Symphony Preview: Czech list

This weekend (November 17–19), guest conductor Christian Reif leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violinist Randall Goosby in a program of works by three very different composers who all hail from towns that are now part of the Czech Republic.

[Preview the music with the SLSO's Spotify playlist.]

The concerts open with the first-ever SLSO performance of the 1938 “Suita rustica,” Op. 19, by Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940). If you’ve never heard of her before that’s not surprising. Her untimely death from typhoid at the age of 25 was at least partly responsible for her lack of wider recognition, although given the maturity and number of her compositions, it’s not entirely clear why, in the late 20th century, her work apparently gained little traction outside of the Czech Republic.

Vítězslava Kaprálová
Public Domain

Maybe audiences weren’t entirely sure what to make of her combination of Czech folk elements with what were then seen as “modernist” sounds. Or maybe it was just symptomatic of the difficulty women composers have had, until very recently, getting serious attention.

It’s a pity in any case, because after listening to the recording of the “Suita rustica” by Jiří Pinkas and the Brno Philharmonic in the SLSOs playlist, I’m strongly motivated to seek out more of Kaprálová’s music. This lively and colorful three-movement work neatly merges the traditional with the contemporary in a way that’s hard to resist.

Up next is the 1945 Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957).  Like Kaprálová, Korngold was born in the city of Brünn, Austria-Hungary—now Brno, Czech Republic. Unlike her, he wrote in a far more traditional and clearly Austrian style. The second son of music critic Julius Korngold (1860–1945), Korngold was a skilled pianist at age 5 and was composing by age 7. He was much admired by, among others, Jean Sibelius, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler (who recommended that he study with Alexander von Zemlinksy).

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Korngold composed his first ballet at age 11 and his most famous opera, “Die tote Stadt,” at 23. In 1934 director Max Reinhardt enticed him to Hollywood to write the music for his lavish film version of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” (well worth seeing, despite the many cuts in Shakespeare's text). He returned to Austria but was drawn back to California in 1938 to write the score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” While he was there, Hitler's Anschluss of Austria took place, and Korngold became an émigré ("We thought of ourselves as Viennese," he would recall later. "Hitler made us Jewish.")

Korngold is most remembered these days, though, as a film composer. The lush, late-19th century romanticism of his scores came to typify the big budget movies of the 1930s and 1940s, especially action/adventure films like “Captain Blood” (1945), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), and “The Sea Hawk” (1940). He scored his share of straightforward dramas, as well, including “Kings Row” (1942), “Of Human Bondage” (1946), and “Escape Me Never” (1947).

Korngold returned to the concert world for the final decade of his life, but like many other notable composers throughout history, was not shy about recycling his own musical material. For his Violin Concerto he repurposed melodies from the films “Juarez” (1939), “Anthony Adverse” (1936), “Another Dawn” (1937), and—in the lively finale—"The Prince and the Pauper” (1937). The concerto had its world premiere right here in St. Louis in 1947 with Jascha Heifetz as the soloist and the French-American conductor Vladimir Golschmann on the podium. Golschmann was music director of the SLSO from 1931 to 1958 (the longest-reigning SLSO music director to date) and made a number of recordings with the orchestra.

This weekend's soloist, Randall Goolsby, is no stranger to the Korngold concerto, having recently played it with both the Oslo Philharmonic and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. The 27-year-old American violinist also appears to be a rising star on the concert scene, having just recorded concertos by Max Bruch and Florence Price with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Phildelphia Orchestra for Decca.

Wrapping everything up is the Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70, by the most thoroughly Czech composer of them all, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904). Dvořák’s Seventh has always been a favorite of mine, for reasons that are difficult to articulate. I can’t hear it without thinking of a long journey down a dark mountain river. Flashes of light illuminate the trip, but we don’t see the sun until the work’s final moments, when the tonality changes from D minor to D major.

Composed between December 1884 and March 1885, the symphony was written for the Philharmonic Society of London, which had just made the composer an honorary member. Indeed, as a letter to his friend Antonin Rus indicates, he was a bit obsessed with the project. “Everywhere I go,” he wrote, “I think of nothing else than my work, which must be such as to shake the world, and with God’s help it will be so.”

His obsession paid off handsomely. The symphony’s premiere took place on April 22, 1885, with the composer conducting the Philharmonic Society Orchestra at St. James’s Hall and it was, as Alec Robertson writes in his 1962 biography of Dvořák, “a huge success. The work, which pleased conservatives and progressives alike, was favourably compared to Schubert’s C major symphony, and declared to be more immediately appealing than the Brahms F major [Symphony No. 3, Op. 90, published in 1884].”

Anton and Anna Dvořák in London, 1886
en.wikipedia.org

That placed him in some pretty august company. Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, D. 944, which was first published in 1828 (but not performed until eleven years later), was nicknamed “The Great” to distinguish it from an earlier symphony in the same key. By the 1880s, it had achieved the status of greatness among audiences and critics alike. As for the Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, the critic Eduard Hanslick called it “artistically the most nearly perfect” of the composer’s symphonies. Dvořák himself was among the work’s greatest admirers, describing it to his publisher Simrock as “[surpassing] his first two symphonies; if not, perhaps, in grandeur and powerful conception—then certainly in—beauty.”

The Dvořák Seventh got similar responses from critics both past and present. In his chapter on Dvořák in the first volume of Robert Simpson’s “The Symphony” (Pelican Books, 1966), Julius Harrison doesn’t hesitate to call it “the finest of them all… Dvořák now scales the heights of Parnassus as he was never to do again.” Robertson calls it “undoubtedly a great work.” I agree, of course, and I think you will probably do so as well.

I’m not sure what approach Reif will take to the  Seventh, although Simon Thompson (writing for Bachtrak) called his performance of it last year with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra “smooth as silk” with the finale “feeling like a rich overflowing towards which the whole evening had been building.” If it’s anything like the legendary 1960 recording by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in the SLSOs playlist (one of my personal favorites), it should be memorable.

The Essentials: Christian Reif conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violinist Randall Goosby in the “Suita rustica” by Vítězslava Kaprálová, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto, and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7. Performances are Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 7:30 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, November 17 through 19, at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The concert will also be broadcast Saturday night at 7:30 on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3.

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

Symphony Review: Nathalie Stutzmann brings a unique, joyous approach to familiar classics in her St. Louis Symphony debut

Nathalie Stutzmann conducing the
Monte Carlo Philharmonic
Photo: nathaliestutzmann.com

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The St. Louis Symphony concerts this weekend (April 22-24, 2016) offered a remarkable study in contrasts, with familiar classics by Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Dvořák getting novel, idiosyncratic, and very compelling interpretations by French singer and conductor Nathalie Stutzmann in her SLSO debut.

Ms. Stutzmann's dual career path as both a singer and conductor is unusual, if not unique.  And while I don't want to read too much into that, it's hard not to hear in her performances the kind of direct emotional connection that I get from an accomplished singer. 

In the cabaret world we talk a lot about the importance of having a strong emotional connection to the music and lyrics of our songs.  That's the kind of strong connection I heard in Ms. Stutzmann's approach to the oft-heard works on the program this weekend.  It made me hear them in different ways that shed new light on the music.  In this respect she reminded me of the late Leopold Stokowski, whose work I admired tremendously even when it wasn't entirely to my taste—which was sometimes the case with Ms. Stutzmann.

The exceptionally delicate and slow opening of Mendelssohn's The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, for example, suggested an overblown and even lethargic approach to this depiction of the Scottish seacoast.  But while Ms. Stutzmann's extreme contrasts of tempo and dynamics sometimes felt more appropriate to Bruckner than Mendelssohn, the overall result was fascinating and even revelatory at times. To pick just one example: the full-orchestra climaxes, with Shannon Wood's tympani projecting forcefully over the rest of the band from his position on an elevated platform upstage center, vividly evoked the stormy landscape that had so impressed Mendelssohn.  I wouldn't call this a definitive interpretation by any means, but I'm glad I heard it.

Karen Gomyo
Photo: karengomyo.com

There was a similar interpretive freedom in the Sibelius Violin Concerto which, like the Mendelssohn, opened so quietly that the first few notes were almost inaudible, with soloist Karen Gomyo's entrance seemingly floating in from another plane of existence.  This was another ear-opening performance, with orchestral details revealed in high contrast.  It made the long-winded first movement feel even more discursive than it usually does, but the overall result was stunning in its impact.

It helped that Ms. Gomyo is such a technically proficient and artistically committed performer. The violin was Jean Sibelius’s first musical love and his concerto is both thoroughly idiomatic and incredibly demanding.  The long solo passages in the first movement and virtuoso fireworks in the finale will test the mettle of the best performers.  Ms. Gomyo handled it all with aplomb, delivering the intense passion of the second movement and fireworks of the third with equal credibility.  She was also completely in synch with Ms. Stutzmann, often moving and (seemingly) even breathing together.

The concluding work on the program, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70,  as always been a favorite of mine, for reasons that are difficult to articulate.  I can’t hear it without thinking of a long journey down a dark mountain river.  Flashes of light illuminate the trip, but we don’t see the sun until the work’s final moments, when the tonality changes from D minor to D major.

Maintaining a strong rhythmic pulse and a sense of momentum, then, have always been the hallmarks of a great Dvo?ák Seventh for me.  Ms. Stutzmann's interpretation had both, despite an opening tempo which felt a bit slow but turned out, in the end, to be exactly right for the musical structure she was creating.  By the time she got to the end of the energetic third movement Scherzo, she had built up such a head of steam that the decision to go straight to the final movement attacca (without pause) felt not just right but actually inevitable.   I wouldn't want this to be anyone's only exposure to Dvo?ák's masterpiece, given the number of fine recordings available out there, but it was entirely original and, taken on its own terms, entirely successful.

Ms. Stutzmann's style on the podium, by the way, is as uniquely personal as her conceptualization of the music.  She sways and dances with the music, virtually sculpting phrases out of the air with gestures that could be encompass everything from her fingers to her entire upper body.  And she does it all with a delighted smile that suggests a real pleasure in the business of making music.  That sense of joy on the part of a performer is always infectious and goes a long way towards winning over an audience.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts the orchestra in two different programs April 29 – May 1.  With violin soloist Celeste Golden Boyer, he presents a Whitaker Foundation Music You Know concert on Friday, April 29, at 8 p.m. that features works by Ponchielli and Dukas as well as a new work by Stefan Freund.  On Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., he conducts the local premier of William Kraft's Tympani Concerto No. 2 with soloist Shannon Wood, as well as Schubert's monumental Symphony No. 9 ("The Great").  For more information, visit the symphony web site.

Symphony Review: A spring awakening with Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony, February 7 and 8, 2015

Stéphane Denève in the auditorium
of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris
Photo: Tom Finnie

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stéphane Denève
What: Music of Debussy, James MacMillan, and Dvořák
When: February 7 and 8, 2015
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis

A bit of spring blew through St. Louis a couple of months early this weekend, and I’m not just talking about the temperatures outside.  Inside Powell Hall it was unseasonably vernal, as well, as Principal Flute Mark Sparks and the St. Louis Symphony under guest  conductor Stéphane Denève gave voice to Debussy’s sultry “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” (“Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”).

[Find out more about the music with the symphony program notes and my symphony preview].

Inspired by an 1876 poem by the symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé (whom Debussy greatly admired), the “Prélude” exudes what Boston Symphony music librarian Marshall Burlingame describes as a “languorous sensuality” as “the faun’s conscious observation of two nymphs in the sunlight drifts into erotic fantasy.”  Even in Mallarmé’s elliptical poetry, it’s steamy stuff.

Mark Sparks
stlsymphony.org

Mr. Denève’s loving and subtly shaded interpretation, combined with Mr. Sparks’ graceful playing of the solo part (the flute takes on the role of the faun’s panpipes), produced exactly the lubricious atmosphere the composer had in mind.  Working without a baton, Mr. Denève artfully shaped  phrases with his hands in the manner of the late Leopold Stokowski while still making individual cues pointed and unambiguous.  He is, as I have noted in the past, a commanding figure on the podium and an interesting visual study.

Immediately following the first dose of Debussy, we got a second: the brief “Syrinx” for solo flute from 1913.  It wasn’t on the printed program, having been added during rehearsals as a result of discussions between Mr. Sparks and Mr. Denève, but there was nothing rushed or under-rehearsed about Mr. Sparks’ seemingly effortless performance.

Next up was the local premiere of Scottish composer James MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No. 3, “The Mysteries of Light.”  Based on the five “Luminous Mysteries” added to the existing fifteen rosary mysteries by Pope John Paul II in 2002, the work is not so much a classic concerto as it is a symphony with a prominent piano part.  Yes, the pianist has some impressively flashy passages, especially in the finale (“The Institution of the Eucharist”) with its “perpetual motion” coda, but overall the piano is more of an orchestral partner.

As I wrote in my preview article, Mr. MacMillan disdains composers who are (in his words) “deeply suspicious of any significant move towards tonality, any hint of pulse that is actually discernible, and any music which communicates successfully with a non-specialist audience.”  If, in other words, you are weary of music that sounds more like an orchestra tuning up than a deliberate composition, or that seems to have been written more for a grant-funding committee than for a paying audience, Mr. MacMillan is undoubtedly your man.

The 3rd concerto is not what I’d call a subtle work. The first movement (“The Baptism of Jesus  Christ”), for example, features rapid “watery” passages at the upper end of the keyboard while the second movement’s “Wedding at Cana” includes a raucous  tune in the style of a reel.  Jesus’ ascension in the fourth movement is depicted by a massive orchestral crescendo that begins at the very bottom of every instrument’s register and quickly  climbs to the top, and the radiance of Jesus’ face is illustrated by an elaborately beautiful chorale for the strings.

And so it goes.  There’s an almost cinematic vividness to this music—and I mean that in the most flattering way possible.  Unlike some of the newer works the SLSO has unveiled, this is a piece that can be grasped at first hearing while still inviting repeated listening.  We can only hope  that a recording will be forthcoming at some point.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet
jeanyvesthibaudet.com

The soloist for the concerto was Jean-Yves Thibaudet.  He premiered the concerto with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2011, so I think I can safely describe his performance as definitive.  It was certainly assured and intense, backed up by virtuoso playing by the orchestra.  He and Mr. Denève clearly love this music, and their very informative and entertaining spoken introduction, including a brief bit of four-handed piano from the pair, was a nice supplement to the printed program notes.

The concert concluded with the the "Symphony No. 8" in G major, Op. 88, written in 1890 by Antonin Dvořák.  The symphony comes from an especially happy time in the composer’s life.  Thanks, in part, to the enthusiastic support of Brahms, Dvořák was much in demand as both a composer and conductor and was prosperous enough to purchase a home in the Czech countryside that inspired so much of his work.

Composed at his newly acquired home, this cheerful symphony overflows with celebrations of rustic life.  There are twittering birds, cheerful village bands, wandering violinists, and even, at one point, a section that has always made me think of a sudden thunderstorm.  This is the joy of living, wrapped up in the Czech master’s characteristically infectious melodies and dance-inspired rhythms.

Dvořák  is one of my favorite composers and I thought I had heard every possible approach to this consistently good-humored symphony. Mr. Denève still managed to surprise me, though, with an idiosyncratic approach that lingered over orchestral details, sometimes sacrificing the composer’s rhythmic vitality to do so.  And yet, it never felt overdone or excessively episodic.  This was a performance that drew me in, almost in spite of myself.

The orchestra responded with some truly superb playing.  The cellos, under Principal Daniel Lee, brilliantly fulfilled their important melodic role, especially in the first and last movements, and the winds and horns made the most of the loving attention Dvořák lavishes on them all the way through.  Concertmaster David Halen also had a nice moment as that strolling violinist in the second movement.

Finally, a note about silence.  Most of us know that silence is an element of music. John Cage even went to far as to write and entire piece (“4’ 33””) consisting of nothing by four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, along with whatever ambient sound happens to be present at the time.  Dvořák uses silence effectively in the eighth symphony, and Mr. Denève used it effectively throughout the concert.  Before he began the Debussy, for example, he held himself completely still until the last audience wheeze had died out and the opening flute solo could emerge from almost complete quiet.  His understanding of the importance of silence and stillness is, I think, one of the things that makes Mr. Denève’s interpretations stand out from the crowd.

Next at Powell Hall: Kevin McBeth conducts the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON chorus in “Lift Every Voice: A Black History Month Celebration” on Friday, February 13, at 7:30 PM.  The orchestra is supplemented by a rock band for “Faithfully: A Tribute to the Music of Journey” on Saturday, February 14, at 7:30 p.m.  The regular season resumes when Slovakian conductor Juraj Valcuha leads the orchestra and piano soloist André Watts in Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 2” and Tchcaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 6” (“Pathétique”) on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m. February 20 and 21.  For more information: stlsymphony.org.