Overview

Ravel called his 1912 ballet Daphnis et Chloé a “choreographic symphony.” “My intention,” he wrote, “was to compose a vast musical fresco in which I was less concerned with archaism than with reproducing faithfully the Greece of my dreams.” The sumptuous, dreamlike music, conducted here by Jun Märkl in his SF Symphony debut, enchanted listeners from the start. Violinist Leonidas Kavakos joins the Symphony for a passionate performance of Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2, an exercise in radical simplicity. Bartók’s endlessly fertile five-note figure spawns hook after hook, each more captivating than the last.