For composers Dmitri Shostakovich, William Walton, and Sergei Prokofiev, cinematic assignments often found their way into their concert music—and vice versa.
Drama abounds in the "Funeral March" from Shostakovich’s score for The Great Citizen, a 1939 film about a Bolshevik revolutionary. In his Third Symphony, Prokofiev recycles music from his opera The Fiery Angel. Walton’s searing and sumptuous Viola Concerto launched his career.
Gustavo Gimeno conducts this program, which also features San Francisco Symphony principal viola Jonathan Vinocour.
// April 25–27 at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. (Civic Center); tickets are available at sfsymphony.org.
