Davies Symphony Hall
Photo by Lisa Hirsch
Well, SFS's 2025-26 season dropped last week. I started buying a more or less full subscription when Salonen arrived, despite my status as a member of the press, and today I called the SFS box office and told them I wouldn't be renewing.
I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they put this season together.
To start with, I have to assume that a bunch of programs originally assigned to Esa-Pekka Salonen were redistributed to other conductors. We know, for example, that the SFS music director typically conducts the gala, the first several weeks of programs, and the last several weeks of programs. That concert in June with Stephane Deneve leading two French works with major organ parts, both played by Olivier Latry? I would bet $100 that it was originally a Salonen concert and that one work on it was his own organ concerto, because Latry has played it with Salonen conducting. That concert in late September with Donald Runnicles, consisting of Mahler 6 and Berg songs? I leave more of this game to you.
To continue, what the actual fuck with the "focus on Beethoven and Mozart"? Four Beethoven symphonies will appear this season, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, and John Storgårds.
And for some reason, they decided that van Zweden will conduct a full cycle of the Beethoven symphonies over three seasons. He is leading a total of four concerts in 2025-26, and....I don't get it. I've seen him conducted live twice, once with the CSO and once with SFS, and thought he did not have any special insights into what he led. I also reviewed his recordings of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (note that at that time he had never conducted a staged Wagner opera, only in concert) for the Wagner Society journal, and declined to continue with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.
It's worth noting that Gaffigan gets three concerts. I know that some of the undoubted scramble to find guest conductors, 23 of them, depended on who was available when. I hesitate to read too much into how this shook out, except maybe for the apparent commitment to van Zweden over three seasons.
It is so much a season of dead white men: do we really need the fourth performance in the last five years of Beethoven's 9th, previously performed by Xian Zhang, MTT, and Daniel Stewart, or the fourth performance of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World, previously conducted by Xian Zhang, Joshua Weilerstein, and Dalia Stasevska?
No. We do not. And yet here it is.
Some statistics about the season (you bet I'm glad I hung onto that schedule for 2014-15):
- 49 composers whose works are performed, of whom....
- 37 are dead white men, 12 aren't
- 1 is a dead black man (Duke Ellington)
- 1 is a dead white women (Barbara Strozzi)
- 2 are living Black men
- 1 is a living Iranian-Canadian man
- 1 is a living Hispanic man
- 4 are living white men
- 2 are living white women
- In terms of number of works by a single composer:
- Mozart: 8 (this includes a big all-Mozart program conducted by Harry Bicket, featuring the wonderful soprano Golda Schultz)
- Beethoven: 5
- J.S. Bach: 4
- Dvořák: 4
- Tchaikovsky: 4
- Prokofiev: 3
- Saint-Saëns: 3
- Gershwin, Mahler, Ravel, Shostakovich: 2 each
- 26 weeks of orchestra series concerts, down from 28 last season and a staggering 39 in 2014-15. I have to note that 2014-15 included the big MTT Beethoven festival, which included several one-off programs, Fidelio, the staged Missa Solemnis, and other great stuff.
- Women conducting in the orchestral series next season: 4 (Canellakis, Young, Glover, Lu)
- 10 chamber music concerts, same as last year.
- 8 Great Performers concerts, down from 10 last year and 15 in 2014-15
- Two chamber orchestras are visiting, but no full-sized orchestras
- 8 special events, including the June program with Yo-Yo Ma, the opening gala and more.
- Prices are eye-watering for Ma, going up to $420, and gosh, $89 for a single ticket in the second tier to see a film with live orchestra.
Honestly, it feels as though MTT and Esa-Pekka Salonen never set foot in Davies.
Media round-up:
- Lisa Hirsch, S.F. Chronicle news report
- Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle
rantanalysis. You'll be shocked, shocked, to hear that I agree with every word and punctuation mark. - Janos Gereben, SFCV
- Gabe Meline, KQED. His headline says it all: "San Francisco Symphony Announces 2025–26 Season of ‘Just Play the Hits’"
I don't disagree with either Janos or Joshua that there are bright spots in the season, from Gabriella Smith's SoundBox to Mahler by Donald! Runnicles! and Herbert Blomsted to the new work by Outi Tarkiainen to the Ibert flute concerto with the fabulous Yubeen Kim. But still. Who planned this thing? And, you know, here's what Matt Spivey, CEO (and former artistic administrator) said about the music director hunt:
“Most importantly, we’re looking for someone with exceptional talent and a strong artistic vision who will inspire our musicians, audiences and community,” Symphony CEO Matt Spivey told KQED on Wednesday. “We can’t share more specifics while the search is underway, but we’re looking forward to sharing more when we’re ready to make an official announcement.”
15 comments:
I wonder how Yo-Yo Ma feels being a cash cow for a season that is likely to fail given its regressive programming. There is nothing wrong (aside from the elimination of anything new or unfamiliar) with the music planned for the season, it is just that there are new series on Netflix and HBO, parties, and other entertainment that would be more enticing than to hear the same pieces you hear over and over again er again played by the same orchestra. Maybe with guest conductors they would need to rehearse, but the outcome, I fear, would be unrewarding for the musicians as well as the audience. I should also point out that everything on the list is in the public domain, and everything is already in the library: a big diss to performing rights organizations and publishers. Maybe that is the result of losing federal money.
If it took Salonen's arrival to get you to subscribe, then yes, you made the right decision to quit. For my part, I've been impressed with the orchestra's world-class performing quality since Blomstedt's day, and that's why I make the effort to attend. I fear that now quality may decay, but I'll wait until that happens.
I had a choose-your-own subscription for various years of MTT's tenure, but the SFS web site made that a pain in the neck to do. The almost-full-orchestral-series subcription Z came with Salonen's arrival.
I suspect that Ma is a cash cow for lots of orchestras charging premium pricing for his solo appearances.
My list is not the complete list of what the orchestra is conducting. There are some works that are recent or new or still under copyright.
SFS receives little, if any, federal money and this season was surely planned before last November.
I completely agree with everything you've said about the new season. Van Zweeden is almost antithetical to what MTT and Salonen created at SFS. This doesn't bode well for the administration's choice of music director.
Yeah.
Yeah. I was hoping they'd suddenly appoint Dalia Stasevska or someone like that, but she's not even on the guest list this year.
This is purely theoretical for you at this point, but what I get is a limited Z subscription, which allows me to pick 4 additional concerts, and then I'm also allowed to be pretty free with substitution changes. I do those in person at the box office. That way I can get what I want and mostly avoid what I don't.
Appointing Stasevska would have gotten me to renew.
Regarding prices, my full Z subscription last year was $1,050.00. This year, it would be $1,412! COME ON.
That's about a 35% increase.
Yes. None of the conductors I would like to see as candidates are scheduled.
@josh, yes. Stase ska and Chan are currently at the top of my list.
After my comment last night I took a closer look at the offerings and think I can cobble together a series with Runnicles and the Mahler 1, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, the Mozart Requiem, and Simone Young doing her Ring compilation. I am still baffled over the huge price increase but with exchanging out of some things it should bring the total down to where I might have a credit (if they even do that!)
Same here. It sounds like the musicians really like Chan.
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