Symphony Review: Swooning romanticism with Watts and Valcuha at Powel Hall, February 20 and 21, 2015

Juraj Valcuha
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Who: The St. Louis Symphony conducted by Juraj Valčuha
What: Music of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky
When: Friday and Saturday, February 20 and 21, 2015
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis

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

The young (late 30s) Slovenian conductor Juraj Valčuha came to town for his SLSO debut this weekend with a stack of impressive reviews from locations as diverse as London, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Brahms to Szymanowski. Critics have praised his big sound, his precision, and what the Los Angeles Times critic called "his eloquent and flowing baton gestures."

All of that was certainly on display Friday morning in a program of two big Russian romantic blockbusters: Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2" in C Minor, Op. 18 (first performed in 1901) and Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 6" in B minor, Op. 74 (a.k.a. the "Pathetique"), which had its first performance only eight years earlier. Also on display was a kind of lush, almost swooning lyricism and a tendency to linger over and emphasize details of phrasing.

That worked remarkably well for the Tchaikovsky. From the hushed statement of the first theme in the first movement—beautifully played by Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo and the low strings—to the massive, nearly hysterical final orchestral outburst that precedes those final dying chords in the cellos and basses in the last, this was a "Pathetique" that wrung every ounce of melodrama out of the score.

Mr. Valčuha made smart use of dramatic contrasts in dynamics throughout. Here's just one example: the little dying clarinet solo that ends the first movement exposition—sensitively played by Associate Principal Diana Haskell—was allowed to fade out almost to inaudibility, which gave the massive orchestral outburst that starts the development section that much more impact. It's a stormy movement anyway, but under Mr. Valčuha's baton it was more of a hurricane.

The wistful little 5/4 waltz of the second movement with its anxious contrasting second theme has never sounded more haunting. The aggressive march of the third movement radiated power, which made the opening despair of the last movement (Adagio lamentoso)—played after only the briefest pause—all the more heartbreaking.

To sum it up, this was a "Pathetique" that could stand with the best of them, and played with perfection by the orchestra.

That same intense, hyper-romantic approach served the Rachmaninoff less well. Tempi were on the slow side and the composer's long melodic lines were sometimes stretched to the breaking point. The big, lyrical second subjects in the first and last movements were as opulent as I have ever heard them but the outer movements sometimes lacked the rhythmic drive and sense of forward motion that I'm accustomed to hearing. This is a concerto that normally clocks in at around 35 minutes. Mr. Valčuha's version came in at closer to 45 by my reckoning, and not just because of the long pause after the first movement while we waited for latecomers to be seated.

André Watts
cmartists.com / Steve J. Sherman

That said, it was still a captivating performance. Mr. Valčuha is, as other critics have noted, a very commanding and theatrical presence on the podium. That LA Times review describes him as conveying the impression that he was spontaneously creating the music out of thin air—a very apt description of the way he seems to be physically molding the sound. And while I don't think his approach to the Rachmaninoff was ideal, especially for any listeners who might have been encountering the piece for the first time, it was certainly a personal and rather fascinating take on music that can often seem over-familiar.

I am, of course, assuming that tempo choices and the overall approach were largely Valčuha's idea. I should point out, in all fairness, that when this weekend's soloist, the legendary André Watts, last appeared with the SLSO in 2010, his Grieg concerto was a bit on the slow side as well, so perhaps this was a collaborative decision.

Mr. Watts' performance was, in any case, impressive—technically solid and poetically expressive. He has often performed and recorded the Russian romantic repertoire, Rachmaninoff included, and has apparently been touring extensively with the second concerto recently—often to rave reviews. The concerto is often given flashy performances that emphasize the virtuoso nature of the work, but Mr. Watts and Mr. Valčuha made, my misgivings not withstanding, an awfully good case for taking a more leisurely and autumnal view of this music.

Next at the SLSO: Hans Graf conducts the orchestra with violin soloist Augustin Hadelich on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., February 27-29. The program includes Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto" and the suite from Stravinsky's "Firebird" ballet. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Preview: Two Russian romantic blockbusters at Powell Hall February 20 and 21, 2015

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Works by two giants of the Russian romantic school are on the Powell Hall Stage this week as the St. Louis Symphony under guest conductor Juraj Valcuha takes on Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2" in C Minor, Op. 18 (first performed in 1901) with famed pianist André Watts as soloist and Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 6" in B minor, Op. 74 (a.k.a. the "Pathetique"), which had its first performance only eight years earlier.

Rachmaninoff in the early 1900s
en.wikipedia.org

Although he as over three decades older than Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky was nonetheless a huge supporter of the younger composer. When the latter was only 16, Tchaikovsky was already predicting "a great future" for him, according to Rachmaninoff biographer Max Harrison. In an 1892 interview with the Petersburg Gazette Tchaikovsky went even farther, naming Rachmaninoff (along with Glazunov and Arensky) as one of the younger generation of composers whom he expected to take up the torch of Russian romanticism after he retired. "That made me so glad," wrote Rachmaninoff to a friend when he read the interview. "My hearty thanks to the old man for not having forgotten about me!"

Tchaikovsky's faith certainly appeared to be validated by Rachmaninoff's early successes. "By the time he was 20," writes Paul Schiavo in his SLSO program notes, "Rachmaninoff had completed a piano concerto; an opera, Aleko, which was triumphantly produced at the Bolshoi Theater; several tone poems and chamber pieces; and a number of keyboard works, including the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor. The stage seemed set for a lifetime of rich musical accomplishment."

All that came to a crashing halt when the composer's "Symphony No. 1" had its St. Petersburg premiere in 1897. The performance was a debacle (conductor Alexander Glazunov, a notorious alcoholic, was said to be conducting under the influence) and critics hated it. César Cui, for example, famously wrote that if "there were a conservatory in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write a program symphony on the ‘Seven Plagues of Egypt,’ and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff’s, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would bring delight to the inhabitants of Hell.”

The psychological impact on the young Rachmaninoff's was devastating. "All my self-confidence broke down," he recalled, "and the artistic satisfaction that I had looked forward to was never realized." He spiraled down into a depression so severe that friends urged him to seek help from one Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who was then making a name for himself in Moscow with hypnotherapy.

Dahl hypnotized Rachmaninoff daily for three months. "Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was desired of me," recalled the composer, "and he was informed 'a concerto for pianoforte,' for I had promised this to people in London and had given up in despair the idea of writing it. In consequence, I heard repeated, day after day, the same hypnotic formula as I lay half somnolent in an armchair in Dr. Dahl's consulting room. 'You will start to compose a concerto—You will work with the greatest of ease—The composition will be of excellent quality.' Always it was the same, without interruption."

The result was everything Rachmaninoff could have hoped for. He took up composing with a new vigor. Ideas for the concerto "began to well up within me," he reported. The second the third movements were completed by the autumn on 1900 and by the spring on 1901 the entire work was ready for a November Moscow premiere under Alexander Siloti, with the composer at the piano. It was a hit with both critics and audiences and has remained so ever since.

The Second may not be the best of Rachmaninoff's four piano concerti—both the revised First and (my favorite) the Third are more economical and generate more momentum—but its flashy (and technically demanding) solo passages, soaring melodies, and showy finale have made it a real crowd pleaser. From its famous seven-chord introduction to the big tune of the finale (popularized by Frank Sinatra in 1945 as “Full Moon and Empty Arms”), this is a concerto that is impossible to dislike.

Tchaikovsky, aged 52.
Photographed by Alfred Fedetsky
in Kharkov, 14/26 March 1893
wiki.tchaikovsky-research.net

If the Rachmaninoff concerto is brimming with the optimism and confidence of youth, Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 6" is marked by the regret and despair of age. Which, given the composer's circumstances and mood at the time, is a bit surprising.

When Tchaikovsky began working on the symphony at his country house in Frolovskoe in the spring of 1893, all the signs were positive. "Although his health and spirits had been more than usually good," wrote R.L.F McCombs in program notes for the Philadelphia Orchestra, "he made sure they would remain so by taking long walks, even in bad weather. He was fifty-three, popular, respected, and in fairly easy circumstances."

Tchaikovsky actually began work on the Sixth in 1891, after he returned from a trip to America, but he abandoned work on it the following year (Soviet musicologist Semyon Bogatyrev would complete it in 1950). "You know I destroyed a symphony I had been composing and only partly orchestrated in the autumn," he wrote to his nephew Vladimir Davydov in February of 1893. "During my journey I had the idea for another symphony, this time with a programme, but such a programme that will remain an enigma to everyone—let them guess; the symphony shall be entitled: A Programme Symphony (No. 6). The programme itself will be suffused with subjectivity, and not infrequently during my travels, while composing it in my head, I wept a great deal. Upon my return I sat down to write the sketches, and the work went so furiously and quickly that in less than four days the first movement was completely ready, and the remaining movements already clearly outlined in my head. The third movement is already half-done. The form of this symphony will have much that is new, and amongst other things, the finale will not be a noisy allegro, but on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio. You can't imagine how blissful I feel in the conviction that my time is not yet passed, and to work is still possible. Of course I might be mistaken, but I don't think so."

The first performance—in St. Petersburg, with the composer conducting—did not, alas, realize those hopes. Tchaikovsky was, unfortunately, much less capable as a conductor than as a composer. "He was too diffident to demand the best results from his players," wrote McCombs, "and would rather have a half-way performance than a fuss. In public he suffered from nervousness and had a peculiar delusion that in conducting, his head was liable to fall off if he did not support it with his left hand which, of course, permitted him only the use of his right." As a result, the first performance was "received with politeness rather than enthusiasm."

That would change with subsequent performances, but Tchaikovsky never lived to see it happen; nine days after the premiere, the composer was dead. The official cause: cholera, brought on by drinking a glass of contaminated drinking water. Whether that was true or not quickly became a matter of some contention and even today theories abound that the composer committed suicide or was murdered. What is certain, though, is that the "Pathetique" has become enduringly popular.

As well it should. This exceptionally well-crafted symphony’s compelling mix of triumph and tragedy is, as the song goes, “simply irresistible”. Only a world-class grouch, for example, could refuse to applaud after the exuberant third movement and only a heart of granite could fail to be moved by the despairing finale. Those final, dying chords in the low strings are just heartbreaking. A well-conducted "Pathetique" leaves the audience feeling that they need to take a moment to exhale.

The Essentials: Juraj Valcuha conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist André Watts on Friday at 10:30 a.m. (a Coffee Concert with free Krispy Kreme doughnuts) and Saturday at 8 p.m., February 20 and 21. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.