Robin Ticciati conducts a program of concerts at Davies Symphony Hall in which the Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi makes his debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4. The concerts also feature Sergei Rachmaninoff’s lovely Symphony No 2.
British-Italian Ticciati, a protegé of Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davis, is Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and an Honorary Member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was Music Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin between 2017 and 2024, Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 2009 to 2018, and is a regular guest conductor with he Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Conductor Robin Ticciati – courtesy Askonas Holt
Among recent highlights are appearances with the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Concertgebouw, Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Dresden Staatskapelle, Czech Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Ticciati’s appearances in the US include those with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. On the operatic stage, he has led productions at Teatro alla Scala Milan, Staatsoper Berlin and at the Metropolitain Opera, and his future plans include appearances with the London Philharmonic at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and at London’s Southbank Centre, a new production of Wagner’s Parsifal at Glyndebourne Festival, and Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová also at Glyndebourne. He was awarded an OBE in 2019.
Guest artist Francesco Piemontesi © Camille Blake
Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi, according to the Spectator, “…. combines stunning technique with an intellectual capacity that few can match”. Artistic director of the Settimane Musicali di Ascona since 2012, he is regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the German classical and romantic repertoire, and is the subject of a recent film which explores The Alchemy of the Piano. The film was originally screened in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and can also be seen on ARTE, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Swiss and Austrian television, and features luminaries such as Alfred Brendel, Maria João Pirez and Antonio Pappano.
Following these performances in San Francisco, Piemontesi appears with the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, the London Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Tonhalle-Orchester in Zürich. Piemontesi is well regarded the world over, too. Recent performances include those with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival, the Cincinnati Symphony and Chicago Symphony orchestras, the Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and Filarmonica della Scala. He is a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and the BBC Proms.
At these concerts in San Francisco, Francesco Piemontesi plays the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4. The work was composed during 1805 and 1806 at a time when Vienna was at the center of artistic innovation. It was also a time in which Beethoven’s personal life was affected by his deteriorating hearing and the upheaval of the Napoleonic Wars, both of which influenced his work. It was dedicated to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, and premiered on December 22, 1808, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, with Beethoven himself at the piano. The reaction to the concerto was fairly mixed at the time, but it now has a firm place in the classical repertoire.
The final work in the program is the gorgeous Symphony No 2 by Rachmaninoff which he finished writing by the autumn of 1906, by which time he’d recovered from the disastrous reception of his First Symphony, and had also completed his Second Piano Concerto. The Symphony No 2 premiered on January 26, 1908, in St Petersburg, and was extremely well received, subsequently being awarded the Glinka Prize. It was dedicated to Sergei Tanayev, Rachmaninov’s professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Between the two World Wars, however, Rachmaninoff was forced to make some severe cuts to the work, since by then, the preference of Western audiences was for the shorter neo-classical pieces which were popular at that time. Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony is still one of his loveliest compositions.
Robin Ticciati leads the San Francisco Symphony and guest artist Francesco Piemontesi in the Fourth Piano Concerto by Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall on February 28 and March 1 and 2. For further information and details of ticketing visit the San Francisco Symphony website.
Information sourced from:
San Francisco Symphony program notes
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4
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