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Home , Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, Edo de Waart, Eugene Izotov, Issay Dobrowen, Mariss Jansons

SYMPHONY , AND CONDUCTOR ALEXANDER KERR, Wednesday, March 27, 2019, at 7:30pm Foellinger Great Hall PROGRAM Michael Tilson Thomas, music director and conductor Alexander Kerr, violin

Michael Tilson Thomas Agnegram (b. 1944)

Felix Mendelssohn Concerto in E Minor for Violin and , Op. 64 (1809-1847) Allegro molto appassionato Andante Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace

Alexander Kerr, violin

20-minute intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Marcia funebre: Adagio assai Scherzo: Allegro vivace Finale: Allegro molto

San Francisco Symphony tours are supported by the Frannie and Mort Fleishhacker Endowed Touring Fund, the Halfmann-Yee Fund for Touring, the Fay and Ada Tom Family Fund for Touring, and the Brayton Wilbur, Jr. Endowed Fund for Touring.

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5 PROGRAM NOTES MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS jazzy 6/8 tune reappears now in canon and the Born December 21, 1944, in , piece progresses to a jubilant and noisy ending. California Agnegram Michael Tilson Thomas offers the following on his 2016 revision of Agnegram (the version played at Agnegram was written to celebrate the 90th this performance): birthday of the San Francisco Symphony’s extraordinary patron and friend Agnes Albert and Agnegram was originally written around the musical is a portrait of her sophisticated and indefatigably letters/notes that are a part of Agnes Albert's name. enthusiastic spirit. It is entirely composed of There are seven of them, which makes the piece themes derived from the spelling of her name. septatonic. Perhaps the fact that a septatonic scale contains a pentatonic scale—the most commonly A—G—E are obviously the notes that they name. used scale in Asian music—prompted me to think B is B-flat (as this note is called in German). S about exploring more of those possibilities before is E-flat, also a German musical term. T is used we took the piece on our 2016 Asia Tour. to represent one note, B-natural, the “ti” of the solfège scale. From these arcane but not This piece is still in the form of a march. But unprecedented manipulations (Bach, Schumann, now the middle section, a kind of John Philip and Brahms among others often did this kind of Sousa-like trio, explores a musical joke that I had thing), a basic “scale” of eight unusually arranged planned, but not finished in time, for the premiere notes emerges, from which all the themes are performance. The trio recalls many famous tunes drawn. The piece itself is a march for large that amused Agnes. There are surreal references orchestra. The first part of the march is in 6/8 and to Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Irish is almost a mini-concerto for orchestra, giving brief, lullabies, but they appear only to the degree that sound-bite opportunities for the different sections the notes that they have in common with her to settle into a jazzy and hyper-rangy tune. name will allow.

The middle section of the march, or trio, is in 2/4 I think she would have enjoyed discovering them and settles into a kind of sly circus atmosphere. and chuckling over them. Different groups of instruments in different keys —Michael Tilson Thomas make their appearance in an aural procession. First, the winds in C play a new march tune saying “Agnes Albert.” Then, the instruments in F are heard playing the same tune. But as Born February 3, 1809, in , Germany these instruments are transposing instruments, Died November 4, 1847, in , Germany although the notes they play read A—G—N— Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, E—S etc., the notes that are heard are completely Op. 64 different. They are followed by instruments Ferdinand David was more than the first violinist in E-flat and B-flat until quite a jungle-like to play the Mendelssohn Concerto; the work was cacophony is built up—punctuated by alternately intended for him from the beginning. David and elegant and goofball percussion entrances. The Mendelssohn had been friends since 1825, and after the peregrinations of the development. the violinist was held in the highest regard as He prepares this homecoming subtly, allowing soloist, as a model , as quartet himself some delicate anticipations of what it leader, and teacher. Mendelssohn’s Concerto is will be like to be in E minor again, managing this in fact the first in the distinguished series of violin maneuver as a gradual subsidence of wonderful concertos written by - with the breadth and serenity. On the doorstep of home, assistance of eminent violinists. the orchestra stops and defers to the soloist.

Across a backdrop of quietly pulsating drums and A couple of years earlier, in his Scottish plucked basses, the violin sings a famous melody. Symphony, Mendelssohn experimented with The first extended passage for the orchestra is the idea of going from movement to movement dramatically introduced by the boldly upward- without a break. Here he takes the plan a step thrusting octaves of the violin. It also gives way further, not merely eliminating the pauses but quickly to the next solo, a new melody full of actually constructing links. The Andante emerges verve and barely begun by the orchestra before mysteriously from the close of the first movement. the soloist makes it his own. The violin dazzles This could be one of Mendelssohn’s songs (with us with brilliant passage work, and that is what or without words). It is a lovely and sweet melody Mendelssohn really means us to pay attention to, of surprising extension, beautifully harmonized but at almost any moment in which you choose and scored. Listen to the effect, for example, of to listen to what is going on “behind,” you will the woodwinds in the few measures in which they be rewarded by real activity, not just mechanical participate. The middle section brings an upsurge strumming. It is as though solo and tutti both of passion and a return to the minor mode. Then, managed to be foreground and background at the first melody returns, still more beautifully set the same time. than before, with the accompanying instruments unable to forget the emotional tremors of the The theme that brings the first big change of movement’s central section. character is deliciously scored. The violin has made a graceful landing on its lowest G after Between the Andante and the finale Mendelssohn a descent of more than three octaves, and it is places another kind of bridge, a tiny and wistful over that quiet, sustained, and solitary sound intermezzo. Strings only accompany the violin, of the G that the clarinet (with another clarinet which sets off nicely the touch of fanfare that and a pair of flutes) introduces the new tune. starts the finale. It is sparkling and busy music The presentation is immediately reversed with whose gait allows room for swinging, broad the violin playing the melody and the four winds tunes, and for the dazzling sixteenth notes of the accompanying. Either way, the combination of solo part. Here, too, Mendelssohn delights in the wind quartet with a single, stringed instrument is witty play of foreground and background, and wonderfully fresh. so he steers the concerto to its close in a feast of high spirits and with a wonderful sense of “go.” The first movement cadenza is famous. In Classical practice, the cadenza occurs at the joint —Michael Steinberg of recapitulation and coda. Mendelssohn uses it instead at the other crucial harmonic juncture, the recapitulation, the return to the home key

7 has already reached the home chord of E-flat Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany while the are still preparing its arrival with Died March 26, 1827, in , a dissonance), and with procedures so radical as Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica the disintegration of the theme at the end of the monumental Funeral March. In May 1804, Napoleon, who had been acceptable to Beethoven as a military dictator as long as he Another newness in the Eroica is the shift of the called himself First Consul, had himself crowned center of gravity from the first movement to Emperor, and the disappointed and angry the Finale. Facing a new challenge, Beethoven scratched out the words "intitolata turned to old music; that is, he made a set of Bonaparte" on the title page of his newly variations on a theme he had first used in a group completed symphony. Actually, Beethoven blew of contradances in 1800-1801, which he had hot and cold on that issue. In August of that same introduced at about the same time in the finale of year, he told the publishing firm of Breitkopf & his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, and which Härtel in Leipzig that this symphony “is really called had also yielded Fifteen Variations and a Fugue ‘Ponaparte’ [sic].” At some point, too, Beethoven for in 1802. In the symphony, he provides penciled the words "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte" a grand, rhetorical introduction or “frame.” After (“Written on Bonaparte”) on that mutilated title the witty exploration of the possibilities of the page. But the score of the Third Symphony as bass alone comes a powerful set of variations printed in October 1806 tells us that this is a on the combined melody and bass. In the Piano Sinfonia Eroica, a “heroic symphony . . . composed Variations, he had wrapped it all up with a to celebrate the memory of a great man.” fugue. Now he does something subtler: instead of making his excursion into polyphonic style “I’ll pay another Kreuzer if the thing will only a separate chapter, he infuses his variations stop,” a gallery wit called out at the public with polyphony throughout their course. The premiere of the Eroica in 1805 at Vienna’s vitality of texture that this gives him is one of Theater an der Wien. One critic conceded that the chief sources of the propulsive energy of the in this “tremendously expanded, daring, and movement. True to classical tradition for variations, wild fantasia” there was no lack of “startling and Beethoven slows the near the end. The beautiful passages in which the energetic and slow variations here are an apotheosis, a climax of talented composer must be recognized,” but he towering force. Carefully, Beethoven dismantles felt that the work “loses itself in lawlessness.” this structure; the music is almost an echo of Beethoven had given his audience plenty to the “disintegration” of the Funeral March. Then be upset about—a symphony half again as he resumes speed to close, to fulfill his “heroic long as any they would have known, and one symphony” in triumphantly affirmative noise. unprecedented in demands on orchestral virtuosity that were almost certainly inadequately —Michael Steinberg met, unprecedented as well in the complexity of its polyphony, in the unbridled force of its rhetoric, © 2019. San Francisco Symphony in the weirdness of details like the famous “wrong” Program notes used by permission. horn entrance in the first movement (the horn

8 SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY Michael Tilson Thomas Music Director and SECOND VIOLINS Conductor Dan Carlson Principal Esa-Pekka Salonen Music Director Designate Dinner & Swig Families Chair Conductor Laureate Helen Kim Associate Principal Christian Reif Resident Conductor Audrey Avis Aasen-Hull Chair Ragnar Bohlin Chorus Director Jessie Fellows, Acting Assistant Principal Vance George Chorus Director Emeritus Paul Brancato The Eucalyptus Foundation Second Century FIRST VIOLINS Chair Alexander Barantschik Concertmaster Raushan Akhmedyarova Chair David Chernyavsky Nadya Tichman Associate Concertmaster John Chisholm* San Francisco Symphony Foundation Chair Cathryn Down Wyatt Underhill, Assistant Concertmaster Darlene Gray* 75th Anniversary Chair Stan & Lenora Davis Chair Jeremy Constant, Assistant Concertmaster Amy Hiraga Mariko Smiley Kum Mo Kim Paula & John Gambs Second Century Chair Kelly Leon-Pearce Melissa Kleinbart Eliot Lev*

Katharine Hanrahan Chair Chair Yun Chu Chunming Mo Sharon Grebanier* Polina Sedukh Naomi Kazama Hull Chen Zhao In Sun * Joseph Edelberg† Yukiko Kurakata Mary Kim† Catherine A. Mueller Chair Sarah Wood† Suzanne Leon Leor Maltinski Diane Nicholeris Jonathan Vinocour Principal Sarn Oliver Yun Jie Liu Associate Principal Florin Parvulescu Katie Kadarauch Assistant Principal Victor Romasevich John Schoening* Catherine Van Hoesen* Joanne E. Harrington & Lorry I. Lokey Second Sarah Knutson† Century Chair Robin Sharp† Gina Cooper Yeh Shen† Nancy Ellis David Gaudry David Kim Christina King

9 Wayne Roden Chris Gilbert Nanci Severance Brian Marcus Adam Smyla* William Ritchen Matthew Young Frank Shaw† FLUTES Zhenwei Shi† Tim Day Principal Caroline H. Hume Chair CELLOS Robin McKee Associate Principal Michael Grebanier* Principal Catherine & Russell Clark Chair Philip S. Boone Chair Linda Lukas Peter Wyrick Associate Principal Alfred S. & Dede Wilsey Chair Peter & Jacqueline Hoefer Chair Catherine Payne Piccolo Amos Yang Assistant Principal Margaret Tait OBOES * Lyman & Carol Casey Second Century Chair Principal Barbara Andres* Chair James Button The Stanley S. Langendorf Foundation Second Associate Principal Pamela Smith Century Chair Barbara Bogatin* Dr. William D. Clinite Chair Russ deLuna Phylis Blair Cello Chair English Horn Jill Rachuy Brindel Joseph & Pauline Scafidi Chair Robyn Smith† Gary & Kathleen Heidenreich Second Century Chair CLARINETS Sébastien Gingras Carey Bell* Principal Penelope Clark Second Century Chair William R. & Gretchen B. Kimball Chair David Goldblatt Luis Baez Associate Principal & E-flat Clarinet Christine & Pierre Lamond Second Century Chair David Neuman Carolyn McIntosh Jerome Simas Bass Clarinet Anne Pinsker Shu-Yi Pai† BASSOONS Richard Andaya† Stephen Paulson Principal Nora Pirquet† Steven Dibner Associate Principal Rob Weir BASSES Steven Braunstein Scott Pingel Principal Daniel G. Smith Associate Principal HORNS Stephen Tramontozzi Assistant Principal Robert Ward Principal Richard & Rhoda Goldman Chair Nicole Cash* Associate Principal S. Mark Wright Bruce Roberts Assistant Principal Lawrence Metcalf Second Century Chair Jonathan Ring Charles Chandler Jessica Valeri Lee Ann Crocker Daniel Hawkins Christopher Cooper†

10 TRUMPETS LIBRARIANS Mark Inouye Principal Margo Kieser Principal William G. Irwin Charity Foundation Chair Nancy & Charles Geschke Chair Aaron Schuman Associate Principal John Campbell Assistant Peter Pastreich Chair Matt Gray Assistant Guy Piddington Ann L. & Charles B. Johnson Chair Sakurako Fisher President Jeff Biancalana Mark C. Hanson Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Blum Director of Orchestra, Education, TROMBONES and Strategic Initiatives Timothy Higgins Principal David Chambers Chief Revenue and Robert L. Samter Chair Advancement Officer Nick Platoff Associate Principal Andrew Dubowski Director of Operations Paul Welcomer Matthew Spivey Director of Artistic Planning John Engelkes Bass Trombone Oliver Theil Director of Communications Robin Freeman Director of Public Relations TUBA Kim Huynh Senior Video Producer Jeffrey Anderson Principal Shoko Kashiyama Executive Assistant to the Music James Irvine Chair Director HARP Joyce Cron Wessling Manager of Tours and Douglas Rioth Principal Media Production Tim Carless Production Manager TIMPANI Robert Doherty Stage Manager Edward Stephan Principal Michael “Barney” Barnard Stage Technician Marcia & John Goldman Chair Mike Olague Stage Technician PERCUSSION Jacob Nissly Principal Raymond Froehlich Tom Hemphill James Lee Wyatt III

KEYBOARDS Vacant Jean & Bill Lane Chair Marc Shapiro†

* On leave † Acting member of the San Francisco Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony utilizes revolving seating on a systematic basis. Players listed in alphabetical order change seats periodically.

11 PROFILES The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY gave its first MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS concerts in 1911 and has grown in acclaim under (music director and conductor) a succession of distinguished music directors: first conducted the San Henry Hadley, , , Francisco Symphony in 1974 , , Enrique Jordá, and has been music director , , Edo de Waart, Herbert since 1995. A Los Angeles Blomstedt, and Michael Tilson Thomas, who native, he studied with John assumed his post in 1995. Esa-Pekka Salonen Crown and at the was recently named the Symphony’s next music University of Southern director beginning in September 2020. The San California, becoming music director of the Young Francisco Symphony has won such recording Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at age 19. awards as ’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s He worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, Gramophone Award, and the ’ and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Grammy Award. The San Francisco Symphony Concerts and was pianist and conductor for education program Adventures in Music brings Piatigorsky and Heifetz masterclasses. In 1969, music to every child in grades one through five Tilson Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and in San Francisco’s public schools. In 2004, the was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston symphony launched the multimedia Keeping Score Symphony Orchestra. Ten days later, he came to on PBS-TV and the web. In 2014, it inaugurated international recognition, replacing William SoundBox, a new experimental performance Steinberg, then music director, in mid-concert at venue and music series located backstage at . He went on to become the Boston Davies Symphony Hall. San Francisco Symphony Symphony Orchestra’s principal guest conductor, radio broadcasts, the first in the nation to feature and he has also served as music director of the symphonic music when they began in 1926, today Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and as a principal carry the orchestra’s concerts across the country. guest conductor of the . For more information, go to sfsymphony.org. With the Symphony Orchestra he has served as principal conductor and principal guest conductor; he is currently conductor laureate. He is artistic director of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, which he co-founded in 1987. Tilson Thomas’ recordings have won numerous international awards, including 12 Grammys for San Francisco Symphony recordings. In 2014, he inaugurated SoundBox, the San Francisco Symphony’s new alternative performance space and live music series. His television credits include the Young People’s Concerts and in

12 2004, he and the San Francisco Symphony such conductors as , Riccardo launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV. His Chailly, Peter Oundjian, Donald Runnicles, compositions include From the Diary of Anne Robert Spano, Alan Gilbert, , Frank; Shówa/Shoáh; settings of , and . An active chamber musician, Walt Whitman, and Rainer Maria Rilke; Island he has collaborated with , Leif Music; Notturno; and, most recently, Four Ove Andsnes, , Joshua Bell, Yefim Preludes on Playthings of the Wind. Tilson Bronfman, Edgar Meyer, Truls Mørk, Menahem Thomas is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of Pressler, , Alisa Weilerstein, France, was Musical America’s Musician and Kim Kashkashian, and in Conductor of the Year, and was inducted into the performances at festivals in Aspen, Santa Fe, in 2015. He has been Caramoor, La Jolla, Stavanger, and throughout elected to the American Academy of Arts and Spain, Portugal, Turkey, , Austria, and Sciences and in 2010 was awarded the National the . Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Most recently, he joined the and Kerr’s CD releases include the Dvořák Piano was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters Quintet with and as an American Honorary Member. on the EMI label, music by Dutch composer Julius Röntgen on the NM Classics label, and the ALEXANDER KERR (violin) Shostakovich Romance on a series of Decca discs, was raised in Alexandria, including Violin Adagios and Evening Adagios. A Virginia, and began his studies live DVD and CD recording of ’ Ein at age seven with members of Heldenleben with Kerr, the Royal the National Symphony Orchestra, and Mariss Jansons was released in Orchestra. He went on to 2005 on RCOLive!. study with Sally Thomas at the and with Aaron Rosand at the Curtis Institute of Music where he received his Bachelor of Music in 1992. In 1996 at the age of 26, Kerr was appointed concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in . After nine years at that post, he left in 2006 to assume the endowed Linda and Jack Gill Chair in Music as professor of violin at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. In 2008, he began his tenure as principal guest concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and in 2011, he assumed his role as concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Kerr has appeared as soloist with major throughout the world, working with

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