Review: Young at heart

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Matthew Halls
Photo by Eric Richmond

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[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview post.]

The accent was on youth this past Sunday (February 18, 2018) as guest conductor Matthew Halls made his St. Louis Symphony Orchestra debut with a program of music by a trio of early 19th-century composers who flourished early, died young, and left behind a sizeable body of music.

The concert opened with Symphony No. 3 in D major by Franz Schubert, dashed off in July 1815, when the composer was 18 years old. It opens with a slow, majestic introduction but the mood quickly turns sunny with a lilting main theme on the clarinet and remains cheerful for the next 25 minutes or so.

Conducting without a baton (as he did for the entire concert), Mr. Halls summoned those dramatic opening chords with a big, sweeping two-armed gesture and took the Adagio maestoso introduction at a relaxed pace that made the brisk first appearance of that main theme, expertly played by Associate Principal clarinet Diana Haskell, that much more energizing. It's marked Allegro con brio, which roughly translates as "quickly with energy," and it had energy in abundance.

In fact, his entire approach to the symphony made the most of the strong contrasts in the score. The Allegretto second movement was gracefully balletic, with a folksy charm in the contrasting middle section, while the Menuetto third movement danced along with subtle shadings of tempo and dynamics. The Presto vivace finale, with its tarantella-style 6/8 rhythm, raced along with fleet-footed playing by the strings and a satisfying sonic blend overall. Mr. Halls had Ms. Haskell stand for well-earned applause at the end along with her fellow woodwind leaders Philip Ross (Associate Principal oboe) and Andrew Gott (Associate Principal bassoon), but the fact is that everyone played extremely well.

The first half of the concert concluded with the Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, which Carl Maria von Weber wrote in 1811 at the age of 24. As befits a composer best known for his operas, the concerto is a work that often feels like it should be sung, with a dark and technically challenging first movement, a second that could pass for an opera aria, and a flashy Rondo finale.

Scott Andrews

SLSO Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews was the soloist, delivering a performance that had plenty of heart and soul (to cite an old song title) along with an easy virtuosity that allowed him to sail through the concerto's many difficult passages with an Astaire-like grace. He had a sensitive, singing tone in the lyrical second movement and approached the Rondo finale with a playful joy. He got great support from Mr. Halls and the orchestra, including some lovely playing from Roger Kaza and his fellow horns.

The concert ended with big, passionate interpretation of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor by Felix Mendelssohn from 1824. The composer was only 15 when he wrote it, but as he already had a dozen string symphonies to his credit at that point you could hardly call it the work of a beginner. It has, in fact, a maturity that belies Mendelssohn's youth, and Mr. Halls gave it a sense of weight and majesty that I have not always heard in other interpretations.

Conducting without a score, he drew a muscular, bold sound from the orchestra from the dramatic opening right through to the dynamic final movement with its powerful sense of momentum and sophisticated double fugue. There were many wonderful moments here, such as the almost inaudibly soft string pizzicati in the final movement and the elegant woodwind chorale in the Andante second movement. The sharp contrast between the vigorous outer sections and the gentle center of the third movement Menuetto was especially striking, generating a kind of tension that called to mind the transition into the finale of the fifth symphony of Beethoven, whose final symphony appeared the same year as Mendelssohn's first.

One could take issue with some of Mr. Halls' choices, but the sheer power of the overall result spoke for itself. As SLSO conducting debuts go, this one was pretty auspicious, and I look forward to seeing more of Mr. Halls in the future.

Next at Powell Hall: Kevin McBeth conducts the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus and soloist Oleta Adams in Lift Every Voice, a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Friday, February 23, at 7:30 pm; note that as this is being written, the concert is standing room only. On Saturday at 7 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, February 24 and 25, the SLSO presents a showing of the Alfred Hitchcock classic North by Northwest with the score performed live by the orchestra. All concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Forever young

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Mendelssohn, age 12
Painting by Carl Joseph Begas

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Youth is the theme at Powell Hall this weekend (February 17 and 18, 2018) as Matthew Halls makes his St. Louis Symphony Orchestra debut conducting Schubert's Symphony No. 3 (written when the composer was 18), Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 1 (age 24), and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 1 (age 15; the picture above is Mendelssohn at age 12).

All three of this weekend's composers were guys who bloomed early and died young. Schubert passed away at the age of 30, Mendelssohn at 38, and Weber was the relative Methuselah of the bunch, dying just short of 40. And yet, despite their short time on this earth, all three produced an impressive body of music. Schubert led the pack with over 1000 compositions (not bad for someone whose career lasted only 20 years), but Mendelssohn and Weber were no slackers, either.

As you might have guessed from the amount of music he wrote, Schubert composed very quickly. His "Symphony No. 3" was dashed off in the summer of 1815 (mostly between July 11th and 19th) and was probably first performed by an amateur orchestra that was meeting at the house of the violinist Otto Hatwig. Like most of Schubert's symphonies, it didn't get an official public performance until well after the composer's death.

The symphony opens with the kind of slow dramatic introduction for which Haydn was so famous, but the mood quickly turns sunny with a chirping main theme on the clarinet and remains cheerful for the next 25 minutes or so. The Allegretto second movement is lilting and graceful, the third movement is almost too boisterous to truly justify its Menuetto designation, and the finale gallops along to a rapid tarantella rhythm. If this doesn't bring a smile to your lips, you're a hopeless grouch.

Carl Maria von Weber's first clarinet concerto (he wrote two, along with a concertino for the instrument) dates from 1811 and was written for the virtuoso Heinrich Joseph Baermann, whose playing also inspired pieces by Meyerbeer, Franz Danzi, and even Mendelssohn. Unlike the Schubert symphony, the Weber concerto is dramatic and operatic, with a dark and technically challenging first movement, a second that could pass for an opera aria, and a flashy Rondo finale. It's quite a workout, and should offer a chance for the soloist, SLSO Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews, to strut his stuff.

Carl Maria von Weber
Painting by Ferdinand Schimon

Mendelssohn's 1824 C minor symphony might bear the number "one," but the reality is that he had already written over a dozen string symphonies at that early point in his life, so he was hardly a newcomer to the form. That said, there's no doubt, as the anonymous annotator for the Utah Symphony points out, that the influences of Mozart and Beethoven can be heard here. Mendelssohn's love of Bach shows up as well, most notably in the fugal passages in the final movement. Mendelssohn put his own personal melodic spin on it, though, especially in the lyrical second movement, with what John Palmer at Allmusic calls its "beautifully transparent" orchestration.

Adding to the youthful feel of this weekend's concerts is the fact that guest conductor Matthew Halls, making his SLSO debut, is no geezer himself. Although he's only in his early 40s, he has already performed with orchestras around the world.

Originally a keyboard player and early music specialist, he has since expanded his repertoire to include Mozart, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and even Messiaen and Michael Tippet. Reviewing his Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Star said that he "captured much of the energy and excitement that its first audience must have felt at its premiere nearly 200 years ago." It will be interesting to see if he brings that same fresh perspective to this weekend's program.

The Essentials: Matthew Halls conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and clarinet soloist Scott Andrews Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, February 17 and 18. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Isn't it Romantic?

Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Photo: © Werner Kmetitsch

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada with pianist Louis Lortie
What: Music of von Weber, Beethoven, and Bartók
When: Friday through Sunday, January 17-19, 2014
Where: Powell Symphony Hall

This weekend the second of the symphony’s four "Beethoven Festival" concerts brings us music of Beethoven, a younger contemporary of Beethoven, and a 20th century composer who acknowledged Beethoven as a major influence—all done up by guest conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada in that dramatic, late Romantic Austro-German style I associate with the recordings of Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer that were so much a part of my youth.

The concerts open with the overture to the 1823 opera "Euryanthe" by that younger contemporary of Beethoven, Carl Maria von Weber. Unlike Weber's "Der Freischütz," "Euryanthe" has never found a place in the active repertoire, probably because (as Paul Schiavo writes in his program notes) the libretto by German journalist, poet, and playwright Helmina von Chézy (once described by Mahler as a "poetess with a full heart and an empty head") "was an incompetent botch." Still, the overture is a real crowd pleaser, with engaging themes, plenty of dramatic contrast, and a rousing finale.

Here, as in the rest of the program, Mr. Orozco-Estrada made the most of those contrasts—part of that aforementioned echt Romantic approach. The "ghost" theme was (you should pardon the expression) haunting and the fugato run-up to the finale was nicely articulated. Mr. Orozco-Estrada was an exuberant and very physically demonstrative figure on the podium, with big but crisp gestures suggesting a good balance of emotional involvement and intellectual control.

This week's Beethoven is the "Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major," op. 73 (a.k.a. the "Emperor"), a work which bristles with nobility and grace despite being written under the cloud of war and occupation. When Beethoven was writing the concerto in Vienna in 1809, the city was under heavy siege by Napoleon. "[L]ife around me", he wrote, "is wild and disturbing, nothing but drums, cannons, soldiers, misery of every sort." You can even hear a bit of that bombardment, I think, in the heavy piano chords that show up early in the development section of the first movement just as you can hear a kind of impassioned yearning for peace in the wistful second. It's a work of inescapable emotional power.

Louis Lortie

Soloist Louis Lortie channeled all that power beautifully. This was a very visceral performance; Mr. Lortie truly threw himself into the music, with every emotion etched on his face and visible in his body language. Like Mr. Orozco-Estrada, Mr. Lortie gave us a nearly perfect combination of head and heart. Between them, we got a powerfully noble first movement, a transcendent second and, after that wonderfully suspenseful transition, a completely engaging finale.

This sort of big, colorful, high-wattage reading might not work for some of the earlier Beethoven concerti, but for the Fifth I think it's very valid. The piano part, in particular, seems to cry out for the fuller tone and wider range of the modern, metal frame concert grand—a type of piano that wouldn't be perfected until shortly before the composer's death. Mr. Lortie's muscular approach couldn't have been a better fit.

The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was a great admirer of Beethoven, so it seems only right that this weekend's concerts should conclude with what may be Bartók's most famous work, the 1943 "Concerto for Orchestra." Written, like the "Emperor" concerto, at a time of great personal travail, the "Concerto" is nevertheless a dramatic, appealing, and sometimes even humorous work. Indeed, as Paul Schiavo points out in his program notes, Bartók, although impoverished and suffering from leukemia, declared that the commission to compose this work was "the wonder drug I needed to bring about my own cure."

And it really is a wonder. The "Concerto" provides an opportunity for the members of the symphony to show off, either individually or in small groups—and on Friday morning they did it beautifully. If I were to list everyone who managed to "shine with a virtue resplendent" this morning, I'd just be listing all the principal and assistant principal players in each section, which might make for tedious reading. So I'll merely note that, once again, the St. Louis Symphony lived up to its reputation as an ensemble of virtuosi. Mr. Orozco-Estrada gave all the featured musicians a chance to stand and receive their applause at the end, which they fully earned.

For his part, Mr. Orozco-Estrada gave Bartók the widescreen, Technicolor treatment the "Concerto" deserves. The little dance of the second movement "Giuoco delle coppie" ("The Game of Pairs," featuring a series a duets) was appropriately jaunty; the interjection, in the third movement "Intermezzo interotto" ("Interrupted Intermezzo"), of a theme from the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony (which Bartók heard in a live broadcast while composing the "Concerto") was thoroughly cheeky; and the finale was charged with wild energy. Lively and completely captivating stuff it was, and a welcome antidote to a chilly and blustery winter morning.

Next at Powel Hall: David Robertson continues the "Beethoven Festival" with the "Symphony No. 3" (the "Eroica") along "Testament" and a "Viola Concerto" by contemporary composer/violist Brett Dean. Mr. Dean will be the soloist for his concerto. The concerts are Friday and Saturday, January 24 and 25, at 8 PM. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

For more information on the music, check out the symphony program notes and my symphony preview article.

Wiener blut

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The “Beethoven Festival” continues this Friday through Sunday with what is probably his grandest piano concerto—the Fifth, known as the “Emperor Concerto”—along with a concerto of a very different sort from Béla Bartók and an overture to a failed Medieval fantasy opera by Carl Maria von Weber.  Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts with piano soloist Louis Lortie.

Its noble character not withstanding, Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73” was written under the cloud of war and occupation.  When Beethoven was writing the work in 1809, Vienna was not so much the fabled “City of Dreams” as a metropolis of nightmares.  The French laid siege to it with shelling so fierce that at one point the composer took refuge in his brother’s house and covered his head with pillows to escape the din.  “[L]ife around me”, he wrote, “is wild and disturbing, nothing but drums, cannons, soldiers, misery of every sort.”  The royal family—including Beethoven’s friend and patron Archduke Rudolf—fled, along with many of the notable families with whom the composer had become close.

Left alone and, once the French occupation began, in difficult financial circumstances due to rapid inflation, Beethoven had little else to do but compose.  The Fifth Concerto is probably the most famous work to emerge from this difficult period, although the Op. 81a piano sonata (“Les Adieux”) is probably a close second.  Both were dedicated to Rudolph.

Much has been written about the “Concerto No. 5”, so I won’t presume to waste your time with my own analysis, especially when there are concise and informative articles on Wikipedia and at the Classy Classical blog.  The magisterial first movement, the wistful second, and the jolly concluding rondo all show Beethoven at his best. 

Louis Lortie

They offer a wealth of opportunities to shine for soloist and conductor.  This week’s soloist, the French-Canadian Louis Lortie has, according to his biography in the symphony program, “extended his interpretative voice across a broad range of repertoire rather than choosing to specialize in one particular style.”  He has also, however, studied “in Vienna with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber, and subsequently with Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher,” so I’d expect that the “Emperor” would hardly be foreign territory for him.

“In my youth,” wrote the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in a 1929 letter to Edwin von der Nüll, “Bach and Mozart were not my ideals of the beautiful, but rather Beethoven.”  It seems only fair, then, that the other Big Piece on the program this weekend should be Bartók’s 1943 “Concerto for Orchestra”—a dramatic, appealing, and sometimes humorous work that, ironically, was written when the composer’s health and fortunes were both at a low ebb.

Forced by the rise of Fascism to flee to the USA in 1940, the composer found himself marooned in a strange land where he was known primarily as an ethnomusicologist and teacher rather than as a composer.  Unable to find steady work and suffering from the leukemia that would soon kill him (he died on September, 26, 1945), Bartók found himself unable to summon the will to compose anything. 

A more prosperous Bartók in 1927

That all changed in 1943.  Prompted by conductor (and former Bartók student) Fritz Reiner and violinist Joseph Szigeti—both fellow Hungarians and Bartók admirers—Serge Koussevitzky, famed music director of the Boston Symphony, came to Bartók with a commission for a new orchestral work.  The commission worked like a tonic.  Bartók threw himself into the project and the final result has been part of the core orchestral repertoire ever since.

Why a “Concerto for Orchestra”?  As Thomas May pointed out in his program notes for a performance by Chrisoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony last January:

The idea of a concerto featuring not just a soloist, as in Mozart's classical example of the genre, but for the whole ensemble as a collective of virtuosos did not begin with Bartók…At the same time, Bartók revives something of the Baroque concept of the concerto-the so-called "concerto grosso"- which juxtaposes various smaller groupings of instruments against the texture of the larger ensemble. And of course the Concerto for Orchestra also serves to showcase the expressive power and versatility of a modern orchestra. Indeed, instrumental timbre turns out to be a significant dimension of this music, along with its innovative formal design and the manner in which Bartók develops his thematic material.

It is, in short, an opportunity for the members of the symphony to show off, either individually or in small groups.  The second movement (titled “Giuoco delle coppie “ or "The Game of Pairs"), for example, unfolds as a series of duets for pairs of bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and trumpets, while there are neat little solos for trombone and oboe in the first movement.  Pretty much every section gets a chance to join in the fun.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Photo: © Werner Kmetitsch

It will offer guest conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada a chance to show what he can do as well.  Although born in Columbia, Mr. Orozco-Estrada was trained in Vienna and, according to his biography in the program, “first came to international attention in 2004, when he took over a concert with the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich at the Vienna Musikverein. For that performance he was celebrated by the Viennese press as a ‘wonder from Vienna.’  He became Music Director of the Tonkünstler in 2009 but will be leaving that in 2014 when he takes up the positions of Music Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.  He has tended to specialize in the Romantic and Viennese repertoire as well as contemporary Spanish and South American works, but it doesn’t look like he has done much Bartók recently.  Still, it looks like he’s no stranger to early 20th-century music, so it will be interesting to see the results.

The concert opens with the overture to Carl Maria von Weber’s 1823 opera “Euryanthe,” based on a 13th-century tale of a knight who is conned into doubting his lady’s fidelity (full title: "L'Histoire du très-noble et chevalereux prince Gérard, comte de Nevers et la très-virtueuse et très chaste princesse Euriant de Savoye, sa mye.").  It’s the sort of Medievalism that was all the rage among 19th-century Romantics and might have been a hit if it hadn’t been for the libretto.  As Paul Schiavo writes in his program notes for these concerts, the text by German journalist, poet and playwright Helmina von Chézy “was an incompetent botch, and its dramatic deficiencies have kept Euryanthe out of the active opera repertory.”

Still, the overture is enormous fun and remains and is performed often.  The symphony hasn’t taken it on in over twenty years, though, so it will be good to welcome it back.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts the St. Louis Symphony and pianist Louis Lortie in von Weber’s “Euryanthe” Overture, Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, and Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra” Friday at 10:30 AM, Saturday at 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM, January 17-19.  For more information: stlsymphony.org

Far away places with strange-sounding names

Who: The St. Louis Symphony conducted by Nicholas McGegan with violin soloist Stefan Jackiw
What: Music of von Weber, Mozart, Rameau, and Haydn
When: Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9
Where: Powell Symphony Hall

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Nicholas McGegan, who is conducting the St. Louis Symphony in a program of (mostly) 18th-century classics this weekend, is clearly a man who enjoys his work.  As he bounded out to the podium for this morning's Krispy Kreme Coffee Concert, his face alight with a cherubic smile, his body language was saying: "this is going to be FUN!"  And so it was.

From the lively presto 16th-note figure in the strings that opens the overture to von Weber's 1811 singspiel "Abu Hassan" at the top of the program to the rousing brass and percussion coda of Haydn's "Symphony No. 100" in G major (known as the "military" because of all that hardware) at the end, this was a concert that radiated joy.  Mr. McGegan and the players were having such a good time it was impossible not to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"Intimations of exotic locales and cultures," writes Paul Schiavo in his program notes, "particularly those considered the orient, constitute a distinctive and especially colorful strand in Western music." These concerts, in fact, offer a window onto the pervasive fascination with the cultures of the near east in general and Turkey in particular that pops up often in 17th and 18th century music.

von Weber

The reasons for that fascination are partly political. Austria and Turkey (a.k.a. the Ottoman Empire) were at war on and off from the around 1526 until almost the end of the 18th century, when the 1797 Treaty of Sistova left both nations in sufficient disarray to discourage any more military adventures. In Europe and (especially) Austria, therefore, all things Turkish and Middle Eastern were seen as exotic and not a little dangerous—which naturally made them interesting to composers and other creative types.

The "Abu Hassan" overture, then, was a perfect choice for an opener. The one-act farce for which it was written (Lewis Foreman of the University of Birmingham calls it a "vigorous romp with a Fedeauesque sub-plot") doesn't get performed much these days, but the overture is a tune-filled favorite. Mr. McGegan and the orchestra gave an appropriately lean and lively account of it.

Conducting without a baton throughout the concert, Mr. McGegan artfully shaped phrases and cued musicians with his hands and fingers, molding the music like modeling clay. He's a strong physical presence on the podium, making particularly expressive use of his upper body. He's not the dancer some visceral conductors are, staying more or less in one spot, but he vibrates with energy nevertheless. And, as I say, he just radiates infectious good cheer.

Following the Weber was Mozart's "Violin Concerto No. 5" in A major, K. 219 (from 1775). The first two movements aren't particularly exotic, although the Adagio second movement is longer and does have a more elaborate orchestral introduction than any of Mozart's other violin concertos. It's the third movement Rondeau, however, that has caused some writers to dub it the "Turkish" concerto. In the middle section, Mozart changes the time signature to 2/4 and uses some exotic melodic effects, including having cellos and basses slap their strings with the wood of the bow (Mozart calls it "coll'arco roverscio"). To my ears is sounds more Gypsy than Turkish, but back in the day it yelled "Ottoman".

Soloist Stefan Jackiw—a much-praised young American violinist making his SLSO debut—took a more lyrical approach to the work than I expected, starting with his first entrance in the opening movement. It's marked "adagio" in the score, but here it felt a bit slower and more expressive than I would have expected. His first-movement cadenza, as well, was a fascinating combination of lyricism and virtuoso display. It all added up to an almost Romantic slant to the piece—and one for which he and Mr. McGegan made a most persuasive case.

The audience apparently agreed, offering enthusiastic applause. Mr. Jackiw responded with an encore: a deeply felt "Largo" from the "Sonata for solo violin No. 3" in C major, BWV 1005.

Rameau

After intermission, it was a step back in time to 1735-36 with a suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet "Les Indes Galantes" ("The Gallant Indians"). The opéra-ballet was a kind of musical theatre hybrid popular in late 17th and early 18th century France in which dance was prominent. It consisted of a prologue followed by three or four semi-independent acts united by a common theme. For "Les Indes Galantes," the theme is romantic triangles in such exotic locales as Turkey, Peru, Persia, and, in a fourth act added for the 1736 revival, America ("Les Sauvages," "The Savages of America").

The nine selections assembled for this concert offered a nice balance of airs and dances and presented plenty of opportunities for individual players to shine. That included the oboes (Phil Ross and Michelle Duskey) and bassoons (Andy Gott and Felicia Foland) in the "Air pour les Amours," flautists Andrea Kaplan and Ann Choomack in the "Prélude pour l'adoration du Soleil," concertmaster David Halen and Ms. Kaplan in the "Airs pour Zéphire," and principal trumpet Karin Bliznik in the concluding "Chaconne." Maryse Carlin provided the fine harpsichord continuo.

The concert concluded with a wonderfully entertaining performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G major, dubbed the "military" because the use of brass, timpani, and triangle in both the second movement and finale recalled the noisy percussion of the Janissary bands of the Turkish military. The effect is striking, even to modern ears—especially when performed with the kind of finesse it got Friday morning.

Back in Haydn's day it was apparently electrifying. According to a Morning Chronicle review of the March 31, 1795 premiere in London (where all of Haydn's last twelve symphonies were first performed), "the middle movement was again received with absolute shouts of applause. Encore! encore! encore! resounded from every seat".

The audience at Powell didn't demand encores, but they did give Mr. McGegan and company a standing ovation. They deserved it. There were so many wonderful touches in this performance: the sense of fun in the interplay between the winds and strings in the main theme of the first movement, the power of the dramatic interjections of the percussion in the second, and the wonderful lightness and precision of the 6/8 "Finale." This was "big band" Haydn with the fleet-footed sensibility of "original instrument" ensembles. I loved it, and I wasn't alone.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson leads the orchestra, chorus, and soloists in a concert performance of Benjamin Britten's opera "Peter Grimes" on Saturday, November 16, at 8 PM. It's a preview of the performance they'll be giving of the work at Carnegie Hall on Britten's 100th birthday on November 22nd. That'll be followed by "Symphony SLAM" on Sunday the 17th at 3 PM. The SLSO web site describes that as "a true fusion between visual art and music" in which music director David Robertson "pairs images of some of the Saint Louis Art Museum's beloved treasures with music from Britten and Bartók."  For more information: stlsymphony.org