient of the 2014 Nemmers Composition Prize, which included a residency at the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University and performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by the Queen of England. To date, he has received seven honorary doctorates in four different countries.
Claire Chase
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Flute
Flutist Claire Chase, described by The New York Times as “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. Passionately dedicated to the creation of new ecosystems for the music of our time, Ms. Chase has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works, and in 2013 launched the 24-year commissioning project Density 2036. Now in its 10th year, Density 2036 reimagines the solo flute literature over a quarter century through commissions, performances, recordings, education, and an accessible archive at density2036.org. Ms. Chase co-founded the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2001, was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012, and in 2017 was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize from Lincoln Center. Ms. Chase is currently professor of the practice of music at Harvard University’s Department of Music, a creative associate at the Juilliard School, and a Collaborative Partner with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. She is the Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2022–23 season.
(01/2023)
Jeremy Denk
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Piano
Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists. Also a New York Times bestselling author, he is the recipient of both the MacArthur Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the 2024–25 season, Denk continues his collaboration with longtime musical partners Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, with performances at the Tsindali Festival and Wigmore Hall, following on from his multi-concert artist residency at Wigmore in 2023–24. He also returns to the Lammermuir Festival in multiple performances, including the complete Ives violin sonatas with Maria Wloszczowska, and a solo recital featuring female composers from the past to the present day. He performs this same solo program on tour across the US, as well as continuing his exploration of Bach in ongoing performances of the complete partitas. Denk is known for his interpretations of the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Nonesuch Records will release a collection of his Ives recordings later this year.
Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim by Random House in 2022. He also wrote the libretto for a comic opera presented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, the Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.
Denk’s latest album of Mozart piano concertos was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records. His recording of the Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 111 paired with Ligeti’s Études was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post. His account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2006.
In the 2024–25 season, Denk continues his collaboration with longtime musical partners Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, with performances at the Tsindali Festival and Wigmore Hall, following on from his multi-concert artist residency at Wigmore in 2023–24. He also returns to the Lammermuir Festival in multiple performances, including the complete Ives violin sonatas with Maria Wloszczowska, and a solo recital featuring female composers from the past to the present day. He performs this same solo program on tour across the US, as well as continuing his exploration of Bach in ongoing performances of the complete partitas. Denk is known for his interpretations of the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Nonesuch Records will release a collection of his Ives recordings later this year.
Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim by Random House in 2022. He also wrote the libretto for a comic opera presented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, the Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.
Denk’s latest album of Mozart piano concertos was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records. His recording of the Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 111 paired with Ligeti’s Études was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post. His account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2006.
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