OPEN REHEARSAL

GIMENO CONDUCTS SHOSTAKOVICH & PROKOFIEV

April 25, 2024

Overview

For Shostakovich, Walton, and Prokofiev, cinematic assignments often found their way into their concert music—and vice versa. Drama abounds in Shostakovich's score for The Great Citizen, a fictionalized biopic about a Bolshevik hero. In his Third Symphony, Prokofiev recycles music from his yet-to-be-staged opera The Fiery Angel, a love story that traffics in demonic possession. Walton's searing and sumptuous Viola Concerto polarized early listeners but ended up launching his career.

Open rehearsals are endowed by a bequest from The Estate of Katharine Hanrahan.

Concert Extras

Thursday, April 25 from 9:00am–9:30am: A pre-concert talk hosted by Scott Foglesong will be presented from the stage. Free to all ticketholders.

At A Glance

Dmitri Shostakovich is no stranger to concert audiences, but his film music—which he wrote throughout his career—is less know. The Great Citizen is a two-part film directed by Fridrikh Ermler about the Bolshevik revolutionary Sergei Kirov. The Funeral March theme comes from the Revolutionary lament “You Fell as Victims.”

William Walton’s Viola Concerto was written for the virtuoso Lionel Tertis, but it was the composer and violist Paul Hindemith who ended up premiering it. “It’s an extremely expressive piece,” says SF Symphony Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour. “It uses a lot of clashing harmonies—very mild by today’s standards—but it gives a feeling of yearning.”

Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3 developed from his opera The Fiery Angel, which culminates in a convent of demonically possessed nuns. Unable to have it staged, Prokofiev adapted some of its motifs into a boundary-pushing Symphony. Prokofiev later wrote that he considered this piece “to be one of my best compositions.”

Artists

Gustavo Gimeno

Conductor

Jonathan Vinocour

Viola

San Francisco Symphony

Program

Dmitri Shostakovich

Funeral March from The Great Citizen, Opus 55
[First San Francisco Symphony Performances]

William Walton

Viola Concerto

Sergei Prokofiev

Symphony No. 3

DIGITAL PROGRAM BOOK

GIMENO CONDUCTS SHOSTAKOVICH & PROKOFIEV