The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s (SLSO) holiday programming concludes Tuesday, December 31, at 7:30 pm with the annual “New Year’s Eve Celebration” concert. This year the figure on the podium will be a familiar one—former SLSO Assistant Conductor Stephanie Childress. She conducted the NYE concert in 2022 as well, at which time I wrote that she had “won the audience over from the very start with a cheerful and unassuming stage presence.” It’s reasonable to expect more of the same this time around.
[Preview the music with my Spotify playlist.]
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| Daniela Candillari Photo courtesy of the SLSO |
One thing will be very different this New Year’s Eve, though. In the past, details of the program have always been kept secret until concert time. This year the theme is “dance music from around the world” and the program is available at the SLSO web site. We’ve been told to expect “a few surprises along the way,” but here’s a quick look at the official list.
Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904): Slavonic Dance No. 1. Dvořák wrote two sets of Slavonic Dances (Op. 46 in 1878 and Op. 72 in 1886) as pieces for two pianos. They were so popular he was obliged to orchestrate them—and those versions proved even more popular. Dance No. 1, in C major, is a certified rouser of a furiant, a lively dance in alternating 2/4 and 3/4 time.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893): Overture from “The Nutcracker”. The popular 1892 ballet is one of those works that is inescapable at this time of year. While the ballet is not generally regarded as one of the composer’s best, the suite that he assembled from it prior to the premiere has become a concert staple. The “Miniature Overture,” with its emphasis on the orchestra’s higher voices, neatly sets up a fairy tale atmosphere.
Anna Clyne (b. 1980): “Masquerade” for Orchestra. Composed for and premiered at the 2013 Last Night at the Proms. “Masquerade” is a short, wildly energetic romp for large orchestra. As Clyne writes at her publisher’s web site, it was inspired by “the original mid-18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens… where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music…Combined with costumes, masked guises and elaborate settings, masquerades created an exciting, yet controlled, sense of occasion and celebration. It is this that I wish to evoke.” And, in fact, there’s an effervescent exuberance to the piece that’s a perfect fit for New Year’s Eve.
Joseph Turrin: Fandango. This 2000 commission for the New Mexico Wind Symphony is scored for solo trumpet, trombone, and concert band. “This six-minute piece,” writes the composer, “explores the rhythmic, melodic and syncopated elements of the Spanish fandango dance form (A lively dance in triple time for two dancers).” Principal Trumpet Steven Franklin and Principal Trombone Jonathan Randazzo will have the featured roles Tuesday night.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 – 1912) “Valse de la Reine” (“The Queen’s Waltz”) from “Four Characteristic Waltzes,” Op. 22. Although his music is rarely heard these days, the British-born Coleridge-Taylor was, in his time, a celebrated composer, conductor, and teacher. Unlike his more famous works, such as his three cantatas based on Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha,” the “Characteristic Waltzes” are charming little “salon” pieces of the sort you might hear genteel young ladies playing at the pianoforte—not profound, but definitely “ear worms.”
William Walton (1902 – 1983): Crown Imperial. Composed for the coronation of King George VI in 1937, “Crown Imperial” is very much in the rousing patriotic tradition of, say, Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” marches. Walton’s inspiration for the title comes from a speech in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” describing the trappings of kingship, including
the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921): "Danse Baccanale” from “Samson et Dalila” The composer was a dedicated world traveler who took inspiration from the places he visited. It’s hard to know how much of his 1874 trip to Algiers wound up in the lush exoticism of the Act III Temple of Dagon orgy scene from his 1876 opera, but it certainly packs a great dramatic punch, especially in the ecstatic coda.
Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990): "Lonely Town” from “Three Dance Episodes from On the Town.” The first and last movements from the composer’s first stage hit are brash and pure Broadway, albeit with some sophisticated harmonies and polyrhythms that weren't typical of the Great White Way back then. The “Lonely Town” second movement, on the other hand, sets a more elegiac and wistful mood, with muted trumpet over clarinets and strings.
Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825 – 1899): “Frühlingsstimmen” (“Voices of Spring”). It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without at least one Strauss waltz. This one was written with an optional coloratura vocal line and while I’m not sure which version we’ll hear on Tuesday (there’s no soprano soloist listed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a surprise guest star in the wings), I couldn’t resist including the vocal version in the play list, especially since the singer is the celebrated Kathleen Battle (b. 1948) and the recording is from the 1987 New Year’s Eve concert in Vienna. Prosit!
José Serebrier (b. 1938): Selections from the “Carmen Symphony in Twelve Scenes.” Since I have no idea which selections will be on the program (although I’ll be amazed if it doesn’t conclude with the “Gypsy Dance”), I have included all twelve in my play list. This 2004 suite is more properly a collection of orchestral excerpts from Bizet’s opera than a symphony, although it does follow the arc of the plot. Serebrier makes minimal changes in Bizet’s original score, although he has assigned the original vocal lines to instruments in the same ranges. Carmen’s famous “Habanera,” for example, is sung by the alto sax and Escamillo’s “Toreador” is assigned to the trombone.
Serebrier is best known as a conductor rather than a composer (although his catalog of compositions is sizeable), so I have included his own recording of the work with the Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya in my playlist.
It’s likely that there will be additions to the program on Tuesday night, probably including an “Auld Lang Syne” sing-along, but we’ll have to wait until then to find out.
The regular concert season resumes on January 10 and 11 as Opera Theatre’s Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari leads the orchestra in music by Dvořák and Samuel Barber, along with the world premiere of the Accordion Concerto by composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Shekhar with Hanzhi Wang as the soloist. Check out the SLSO web site for details.
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