CANELLAKIS CONDUCTS STRAUSS & RAVEL

April 18, 19 & 20, 2024

Overview

Two orchestral innovators tackle the complexities of the human condition: Richard Strauss’s passionate and provocative symphonic poems plumb the psychological depths of his literary sources. Maurice Ravel wrote his dark and intense Piano Concerto for the Left Hand because the Austrian pianist who commissioned it lost his right arm in World War I. The warped and tender waltzes of La Valse are the Frenchman's response to the dream of Viennese refinement in a murderous age.

Thursday matinee concerts are endowed by a gift in memory of Rhoda Goldman.

At A Glance

Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel may seem an odd couple, separated by nationality and style, but they were contemporaries who respected each other’s music. In his early years, Strauss became the most famous composer of tone poems, including Don Juan and Death and Transfiguration. Both tell tales through their music, the first focusing on the exploits of one of literature’s most famous libertines, the second being a more personal contemplation of the journey taken by a human soul released from its physical state.

Ravel picked up on that genre several decades later when he composed La valse, a cynical critique of the 19th-century Viennese waltz, a genre both composers had adored. Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a virtuoso who lost his right hand in World War I. He also commissioned two works from Strauss, among many other pieces; but Ravel’s Concerto, which Wittgenstein resisted at first, is the one that keeps his name most alive in posterity.

Artists

Karina Canellakis

Conductor

Cédric Tiberghien

Piano

San Francisco Symphony

Program

Richard Strauss

Don Juan

Maurice Ravel

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Richard Strauss

Death and Transfiguration

Maurice Ravel

La Valse

DIGITAL PROGRAM BOOK

CANELLAKIS CONDUCTS STRAUSS & RAVEL

Enrich Your Experience

Friday, April 19 from 6:30–7:00pm: Get to know SF Symphony musicians in a preconcert conversation presented from the stage. Free to all ticketholders.