Symphony Preview: Celebrity soloists glitter at the Red Velvet Ball on Saturday, October 18

Lang Lang
stlsymphony.org

As I wrote in a previous post, it's a musical doubleheader at the St. Louis Symphony this weekend: the regular series concerts on Friday and Sunday with Leonard Slatkin, the orchestra, and violin soloists Celeste Golden Boyer and David Halen; and the annual "Red Velvet Ball" fundraiser concert on Saturday night with David Robertson conducting and international celebrity pianist Lang Lang in the solo spot. Here's a preview of the latter.

The Red Velvet Ball concert is only part of a formal fundraising event that includes premium seating, pre-concert cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, dinner and post-concert cocktails, dessert, and dancing. It's a dressy (and pricey) affair in which the orchestra and a fair percentage of the audience are decked out in their best formal attire. It always features a big name soloist, and superstar pianist Lang Lang is all that beyond a doubt.

Described as "the hottest artist on the classical music planet" by the New York Times, the 32-year-old Chinese pianist says he was inspired to learn the piano when he saw the classic Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Cat Concerto" at the age of two. By the age of five he was already appearing public recitals. He won the Xing Hai Cup Piano Competition in Beijing in 1994 and the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Pianists in Japan the following year. Since then his unique mix of technical proficiency, artistic taste, and charismatic performance style have made him an international, genre-crossing superstar—the "the J. Lo of the piano," in the words of the great keyboard virtuoso Earl Wild.

Tchaikovsky in 1906
en.wikipedia.org

Mr. Lang will be playing Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1," an enduring chestnut that always gets a warm response. The lively melodies (some appropriated from Ukrainian folk sources) and flashy piano part never fail to appeal. It has had plenty of exposure at Powell over the last few years, with splendid (and very different) performances by Kirill Gerstein (September 2013) and Yefim Bronfman (April 2011). What will Mr. Lang do with it? I don’t know, but based on his work to date it's likely to be compelling.

The concert will open with J.S. Bach's "Suite No. 2 in B-minor," BWV 1067, which features a prominent role for the flute. It was, like many of Bach's works, written for the government—specifically, for the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, where Bach was the resident composer and music director from 1717 to 1723.

The prince was fond of what symphony program annotator Paul Schiavo (in his notes for a performance of the Bach "Suite No. 1" in October 2012) described as "lively secular instrumental music", and Bach filled the bill nicely with an appealing site of six dances preceded by a short "French overture" (the name possibly refers to the fact that the form first appears in the operas of Jean Baptiste Lully) with its characteristic majestic opening followed by a main section.

Mark Sparks
stlsymphony.org

If some of the recordings of the Bach suites in my collection are any indication, it’s easy to treat this music as weighty stuff. Even in his "light" music, after all, Bach couldn’t stop being a genius at counterpoint. Still, I would expect Mr. Robertson to deliver a performance that remains true to the suite’s terpsichorean origins.

The solo flute role will be taken by SLSO Principal Flute Mark Sparks. It's not the first time he has been in the spotlight. As recently as last March he performed the Christopher Rouse "Flute Concerto" with the symphony and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras all over the world. Great as it is to have an international celebrity like Lang Lang playing with the orchestra, it's at least as gratifying to see a member of the orchestra take center stage.

The essentials: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and soloists Lang Lang, piano, and Mark Sparks, flute, in Bach's "Orchestra Suite No. 2" and Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1" Saturday, October 19, at 8:30 p.m. The concert is part of the annual Red Velvet Ball formal fundraising event and takes place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information, visit the web site.