The work was premiered on May 29, 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, as a staged production of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with Pierre Monteux conducting. Monteux also led the first SFS performances of the original 1913 version in February 1939. Over the years the score has appeared in various revisions. This performance uses the edition marked “Revised 1947; New edition 1967,” brought out by Boosey & Hawkes, which had just acquired the work’s copyright.

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard joins forces with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen for a recording of Bartók’s complete piano concertos. A pianist himself, Bartók imbued his three concertos with multiple aspects of his compositional persona, ranging from complex and innovative (the First) to exuberant (the Second) and serene (the Third). The result is a fascinating slice of his musical life. This all-Bartók release marks the first Pentatone collaboration between Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony, an ensemble he has reshaped through creative performance concepts and expansive new media projects.

‘The fantastic thing about art and music is that one can pose questions and conjure up visions at the same time.’ The words are those of the Swedish composer Jesper Nordin, who does exactly that in Emerging from Currents and Waves. A large-scale work for orchestra, clarinet soloist, conductor and live electronics, Emerging… is a collaboration between Nordin, Martin Fröst and Esa-Pekka Salonen. All three are interested in how new technology can – and will – influence art and artistic expression, and in exploring the intersection of mankind, music and technology.