San Francisco Symphony presents a recital by Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott
2016-05-12
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA
8:00 PM, Thursday, May 12, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[8:06 PM lights down, here we go!]

1. [8:07 PM] Charles Gounod (1818-1893): Ave Maria, Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach (1853)
2. [8:10 PM] Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Var det en dröm? (Was it a dream?), Song No. 4 from Five Songs, Op. 37, (1900-02)
3. [8:12 PM] Jacob Gade (1879-1963): Jalousie 'Tango Tzigane' (Jealousy 'Gypsy Tango') (1925)
4. [8:15 PM] Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Beau soir (Beautiful Evening) (1891), arr. ?Aleksandr Grechaninov (1864-1956) or ?Julian Lloyd Webber (b. 1951); lyric from a poem by Paul Bourget (1852-1935)
5. [8:18 PM] Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Ave Maria, originally, Ellens Gesang III, D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, (1825), arr. ?Georg Goltermann (1824-1898) or ?Charles Vogel (1808-1892) & Henri Guérout (d. ca. 1900)
   [section ends 8:23 PM; bows, then all offstage for a minute]

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906-1975): Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40 (1934)

1. [8:24 PM] Allegro non troppo
2. [8:34 PM] Allegro
3. [8:37 PM] Largo
4. [8:46 PM] Allegro
   [set ends 8:50 PM; bows then off for intermission after a minute or so]

[9:14 PM lights down, waiting]

1. [9:15 PM] [Giovanni Sollima](http://www.giovannisollima.it/): Tema III from Il bell'Antonio, (2005) – an excerpt from the soundtrack for the Film directed by Maurizio Zaccaro
   [segment ends 9:22 PM; brief pause, then onward!]

César Franck (1822-1890): Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano (1886), arr. Jules Delsart (1844-1900) for cello (1888)

1. [9:23 PM] Allegretto ben moderato, 9/8
2. [9:29 PM] Allegro
3. [9:36 PM] Ben moderato: Recitative-Fantasia
4. [9:43 PM] Allegretto poco mosso
   [set ends 9:49 PM; applause and bows, then off; back in a minute]

 
First Encore

1. [9:52 PM] Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Trois mélodies, Op.7, No.1: Après un rêve, (1870-1877)
   [ends 9:55 PM; applause and bows, then off; back in a minute]
    
   Second Encore
2. [9:56 PM] ? (fast tango-ish piece)
   [ends 9:59 PM; applause and bows, then off; back in a minute or so]
    
   Third Encore
3. [10:01 PM] Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Le carnaval des animaux, R.125:XIII: Le cygne (the Swan) (1886)
   [show ends 10:03 PM; off for good after another minute or two]

• Yo-Yo Ma: cello;
• Kathryn Stott: piano.

Front row center for a recital by Yo-Yo Ma? You can't imagine how excited I was to see those tickets last August, and how hard it was to keep my anticipation bottled up over the succeeding 8 or 9 months! Of course, by the time I was walking in last night, I'd sort of forgotten about that placement (not having looked at the tickets in awhile), so it was a happy surprise to see TC sitting in the front row waiting for me!

The first set 'appetizer' pieces were all reasonably interesting, but it seemed as if Ma and Stott raced through them without taking proper time to draw a breathe in between. No doubt that this was partly due to the desire to preemptively dispel the avalanche of applause that might have begun had they taken a proper break. Prisoners of their own success!

The main course, Shostakovich's stunning…(scritch)

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Good program notes have been posted at the L.A. Philharmonic website.

James Roy MacBean posted a review of the show for the Berkeley Daily Planet; strangely, he didn't think it was worth staying for the encore(s). Must have been a tough day!

I'm shocked and surprised that this show seems to have gone unreviewed by other bay area news outlets; perhaps SFS was being stingy with comp seats for reviewers? I'm disappointed to leave the middle encore unidentified for now … hopefully someone smarter than me will post an ID in the future.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!