The annual New Year’s Eve concert by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) has always been a festive occasion and this year was no exception. Indeed, the mix of elegance and entertainment former SLSO Assistant Conductor Stephanie Childress brought was particularly welcome for many of us who view the coming few years with more than a little apprehension. As it says in John 1:5, “the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”
[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]
This year the theme was “dance music from around the world,” and while that description turned out to be a bit of a stretch, the results spoke for themselves. The important thing is that the evening was bright, balanced, and good-humored—everything, in short, that it needed to be.
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| Steven Franklin Photo courtesy of the SLSO |
There were certainly more than enough dance-inspired pieces. The concert opened with a lively yet nuanced “Slavonic Dance No. 1” by Dvořák and was followed by the sparkling overture to Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet with (to quote Mr. Gilbert) “gaily tripping, lightly skipping” playing in the upper woodwinds.
Next was Anna Clyne’s 2013 “Masquerade,” a raucously cheerful work that felt like an exponentially more sophisticated take on the ground covered in Ketelby’s “Bank Holiday (‘appy ‘amstead).” It’s a wild sonic mashup that demands (and got) precise playing by the orchestra.
Clyne is one of those composers who can be profound OR playful as her whimsy takes her—an enviable skill, to say the least. Her music has often been heard at the SLSO, which will present the world premiere of her multi-media work “PALETTE” on Valentine’s Day weekend.
SLSO Principal Trumpet Steven Franklin and Principal Trombone Jonathan Randazzo were the soloists in a 2024 orchestral expansion of Joseph Turrin’s 2000 “Fandango” for trumpet, trombone, and concert bands. There’s flashy stuff here (close harmony and tricky double-tonguing, just for starters) that was played with a brilliance matching the soloists’ sequined tuxedos. Indeed, this is the first time I can recall a soloist’s wardrobe getting applause before the music even starts. Very New Year’s Eve, that.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s orchestration of his kitschy solo piano bonbon “Valse de la Reine” (“The Queen’s Waltz”) offered a charming, easy-on-the-ears interlude between “Fandango” and the rousing Act I closer, Walton’s sweeping, patriotic “Crown Imperial (Coronation March).”
Composed for the coronation of King George VI in 1937, the piece is very much in the “Pomp and Circumstance” tradition with a fast opening tune and a broad, ceremonial march that makes its first appearance in the trio and returns in the big, all-stops-out coda. I first encountered this piece in the Frederick Fennell/Eastman Wind Ensemble Mercury recording of W. J. Duthoit’s band arrangement back in the 1960s and was impressed by the difficulty of some of the wind writing, particularly for the horns. The SLSO horn section got a richly deserved ovation for their performance Tuesday night.
The second half opened with "Danse Baccanale” from Camille Saint-Saëns’s 1876 opera “Samson et Dalila.” It opens quietly enough with a melismatic oboe solo, sinuously delivered by Jelena Dirks, before moving quickly to the dance proper. It all builds to an appropriately orgiastic finale marked “Di piú in piú animato” (“more and more animated”), which conductors often interpret as “as fast as is humanly possible.” Certainly that’s what Childress gave us in this performance and while it was thrilling, it also felt as though it was all in danger of going off the rails at times. It never did, of course, but it made for a wild ride.
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| Jonathan Randazzo Photo courtesy of the SLSO |
Next was a bit of pure frivolity not listed in the program and introduced by Childress (accurately, IMO) as “the gooey butter cake of American light music”: Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter.” It is, as far as I know, the only work out there for typewriter and orchestra. The soloists (one for the typewriter and one for the bell) are usually members of the percussion section but this time both roles were taken by none other than Childress herself.
A gutsy move, that, considering (silly as this may sound) the difficulty of the typewriter part. It’s mostly eighth notes with an Allegro vivace tempo marking, and there are points at which both the typewriter and bell have to be hit simultaneously. That didn’t always happen at this concert, but it was all such good fun that nobody (including me) really cared. As Childress wryly commented afterwards, this was proof that the SLSO could play some pieces without a conductor.
A more lyrical interlude followed with the bluesy “Lonely Town” movement from Bernstein’s “On the Town,” featuring the wistful muted trumpet of (I think) Michael Walk, followed by the mandatory Strauss waltz. Not the well-worn “Blue Danube” this time but rather slightly less famous (but no less infectious) “Frülingsstimmen” (“Voices of Spring”). The latter got a properly Viennese treatment, complete with that slight accent on the second beat, from Childress and the band.
Bringing the official program to a satisfying close were four movements from the 2004 “Carmen Symphony” by noted conductor/composer José Serebrier. Childress said that she wanted to include something operatic because it was opera that introduced her to SLSO Music Director Stéphane Denève—undoubtedly an event worth celebrating for both them and us.
More of a suite than a symphony, Serebrier’s score makes minimal changes in Bizet’s original. Mostly, he has assigned the original vocal lines to instruments in the same ranges. Escamillo’s “Toreador,” for example, is assigned to the trombone and the horns, who played with properly heroic swagger. The selections from the suite concluded with the fiery “Gypsy Dance” from Bizet’s Act II. Like Saint-Saëns’s “Baccanale,” it’s a real crowd pleaser that cranks up the speed and volume in its final moments.
This being New Year’s Eve, of course, the end of the printed program wasn’t the end of the show. Childress and the orchestra returned for Kabalevsky’s “Saber Dance” and, as always, the sing-along of “Auld Lang Syne.”
As she did the last time she conducted the SLSO New Year’s Eve concert back in 2022, Stephanie Childress impressed with her easy-going stage presence and impeccable musical taste. I hope we will see and hear more of her here in the coming years.
The regular concert season resumes on this Friday and Saturday (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.
