Overview

Kicking off with Market Street, 1920s, a thrilling new work by Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins, Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno returns to lead the San Francisco Symphony in a real dopamine hit of a program. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony invites us to feel good, or at least better. The main theme, a musical representation of fate, remains deliciously elusive, but the overall structure follows the same model—minor to major, dark to light, sorrow to celebration—that Beethoven famously established in his own Fifth Symphony. Influenced by Schumann and Norwegian folk music, Grieg’s Piano Concerto makes us feel at home, happy and contented, while coaxing us toward new sonic adventures. The complex but catchy finale is Grieg’s delightfully demonic take on the halling, a traditional rural folk dance, which he turns into an infectious Nordic hoedown.