Symphony Preview: Critical failure

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

This weekend (March 29-31) Jakub Hrusa leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in three works by well-established composers that were nevertheless greeted with a mixture of bafflement and hostility when they were first performed. Not surprisingly, history has since vindicated the composers.

The concerts open with a suite from Béla Bartók's ballet "The Miraculous Mandarin." First performed in Cologne, Germany, in November 1926, the ballet's sordid and violent story so outraged local audiences and religious leaders that the mayor, Konrad Adenauer (who would later be Germany's first post-WW II chancellor), had it banned. It wasn't seen again until after the composer's death in 1945.

Béla Bartók in 1927

What was all the fuss about? Thomas May has a synopsis in his program notes and there's an even more detailed one at Wikipedia, but essentially the story concerns a trio of thugs who force a young woman to lure unsuspecting rubes to an upstairs room where they're robbed, beaten, and tossed out into the street. The first two victims, an old man and a student, are easily dispatched, but the third--the wealthy Chinese man of the title--proves to be much tougher. The criminals try to kill him by suffocation, stabbing, and hanging, but he refuses to die until the woman finally embraces him, at which point he bleeds and expires.

Not exactly family friendly stuff. Also rather Freudian. Choreographer Attilla Bongar has posted a YouTube video of his version of the ballet and while the video quality is not great, it does give you a pretty good idea of what the action looks like.

The music Bartók wrote was appropriately aggressive and discordant. In an article for "The Listeners Club", Timothy Judd calls it "one of the scariest pieces ever written" and quotes the composer (in 1918) predicting that it would be "hellish music." Mr. Judd goes on to quote the musicologist and Bartók biographer József Ujfalussy on the way in which the ballet was a reflection of the post-WW I zeitgeist:

European art began to be populated by inhuman horrors and apocalyptic monsters. These were the creations of a world in which man's imagination had been affected by political crises, wars, and the threat to life in all its forms... This exposure of latent horror and hidden danger and crime, together with an attempt to portray these evils in all their magnitude, was an expression of protest by 20th-century artists against the...obsolete ideals and inhumanity of contemporary civilization. [Bartók] does not see the Mandarin as a grotesque monster but rather as the personification of a primitive, barbaric force, an example of the 'natural man' to whom he was so strongly attracted.

A quick glance at my news feed suggests that, if Mr. Ujfalussy is correct, this may be music whose hour (like that of Yeats's rough beast) has "come round at last."

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

Up next is Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. Although wildly popular these days, the concerto was originally dismissed as "unplayable" by St. Petersburg Conservatory violin professor Leopold Auer (to whom it was originally dedicated and who was supposed to play it at its premiere). Tchaikovsky's colleague Adolf Brodsky would replace Auer as both the first performer and the dedicatee.

I wrote at some length back in 2015 about the concerto and the oddly hostile reactions it got from clueless critics, so I won't repeat myself here. The bottom line is that it's now a beloved part of the repertoire and never fails to be a crowd pleaser.

The violin soloist this weekend will be Karen Gomyo, who has gotten her share of critical praise http://karengomyo.com/press/ over the years. "A first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity," wrote John Van Rhein at the Chicago Tribune in 2009, while the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Zachary Lewis called her "captivating, honest, and soulful, fueled by abundant talent but not a vain display of technique" in 2011. Reviewing her performance of works by Chausson and Sarasate here in 2017, I praised her technical proficiency and intense artistic focus. I look forward to seeing what she does with Tchaikovsky's so-called "unplayable" masterpiece.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9, which concludes this weekend's concerts, actually got some decent notices when it was first performed on November 3, 1945, by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky, who conducted the world premieres of several other Shostakovich symphonies. His fellow composer Gavriil Nikolayevich Popov, for example, reacted to it this way (cited in "Shostakovich: A Life" by Laurel E. Fay):

Transparent. Much light and air. Marvelous tutti, fine themes (the main theme of the first movement -- Mozart!). Almost literally Mozart. But, of course, everything very individual, Shostakovichian... A marvelous symphony. The finale is splendid in its joie de vivre, gaiety, brilliance, and pungency!!

That opinion didn't last. As conductor Mark Wigglesworth writes on his blog, "Stalin was incensed when he heard the piece." Coming immediately after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War (World War II to the rest of us) he had expected a grand heroic apotheosis, not "literally Mozart." As Mr. Wigglesworth notes, the winds of opinion quickly changed:

Within a year of its première in 1945, Soviet critics censured the symphony for its 'ideological weakness' and its failure to 'reflect the true spirit of the people of the Soviet Union.' One described it as 'old man Haydn and a regular American sergeant unsuccessfully made up to look like Charlie Chaplin, with every possible grimace and whimsical gesture.' Others, in more private circles, understood 'its timely mockery of all sorts of hypocrisy, pseudo-monumentality, and bombastic grandiloquence.' It was banned for the remainder of Stalin's life and not recorded until 1956. Nor was the work particularly well received in the West. According to an American critic, 'the Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner.'

Shostakovich in 1945

In all fairness, Shostakovich might have been partly responsible for raising false expectations. "Undoubtedly like every Soviet artist," he declared on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the revolution in 1944, "I harbor the tremulous dream of a large-scale work in which the overpowering feelings ruling us today would find expression. I think the epigraph to all our work in the coming years will be the single word 'Victory'."

He even went so far as to compose the first several minutes of that planned celebratory work early in 1945. As scholar Olga Digonskaya writes, fellow composers who heard him perform it described the fragment as "powerful, energetic and triumphant." Dissatisfied, he set the fragment aside, and by the summer his thoughts had completely changed. Running under a half hour, the final version of the Symphony No. 9 is a brisk, and (at least in the first movement) openly comic work with (as Mr. May writes in his notes) "a shockingly (to those who wanted it) unheroic finale."

If you want to listen to the complete symphony in advance, let me recommend a recording by the WDR Symphony on YouTube that includes a synchronized display of the score. Note the many prominent solos for instruments that don't always get them like the piccolo, bassoon, and trombone.

This week's guest conductor, Jakub Hrusa, was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1981. He studied paino and trombone before taking up the baton at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He's Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. Recent debuts include guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, and NHK Symphony.

The Essentials: Jakub Hrusa conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with violinist Karen Gomyo, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, March 29-31. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Wiener blut

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The “Beethoven Festival” continues this Friday through Sunday with what is probably his grandest piano concerto—the Fifth, known as the “Emperor Concerto”—along with a concerto of a very different sort from Béla Bartók and an overture to a failed Medieval fantasy opera by Carl Maria von Weber.  Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts with piano soloist Louis Lortie.

Its noble character not withstanding, Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73” was written under the cloud of war and occupation.  When Beethoven was writing the work in 1809, 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 Fifth Concerto 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.  Both were dedicated to Rudolph.

Much has been written about the “Concerto No. 5”, so I won’t presume to waste your time with my own analysis, especially when there are concise and informative articles on Wikipedia and at the Classy Classical blog.  The magisterial first movement, the wistful second, and the jolly concluding rondo all show Beethoven at his best. 

Louis Lortie

They offer a wealth of opportunities to shine for soloist and conductor.  This week’s soloist, the French-Canadian Louis Lortie has, according to his biography in the symphony program, “extended his interpretative voice across a broad range of repertoire rather than choosing to specialize in one particular style.”  He has also, however, studied “in Vienna with Beethoven specialist Dieter Weber, and subsequently with Schnabel disciple Leon Fleisher,” so I’d expect that the “Emperor” would hardly be foreign territory for him.

“In my youth,” wrote the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in a 1929 letter to Edwin von der Nüll, “Bach and Mozart were not my ideals of the beautiful, but rather Beethoven.”  It seems only fair, then, that the other Big Piece on the program this weekend should be Bartók’s 1943 “Concerto for Orchestra”—a dramatic, appealing, and sometimes humorous work that, ironically, was written when the composer’s health and fortunes were both at a low ebb.

Forced by the rise of Fascism to flee to the USA in 1940, the composer found himself marooned in a strange land where he was known primarily as an ethnomusicologist and teacher rather than as a composer.  Unable to find steady work and suffering from the leukemia that would soon kill him (he died on September, 26, 1945), Bartók found himself unable to summon the will to compose anything. 

A more prosperous Bartók in 1927

That all changed in 1943.  Prompted by conductor (and former Bartók student) Fritz Reiner and violinist Joseph Szigeti—both fellow Hungarians and Bartók admirers—Serge Koussevitzky, famed music director of the Boston Symphony, came to Bartók with a commission for a new orchestral work.  The commission worked like a tonic.  Bartók threw himself into the project and the final result has been part of the core orchestral repertoire ever since.

Why a “Concerto for Orchestra”?  As Thomas May pointed out in his program notes for a performance by Chrisoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony last January:

The idea of a concerto featuring not just a soloist, as in Mozart's classical example of the genre, but for the whole ensemble as a collective of virtuosos did not begin with Bartók…At the same time, Bartók revives something of the Baroque concept of the concerto-the so-called "concerto grosso"- which juxtaposes various smaller groupings of instruments against the texture of the larger ensemble. And of course the Concerto for Orchestra also serves to showcase the expressive power and versatility of a modern orchestra. Indeed, instrumental timbre turns out to be a significant dimension of this music, along with its innovative formal design and the manner in which Bartók develops his thematic material.

It is, in short, an opportunity for the members of the symphony to show off, either individually or in small groups.  The second movement (titled “Giuoco delle coppie “ or "The Game of Pairs"), for example, unfolds as a series of duets for pairs of bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and trumpets, while there are neat little solos for trombone and oboe in the first movement.  Pretty much every section gets a chance to join in the fun.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Photo: © Werner Kmetitsch

It will offer guest conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada a chance to show what he can do as well.  Although born in Columbia, Mr. Orozco-Estrada was trained in Vienna and, according to his biography in the program, “first came to international attention in 2004, when he took over a concert with the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich at the Vienna Musikverein. For that performance he was celebrated by the Viennese press as a ‘wonder from Vienna.’  He became Music Director of the Tonkünstler in 2009 but will be leaving that in 2014 when he takes up the positions of Music Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.  He has tended to specialize in the Romantic and Viennese repertoire as well as contemporary Spanish and South American works, but it doesn’t look like he has done much Bartók recently.  Still, it looks like he’s no stranger to early 20th-century music, so it will be interesting to see the results.

The concert opens with the overture to Carl Maria von Weber’s 1823 opera “Euryanthe,” based on a 13th-century tale of a knight who is conned into doubting his lady’s fidelity (full title: "L'Histoire du très-noble et chevalereux prince Gérard, comte de Nevers et la très-virtueuse et très chaste princesse Euriant de Savoye, sa mye.").  It’s the sort of Medievalism that was all the rage among 19th-century Romantics and might have been a hit if it hadn’t been for the libretto.  As Paul Schiavo writes in his program notes for these concerts, the text by German journalist, poet and playwright Helmina von Chézy “was an incompetent botch, and its dramatic deficiencies have kept Euryanthe out of the active opera repertory.”

Still, the overture is enormous fun and remains and is performed often.  The symphony hasn’t taken it on in over twenty years, though, so it will be good to welcome it back.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts the St. Louis Symphony and pianist Louis Lortie in von Weber’s “Euryanthe” Overture, Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, and Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra” Friday at 10:30 AM, Saturday at 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM, January 17-19.  For more information: stlsymphony.org

Lighs! Camera! Swans!

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu with violinist Simone Lamsma
What: Music of Bartók, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: October 18 and 20, 2013

Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu and Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma made triumphant returns to Powell Hall Friday night with an evening of dance-oriented music by Bartók, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky.  The highly charged Swan Lake suite was the highlight for me, but the fact is that the whole program was most impressive.

Let’s start with Ms. Lamsma’s performance of the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 63.  Prokofiev wrote it in 1935, two years after he returned to his native Russia from 15 years of self-imposed exile in the West and one year before he was officially repatriated.  He was happy to return home, as the warmth of the main melody of the second movement seems to attest.  But the outer movements have a drama and drive that frankly sound a bit ominous at times. 

It's a piece that demands a high degree of virtuosity from the soloist—which it undeniably got from Ms. Lamsma.   I was very much taken with her Shostakovich 1st concerto back in March of 2011, and she brought the same combination of laser-like focus and easy virtuosity to the Prokofiev 2nd this time.  This is music that requires a performer who can make the instrument sing in the second movement and toss off tricky passages in the first and third.  Ms. Lamsma negotiated it all with ease.  She and Mr. Lintu were clearly in close communication with each other throughout the concerto, as was obvious in the quality of the performance.

When Mr. Lintu last led the orchestra back in February I found his style on the podium to be a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual rigor—fire combined with ice.  Not surprisingly, then, his Swan Lake suite was marked by dramatic tempo and dynamic contrasts combined with a steely control.  Great, sweeping right hand gestures that required him to hold on to the front rail of the podium for support alternated with careful shaping of phrases with the left.  At one point—during the harp and violin duet in the Act II “Pas D'Action”—he stopped conducting altogether so that David Halen and harpist Allegra Lilly could simply play off each other.

It was all very dramatic and yet so much in control that Mr. Lintu was able to step off the podium to assist a first violinist who had an instrument malfunction and step back without missing a beat.

This was, in short, a 70mm, Technicolor Swan Lake that left Mr. Lintu looking like he'd just completed an aerobic workout.  Which, in fact, he had.  The audience awarded him and the orchestra with a much-deserved standing ovation.  There was excellent solo work by (among others) cellist Danny Lee and Barbara Orland on oboe (that famous Act II theme).

The concert opened with a pretty much flawless Dance Suite by Bartók, written for a 1923 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the Hungarian cities Óbuda, Buda, and Pest to form the national capital Budapest.  A pioneering ethnomusicologist as well as celebrated composer and pianist, Bartók spent much of 1908 tramping through the Hungarian countryside with fellow composer Zoltán Kodály collecting Magyr folk tunes. The melodies he heard then, along with the Arabic music he picked up during a 1913 visit to Algeria, would strongly shape his compositions from then on. 

Those influences are certainly evident in the suite.  Like the composer's Concerto for Orchestra, this is a piece that gives every section a workout, with complex, overlapping rhythms and spiky melodies that summon up the folk material that inspired it.  I think it could easily get a bit sloppy with a less disciplined orchestra and conductor.  Not here, though.  Everyone performed splendidly, with especially fine work by the double reeds (oboe, English horn, bassoon, and contrabassoon) in the opening.

That was, by the way, a kind of fitting memorial to symphony contrabassoonist Andrew Thompson who died suddenly this past Tuesday of a heart attack at the shockingly young age of 27.  Maestro David Robertson paid homage to him after intermission with a moving eulogy and a moment of silence.  And, by God, it was true and absolute silence.

This coming Wednesday (October 23) there’s a Pulitzer Concert with cellist Danny Lee and violinist Helen Kim performing Pierre Boulez’s Anthèmes for Solo Violin and Kodály‘s Sonata for Solo Cello at the Pulitzer Center just west of Powell Hall.  Friday and Saturday it’s back to Powell Hall for a concert featuring Rimski-Korsakov’s Scheherazade along with the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 (the one with the prominent trumpet part in the final movement) and a suite of dances from Thomas Adès’s 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face.  Peter Oundjian conducts with pianist Stewart Goodyear and the symphony’s Karin Bliznik on trumpet.  For ticket information: stlsymphony.org.

Swan song

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This weekend the St. Louis Symphony is presenting two separate programs: the regular concert series on Friday and Sunday with Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu on the podium and Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma as the soloist; and the annual "Red Velvet Ball" fundraiser concert on Saturday night with David Robertson conducting and celebrity cellist Yo-Yo Ma in the solo spot.  In this article I'll just deal with the regular series.

The unifying theme for this weekend, as Paul Schiavo points out in his program notes, is "song and dance"—with the emphasis on the latter.  The concerts open with Bela Bartók’s 1923 Dance Suite, written in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the Hungarian cities Óbuda, Buda, and Pest to form the national capitol Budapest.  A pioneering ethnomusicologist as well as celebrated composer and pianist, Bartók spent much of 1908 tramping through the Hungarian countryside with fellow composer Zoltán Kodály collecting Magyr folk tunes.  The spiky melodies and complex ployrhythms of that music would strongly influence what both composers produced from then on.

The Dance Suite is an excellent example.  Its six short movements (the entire thing runs around 15-17 minutes) are inspired by (but not direct quotes of) Wallachian, Hungarian, and even Arabic songs and dances—the latter stemming mostly from a 1913 trip the composer took to Algeria.  Even if you're not aware of the complex logic behind the organization of the suite (which you can read about at the Kennedy Center's web site), you'll still be able to appreciate the endless melodic and rhythmic invention involved.

Fun Fact: if you want to know what the kind of music Bartók collected sounds like, check out John Unlemann's Music from the Hills show over at 88.1 KDHX.  The two most recent episodes are available for on-demand listening.

Simone Lamsma
Photo: Otto van den Toorn

Taking us into intermission is the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 63.  Prokofiev wrote it in 1935, two years after he returned to his native Russia from 15 years of self-imposed exile in the West and one year before he was officially repatriated.  Prokofiev was happy to return home, as the warmth of the main melody of the second movement seems to attest.  But the outer movements have a drama and drive that frankly sounds a bit ominous at times.  It's a piece that demands a high degree of virtuosity from the soloist but given Simone Lamsma's impressive Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 with the symphony back in March of 2011 (I called it a "remarkably seamless and powerful reading") I don't expect that to be an issue.

Fun Fact: The 2nd concerto represents a turn to a simple and more popular style that marks Prokofiev's music in the 1930s.  It's written for a smallish orchestra with a percussion battery that includes castanets—possibly a nod to the fact that the piece was premiered in Madrid.

The concerts conclude with a suite from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet.  Written for the Bolshoi Ballet, the work was not especially well received at its March 3, 1877 premiere—partly because the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, was (frankly) a hack who failed to do the music justice.  It might have languished in obscurity if it hadn't made such an impression on Marius Petipa who, together with Tchaikovsky's brother Modest, staged the ballet's second act as part of a posthumous tribute to the composer in November of 1893.  It was so successful that a fully revised version was eventually staged for the Mariinsky Theatre in 1895 with considerable success.  Today, Swan Lake is probably the most famous ballet in the world and one of the most frequently performed.

Hannu Lintu
Photo: Kaapo Kamu

The suite for this weekend's concerts skips back and forth among the ballet's four acts.  We get many of the most memorable scenes, including the iconic "Dance of the cygnets"—possibly the best-known en pointe number of all time—and the triumphant finale, in which the famous oboe theme that sets the nocturnal scene for the beginning of Act II undergoes a triumphant transformation in the brasses.  This is sure-fire material and looks like a good match for conductor Lintu's dramatic and commanding presence on the podium (as demonstrated by his appearance here back in February).

Fun Fact: The scenario summary Paul Schiavo cites in his program notes is the one that ends tragically with Odette, the enchanted swan princess, throwing herself into the titular lake and drowning after the unintentional betrayal by Prince Siegfried, who has been seduced into marrying the black swan Odile by the evil magician Rothbart.  Seigfried follows her and drowns himself as well.  Their sacrifice kills Rothbart and breaks the spell that turned the princesses into swans.  As the music turns triumphant and the sun rises, and we see the lovers rising from the lake, united in death.  That scenario was not the one used in 1877, though, and many productions (including the current Mariinsky version) have gone back to the original happy ending in which Siegfried kills Rothbart to the triumphal trumpets, destroying his magic and uniting Odette and Siegfried in life rather than death.  The music works either way, which strikes me as rather cool.

This program will be presented twice: Friday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM, October 18 and 20 (no Saturday this time since that's the night of the Red Velvet Ball).  For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The Big 'Pictures'

A costume sketch of canary chicks
by Victor Hartmann for the ballet Trilby

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gilbert Varga with pianist Peter Serkin
What: Music of Glinka, Bartók, and Mussorgsky/Ravel
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: January 25-27, 2013

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In his program notes for these concerts, Paul Schiavo suggests that the theme running through all three works is the way in which they strongly suggest visual images to the listener. Let me suggest an additional one: all three composers represented here—Glinka, Bartók, and Mussorgsky—drew heavily on folk traditions in their respective cultures. One way or another, they were all proponents of musical nationalism

Bela Bartók is perhaps the most obvious example. He collected and studied folk music both in his native Hungary and later in Turkey. Indeed, he was known primarily as an ethnomusicologist and teacher in the USA when he arrived here in 1940 as a penniless immigrant, fleeing his Nazi-occupied homeland.

The melodic and rhythmic elements of the folk music in which he steeped himself became part of his compositional vocabulary and can be heard strongly in the Piano Concerto No. 3, which he wrote in New York during 1945, the final year of his life. Lively dance-like elements and complex rhythms, for example, dominate both the opening and closing movements, while the “Adagio religioso” that separates them is classic Bartók “night music”, with emotionally intense chorales flanking a middle section that evokes the nocturnal sounds of nature.

Guest conductor Gilbert Varga and pianist Peter Serkin (son of the great Rudolph Serkin) gave us a beautiful performance of the concerto Friday night. Mr. Serkin’s concentration was fierce. His performance of the “Adagio” was deeply felt, and his playing in the concluding “Allegro vivace” rondo was volcanic in its intensity. Mr. Varga and the orchestra supported him in fine style.

When Mr. Varga conducted the orchestra back in the summer of 2010, I noted that he “worked the podium with the cheerfully physical intensity of someone who truly loves both his music and his musicians.” I saw that same happy engagement Friday night. His gestures were large but precise and his interpretations were marked by carefully shaped phrases and a wide range of tempi and dynamics.

This was most apparent in his approach to Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition, Modest Mussorgsky’s 1874 memorial tribute to his friend the Russian artist and architect Victor Hartmann. Many arrangers have had a go at this piano suite but Ravel’s version, produced in response to a 1922 commission from the noted conductor Serge Koussevitsky, remains the most popular. Conducting without a score, Mr. Varga gave it a widescreen Technicolor Dolby 7.1 THX treatment, full of big (but nevertheless precise) gestures, marked contrasts, and high drama.

“Gnomus” was particularly menacing, “The Market at Limoges” notably raucous, “The Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells” wonderfully cartoonish, and the “Catacombs” most ominous. I think “The Great Gate at Kiev” might have had more impact with fewer pauses, but the final bars were appropriately grandiose and the audience loved it.

They also loved the many fine solo performances. Ravel’s orchestration is filled with opportunities for individual players to show off their skills, and the symphony musicians made the most of them. Some of the many notable solo breaks included saxophonist Nathan Nabb‘s melancholy voice of the troubadour in “The Old Castle,” Principal Trombone Tim Meyers on French C tuba in the lumbering “Bydlo,” guest trumpeter Andrew Balio (Principal Trumpet for the Baltimore Symphony) in the opening “Promenade,” the entire woodwind section in the “The Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells,” and the entire brass section throughout. I apologize to those I left out; everyone sounded terrific.

You can see a gallery of the surviving Hartmann pictures that inspired Mussorgsky at Wikipedia. The symphony, for its part, displayed art in the Powell Hall lobby inspired by Pictures and other recent works played by the orchestra. The exhibition was titled Mussorgsky in Reverse.

The evening opened with a brisk, high-energy reading of the overture to Glinka’s 1842 fairy-tale opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. It’s one of those pieces that used to crop up often as “filler” on classical LPs—a function it still serves on classical radio stations today. Its alluring melodies and neat little solo tympani part are irresistible, especially when performed with this kind of zest. As in “Pictures,” Mr. Varga worked without a score.

Next on the calendar: Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu is on the podium for Silbelius’s Finlandia and Fifth Symphony along with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Conrad Tao will be at the piano, substituting for an ailing Markus Groh. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8, February 1 and 2. For ticket information: stlsymphony.org