Review: Spectacular Ravel and Tchaikovsky with John Storgårds, Marc-André Hameiln, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

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

John Storgårds

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[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview post.]

"Nothing," wrote Mary Ann Evans (a.k.a. George Eliot) "is so good as it seems beforehand." Had she seen the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in action on Saturday, November 11th 2017 (unlikely, given that she died in 1880), she might have revised that aphorism a bit.

I'll admit that I was looking forward to this concert. The program included my favorite Tchaikovsky symphony -- the Fourth, in F minor -- as well as Ravel's endlessly inventive Piano Concerto in G, and the guest conductor, John Storgårds, impressed me mightily when I last saw him in back in April. I was not, however, expecting to be quite as blown away as I was.

Things got off to a fine start with the local premiere of the Tänzchen im alten Stil ("Little Dance in the Old Style"), composed in 1918 by one of the great names in Hollywood film music, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It's an ingratiating gloss on the classic Viennese waltz, with a slyly humorous beginning and a middle section with echt romantisch solos for cello and horn, followed by a coda that cleverly combines both themes.

Mr. Storgårds gave it a very idiomatic treatment, complete with those small pauses between the first and second beat (luftpausen) that characterize the Viennese waltz. The orchestra played beautifully, including solos in the opening section from Associate Principal Flute Andrea Kaplan, Associate Principal Clarinet Diana Haskell, and bassoonist Vincent Karamanov. Principal Cello Daniel Lee and Associate Principal Horn Thomas Jöstlein carried out their solos with equal aplomb.

When pianist Marc-André Hamelin joined the orchestra for the Ravel concerto, though, it quickly became clear that the evening wasn't just gong to be good, it was going to be great.

Marc-André Hamelin

When Ravel wrote the concerto, he set out to make it technically challenging, hoping that it would force him to improve his own game at the keyboard. That didn't happen; Paris Conservatoire piano professor Marguerite Long played at the 1932 Paris premiere. But it did create a work that demands, especially in the wistful second movement, a pianist with technique and soul.

Mr. Hamelin displayed both Saturday night, dashing off the flashy stuff in the first and third movements with ease while caressing that long-limbed waltz theme in the second. He was completely in synch with Mr. Storgårds's loving and rhythmically free approach to that movement as well as his more dynamic interpretation of the other two. Mr. Storgårds also highlighted lots of little details like Principal Harp Allegra Lilly's solo in the first movement and the run up the piano keyboard to the first restatement of the main theme.

And speaking of solos, let's direct some applause to Cally Banham for that yearning English horn line in the second movement.

The concert concluded with what can only be called a kick-ass performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Written in 1876-77, at a time when the composer's mood swung between hope and despair, this is the most compact and dramatically expressive of all his symphonies. From the commanding "fate" motive first intoned by the brasses at the beginning to the nearly hysterical triumph of the finale, this is a piece that grabs you by the lapels and doesn't let go until the end.

Which is exactly what Mr. Storgårds and the SLSO did Saturday night. If you were there, you know what I mean. Starting with a brilliant statement of the "fate" motive by the brass section, this was a Tchaikovsky Fourth that commanded one's attention and simply crackled with energy.

There were so many great moments in this express train of a performance that I really can't list them all here. I loved the relentless "march of doom" at the end of the first movement, for example, as well as the barn-burning intensity of the finale. For me, Mr. Storgårds delivered a Tchaikovsky Fourth against which all others must be measured, with the high drama of the music accentuated by the conductor's magisterial podium presence and big, dramatic, full upper-body gestures.

Everyone played their hearts out, both in the many solos and in the ensemble overall. The melancholy main theme of the second movement was beautifully rendered by Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks and Associate Principal Bassoon Andy Gott. The string section played the pizzicato third movement with intense concentration (you could see it on their faces as well as hear it) and impressive precision. The horn and brass sections were stunning all the way through. And Thomas Stubbs deserves a particular shout-out for doing such a great job with the insanely fast cymbal part in the finale.

Not surprisingly, the applause following this was thunderous as the audience leapt to its feet. I don't think standing ovations at Powell Hall are always justified, but I had no hesitation about joining in this time.

Since this was Veteran's Day (originally Armistice Day, which I've always felt was more appropriate), the concert was preceded by a short speech honoring the Gold Star families present by SLSO trumpeter Jeff Strong, who is a former member of the US Marine Band. It was tastefully done, and an appropriate reminder.

Next at Powell: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, along with Joélle Harvey, soprano; Kelley O'Connor, mezzo-soprano; Stuart Skelton, tenor; and Shenyang, bass-baritone in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3 p.m., November 18 and 19. There's also a free Youth Orchestra concert Friday at 8 p.m. with Resident Conductor Gemma New at the baton. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Review: John Storgårds and Nikolai Lugansky deliver the goods in an evening of Rachmaninoff and Bartok

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

Pianist Nikolai Lugansky

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Nearly all of the longer than usual St. Louis Symphony program this past weekend (April 22 and 23) consisted of two big early-twentieth-century concerti, one for a single virtuoso and one for an orchestra full of them. Happily, both were on hand at Powell Hall.

The first major event was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30, from 1909. Known as "Rach 3" to its friends, of whom I am one, is widely regarded as one of the most challenging concerti out there. Fiercely difficult, it's a reminder of what a superhuman pianist Rachmaninoff was. For many years after its premiere, its only real advocate was the composer himself.

Here in Mound City there has been no shortage of great Rach 3's over the past few years, including a real stunner by Steven Hough and Peter Oundjian in 2012. The soloist this time was the remarkably talented Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky, who recorded all four of the Rachmaninoff concerti in the early 2000's and whose CD of Rachmaninoff piano sonatas copped multiple awards.

He clearly knows this material well, and it showed in the easy familiarity with which he approached the music. He and guest conductor John Storgårds took an expansive view of the concerto that highlighted the strong differences among its many moods. In the opening movement, for example, the brisk and authoritative opening stood in sharp contrast to the more lush treatment of the second theme group, while the titanic cadenza had all the flash and power you could ask for.

The second movement was extraordinarily passionate, and the finale raced ahead at breakneck speed to its power chord coda, capped with the composer's characteristic four-note signature ("Rach-man-in-OFF"). Done properly, this never fails to get a standing ovation—which is exactly what happened when we saw the concert Saturday night.

It was a superlative performance, marred only by an unusual murkiness in the overall sound of the orchestra—many woodwind passages, for example, were nearly inaudible—and what sometimes seemed to be a less than ideal balance between the soloist and orchestra, with Mr. Lugansky sometimes swamped by the ensemble. The work that he played as an encore, on the other hand—Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G-sharp minor, Op. 32 No. 12—was crystalline perfection.

Let's turn now to that piece that needs an orchestra full of Nikolai Luganskys: Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra's famed music director Serge Koussevitzky in 1943 when the composer's finances and health were both bottoming out, the composition process worked like a tonic. Bartók threw himself into the project and the final result has been part of the core orchestral repertoire ever since.

Conductor John Storgårds

The work's title refers to the fact that throughout the piece individual groups of instruments or even entire sections of the orchestra are given difficult, attention-grabbing passages which highlight them. This is most apparent in the "Giuoco delle coppie" ("Game of couples") second movement, in which the melody is tossed about among pairs of bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and trumpets, but there are neat little solos for trombone and oboe in the first movement and the strings get a real workout in the fiery finale. Pretty much every section gets a chance to join in the fun.

It's only fun if the orchestra and conductor are up to the task, of course—which Mr. Storgårds and the band certainly were Saturday night. The second movement was both jaunty and whimsical, the third movement "Elegia" was piercingly intense, and the interjection, in the third movement "Intermezzo interotto" ("Interrupted Intermezzo"), of a theme from the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony (which Bartók heard in a live broadcast while composing the "Concerto") was comically precise. The opening movement had all the ominous drama one could hope for and the whirling finale built a tremendous head of steam and hurtled towards its conclusion, propelled by great slashing gestures from the podium.

This is, as René Spencer Saller writes in her program notes, a work that "boasts brisk contrasts and strange symmetries...a storehouse of stylistic touchstones: Bach fugues, peasant folk songs, angular tonal experiments, birdsong, night music." Mr. Storgårds let us hear all of that in a performance that allowed the music to breathe without sacrificing forward momentum. The players responded with some of the best work I have heard from them in some time. Every section was at the top of its game.

The concerts opened with a brief work for strings getting its local premiere: Valentin Silvestrov's haunting Hymne 2001. The delicate work is a beautiful piece of gossamer sonic filigree that uses silence—or as much silence as one can get in a live orchestra hall, anyway—as an important compositional tool. This is music that begins softly and ends with a prolonged hush. It is, in its own way, every bit as demanding as the far more massive Bartók in that all the lines are very exposed and the players need to be flawless. The SLSO strings proved that they were exactly that, with a performance of surpassing radiance.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts the orchestra in two programs. On Friday, April 28, at 8 p.m. he'll conduct an evening of popular classics, including Tchaikovsky's Capprico Italien, the overture to Weber's Der Freischütz, and Walton's Crown Imperial march, along with James Stephenson's bass trombone concerto The Arch performed by the SLSO's own Gerard Pagano. On Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., April 29 and 30, Augustin Hadelich joins the orchestra for the Brahms Violin Concerto. Performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Review: Magisterial Beethoven, poetic Schumann, and dynamic Nielsen with Storgårds, Vogt, and the St. Louis Symphony

John Storgårds

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[Learn more about the music with the SLSO program notes and my symphony preview.]

John Storgårds, the Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic and this past weekend's (October 23and 24, 2015) St. Louis Symphony Orchestra guest conductor, is a big man with a magisterial podium presence. In fact, "magisterial" is how I'd characterize his approach to the Beethoven "Egmont" Overture that opened the program. Tempi were on the slow side and orchestral details were highlighted, which gave the final triumphal pages of the score that much more impact.

If that approach were the only one in Mr. Storgårds's repertory it would make for a monotonous evening but, of course, there's much more to him than that. His expansive gestures clearly grow out of a passionate commitment to and intense concentration on the music itself. He seems willing to go where it leads him, while still putting his own stamp on the interpretation.

Lars Vogt
Photo: Neda Navaee

This was most apparent in the Schumann Piano Concerto that followed the Beethoven. Describing his work on the Concerto in a 1839 letter to his future wife, Clara Wieck, Schumann said that the work would be "a compromise among a symphony, a concerto and a huge sonata. I see I cannot write a concerto for the virtuosos: I must plan something else." That "something else" proved to a work in which the piano is an integral part of the orchestra, rather than set apart from it in the manner of so many of Schumann's contemporaries. The Concerto is more poetic and lyrical than big and dramatic, with a first movement cadenza that grows organically out of the music and a final movement that is more ingratiating than flashy.

In terms of the imaginary characters that Schumann used to illustrate the two sides of his musical personality, the Concerto tends to lean towards the dreamy and introspective Eusebius rather than the more passionate Florestan, although both are clearly present.

Kate Reimann

Mr. Storgårds and soloist Lars Vogt (a conductor himself as well as a noted pianist) followed Schumann's lead with a reading that was more graceful and sentimental than demonstrative. You could hear that most notably in the second movement Intermezzo, with its lovely duet for the soloist and principal cello (enchantingly rendered by Danny Lee), although there was a languor to the first movement as well. It's marked Allegro affetuoso, but in this performance is was more molto affetuoso. That wasn't entirely to my taste, but (as indicated in that letter to Clara) it's justified by the music itself as well as by Schumann's own thoughts on the matter.

The concluding work on the program, Carl Nielsen's "Symphony No. 3, Op. 27," ("Sinfonia espansiva") from 1910-11, is another matter altogether. Like G. B. Shaw, Nielsen believed in a kind of pantheistic "life force" that pervaded all of nature. It shows up in his fourth and fifth symphonies (both written in the shadow of World War I, when the "life force" no doubt appeared to be in danger of extinction) and pervades the third. The symphony opens, as Reneé Spencer Saller vividly writes in her program notes, with "a machine-gun barrage of a single note, A, which sounds 26 times, speeding up as the intensity mounts". From that point on, the "Espansiva" lives up to its name by delivering, in the words of the composer "a certain expansive happiness about being able to participate in the work of life".

It's vital and viscerally compelling stuff, and Mr. Storgårds's interpretation was appropriately electrifying and energizing. The headlong rush of the music came through loud and clear without sacrificing any of the many finer points of Nielsen's score. Spontaneous applause broke out after the Allegro espansiva first movement, and the standing ovation at the end was sincere and well earned.

Jeffrey Heyl

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record (remember those?) when I say this but say it I must: the SLSO musicians played beautifully here, as they did throughout the evening. The extended passages for the strings in the Andante pastorale second movement, for example, were a reminder of what great string players we have here. The sound was lush, focused, and just a bit astringent, which felt like an ideal match for the material. The woodwinds distinguished themselves as well all the way through, as did the expanded (five players) horn section.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the "Espansiva" is the use of wordless vocals that lend an otherworldly quality to the second movement. The soloists for these concerts were soprano Kate Reimann and bass-baritone Jeffrey Heyl, both of whom are familiar figures on local opera and concert stages. Their voices blended handsomely in their brief appearance, lending just the right sense of mystery to the music.

Next at Powell Hall: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra presents a showing of the film "Back to the Future," with the Alan Silvestri score performed live by the orchestra, Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m., October 30 – November 1. The showings take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Preview: Beethoven's movie music and more October 23 and 24

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One of the things all three composers in last weekend's all-American St. Louis Symphony concerts had in common was that they had all written music for movies. In that respect, they were following a time-honored tradition that goes back centuries.

That's because film music is really just another form of what musicology types call "incidental music"—music written to accompany and provide extra punch for comedy and drama. And composers have been doing that since the days of ancient Greece.

"Beethoven Letronne" by Blasius Höfel
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Common

This weekend's SLSO concerts open with a famous example: the overture that Beethoven wrote for Goethe's 1787 political drama "Egmont." Set in 16th century Spain when that nation was occupied by the Dutch, the play is the story of the Count of Egmont, a real-life Dutch nobleman who pleaded with his fellow occupiers to treat the Spanish with some respect and got executed for his efforts. A staunch Republican and champion of human freedom, Beethoven was irresistibly drawn to the story—an attraction that was only increased by the political situation surrounding him when he wrote his "Egmont" score in 1809 in Vienna.

Back then Vienna was not so much the fabled "City of Dreams" as a metropolis of nightmares. The French laid siege to it with shelling so fierce that at one point the composer took refuge in his brother's house and covered his head with pillows to escape the din. "[L]ife around me", he wrote, "is wild and disturbing, nothing but drums, cannons, soldiers, misery of every sort." The royal family—including Beethoven's friend and patron Archduke Rudolf—fled, along with many of the notable families with whom the composer had become close.

Left alone and, once the French occupation began, in difficult financial circumstances due to rapid inflation, Beethoven had little else to do but compose. The "Piano Concerto No. 5" ("Emperor") is probably the most famous work to emerge from this difficult period, although the Op. 81a piano sonata ("Les Adieux") is probably a close second.

Beethoven wrote a total of nine pieces to accompany the play, including "Die Trommel gerühret" (roughly "the drum is playing"), a particularly effective dramatic song for soprano and orchestra. These days the powerful Overture is the only one of the nine performed on a regular basis, possibly because it sums up the action of the play so neatly. Opening with stark, imposing chords by the full orchestra, it gradually moves, over the course of around nine minutes, to a triumphant finale. "The overture's conclusion", writes René Spencer Saller in her program notes, "foretells a freedom that only Beethoven—the stubborn dreamer, the Enlightenment's eternal child—could imagine. Mired in misery, he still believed in joy."

Schumann in 1850
en.wikipedia.org

Up next is Robert Schumann's "Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54," which was first performed in 1845 with Schumann's wife Clara (a gifted composer and pianist in her own right) as the soloist. Schumann had made several attempts at a large-scale work for piano and orchestra at various points in his life. As the early 20th-century poet and music critic Pitts Sanborn noted (in "Great Orchestral Music", Collier, 1962), Schumann "began to write a piano concerto at the age of seventeen before he was conversant with musical form... As early as 1839 there is apparently a reference to the A minor concerto in a letter sent by Schumann from Vienna to his betrothed, Clara Wieck: 'My concerto is a compromise among a symphony, a concerto and a huge sonata. I see I cannot write a concerto for the virtuosos: I must plan something else.'"

When Schumann's "something else" finally materialized it was, in fact, far removed from the sort of virtuoso showpiece that he and his fellow contributors to the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" disdained. The piano is not set apart from the orchestra the way it is in the concerti of many of Schumann's contemporaries. From the very beginning, in which the soloist trades phrases with the winds, the piano is an integral part of the orchestra—a role it occupies until the very end. As Clara Schumann observed in her diary, "the piano is interwoven with the orchestra in the most delicate way—one can't imagine the one without the other."

"The opening allegro", write Brockway and Weinstock in "Men of Music," "is unstintedly opulent in melody, and rises to moments of sheer rhapsody. Its cadenza, far from interrupting the mood of the whole movement, sustains it—which makes it a rarity among piano cadenzas. The intermezzo is more restrained and contemplative, and the marvelously varied rhythms of the finale mount and mingle in a paean of unrestrained joy. These elements combine to produce, in the A minor Concerto, the sovereign gesture of musical romanticism."

From the beginning, audiences and critics mostly agreed. "When the Concerto was performed in Leipzig," report Brockway and Weinstock, "the Gewandhaus patrons (then the most enlightened on the continent) were already thoroughly acquainted with Schumann's ideas, but it took this definitive expression of them to evoke the Leipzigers' unqualified enthusiasm." The reception was also very positive when Clara performed the Concerto in London shortly before Schumann's death in 1856. Even the critic J. W. Davidson, who regarded the Concerto itself as "a labored and ambitious work," had to admit that "the praiseworthy efforts of the gifted lady make her husband's curious rhapsody pass for music."

These days the A minor Concerto is part of the standard repertory. The SLSO first performed it in 1913, with Marion Bauer at the keyboard, and most recently in November of 2011. Eric Le Sage was the soloist for that one (Stèphane Denève was at the podium), turning in (as I wrote in my review) a performance of chamber music-style intimacy along with the kind of close, cooperative give and take that goes with it. This time around the soloist is the young German pianist Lars Vogt, whose wide-ranging repertoire includes not only Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, but also Rachmaninoff and even Witold Lutoslawski.

Remarkably for a concert pianist, he is also making his mark as a conductor and, in fact, will take over as Music Director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Newcastle, U.K., for their 2015-2016 season. It will be interesting to see how all that plays out on stage with guest conductor John Storgårds.

Carl Nielsen in 1910
en.wikipedia.org

The concerts conclude with the "Symphony No. 3, Op. 27," (the "Sinfonia espansiva") written in 1910-1911 by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen. I've been a sucker for Nielsen's music ever since I first encountered his fiercely anti-war "Symphony No. 5" in Leonard Bernstein's remarkable 1963 recording. 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.

Like G. B. Shaw, Nielsen believed in a kind of pantheistic "life force" that pervaded all of nature. It shows up in his fourth and fifth symphonies (both written in the shadow of World War I, when the "life force" no doubt appeared to be in danger of extinction) and pervades the third. Quoted in Hugh Ottaway's chapter on Nielsen in "The Symphony" (Penguin Books, 1967), Robert Simpson observes that "espansiva means the outward growth of the mind's scope and the expansion of life that comes with it."

"Here, in fact," continues Mr. Ottaway, "is the key to Nielsen's personality, and for those who like to strike directly at the root of the matter, the Espansiva makes an excellent introduction to his art. It is precisely in the generous, outward-looking aspect, and in the optimism springing from it, that Nielsen stands apart from so many of his contemporaries." "From the white-hot, orchestral hammer blows of its opening to its triumphant and open-hearted conclusion," wrote James Goodfriend in his notes for Bernstein's recording of the "Espansiva" with the Royal Danish Orchestra, "the 'Sinfonia Espansiva' proclaims itself the work of a great composer, one of the twentieth century's most irresistible symphonists at his best."

The symphony is remarkable in another way as well: the second movement includes wordless vocals for a soprano and baritone. They add an otherworldly quality to the Andante pastorale second movement. This weekend, that otherworldliness will be supplied by Kate Reimann and Jeffry Heyl, both of whom are familiar figures on the local opera and concert stage. Kate comes from a musical family, by the way; her mom Charlene is a respectable jazz singer in her own right and a frequent guest at the open mic night that I host for The Cabaret Project at the Tavern of Fine Arts.

The essentials: John Storgårds conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist Lars Vogt, soprano Kate Reimann, and bass-baritone Jeffrey Heyl on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., October 23 and 24. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Preview: Jewels and imaginary landscapes at Powell Hall, October 24 and 25, 2014

Mendelssohn in 1839
James Warren Childe

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“The Germans," observed the great violinist Joseph Joachim, "have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising, is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's.”

Last week Leonard Slatkin and David Halen seduced us with Bruch. This week we get the jewels—Mendelssohn's E minor "Violin Concerto" with John Storgårds and Associate Concertmaster Heidi Harris.

Mendelssohn's jewel apparently required a lot of polishing. Although the composer announced his intention to write the concerto in a letter to his friend, the violinist Ferdinand David, in 1838, it wasn't until March of 1845 that the E minor concerto finally saw the light of day. Mendelssohn was ill at the time, so the Danish composer Niels Gade conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (where Mendelssohn had been Principal Conductor since 1835) with David as the soloist. Which was only fair, as the composer sought David's technical and compositional advice throughout the concerto's six-year gestation period.

The concerto was an immediate success and is now one of the most frequently played violin concertos in the repertoire. Audiences never seem to tire of it and fiddlers never fail to find something new (or at least personal) in their interpretations. SLSO Concertmaster David Halen certainly put his stamp on it the last time the orchestra played the piece in February of 2012, with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski on the podium. This time around the soloist will be Associate Concertmaster Heidi Harris, whose previous starring roles with the SLSO have included Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 1 (with Leonard Slatkin) and Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 (with David Robertson). So it will be fascinating to see what her take is on this well-worn masterpiece.

Sibelius in 1891
en.wikipedia.org

If the Mendelssohn concerto is, as George Schaun once observed in program notes for the Baltimore Symphony, "sweet-flowing yet fiery," then the other big work on this weekend's program, the 1899 "Symphony No. 1" by Jean Sibelius, is craggy and wintery. From 1892 until his death in 1957, Sibelius lived and worked in a home made entirely of wood (he didn't want to hear the sound of rain in metal gutters) on Lake Tuusula in the Finnish forest, where he often went for long walks. The love of nature informs much of his work and figures prominently in his symphonies. It's impossible to hear his music and not conjure up images of pines, snow, and brisk northern winds.

"The orchestral compositions of Sibelius," wrote Paul Rosenfeld in "Musical Portraits," "seem to have passed over black torrents and desolate moorlands, through pallid sunlight and grim primeval forests and become drenched with them. The instrumentation is all wet grays and blacks, relieved only by bits of brightness, wan and elusive as the Northern summer, frostily green as the polar lights. The works are full of the gnawing of bassoons and the bleakness of the English horn, sinister rolling of drums, the menacing reverberation of cymbals, the icy glittering of harps."

It is, in short, powerfully dramatic stuff, the first big work by a composer who, in his early 30s, was already something of a Finnish hero for his unabashedly nationalist "Karelia Suite" and "Finlandia." With this symphony, as Eddie Silva points out in his program notes, Sibelius "hit the big time."

Andrzej Panufnik
en.wikipedia.org

I don't know whether or not this week's guest conductor, John Storgårds, is as outdoorsy as Sibelius was, but as the Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic he presumably knows the Finnish landscape. And since his recording of the complete Sibelius symphonies with the BBC Philharmonic was released last spring (on Chandos), it's a safe bet he knows Finland's most celebrated composer pretty well. He has already recorded the Sibelius violin concerto, along with music by Latvian composer Peteris Vasks, Finland's Kaija Saariaho and, most recently, discs of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and a Grammy-nominated disc of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara who, like Sibelius, draws heavily on nature for inspiration.

The concerts open with a local premiere—"Landscape" a 1965 revision of a 1962 piece by the Polish-born composer Andrzej Panufnik. Quoted in Mr. Silva's program notes, the composer says the work is “an attempt to convey musically a landscape of my imagination, similar to those I have seen in Suffolk or remember from Poland... a boundless landscape which evokes melancholy—where the far distant, evanescent horizon induces a sense of space and unconfined contemplation.” Scored for strings only, the piece has the kind of stark beauty I associate with Sibelius. Its foundation in an A-minor triad (the notes A, C, and E) produces echoes of both modal folk music and blues, at least to my ears. And the final measures, as the music quietly fades to silence, are truly captivating.

The essentials: John Storgårds conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violin soloist Heidi Harris in Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto" Sibelius's "Symphony No. 1," and Paufnik's "Landscapes" Friday and Saturday, October 24 and 25, at 8 p.m. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio. For more information, visit the web site.

St. Louis classical calendar for the week of October 20, 2014

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John Storgårds

John Storgårds conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violin soloist Heidi Harris in Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto" Sibelius's "Symphony No. 1," and Paufnik's "Landscapes" Friday and Saturday, Ocrober 24 and 25, at 8 p.m.  "Our own STL Symphony Associate Concertmaster Heidi Harris will perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, a popular masterpiece of the violin repertoire that makes the heart sing.  Known as the musical voice of his country, Sibelius captured the essence of Nordic landscapes in works such as his First Symphony." The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.  For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Steven Jarvi conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in "Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo," a special Family Concert featuring Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" on Sunday, October 26, at 3 p.m. "The STL Symphony and the Saint Louis Zoo join forces to show audiences just how musical animals can be! This playful program, based on John Lithgow’s popular children’s book, features Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk and more." The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.  For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The Tavern of Fine Arts presents The Perseid String Quartet with pianist Diana Umali on Thursday, October 23, at 8 PM.  “The Perseid String Quartet returns to the Tavern for a program that includes Mozart’s famous Quartet No. 14, K. 465, known as the “Dissonance” quartet for the highly unusual and unstable harmonies used in the introduction. On the second half, the quartet teams up with pianist Diana Umali for Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Op.44, an emotive and often boisterous work which the composer said gave “his creative imagination…a new lease on life." The concert is free, donations are accepted and a percent of sale goes to support the performers. Come and enjoy dinner and a drink as we share this beautiful music!”  The Tavern of Fine Arts is at 313 Belt in the Debaliviere Place neighborhood.   For more information: tavern-of-fine-arts.blogspot.com.

Third Baptist Church presents an organ concert by Tim Jansen, Music Director, St. Anthony of Padua Church, on Friday, October 24, at 12:30 PM as part of its free Friday Pipes series.  "Join us on Fridays at Third Baptist Church for Friday Pipes, the free organ recital series celebrating the restoration of the church's 72-rank Kilgen/Möller pipe organ. Each week a different performer will be presenting a program of classical, church, and theatre organ music in the beautiful sanctuary of Third Baptist. This season's performers come from across the USA, and even from around the world. Free parking is available in the church lots on Washington Avenue." Third Baptist Church is at 620 N Grand.  For more information: www.third-baptist.org

Joseph Gascho
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The Washington University Department of Music presents a harpsichord recital by Joseph Gascho on Wednesday, October 22, at 7:30 p.m. The program includes works by J.S. Bach and Buxtehude, and C.P.E. Bach.  "Harpsichordist Joseph Gascho enjoys a multifaceted musical career as a keyboard artist, conductor, teacher and producer. In 2002, he won first prize in the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. His most recent recording, Españoletas, featuring Harmonious Blacksmith and percussionist Glen Velez, will be released this summer. Recent performing highlights include concerts with the National Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, and conducting Idomeneo for the Maryland Opera Studio. A graduate of the Peabody Institute and the University of Maryland, he taught harpsichord and chamber music at George Washington University before accepting his most recent post at the University of Michigan." The performance takes place at the 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity in University City, MO.  For more information: music.wustl.edu

The Washington University Department of Music presents a guitar recital by Kirk Hanser of the Washington University faculty on Friday, October 24, at 7:30 p.m.  "The performance will feature music by American composers, including Robert Beaser, Brian Head, Andy York, Michael Hedges, and local bandleader/composer Kim Portnoy. Many friends will be joining Hanser onstage during the evening, including flutist Paula Kasica and guitarist John McClellan." The performance takes place at the 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity in University City, MO.  For more information: music.wustl.edu

Electric shocks

Who: Pianist Yefim Bronfman and The St. Louis Symphony conducted by John Storgårds
What: Music of Bach/Webern, Schumann, and Brahms
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: November 2 and 3, 2012

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Yefim Bronfman at Carnegie Hall
Photo by Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

There are few things I love more than hearing a familiar work from the standard concert repertoire—one I’ve heard dozens of times in the past—performed in a way that makes it sound fresh and new. That, for me, is great music making. And that’s what I heard from John Storgårds and the St. Louis Symphony in their dramatic and electrifying reading of Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. From the majestic introduction to the fiery finale, this was a Schumann Fourth that just crackled with energy and theatricality.

The Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic, Mr. Storgårds is a big man with an expansive but precise style at the podium. This does not, however, appear to be the self-conscious theatricality of (say) a Stokowski but rather the result of a passionate commitment to and intense concentration on this music itself.

This serves him well in both of the other works on this weekend’s program, the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 and Webern’s typically kaleidoscopic orchestration of the great six-part fugue (the Ricercata) from Bach’s Musical Offering.

There’s an interesting story behind that fugue. Bach wrote it on, essentially, a dare from Frederick the Great of Prussia. At a meeting in 1747, the king presented Bach with a long and highly chromatic theme (supposedly his own, although he may have lifted it from Handel) and challenged him to use it as the subject for a three-voice fugue. A skilled improviser, Bach did so on the spot, at which point the king, in what might have been an attempt to teach this wise guy a lesson, upped the ante to a six-voice fugue. Two months later Bach replied with his Musical Offering—two ricercars, ten canons, and (for good measure) a sonata all based on that theme. Game, set, and match.

The king’s reaction has been lost to posterity.

Anton Webern’s orchestration from nearly two centuries later raised the ante even further by making this mid-18th century piece sound entirely new. An advocate of Klangfarbenmelodie—the practice of breaking a melodic line up and distributing it to individual instruments a few notes at a time—Webern shattered and re-assigned the individual voices in ways that sound the way a kaleidoscope looks.

The result can be disorienting but makes for fascinating listening. The rapid shifts in instrumental color are nearly hallucinatory at times and must pose a stiff challenge to the players. There’s no place to hide here; every note must be perfect and every entrance precise. Friday night’s performance was stunning in its precision and a credit to all concerned.

Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 poses substantial difficulties of its own, at least for the soloist. A pianist of no mean skill, Brahms wrote the piece for himself, and even he acknowledged its technical difficulty when he referred to it (somewhat jokingly) as “the long terror”. It’s not the sort of piece a pianist takes on lightly.

If you’re a regular listener to Public Radio International’s Symphonycast, you know that Yefim Bronfman unquestionably has the chops for this music. His performance with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic (still available as a podcast for a limited time at the Symphonycast web site is nothing if not impressive. His performance Friday night was no less spectacular. He handled the most demanding passages with ease, but the reading of the concerto overall felt less compelling than I had hoped. The excitement of the Schumann wasn’t there for me, although the Andante third movement was truly lovely.

I don’t want to make too much of that, though. This is, after all, a matter of taste and it might sound entirely different to you. The orchestral playing was, without a doubt, of its usual high caliber, with an especially beautiful cello and oboe duet from Daniel Lee and Peter Bowman in the third movement. And there’s no question that Mr. Bronfman fully deserved his standing ovation.

The next regular season concert combines Mozart’s Requiem with Schoenberg’s Freude auf Erden (Peace on Earth) and Haydn’s D major Cello concerto. Jun Märkl conducts with Daniel Lee as the soloist in the Haydn. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3, November 9th through 11th. For more information: stlsymphony.org.