Tales of the unexpected

First page of Beethoven's 7th

This weekend the symphony brings us the first of four "Beethoven Festival" concerts that will feature performances of the third and fifth symphonies, the fifth piano concerto (the "Emperor") and, this Friday and Saturday, the "Symphony No. 7 in A Minor," Op. 92. The two works that precede the Beethoven this weekend, however, are at least as noteworthy.

I'm not knocking the Seventh, mind you. First performed at a December 8, 1813, charity concert to benefit widows and orphans of soldiers killed in the Battle of Hanau—which marked the beginning of the end of Napoleon's dreams of empire—the work was greeted with wild acclaim by audiences and critics alike. The second movement Alegretto in, in particular, "enchanted connoisseur and layman," according to a contemporary review in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Welsh musicologist David Wyn Morris has called the symphony "the continuous cumulative celebration of joy," and I'd have to agree.

But we get to hear the Beethoven seventh quite a lot. The symphony last performed it, for example, two years ago with Semyon Bychkov on the podium. By way of contrast, the piece that takes up most of the first half of the concert—Carl Nielsen's 1911 "Violin Concerto"—didn't make it's SLSO debut until 2001 and hasn't been seen on the Powell Hall stage since Robert Spano conducted a performance with soloist Yang Liu in October of 2002.

Carl Nielsen in 1910

Not that this is unusual. The concerto doesn't have anything like the high profile of the Sibelius concerto from six years earlier—possibly because it, like many of Nielsen's large-scale works, often defies expectations in ways that can leave audience members a bit confused. "The Violin Concerto," writes René Spencer Saller in her program notes, "for all its Neoclassical trappings, is similarly weird, not to mention unusually long and difficult to play. Notes ring out shrilly; harmonies collapse into dissonances; themes collide and implode. Its beauty is severe and gleams like a glacier."

For me, this is exactly what makes Nielsen such a very cool composer. His symphonies have always been favorites of mine, along with his concerti, programmatic pieces like the remarkable "Helios Overture," and the quirky incidental music he wrote for Adam Oehlenschläger's "dramatic fairy tale" "Aladdin" in 1919. When you encounter his concerto, expect the unexpected. It's in two movements instead of the usual three of four, for one thing, and each movement is preceded by a slow introduction. It's dramatic stuff but it makes no effort to impress with simple virtuoso display. Even the concluding Rondo, in the composer's own words, "renounces everything that might dazzle or impress." But I think you'll be impressed anyway.

The concerts open with a brand-new piece, "Ravish and Mayhem," written in 2012 by Missouri native Stephanie Berg (she was born in Parkville, MO, in 1986 has a Master's in composition from the University of Missouri). "With its wide-eyed, almost Coplandesque harmonies and hectic rhythms," writes René Spencer Saller, "Ravish and Mayhem neatly encapsulates Berg's approach. Dramatic brass vies with whimsical woodwinds; grand gestures are interrupted by playful passages; ceremony succumbs to chaos. The sonorities are at once American and exotic." Berg is also quoted in the symphony program as acknowledging an "Arabic" influence in the work in that "the melodies involve a lot of trills and flourishes, which seem to be a feature of music from that region." "It's a very high-energy piece," she said in a 2012 interview for Vox Magazine, "very folk-like melodies."

Stephanie Berg

Why the title? I have no idea, and Ms. Berg hasn't been quoted on the subject as far as I can see. I guess we'll just have to draw our own conclusions once we've heard it.

Turning from the music to the performers, this week's conductor, Andrey Boreyko, last led the symphony in an all-Tchaikovsky program in November of 2012 that was distinguished by an electrifying performance of the "Violin Concerto" by Vadim Gluzman and a "Symphony No. 1" that exploited all of the work's extremes in tempi and dynamics while still pulling everything together into a coherent whole. It will be interesting to see what he does with this weekend's vary varied program.

Mr. Boreyko's violin soloist, Adele Anthony, is making her SLSO debut. It's appropriate that she's playing the Nielsen, since she first made her mark on the international scene at Denmark's 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. She has gone on to appear with important orchestras world wide, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, NDR Orchestra Hannover, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; also all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She performs on a 1728 Stradivarius.

Andrey Boreyko conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with violin soloist Adele Anthony this Friday and Saturday, January 10 and 11, at 8 PM at Powell Hall in Grand Center. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7 FM, HD 1, and live streaming at the station web site. For more information: stlsymphony.org.