The catchy title for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) concerts this past weekend (November 21 and 22) was “Flame and Fantasy”—very appropriate as a description of the sheer perfection that permeated every aspect of the complete performance of Igor Stravinsky’s (1882–1971) ballet L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) that took up the second half of the program.
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| Stéphane Denève conducts the SLSO. Photo by Virginia Harold |
For the concert as a whole, though, I think “Flash and Fantasy” might be more descriptive. There was certainly plenty of the former in the first half, with a barn burner of a performance by Jean-Yves Thibaudet of the Piano Concerto by Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978). Add in the bravura delivery of the 2011 concert overture Maslenitsa (2011) by Guillaume Connesson (b. 1970)—a practically perfect choice of a virtual curtain raiser—and you have a memorable night at the symphony.
Maslenitsa, for those of you (like me) who have never heard of it before, is a Russian folk festival dating back to the 2nd century. Originally a pagan celebration of the return of spring, it’s now effectively the Russian version of Mardi Gras, taking place the last week before Russian Orthodox Lent. Connesson’s musical depiction of it is wildly energetic and festive. It opens with a celebration, pauses for a more reverential section, and then returns to the even more exuberant celebration, culminating in (to quote Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s screenplay for Amadeus) “a good bang at the end.”
But as Denève pointed out in his pre-concert comments, Connesson’s music has another, less obvious, layer of meaning. It’s not just a toast to Rimski-Korsakov’s Russian Easter overture with vodka, but rather an homage to the many Russian composers (including Rimsky-Korsakov) that have influenced the contemporary French composer. Denève cited, as an example, the coronation scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov as an inspiration for the quiet central section.
The composer himself points out that “there are no verifiable thematic quotes” in Maslenitsa. “This is ancient Russia as dreamt by a Frenchman,” he writes, “a tableau mingling exuberant joy and suffering in homage to the country and music that I love so much.”
Denève has been a consistent booster of Connesson’s music since he became our chef d’orchestre in September 2018 and we have all been the better for it. In pre-concert comments before his final appearance as a guest conductor of the SLSO in February of that year, Denève said that he planned to present newer works that musicians like to play and listeners are likely to want to hear more than once. Connesson’s music is just one example of a fulfillment of that promise.
Khachaturian’s 1936 piano concerto is not, perhaps, as instantly loveable as Maslenitsa, although it did have something of a vogue in the decades immediately following World War II. As Yvonne Frindle writes in her program notes, the 1943 SLSO premiere of the concerto—with Vladimir Golshmann at the podium and Willliam Kapell (who would record it in 1946 with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony) at the keyboard—got an enthusiastic review from critic Francis Klein. A flurry of recordings followed by piano giants like Oscar Levant, Alicia de Larrocha, Leonard Pennario, and Lorin Hollander, but by the 1970s the concerto’s popularity began to wane.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet might be just the virtuoso to reverse that trend, if his Decca recording of it this past January and his scintillating performance Saturday night are any indication. This is one of those big, extroverted concertos that require hands of steel as well as the kind of sonic sensitivity that can make the more lyrical moments in the Andante con anima second movement really sing.
Thibaudet, as he has demonstrated in his previous appearances here, has both. And employed both in a performance that delivered the thrills in the noisy, note-packed first and third moments while still honoring the musical filigree of the second. The fact that he and Denève are friends off stage (the pianist was Best Man at Denève’s 2007 wedding to Åsa Nilsson) added a degree of intimacy to their collaboration on stage that would be less likely if the two were relative strangers.
Thibaudet was not the only soloist in the concerto. Khachaturian’s orchestral palette has a few exotic colors, including a small but essential part for the musical saw. Used only in the Andante, where it adds a ghostly quality to the wistful main theme, the instrument is an ordinary hand saw (usually with the teeth filed down) that’s stroked along the flat edge with a standard string instrument bow. The musical sawyer for these concerts was Robert Froehner, a Dallas-based musician specializing in saw and the similar (but far more expressive) theremin. Getting a proper balance between this unique instrument and the orchestra strikes me as a challenge, but even in the fortissimo recapitulation of the theme Denève Froehner made sure that the saw was audible, if only as a kind of shimmering, spectral presence.
Another rarely heard instrument, the bass clarinet, has prominent solos in both the first and second movements, giving Tzuying Huang a chance to shine. There was also fine playing by bassoonists Andrew Gott (Associate Principal) and Julia Paine in the first movement.
The concerto proved, not surprisingly, to be a hit with the audience. Thibaudet responded to the generous applause with an encore: “O policinelo” from the 1918 A prole do bebê No.1 suite by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959). It’s a spectacular exercise in interlocking hands technique and was done with impeccable precision.
The highlight of the evening, though, came after intermission.
Performing complete ballet scores in concert has always struck me as a tricky proposition. Do you just let the music speak for itself or do you provide some visuals that will clarify what the more “narrative” passages are all about? I have seen it done both ways, here and elsewhere, and have come to the conclusion that listening to a ballet score without the ballet is rather like listening to an opera without the singers or a movie soundtrack without the movie.
The good news is that Stéphane Denève openly embraced the “added visuals” approach with this Firebird. He and Michael Dwinell, the SLSO’s Head of Programming, created special lighting and projections of the original sets and costumes (co-designed by Aleksandr Golovin and Léon Bakst) for the Firebird-only “Playlist” happy hour concert on Friday. It proved to be such a hit that it was retained for the full-length concerts Saturday and Sunday. Sure, it was Stravinsky’s music, but the presentation was entirely his and Dwinell’s.
Bottom line: it worked beautifully. The detailed scenario included just enough information on the underlying musical structure to provide a proverbial “peek behind the curtain” without overwhelming the audience. The mood lighting (including an evocative “enchanted forest” gobo) added to the fairy tale ambience.
The main thing, of course, was the music. Stravinsky’s orchestra is gigantic, including instruments that are not often heard. That includes the bass clarinet (Tzuying Huang once again), the almost-bass clarinet in D (Robert Walker), four Wagner tubas (Thomas Jöstlein, Peter Ulffers, Tricia Jöstlein, and Robert Fox), and two contrabassoons (Ellen Connors and Hank Skolnick). All of them were featured at one point or another and all were superbly played. In fact the entire orchestra sounded quite stunning under Denève’s baton.
True confession time: I was so enthralled by the entire production that I didn’t take a single note. There are times when I relinquish my critic hat and just sit back and enjoy. This was one of the best.
If you missed the concert, know that the Saturday night performance will be available for streaming at the SLSO web site for about a month, beginning on or shortly after this review is published. It’s hardly a substitute for the live experience (especially with Firebird), but the sound quality of these broadcasts is quite fine and this was a concert not to be missed.
Next at Powell Hall: Conductor Kevin John Edusei makes his St. Louis Symphony Orchestra debut in a program of Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Joyce Yang will be the piano soloist. Performances are Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 PM, November 29 and 20.
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 me host the Symphony Preview episode about the concert on Wednesday, November 26, from 8 to 10 pm.
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