CAMA - March 28, 2018 - Program Notes - San Francisco Symphony - International Series at The Granada Theatre
CAMA's International Series Presents San Francisco Symphony Wednesday, March 28, 2018 The Granada Theatre, 8:00 PM Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director Gil Shaham, Violin Alban Berg: Violin Concerto (1935) Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.5 Founded in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony is among the country’s most artistically adventurous and innovative arts institutions. Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas is Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. He has won eleven Grammys® for his recordings, is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France. Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy® Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals. SEASON SPONSOR: SAGE Publications PRIMARY SPONSOR: The Elaine F. Stepanek Concert Fund PRINCIPAL SPONSOR: Herbert & Elaine Kendall SPONSORS: Bitsy & Denny Bacon and the Becton Family Foundation Fran & John Nielsen The Shanbrom Family Foundation CO-SPONSORS: Anonymous Elizabeth & Andrew Butcher Mahri Kerley/Chaucer’s Books Lynn P. Kirst Jocelyne & William Meeker Val & Bob Montgomery •
CAMA's International Series Presents
San Francisco Symphony
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
The Granada Theatre, 8:00 PM
Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director
Gil Shaham, Violin
Alban Berg: Violin Concerto (1935)
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.5
Founded in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony is among the country’s most artistically adventurous and innovative arts institutions. Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas is Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. He has won eleven Grammys® for his recordings, is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.
Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy® Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
SEASON SPONSOR:
SAGE Publications
PRIMARY SPONSOR:
The Elaine F. Stepanek Concert Fund
PRINCIPAL SPONSOR:
Herbert & Elaine Kendall
SPONSORS:
Bitsy & Denny Bacon and the Becton Family Foundation
Fran & John Nielsen
The Shanbrom Family Foundation
CO-SPONSORS:
Anonymous
Elizabeth & Andrew Butcher
Mahri Kerley/Chaucer’s Books
Lynn P. Kirst
Jocelyne & William Meeker
Val & Bob Montgomery
•
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<strong>Program</strong> <strong>Notes</strong><br />
Gustav Mahler<br />
sea of sound, to these dancing stars, to<br />
these bre<strong>at</strong>htaking, iridescent, and flashing<br />
breakers?”<br />
For the composer Ernst Krenek, the Fifth<br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> is the work with which Mahler<br />
enters “upon the territory of the ‘new’ music<br />
of the twentieth century.” And to return for<br />
a moment to Mahler’s report from Cologne:<br />
“Oh th<strong>at</strong> I might give my symphony its first<br />
performance fifty years after my de<strong>at</strong>h! . . . Oh<br />
th<strong>at</strong> I were a Cologne town councilor with<br />
a box <strong>at</strong> the Municipal <strong>The</strong><strong>at</strong>er and <strong>at</strong> the<br />
Gürzenich Hall and could look down upon all<br />
modern music!”<br />
Mahler casts the work in five movements,<br />
but some large Roman numerals in the score<br />
indic<strong>at</strong>e a more basic division into three<br />
sections, consisting respectively of the first<br />
two, the third, and the last two movements.<br />
At the center stands the Scherzo, its place<br />
in the design pleasingly ambiguous in th<strong>at</strong><br />
it is framed between larger structural units<br />
(Sections I and III) but is itself longer than any<br />
other single movement.<br />
Mahler begins with funeral music. He<br />
starts here with the summons of the single<br />
trumpet. Most of the orchestra is drawn<br />
into this darkly sonorous exordium, whose<br />
purpose is to prepare a lament sung by violins<br />
and cellos. At least th<strong>at</strong> is how it is sung to<br />
begin with, but it is characteristic of Mahler’s<br />
scoring th<strong>at</strong> colors and textures, weights<br />
and balances, degrees of light and shade<br />
shift from moment to moment. Something<br />
else th<strong>at</strong> changes is the melody itself. Ask<br />
six friends who know this symphony to sing<br />
this dirge for you and you may well get six<br />
versions, no two of them identical but all of<br />
13
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