In Which Pan Cogito Joins The Geek Squad In Order To Help His Mother More Fully Enjoy Her Recent Morning Open Rehearsal By The San Francisco Symphony

Dear Mother,

I'm happy that you enjoyed your visit to the San Francisco Symphony's Open Rehearsal on Wednesday morning; and that you enjoyed San Francisco Conservatory Professor Scott Foglesong's one-half hour long introduction to the Bruckner Symphony #2, which the orchestra then performed under guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt. I was interested that Professor Foglesong tried to explain why many people do not care for Bruckner as much as they care for other 19th c. composers.

I'm also glad that you thoroughly enjoyed pianist Krystian Zimerman's performance of Witold Lutosławski's Piano Concerto (1987), which was composed for Mr Zimerman. I was interested in your remark that, unlike the Bruckner which was played straight through, Mr Zimerman seemed to lead the rehearsal by often stopping Mr Blomstedt and making comments about the interpretation of the concerto.

I was rather appalled when you told me that the San Francisco Symphony does not provide printed program notes (both normal and large-print) to the paying attendees of their popular open rehearsal series.

You also told me that you were having problems finding the program notes on the San Francisco Symphony web-site. I agree that it is sometimes difficult to find the links to the usually excellent program notes now published on most symphony web-sites.

Here is what to do:

Go to the San Francisco Symphony website, and click on the picture of guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt. That should bring up some tiny text in awful orange saying "learn more". Click on the "learn more" and that will bring you to the Event Page which contains two links, again in awful orange, to the works by Bruckner and Lutoslawski. (Be patient). Please note that you must -- unfortunately -- scroll down the Event Page to find the two orange links to the program notes.

I hope that this works, and that you won't have to call Jonathan Khuner and ask him for his help.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming rain in the Bay Area.

Love,

P.C.

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The Jewish quarter after the November 1918 Pogrom in Lviv.

[Click on image for enlargement.]

Source: Derzhavnyi Archiv L’vivs’koi Oblasti (L’viv State Regional Archive)