Review: An unorthodox "Four Seasons" with Avi Avtal and Jory Vinikour at the St. Louis Symphony

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

Jory Vinikour
Photo: Nuccio di Nuzzo

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The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's mini-Baroque festival (see my preview for details) concludes this weekend with a continuing emphasis on the works of Antonio Vivaldi. Joining Vivaldi this weekend, though, are his fellow Venetian Alessandro Marcello and a younger German guy named J.S. Bach. You might have heard of him.

The concert Friday morning--part of the coffee concert series with doughnuts courtesy of Krispy Kreme--got off to an appropriately caffeinated start with a lively performance of the overture to Vivaldi's 1734 opera L'Olimipade. Directed from the harpsichord by this week's guest conductor, Chicago-born harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, the reading was appealingly bright and graceful, with pristine playing by the small complement of SLSO strings. Mr. Vinikour was kept quite busy, rapidly switching from the keyboard to artfully shape phrases for the musicians, but it all worked very well.

Mr. Vinikour next took the solo spot in a last minute program change, performing Bach's Italian Concerto for solo harpsichord. Composed in an ornamental style "after the Italian taste" (as Bach described it), the work uses the upper, softer manual (keyboard) of the harpsichord for what would the solo material in a full concerto with the lower and louder manual used to represent the tutti (orchestral) sections. It is, as Mr. Vinikour pointed out in spoken commentary prior to his performance, one of the few instances in which Bach actually provides dynamic markings in his music.

Avi Avital

The dynamic contrasts sounded a little less marked than they might have been Friday morning, probably because his instrument was lightly amplified to compensate for the fact that harpsichords were never meant to fill spaces as large as Powell Hall. Even so, it was an elegant bit of work, with some particularly sensitive playing in the Andante second movement, and Mr. Vinikour's technique was impressive throughout.

The first half of the morning's festivities concluded with another outstanding solo performance, this time from Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks in the D minor concerto by Marcello. Although Marcello was not an operatic composer, his concerto nevertheless has a kind of dramatic sensibility, as Benjamin Pesetsky points out in his program notes. Ms. Dirks's performance brought out that theatricality quite effectively, especially in the melancholy second movement, and she handled the virtuoso turns of the Presto finale with ease. Although focused strongly on her sheet music, she nevertheless communicated well with both Mr. Vinikour and her fellow musicians. It's good to see members of the band in the spotlight, especially when they acquit themselves this well.

The second half of the concert was devoted to an intriguing example of old wine in a new bottle: Vivaldi's popular The Four Seasons with the solo part played on mandolin by the Israeli virtuoso Avi Avital.

Jelena Dirks

The substitution makes some sense, in that the violin and the mandolin share the same range and tuning, but the two instruments differ very strongly otherwise. The violin is capable of a wider dynamic range and can produce much more sonic variety. The mandolin can produce the same notes, but it can't necessarily produce the same musical effect.

To my ears, the substitution worked best in the dance-inspired movements, like the Allegro [Danza pastorale] that concludes "Spring" or the opening Allegro of "Autumn." Moments that called for a more singing tone, like the Largo second movement of "Winter," felt much less effective. And, of course, the mandolin's softer voice meant that many notes simply couldn't be heard, despite the fact it was miked. If you listen to the broadcast of this concert Saturday night, though, that issue will likely be resolved in the mixing booth.

Those misgivings aside, this was still a very fine Four Seasons, largely thanks to Mr. Avital's remarkable musicianship. His technique was frankly stunning and it was a joy to see how engaged he was with both the orchestra and with Mr. Vinikour, who once again conducted from the keyboard. He was always connected to the emotion in the music, whether directing a wistful serenade to the violins or practically leaping from his chair during the closing thunderstorm of "Summer."

This isn't going to eclipse the last SLSO Four Seasons I saw (Ward Stare and Jennifer Koh back in 2011, for the record) by any means, but it was certainly entertaining and appealing. I'm glad I saw it, and I recommend you do the same, especially in light of the high quality of the program as a whole.

There are two more performances of this program, Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, December 9 and 10, at Powell Hall in Grand Center. After that, the SLSO performs a series of holiday concerts, with the regular season resuming on January 12th.

Symphony Preview: Concerto Italiano

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

Probable portrait of Vivaldi, c. 1723

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This weekend (December 8--10) the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is continues its mini Baroque festival with the emphasis on the music of one of the most prolific composers of the period, Antonio Vivaldi (1678--1741). Unlike last week, when it was all Vivaldi all the time, this time around Antonio has some company: his fellow Venetian Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747) and a younger German guy named J.S. Bach. You might have heard of him.

The concerts will open with music by Vivaldi, though: the overture to his opera L'Olimipade, first performed in 1734. The libretto by Pietro Metastasio, whose work would prove so popular with composers in the 18th century, involves a lot of sturm und drang at the ancient Greek Olympics. The opera is rarely (if ever) performed today, but you needn't worry about that to enjoy the spirited overture.

The Bach piece (which comes next) is actually a late addition to the program, which originally included concertos by Corelli and Torelli, with British harpsichordist, organist, and conductor Laurence Cummings at the podium. But Mr. Cummings cancelled at the end of October, to be replaced by Chicago-born harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. Then, just a week ago, the Corelli and Torelli works were replaced by Bach's Italian Concerto, to be played by Mr. Vinikour.

The thing about the Italian Concerto is that it's neither Italian nor a concerto. It is, instead, a work for a two-manual harpsichord (i.e. one with two keyboards) "after the Italian taste" (as Bach described it), in which the different manuals of the instrument are used to represent the solo and tutti (orchestral) sections of a full concerto.

Statue of J.S. Bach in Leipzig

Bach wasn't the first composer to come up with this idea and he would be far from the last, but he was apparently one of the most skilled. Even Bach's pupil Johann Scheibe, who could sometimes be critical of his former teacher, had to admit, in a 1739 review, that Bach's was a "pre-eminent" example of the form: "Who is there who will not admit at once that this clavier concerto is to be regarded as a perfect model of a well-designed solo concerto? It would take as great a master of music as Mr. Bach to provide us with such a piece, which deserves emulation by all our great composers and which will be imitated all in vain by foreigners."

Scheibe, as you might have gathered from that last sentence, was a bit of German snob when it came to music, regarding the more ornamental Italian style of composition as overly complex and complicated. This was, in fact, his chief beef with Bach: his style of composition was too Italian.

That means Mr. Scheibe would probably not have appreciated the piece that closes the first half of the concert, Marcello's D minor Oboe Concerto. Not only is it very Italian, but it also, as Benjamin Pesetsky points out in his program notes, shows a strong operatic influence. "The first movement, Andante e spiccato," he writes, "could be a mid-tempo aria, while the Adagio is lyrical and mournful. The vigorous finale, Presto, resembles the "rage" arias of Baroque operatic heroes." In the solo spot for the concerto will be SLSO Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks.

The concerts will conclude with Vivaldi's popular The Four Seasons, in an unusual arrangement for mandolin and orchestra by the noted Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, who will also play the solo part. That may sound a bit odd but, given that (as Mr. Pesetsky points out) the mandolin and violin share the same range and tuning, not as odd as you might think.

In its original form The Four Seasons was composed around 1720 (as with many aspects of Vivaldi's life, dates are foggy) and originally published as part of a set of twelve concertos titled Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention"). Each of the four three-movement concertos describes--often very vividly--aspects of a particular season. They were even accompanied by sonnets (anonymous, but probably by Vivaldi himself) that provide narratives for each concerto. You'll find English translations in this week's SLSO program notes.

Alessandro Marcello
Painter unknown

Combine that almost cinematic tone painting with Vivaldi's gift of melody and you have music that was destined to be popular. And it was, at least during Vivaldi's time. After his death, though, that all changed. Interest in his work faded, and copies of his music became scarce.

That began to change in 1926 when a boarding school in Piedmont discovered a huge cache of old manuscripts, including hundreds of works by Vivaldi. It aroused the interest of scholars and conductors, including Bernardino Molinari (1880-1952), who was then the conductor of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.

He was also, as it happened, about to become a guest conductor at the St. Louis Symphony.

In January of 1928, Molinari brought the four newly rediscovered concertos that make up The Four Seasons to St. Louis for what would turn out to be their first American performances. He stretched the four concertos out over an entire month--"like the magazine serial stories," as the Post-Dispatch music critic, Thomas B. Sherman, wryly observed in his review of the first set of concerts. "Spring" was performed in a pair of concerts on Friday and Saturday, January 6 and 7. "Summer" was the following week, and the final two concertos were performed in concerts on January 27 and 28.

Mr. Sherman loved the SLSO performances, in any case, calling them "ingratiating, warm, and transparent" and describing the strings as "rich and unified." The Four Seasons would not appear as a unit on an SLSO program until 25 years later, when Vladimir Golschmann conducted them on February 20, 1953.

Interesting footnote: the Vivaldi was somewhat overshadowed in the January 27-29 concerts by the piano soloist. It was the "young Russian pianist" Vladimir Horowitz, who had arrived in the USA just two weeks before and had already created a sensation with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham. Mr. Sherman loved Horowitz ("a powerful tone and a sparkling and expertly controlled technique") but hated the piece he played, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, calling it "as dull a thing as the noted Muscovite expatriate has ever done." History has rather overruled him that one.

The essentials: Jory Vinikour conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with soloists Avi Avital, mandolin, and Jelena Dirks, oboe, on Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, December 8--10. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

St. Louis classical calendar for the week of December 4, 2017

The Gateway Men's Chorus

The Gateway Men's Chorus presents a selection of Hark, How the Bells on Friday and Saturday, December 8 and 9, at 8 pm "Share the comfort. Share the joy. Share the love. The Gateway Men's Chorus rings in its 31st concert season with an evening of warmth, whimsy, and well-wishes from our family to yours. The chorus is presenting an evening of traditional carols and new favorites, culminating in the presentation of Ralph Vaughan Williams' “Five Mystical Songs”, featuring soloist Dr. Robert McNichols, Jr and the Trinity Presbyterian Church Handbell Choir. The performances take place at Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union at Enright in the Central West End. For more information: gmcstl.org.

Jory Vinikour conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with soloists Avi Avital, mandolin, and Jelena Dirks, oboe, on Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, December 8 - 10. The concert features music by Vivaldi, Bach, and Marcello, including an arrangement of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons for mandolin and orchestra. The performance takes place at Powell Hall in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The St. Louis Wind Symphony

The St. Louis Wind Symphony performs on Friday, December 8, at 7 PM. The performance takes place in the Keating Theatre at Kirkwood High School, 801 W. Essex in Kirkwood, MO. For more information: stlwindsym.org.

The Washington University Department of Music presents a student chamber music recital on Tuesday, December 5, at 7 pm. The concert features music by Vivaldi, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Smetana, and takes place in Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus. For more information, music.wustl.edu or call 314-935-5566.

The Washington University Department of Music presents a Student Composers Showcase on Friday, December 8, at 7:30 pm. The concert takes place at the 560 Music Center at 560 Trinity in University City. For more information, music.wustl.edu or call 314-935-5566.

The Washington University Department of Music presents A Messiah Sing-Along on Sunday, December 10, at 3 pm. The event takes place in Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus. For more information, music.wustl.edu or call 314-935-5566.

Symphony Preview: Vivaldi in excelsis

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

Caricature of Antonio Vivaldi by
Pier Leone Ghezzi in 1723.

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This weekend (December 1 and 2) and next (December 8--10) the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is giving us a mini Baroque festival with the emphasis on the music of one of the most prolific composers of the period, Antonio Vivaldi (1678--1741). He was a guy whose life and reputation had enough ups and downs to rival some roller-coasters.

It started the day he was born. Atypically for the time, he was baptized immediately after his birth in the family home in Venice. It's not entirely clear why--the earthquake that struck the city that day is one explanation, as is the possibility that he was a sickly newborn and not expected to survive--but in any case the official church baptism would wait for two months.

The young Vivaldi was a frail child, possibly suffering from asthma, but he nevertheless proved to be an adept violinist early in life. He joined the priesthood as a teenager and by the age of 25 was appointed maestro di violino (violin master) at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà (Devout Hospital of Mercy), a girls' orphanage in Venice. He would remain there for the next three decades, cranking out the vast majority of his huge output, including around 500 concertos for various combinations of instruments.

Judging from the difficulty of many of those pieces, girls at the Ospedale were pretty respectable musicians. Here's the French politician and writer Charles de Brosses enthusing about them, cited in an article by Hugo Ticciati at The Guardian: "There is nothing so charming as to see a young and pretty nun in her white robe, with a sprig of pomegranate blossoms over her ear, leading the orchestra and beating time with all the grace and precision imaginable." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, no less, described the music he heard there as "voluptuous and affecting." Vivaldi's skill at the violin was much admired as well.

Even so, Vivaldi's relationship with the board of directors as the Ospedale was apparently rocky. His contract came up for renewal every year and the vote was often close. They actually failed to renew it in 1709, but two years later, seeing the error of their ways, hired him again. This time the vote was unanimous.

Over the years, Vivaldi's fame spread to the major European music capitals, including Paris, Prague, and Vienna. But towards the end of his life his compositions were seen as unfashionable and dated. He wound up dying in poverty in Vienna. Interest in his work faded, and copies of his music were hard to come by. "For nearly 200 years," writes Peter Gutmann at classicalnotes.net, "Vivaldi was a historical footnote, although a somewhat influential one...His only lasting recognition came from the fervent admiration of Bach, who modeled his own concerto style after Vivaldi's and adapted for keyboard nine Vivaldi violin concerti (even though Bach devotees tended to disparage the source)."

The St. Louis Symphony Chorus

That began to change in the early 20th century when his cause was taken up by, among others, the composer Alfredo Casella and the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini. These days, works like the Gloria for chorus and orchestra (which we'll hear this weekend) and The Four Seasons (next weekend) are concert standards.

This weekend's concerts offer a real feast for Vivaldi fans. In addition to the Gloria, there are three concertos, four opera arias (he claimed that he wrote over 90, although only 46 survive), and a number from a cantata written as a commission for the marriage of Louis XV of France. René Spencer Saller offers detailed descriptions of all of them in her program notes , so I won't try to duplicate that here. Instead I'll just note that the soloists for all the concerti are members of the SLSO, which doesn't happen often enough, in my view.

Conducting all this will be the wonderfully energetic Nicholas McGegan, who invariably lights up a concert stage with his enthusiasm. When I saw him bound out to the podium for a program of Baroque favorites back in 2013, I marveled at how his face lit up with a cherubic smile. His body language was saying: "this is going to be FUN!" That kind of spirit is as infectious as the cold I'm currently trying to shake.

"Vivaldi," Igor Stravinsky once declared, "is greatly overrated--a dull fellow who could compose the same form so many times over." I beg to differ. After this weekend, I expect you will as well.

The Essentials: Nicholas McGegan conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in an all-Vivaldi program, featuring Vivaldi's Gloria, Friday and Saturday, December 1 and 2, at 8 pm. The performance takes place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Extra seasons with the St. Louis Symphony, December 5-7, 2014

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As I said in my first symphony preview post this week, the main event at the St. Louis Symphony this weekend is Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Steven Jarvi is at the podium and the violin soloists—all drawn from the symphony string section—are Jessica Cheng (“Spring”), Angie Smart (“Summer”), Jooyeon Kong (“Autumn”), and Alison Harney (“Winter”). What I left out was any mention of the other two works on the program.

Usually a performance of “The Four Season” presents all four of the concertos as a unit. But not always. Before the four concertos became part of the standard repertoire, it wasn’t unusual for them to be played individually. Indeed, as I noted in my earlier post, that’s exactly what St. Louis Symphony back in January of 1928 when guest conductor Bernadino Molinari spread them out over three separate concerts.

This time around Mr. Jarvi has kept them all on the same bill but has shuffled in two other pieces: Samuel Barber’s hauntingly nostalgic “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” Op. 24 (1947), with Kiera Duffy as the soprano soloist; and Richard Wagner’s utterly ingratiating “Siegfried Idyll” from 1870. The Wagner was written as a Christmas present for his wife Cosima, so it’s played just before the “Winter” concerto, while the Barber acts as a bridge between spring and summer.

Mr. Jarvi elaborates on the logic behind this in the program notes. “James Agee’s incredible text,” he observes, “brings this work to life, similar to the poems that inspired The Four Seasons, which may or may not have been written by Vivaldi...With Wagner we move from autumn to winter. At first we were looking at something symbolic of winter—something representative of ‘lateness,’ the end of life. Then we thought of how Siegfried Idyll was one of the most wonderful musical Christmas gifts ever given.”

Makes sense. And I’m especially happy to see the Barber on the program. Mr. Jarvi says it’s one of his “favorite pieces of all time” and I’m inclined to agree with him. I first encountered this wonderfully evocative setting of James Agee’s little prose-poem (which later became the prologue for his autobiographical novel “A Death in the Family”) in a 1968 recording by the great Leontyne Price with an orchestra conducted by Thomas Schippers, and have been something of a sucker for it ever since.

The text is a poetic recollection of a peaceful scene from the author’s childhood in which the narrator is sometimes an adult and sometimes the child who later becomes the adult. Prosaic descriptions of a quiet summer evening on the lawn are mixed with flights of poetic fancy, leading finally to philosophical contemplation of the narrator’s family and their place in the cosmos: "By chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night." Barber’s music mirrors and highlights all of this with deceptive simplicity.

The inspiration for the novel of which Agee’s text became a part was a death; specifically, the death of Agee’s father. In the case of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” the inspiration was exactly the opposite: the birth, in 1869, of the composer’s son Siegfried.

The piece was originally titled “Triebschen Idyll with Fidi's birdsong and the orange sunrise, as symphonic birthday greeting. Presented to his Cosima by her Richard. "Fidi," says Wikipedia, “was the family's nickname for their son Siegfried. It is thought that the birdsong and the sunrise refer to incidents of personal significance to the couple.” The first performance took place not in a concert hall, but on the stairs of the Wagner family home in Tribschen on Christmas morning, 1870. The musicians were members of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Wagner’s wife Cosima (whose own birthday was December 24th) was awakened by the first gentle strains of the music and was, as you might expect, completely enchanted.

“As I awoke,” she would later recall, “my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming: music was sounding, and such music! When it died away, Richard came into my room with the children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was in tears, but so were all the rest of the household. Richard had arranged his orchestra on the staircase, and thus was our Tribschen consecrated forever.”

Although Wagner never intended the piece for public performance,, financial considerations obliged him to expand the orchestration from the original 13 players to 35 and publish the work as the “Siegfried Idyll” in 1878. It might also have been a canny marketing decision. He used themes from the “Idyll” in his 1876 opera “Siegfried,” so publication gave him another way to get his “Ring” cycle music before the public.

It is, in any case, a disarming a piece as you are likely to hear, and utterly unlike the more grandiose gestures most people associate with Wagner. It’s a reminder that even that great egotist had his moments of intimate reflection. And it also reminds us that winter is about the warmth of family as well as the cold weather.

The essentials: Steven Jarvi conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra along with violin soloists Jessica Cheng, Angie Smart, Jooyeon Kong, and Alison Harney Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., December 5-7. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

A snowbound symphony

As I sat here contemplating snowpocalypse 2014, I started putting together a mental list of classical works that would make for appropriate listening for the snowbound.  I don't claim that this is exhaustive—it's just what I was able to come up with off the top of my head—but it does look nicely balanced to me.  Feel free to leave a comment with your own suggestions.

[ADDED 22 December 2022] Don't have all these handy? Never fear: here's a free Spotify playlist.

The list is in alphabetical order by composer.

Leroy Anderson

Leroy Anderson: Sleigh Ride – This cheerful orchestral depiction of a sleigh ride—complete with whip cracks and a derisive whinny from the horse performed by solo trumpet at the end—is probably the best-known piece in the list.  Ironically, Anderson got the idea during a heat wave in 1946. It was published in 1948, first recorded by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops in 1949, and had lyrics grafted on to it in 1950 by Mitchell Parish.  Anderson's own recording (on Decca) hit the Cashbox best sellers chart in 1950.

Debussy: Des pas sur la neige (Footprints in the Snow) – There's a wintry solitude to this music, with its fragmented melody and suggestion of a slow procession through the landscape.  It's from the composer's first book of "Preludes" from 1910.

Debussy: The Snow is Dancing – At the other end of the spectrum is this fanciful miniature from the "Children's Corner Suite" from 1908.  Unlike most of Debussy's music, the titles are all in English—probably a nod to the English governess of Debussy's daughter Claude-Emma, to whom the suite is dedicated.  The music wasn't meant to be performed by children—some of it is pretty challenging—but rather to reflect the world of childhood.

Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius: Sleigh Ride – Written at the request of the great Norwegian musical miniaturist Edvard Grieg for an 1887 Christmas party, this piece was orchestrated by Delius in 1890 and prefaced with this description: "On Christmas Even I stood in the open air.  The moon shone bright over a billowing landscape.  The sound of an approaching sleigh was heard from a distance, but it soon rushed by and disappeared.  And then gradually it was once more still and bright and peaceful."  The opening with sleigh bells and a perky melody on the flute is really pretty irresistible.

Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 12, Chasse-neige (Snow storm) – Liszt's twelve "Transcendental Etudes" (Études d'exécution transcendante) are the Mt. Everest of piano music.  Originally published in 1837, the pieces were revised to make them less absurdly difficult to play in 1852, but even so they present technical challenges that separate the virtuosi from the run of the mill players.  This musical storm begins softly and relentlessly builds to a massive blizzard of notes.

Leopold Mozart: A Musical Sleigh Ride – We don't think much about Wolfgang Mozart's dad these days, but he had a fairly substantial career as a musician and composer.  Many of his works have been lost over the centuries but a few—like this charming miniature and his "Cassation in G for Orchestra and Toys" (a.k.a. the "Toy Symphony")—are still performed now and then.  Leopold Mozart loved using non-traditional sounds in his pieces, including bagpipes, whistles, and even (in anticipation of Spike Jones) pistol shots.

Wolfgang Mozart: German Dance No. 3, K. 605 (Sleigh Ride) – The younger Mozart's sleigh ride is a lilting dance in three-quarter time complete with tuned sleigh bells and an ingratiating posthorn solo.

A scene from Lieutenant Kijé

Prokofiev: Troika – This depiction of a ride in a traditional Russian three-horse sleigh comes from music written for the satirical 1933 film "Lieutenant Kijé," about a non-existent soldier created by a clerical error and kept "alive" by bureaucrats afraid of the Czar's wrath, should the mistake be discovered.  It's easily the most popular piece from the score and has been appropriated by a number of rock/pop stars including Greg Lake ("I Believe in Father Christmas") and Helen Love ("Happiest Time of the Year").

Strauss: An Alpine Symphony – Completed in 1915, this mammoth tone poem (it runs close to an hour) depicts and Alpine ascent and descent, complete with a trek across a glacier and a thunderstorm.  Strauss loved the mountains.  He built a villa for himself in the Bavarian Alps and often vacationed in Alpine regions.  That affection clearly shows in this music.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 ("Winter Dreams") – First performed in 1868, Tchaikovsky's first attempt at a symphony had a rough time being born.  It took nearly a year to compose and received a fair amount of unflattering criticism along the composer's former teachers.  The structure is a bit clunky in places, but the first movement (subtitled "Dreams of a Winter Journey") is so powerfully evocative of a haunted journey through a frigid landscape that I, for one, am inclined to overlook the work's flaws.

Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Tchaikovsky: Waltz of the Snowflakes – This final number from the first act of the "Nutcracker" ballet also depicts a wintry sojourn, but a much cheerier one than the "Winter Dreams" symphony.  The Nutcracker Prince has just defeated the Mouse King and, as a snowstorm rises, he and Clara are transported to the Kingdom of Sweets.  The addition of a wordless children's chorus in the final bars adds a lovely touch of whimsy.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia Antartica (Symphony No. 7) – Adapted from the music Vaughan Williams wrote for the 1947 film “Scott of the Antarctic,” the “Sinfonia Antartica” is pure symphonic wind chill.  Its five movements leave an indelible impression of the forbidding landscape and tragic end of Scott’s ill-fated expedition.  In the score, each movement is preceded by a literary quotation.  Vaughan Williams didn’t explicitly say that they should be read as part of the performance, but when they are (as in the Andre Previn/London Symphony recording from many years ago) the theatrical effect can’t be denied.

Vivaldi: Winter (from "The Four Seasons") – This is easily one of the most vivid bits of tone painting you'll find anywhere, with snowstorms, icy winds, and quiet evenings by the first all colorfully captured.

That's my quick list.  I limited myself to orchestral pieces, so Schubert's 1828 "Winterreise"  ("Winter Journey") song cycle has been left out in the cold, so to speak, along with (probably) many others.  I also rejected Arnold Bax's "November Woods" on the premise that he was thinking more autumnal than wintry.  What would you add to the list?  Let me know.

Songs for all the seasons of your mind

Osvaldo Golijov

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ward Stare with violinist Jennifer Koh
What: Music of Schubert, Vivaldi, and Osvaldo Golijov
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: December 2 through 4, 2011

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Friday night St. Louis Symphony Resident Conductor Ward Stare had neither score nor baton but lots of panache when he stepped up to the podium to conduct an utterly captivating Schubert “Symphony No 5”. And the best was yet to come: the local premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s fascinating Sidereus and a wonderfully dramatic approach to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with irresistible solo work by Jennifer Koh. It was a night of big music for (mostly) small orchestra.

This was only my second opportunity to see Mr. Stare conduct an entire program on his own and he was, once again, impressive. With or without a baton, his communication with the orchestra was always clear and his concentration obviously intense. I have noted before that Mr. Stare is a conductor whose star is in the ascendant, and his work here did nothing to contradict that assessment.

Mr. Stare’s Schubert was a nice balance of classical discipline and romantic lyricism. Tempi were brisk but never felt rushed. The joy, drama, and sense of unfolding song were all there. The Fifth is a symphony that, while clearly in the Classical style, contains elements (particularly in the Andante con moto and Menuetto) that look forward to the more overtly Romantic sensibilities of later Schubert and his successors. Mr. Stare’s interpretation honored both worlds.

The orchestral playing was at its usual high level, with fine work from everyone — and a particular tip of the topper is due to principal flautist Mark Sparks. If you want to take the true measure of an orchestra, note the quality of the sound when they’re playing chamber music. The Schubert Fifth is essentially a chamber symphony and the musicians gave it the fine playing it demanded.

The second half of the program promised (and delivered) some first-rate Vivaldi, but first there was the local premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s 2010 mini tone poem, Sidereus. Inspired by the expanded view of the heavens that Galileo experienced with his telescope and described in his 1610 treatise Sidereus Nuncius, the work employs an interesting variety of compositional techniques and canny orchestration (including some wonderful solo and soli passages for the winds) to conjure up a sense of vast, celestial space. The language is clearly modern while still being entirely approachable.

Whenever I hear a new work, I always ask myself whether or not I’d like to hear it again. In this case, not only would I like to hear Sidereus again, I’d very much like to find out what Mr. Golijov’s other compositions sound like. If Sidereus is any indication, he has managed to synthesize academic, theatrical, and popular music elements, especially those of his native Argentina, into a unique personal style. It makes me intensely curious about his larger scale works.

Jennifer Koh

The program concluded with a very theatrical and highly entertaining Four Seasons with Jennifer Koh as the violin soloist. Ms. Koh is a veritable dynamo of a performer, shaking her head and tearing into the fast movements with ferocity and singing the slow ones. Her tone was appropriately dry overall and her ornamentation (those little melodic embellishments that are part of Baroque performance practice) sounded right to my non-expert ears.

She also worked well with the ensemble. Her exchange of birdcalls with Concertmaster David Halen in the first movement of the “Spring” concerto was particularly captivating, calling to mind the way traditional Appalachian fiddlers trade licks. There were also memorable moments with Principal Cellist Daniel Lee and harpsichordist Maryse Carlin.

Ms. Koh and Mr. Stare gave us a Four Seasons filled with dramatic contrasts. The winter ice was brittle (with fittingly chilling harmonics in the strings), the summer storms violent, and the autumnal folk dances jolly. It’s a reminder of how effective Vivaldi was in evoking strong visual images without any of the instrumental technology that contemporary composers can employ. It’s a reminder, as well, of how much room for invention there is in performing this music while staying true to the composer’s intent.

The remainder of December at Powell Hall will be taken up with special holiday events, including A Gospel Christmas with the IN UNISON chorus, a John Williams movie music program, and the annual New Year’s Eve gala. The regular subscription season resumes January 13 and 14, 2012, with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, George Crumb’s 1984 A Haunted Landscape, and Strauss’s Four Last Songs with St. Louis’s own Christine Brewer. David Robertson conducts. For more information you may call 314-534-1700, visit stlsymphony.org, like the Saint Louis Symphony Facebook page, or follow @slso on Twitter.