Symphony Review: Old Friends on New Year's Eve

Few things are more pleasurable than welcoming in the new year with old friends, both material and musical. That’s what we did on Wednesday,  December 31, at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve Celebration, with Music Director Stéphane Denève at the podium. The experience more than lived up to expectations.

Stéphane Denève and the SLSO

The 2025 NYE concert was the first one to be presented in the newly renovated Powell Hall. The mood in the sold-out house was as bubbly as the Cava at the bar. And the music was comfortably familiar.

Certainly the opening work—the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 operetta Candide—needed no introduction. It was a favorite of former Music Director David Robertson, Denève made it part of the SLSO’s European tour program in 2023, and former Assistant Conductor Stephanie Childress used it to kick off her NYE program that same year. The piece is a certified rouser with (to quote a George M. Cohan lyric) “plenty of biff and bang,” including some showy stuff for the horns. A tip of the topper to Associate Principal Thomas Jöstlein and the rest of the section for their fine work and to the rest of the band for their flawless playing.

Being a work by an American composer based on a novel by a Frenchman (Voltaire), the Candide overture neatly set the tone for a lively night of Franco-American music making. Up next were five movements from the two suites George Bizet assembled from his incidental music for the 1869 melodrama L’Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles) by Alphonse Daudet. Léon Carvalho commissioned Bizet to compose the music for an 1872 production of the work in hopes that it would be “a powerful attraction” that would “soften somewhat the cruelty of the play.” Audience response to it was unenthusiastic but Bizet’s suites (which premiered later that same year) were a hit and have remained so ever since.

Denève chose some of the more tuneful and lively selections for the suites, starting with the dramatic Carillion (Suite No. 1, 4^th movement), in which the horns evoke the tolling of church bells. The quiet opening and unusually slow tempo of the following Adagietto (1, 3)  provided a marked contrast with both the Carillion and the cheerfully rustic Minuetto (1, 2) that came next. The trio section of the Minuetto featured some nice work by Nathan Nabb on alto saxophone and the flutes under Principal Andrea Kaplan as did the Minuet (2, 3), in which they were joined by harpist Megan Stout. The Farandole (4,3) with its insistent percussion and quotes from the Provençal Christmas carol “La Marcha dei reis,” brought it all to a blazing conclusion, for which kudos are owed to the brass and percussion section.

Rounding out the first half was, in Denève’s words, “musical Champagne,” in the consumption of which “no moderation is necessary.” He was speaking of the set of ten of the 24 numbers from the ballet Gaîté Parisienne (literally Parisian Gaiety, although I think Parisian Playfulness might capture the spirit better). The popular 1938 ballet uses music by Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) arranged by composer/conductor by Manuel Rosenthal (1904–2003).  Denève rearranged the order of the numbers a bit to make the entire 20 minutes flow better, which as you can hear in the attached playlist (for which I used Rosenthal’s own 1999 recording, despite his slow tempos), worked quite well. The concluding Vivo, based on the Galop (a.k.a. “The Can-Can”) from Act II of Offenbach’s satirical Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld), sent everyone off to refill their drinks in a properly upbeat frame of mind.

Katie Mahan. Photo courtesy of the SLSO

The second half of the concert was devoted entirely to music of George Gershwin: the Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris in the same arrangements Denève used for the 2021 NYE concerts. I had some thoughts about those particular orchestrations back then, so I won’t repeat it all here. It’s enough to say that while I personally prefer the Ferde Grofé and Gershwin originals, Denève, the orchestra, and soloist Katie Mahan did such a spectacular job with them that I was happy to toast their success with a glass of genuine bubbly.

Mahan’s name was new to me, and I must say I was mightily impressed by her ability to put her own stamp on Gershwin’s music without, as far as I could tell, changing a single note of it. She has earned praise for her Gershwin performances and recordings (her orchestral debut was the challenging Concerto in F) and I can see why. Hers was very personal and emotionally powerful Rhapsody, backed up by stellar performances from Denève and the orchestra. 

Those opening solos by Associate Principal Clarinet Robert Walker and Principal Trumpet Steven Franklin were particularly slinky. Gershwin was delighted with the famous original solo by Ross Gorman of the Paul Whiteman band and Walker did an excellent job of reproducing it.

Mahan’s encore was a positively luxurious reading of Debussy’s Clair de lune from the 1905 Suite bergamasque. You can hear her 2019 recording of Clair de lune as part of her all-Debussy album for KM Classic.

As for An American in Paris, Denève and the orchestra sounded just as splendid this time around as they did back in 2021. Denève’s interpretation was as elegant as it was then, nicely emphasizing Gershwin’s mid-1920’s harmonies. It’s a reminder that the composer was, in his own words, writing “in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and The Six.” It was a memorable musical send-off for a difficult year.

And, yes, everybody stood to applaud and stayed standing to sing “Auld Lang Syne” at the end.

Upcoming: the regular concert series resumes as Stéphane Denève conducts the SLSO in music by Stravinsky, Debussy, and Albert Roussel. The orchestra will accompany St. Louis Dance Theatre and choreographer Kirven Douthit-Boyd in an “adventurous collaboration to imagine Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite in an entirely new way. Also on the program are Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks Concerto, Debussy’s ballet Jeux, and the Suite No. 2 from Roussel’s ballet Bacchus et Ariane. Performances are Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, January 10 and 11, in Powell Symphony Hall.

The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and on Classic 107.3. Classic 107.3 is also where you can hear Tom Sudholt and yours truly host the Symphony Preview episode about the concert on Wednesday, January 7, from 8 to 10 pm.