The 2016/2017 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance

Raymond Chen

For many years, I’ve put together a little pocket guide to the Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they want. For the past several years now, we haven’t ordered any tickets at all because we all have young children, but I still make this guide out of some sense of obligation.

So here’s the at-a-glance season guide for the 2016/2017 season anyway, again with no comments from me because nobody I know is going to use them to decide which tickets to order. Besides, you can probably preview nearly all of the pieces nowadays (minus the premieres) by searching on YouTube.

Here is the official brochure for those who want to read the details, and the press release has links to other pivots:

Here’s what The Seattle Times thinks of it.

Week Program 22 13 7A
7B
8C
8D
7E
7F
8G 5A SU BW
09/22
2016
Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges
Beethoven: Symphony #1
Gabriel Prokofiev: World Premiere
Beethoven: Symphony #8
                 
09/29
2016
Brahms: Tragic Overture
Elgar: Cello Concerto
Dvořák: Symphony #5
                 
10/15
2016
Bach: Concerto for Violin and Oboe
Mozart: Requiem
                 
10/21
2016
Purcell: Suite from The Fairy Queen
Lawes: Fantasy from Consort Set in Six Parts in C
Handel: Organ Concerto in F, “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”
Handel: Organ Concerto in B♭, Op. 4, No 6
Biber: Battalia
Handel: Water Music Suite (arr. Egarr)
                 
10/27
2016
Agata Zubel: Chapter 13 (World Premiere)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #3
Beethoven: Symphony #2
                 
11/03
2016
Berlioz: Les francs-juges Overture
Sibelius: Violin Concerto
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #5
                 
11/10
2016
Rimsky-Korsakov: Suite from Tale of Tsar Sultan
Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel)
                 
11/17
2016
Tchaikovsky: Mazeppa Overture
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #4
Shostakovich: Symphony #11
                 
12/01 Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius                  
12/30 Vivaldi: The Four Seasons                  
01/05
2017
Messiaen: Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine
Beethoven: Symphony #9
                 
01/26
2017
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D, Hob. XVII:II
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin
Schubert: Symphony #5
             
 
 
 
 
 
02/02
2017
Ives: A Symphony: New England Holidays
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5
                 
02/09
2017
Debussy: Prélude à “L’après-midi d’un Faune”
Bruch: Violin Concerto #1
Prokofiev: Symphony #5
                 
02/17
2017
Smetana: Dance of the Comedians from The Bartered Bride
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Dvořák: Symphony #8
                 
02/24
2017
Rameau: Suite from Naïs
Handel: Aria “Fammi combattere mostri e tifei” from Orlando
Bach: Aria “Wiederstehe doch der Sunde” from Cantata #54
Bach: “Agnus Dei” from Mass in B minor
Lully: Selections from Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Handel: Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne
                 
03/16
2017
Debussy: Printemps
Kernis: Violin Concerto (U.S. Premiere)
Beethoven: Symphony #6
                 
03/23
2017
Beethoven: Prometheus Overture
Bartók: Piano Concerto #2
Martinů: Memorial to Lidice
Beethoven: Symphony #5
             
 
 
 
 
 
03/30
2017
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #1
Rachmaninov: Symphony #2
                 
04/13
2017
Stenhammar: Serenade
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini
Prokofiev: Suite #1 from Romeo and Juliet
             
 
 
 
 
04/20 Bruckner: Symphony #5                  
04/27
2017
Zemelinksy: The Mermaid
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1
                 
05/05
2017
Vivaldi: Sinfonia in C from L’Olimpiade
Galuppi: Concerto A Quattro #2
Caldara: Sinfonia in D “Santa Francesca”
Vivaldi: Concerto for Four Violins, RV 580
Geminiani: Concerto Grosso #12 “La Follia”
Albinoni: Sinfonia in G
                 
06/01
2017
Bizet: Jeux d’enfants
Mendelssohn: Octet
Mozart: Piano Concerto #9 “Jeunehomme”
Ravel: L’enfant et les sortilèges
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
       
 
 
 
 
 
06/08
2017
Helen Grime: U.S. Premiere
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto
Nielsen: Symphony #3
                 
06/15
2017
R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
R. Strauss: An Alpine Symphony
                 
06/22
2017
Ligeti: Requiem
Mahler: Symphony #5
                 
Week Program 22 13 7A
7B
8C
8D
7E
7F
8G 5A SU BW

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Insider tip: Click a column header to focus on a specific series. (This feature has been around for several years, actually.)

Legend:

22 Masterworks 22-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays)
13 Masterworks 13-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays)
7A Masterworks 7-concert series A (Thursdays)
7B Masterworks 7-concert series B (Saturdays)
8C Masterworks 8-concert series C (Thursdays)
8D Masterworks 8-concert series D (Saturdays)
7E Masterworks 7-concert series E (Thursdays)
7F Masterworks 7-concert series F (Saturdays)
8G Masterworks 8-concert series G (Sunday afternoons)
5A Masterworks 5-concert series A (Friday afternoons)
SU Symphony Untuxed (Fridays, reduced program)
BW Baroque and Wine (Choice of Fridays or Saturdays)

For the weekend of February 17, the concert normally scheduled for Thursday will be held on Friday.

For those not familiar with the Seattle Symphony ticket package line-ups: Most of the ticket packages are named Masterworks nX where n is the number is the number of concerts in the package, and the letter indicates the variation. Ticket packages have been combined if they are identical save for the day of the week. For example, 8C and 8D are the same concerts; the only difference is that 8C is for Thursday nights, while 8D is for Saturday nights.

This chart doesn’t include concert series such as the Distinguished Artists series which share no concerts with any of the Masterworks concerts.

Notes and changes:

  • The Masterworks series grew from 21 to 22 concerts. The extra concert was added to the 8[CD] series. Extra concerts were also added to 7G and 4A, bringing them to 8G and 5A. The Seattle Pops grew from five to six concerts.
  • The 7[AB], 8[CD], and 7[EF] concert series do not overlap, so you can create your own pseudo-series by taking any two of them, or recreate the 22-concert series by taking all three.
  • The 13-concert series is the same as the 8[CD] and 7[EF] series combined, minus the January 5 and March 16 concerts.
  • The Symphony Kids series no longer exists.

This purports to be the second season of a two-season cycle of Beethoven symphonies and piano concerti. Though when I checked this year’s and last year’s schedules, it looks like they forgot the third and seventh symphonies, and they included the third piano concerto twice and the first and second not at all. Math may not be their strong suit.

There’s also a special Shostakovich Concerto Festival that performs all of Shostakovich’s concertos. I counted. They’re all there.

Hilary Hahn visits Seattle twice this season, once to perform Bruch’s Violin Concerto on the weekend of February 9, and again to perform in recital on October 30 as part of the Distinguished Artists series. A group of us attended one of her recitals a decade ago. She wore a floor-length A-line green dress with sparkly silver shoes. I remember it because we amused ourselves by describing her dress as a Christmas tree, and the shoes were presents that peeked out.

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