As I observed in a preview piece last month, December will begin with a fascinating examination of the relationship between Johann Sebastian Bach and Robert Schumann in an imaginatively conceived recital by pianist Angela Hewitt. However, this is but the first of five decidedly impressive piano recitals that San Francisco Performances has scheduled for next month. Three of those recitals will be given by Marino Formenti, whose San Francisco Piano Trips in April of 2007 were an unquestioned high point of that concert season. The final recital will be by Marc-André Hamelin, who has made regular appearances with San Francisco Performances since his debut in 2003.
Formenti seems to believe that good things come in threes. His San Francisco Piano Trips consisted of three performances, all of which took place in the newly opened Koret Auditorium of the De Young Museum, which proved to be an excellent venue selection. This visit will again consist of three concerts. This time, however, each will be at a different site:
- The recital Twenty Glances will take place on Saturday, December 5, at 5 PM at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. The program will consist of the Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen performed in its entirety. Formenti performed the last of these "glances" (more like "points of view," even if that phrase is not a strict translation of "regards") during the first of his San Francisco Piano Trips recitals. His dazzling execution of that final movement should provide reason enough to hear his approach to the entire cycle.
- The following day, Sunday, December 6, at 2 PM, he will continue is exploration of Messiaen with a Family Matinee at Herbst Theatre that will focus of the influence of birdsongs on the composer's work.
- The final recital is entitled Seven Last Words: Works by Haydn and Bernhard Lang and will take place on Friday, December 11, at 8 PM at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco. Joseph Haydn's The Seven Words was an oratorio written for a Good Friday service in the Cathedral of Cádiz in Spain to provide music for meditation on each of the "words" (actually phrases) pronounced during the ritual. Formenti will perform the keyboard version commissioned by Haydn's publisher and approved and revised by the composer. Lang's composition is entitled Monadologie V – 7 Last Words of Hasan, written for and dedicated to Formenti, who "challenged" Lang "to compose music to replace the Bishop of Cádiz's reflections with his sounds, and to place Haydn's work within a living context, beyond religious boundaries."
The two church recitals have been given the common title, Aspects of the Divine.
Hamelin's recital will take place on Tuesday, December 15, at 8 PM at Herbst Theatre. His program will also feature Haydn, represented by the Hoboken XVII/6 set of variations on an Andante theme in F minor, as well as the K. 310 A minor sonata by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, the heart of his program will be firmly situated in the nineteenth century, consisting of Venezia e Napoli, the supplement to the second "year" of Franz Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage, Gabriel Fauré's sixth nocturne, Opus 63 in D-flat major, and the fourth through seventh etudes in the Opus 39 collection of twelve etudes in minor keys by Charles-Valentin Alkan, which the composer called "Symphony for Solo Piano." Alkan is notorious for the difficulty of his piano music, and Hamelin is quoted on Alkan's Wikipedia page as saying that he wished the music were less difficult to enable listeners to be aware of its qualities that extend beyond its virtuosic demands. Thus, if we wish to be better listeners to Alkan's music for the sake of the music, Hamelin is likely to be one of our best possible guides.
As is the case with Hewitt's recital, the tickets for Hamelin's recital are available for $49 and $32. Tickets for Formenti's Family Matinee are $15 for adults and $8 for children. Tickets for both of his recitals are $32. Further information may be obtained by calling San Francisco Performances at 415-392-2545. Further information for all of these events, as well as links for purchasing tickets, may be found in the December area of the Calendar Web page for San Francisco Performances.
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