San Francisco Symphony Podcasts

The Fourth Symphony was a product of the most turbulent time of Tchaikovsky's life - 1877, when he met two women (Nadezhda von Meck, a music-loving widow of a wealthy Russian railroad baron, and Antonina Miliukov, an unnoticed student in one of his large lecture classes at the Moscow Conservatory), who forced him to evaluate himself as he never had before.

To escape the city of Vienna, Beethoven often spent his summers in the rural counties surrounding it—a love reflected in his Symphony No. 6, Pastoral. With movements titled Awakening of joyful sentiments upon arriving in the country and Scene by the brook, the work depicts life in the country.

Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony made him a war hero, but his Eighth Symphony still got him in trouble with the Soviet government, perhaps because it was less a hymn to heroism than a prayer for peace

Scotland - the country that gave us haggis, bagpipes, golf and Sean Connery among other world treasures - was also the inspiration for two of Mendelssohn's best-known works: his "Hebrides" Overture and "Scottish" Symphony. There are no actual Scottish tunes in the Symphony; in fact, Mendelssohn professed to dislike all Scottish music, especially the bagpipes. But it's hard to imagine the source of this tuneful work being anything other than the windswept heather of the Highlands.

The Rite of Spring wasn't the first piece of music to spark a riot, and it certainly wasn't the last, but it was the most significant.

Upon visiting Stravinsky in late 1910, expecting to find him immersed in composing the Rite of Spring, Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballet Russe, was quite surprised to find him instead composing the ballet of an anthropomorphized puppet.  The story recounts the rise and fall of mischievous Petrushka, a puppet brought to life by a magician as he courts the Ballerina and fights the Charlatan.  The work was premiered one hundred years ago, with Nijinsky dancing the title role. Former SFS Music Director Pierre Monteux conducted the work’s world premiere.

During childhood summers spent at the beaches at Cannes, Debussy learned to love the unpredictable and ever-changing sea. The most traditionally ‘symphonic’ of Debussy’s orchestral works, La mer is comprised of three sketches:  From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, Play of the Waves, and Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea. 

"Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" was about passion, inspired by passion, and made possible by passion. That passion changed the course of Western music history."

For many, the sound of Copland's "Appalachian Spring" is the sound of American classical music.

With his piece "Street Song" for brass ensemble, Michael Tilson Thomas - the composer - celebrates both his past and his future.

In his fantasy opera "L'enfant et les sortileges," Maurice Ravel brings together his love of children, animals and fairy stories in a magical, musical mix.

Prokofiev Symphony No. 5Composed alongside fellow distinguished Russian composers at a House of Creative Work northeast of Moscow, Prokofiev’s renowned Fifth Symphony saw its premiere in January 1945, as Soviet armies had begun their final push to victory over Germany. As Prokofiev raised his baton in the silent hall, the audience could hear the gunfire that celebrated the news, just arrived, that the army had crossed the Vistula and driven the German Wehrmacht back past the Oder river.

Henry Brant: Ice FieldMichael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony team up with iconoclastic organist Cameron Carpenter to release a one-of-a-kind recording of Henry Brant’s Pulitzer Prize-winning spatial composition, Ice Field. Put on your headphones for a unique Dolby Atmos immersive experience that allows us to hear Brant’s work as it was intended: as a vast acoustical soundscape for 100 players scattered throughout Davies Symphony Hall.  

Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1Franz Liszt may have been one of the nineteenth century’s most exasperating underachievers, to say nothing of committing the unforgivable sin of success on a staggering scale, but he was a genius. This concerto can remind us. Begun in 1835 at the ripe old age of 24, Liszt did not complete his first piano concerto until nearly twenty years later.  A final draft appeared in 1849, which was revised before the 1855 premiere (conducted by Hector Berlioz), and then revised yet again before its publication in 1856.  Béla Bartók called the concerto “the first perfect realization of cyclic sonata form, with common themes being treated on the variation principle.” 

Brahms Symphony No. 2Brahms's Symphony No.2 is generally thought of as his most lighthearted, but it's actually built on the contrasts between light and dark, between sunshine and clouds. Kind of like life.

Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 contains some of his best-known music, including the beautiful "Air on the G String." But it also contains the origins of the modern symphony orchestra.

Sibelius' Four Legends from the KalevalaIn "Four Legends from the Kalevala," Jean Sibelius explored Finland's mythical past and found his own musical future.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 Anton Bruckner grew up an unsophisticated teacher’s son.  By the time he reached Vienna and the composition of his Symphony No. 5, he had a sound combining Beethoven’s sense of mystery and suspense, Schubert’s harmony, and Wagner’s breadth in unfolding, plus a symphonic vision all his own.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9Often called the greatest piece of music ever written, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was the last he would ever write.  The first symphony to feature a chorus and vocal soloists, Symphony No. 9 also includes the famous “Ode to Joy.” click here to enjoy a recording 

Handel’s MessiahOften called the greatest piece of music ever written, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was the last he would ever write.  The first symphony to feature a chorus and vocal soloists, Symphony No. 9 also includes the famous “Ode to Joy.”