Symphony Review: Scottish snap and snappy Schubert with the SLSO

Prepandemic my wife and I traveled quite a bit. One of our favorite destinations for a time was Scotland. We haven’t been back in a while, but the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) concert last Saturday (November 20) summoned up, however briefly, memories of the gloomy, glorious land north of England.

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

The concerts opened the USA premiere of Anna Clyne’s brief and rowdy “Pivot.” Inspired by the composer’s experiences at the 2021 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, “Pivot” lives up to its title by constantly moving from one musical style to another. It starts with a very Celtic-sounding fiddle tune backed up by a bagpipe-like drone in the brasses and percussive slaps in the lower strings. From there it switches to a mix of other styles, including a woodwind melody that sounds distinctly Middle-Eastern. Sometimes multiple musical ideas clash in way that Charles Ives would probably have appreciated. But the music always returns, rondo-style, to that fiddle tune.

“Pivot” clearly demands precise playing and someone on the podium who can hold this brilliantly organized chaos together. In his SLSO debut, conductor David Danzmayr, the newly appointed Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, proved fully up to the task. The SLSO musicians played with exciting snap and physical energy, making this a perfect opening number.

The Scots theme continued with Max Bruch’s 1880 “Scottish Fantasy” for violin and orchestra.  Bruch’s experience of Scotland was literary rather than literal in that he never set foot on Scottish soil but, as Caitlin Custer points out in this week’s program notes, Bruch read “everything Scottish he could get his hands on.” In any case, he did a surprisingly good job of communicating the majestic windswept and melancholy beauty of the countryside. That’s especially the case in the wistful third movement, which makes liberal use of the traditional air “I’m A’ Doun for Lack O’ Johnnie”.

Simone Porter
Photo by Elisha Knight

In her SLSO debut, soloist Simone Porter proved to be a most persuasive interpreter of Bruch’s sentimental and appealing work. Fully engaged with both the conductor and the orchestra, Porter played with rich warmth in the lyrical first and third movements. In the latter, she played with so much tenderness that I felt a temptation (wisely resisted) to hum along with her. She had a brighter sound and more physically active stage presence in the cheerful second movement, based on the lively fiddle tune “The Dusty Miller”, and brought out the majesty and pride of the finale, which is based on “Scots Wha Hae”—Scotland’s unofficial national anthem, at least back in Bruch’s day.

All of which is a loquacious way of saying that it was a damn fine performance of a tremendously appealing work, by both Porter and Danzmayr. The latter chose his tempi and dynamic contrasts with great care—including the wise use of an extended moment of silence after the third movement. The orchestra was right there with him all the way. A special shout-out is owed to harpist Allegra Lilly, whose playing added another rich layer, especially in the third and fourth movements. It has been suggested that Bruch saw the harp as an essential part of the Scottish folk tradition. If so, he was wise to include it.

The audience clearly appreciated Porter’s work and insisted on an encore, And the one she gave us was lovely: the third movement (“Sarabanda”) from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2. Porter prefaced it by describing her experience working with the SLSO as “joyous.” I think the audience would agree.

The concert closed with Schubert’s imposing Symphony No. 9 (or maybe 7 or 8) in C major, nicknamed “The Great” to distinguish it from his Symphony No. 6, the “Little,” C major. Unperformed during the composer’s brief life and ignored for many years afterwards, the symphony long had a reputation among many musicians and critics as repetitive, difficult to play, and simply too long. And while it’s now a regular part of the repertory, it’s still a work filled with challenges for both conductors and listeners, as Joshua Weilerstein recently noted in his Sticky Notes podcast.

The biggest challenge is simply bringing enough variety and sense of momentum to a work which, if one takes all of the composer’s repeats, can last fifty minutes or more. Personally, I believe they should be treated as optional, but not everyone agrees. I recall a critic on the long-defunct WQXR radio show "First Hearing” once referring to a recording that dumped the repeats in the final movement as the equivalent of “blowing a hole in the Sistine Chapel.”

Perhaps he was engaging in hyperbole.

David Danzmayr

In any case, Danzmayr apparently decided they were indeed optional, at least in the first and last movements. Omitting them, together with generally brisk tempi, clean high-level playing by the band, and an overall concept of the work that was both vigorous and subtle, produced a Schubert Ninth that was bursting with energy, sentiment, and drama.

I have about a page of notes in front of me on the many decisions by Danzmayr that made this performance such a standout, but I’m going to demonstrate adult restraint and limit myself to a just a few. To begin with, tempo choices in the first movement were ideal. The Andante opening was actually taken (as the term implies) at a “walking” pace—relaxed but not sluggish. The transition to the main Allegro ma non troppo body was dramatic, and the movement as a whole crackled with energy.

The second movement, Andante con moto, has always suggested a mysterious nocturnal procession to me, and Jelena Dirks’s oboe solo hit just the right mix of the enigmatic and mournful. The moment at which the main theme unexpectedly bursts forth in a shriek of terror was powerful, with the one-measure rest afterwards held just long enough to underline that feeling. When the pizzicato strings made their hesitant entrance, it felt like they were cautiously emerging from a bomb shelter.

The Scherzo third movement had just the right amount of contrast between the boisterous main theme and the more flowing trio section. And the Allegro vivace finale galloped along with an irresistible vitality, with a powerful coda that brought the house down. Seriously, this was one of the best Schubert Ninths ever and a real feather in Danzmayr’s cap.

And what spectacular playing by the SLSO musicians! Roger Kaza’s horns were in excellent form as were all the winds. Schubert gives most of the best stuff to the woodwinds and brasses in this symphony (one reason why string players disliked it so much at first), and ours have never sounded better.

Next at Powell Hall: Gemma New conducts the SLSO along with soloists Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano), Elizabeth Chung (cello) and David Halen (violin) in Jake Heggie’s “The Work at Hand,” Elgar’s “Sea Pictures,” and Rimski-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Performances are Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, November 27 and 28. The concerts are dedicated to the memory of the late St. Louis Post-Dispatch music critic Sarah Bryan Miller, who died last November 28th after fighting a long battle with cancer with courage and grace.

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

Review: The kids are alright

This past Tuesday night (June 25th, 2019) Opera Theatre offered the fifth edition of its annual "Center Stage" concert. If what I saw Tuesday was any indication, I'm pretty annoyed with myself for missing the last four.

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

The quintet from Il barbiere di SivigliaPhoto by Eric Woolsey

Center Stage features members of OTSL's Gaddes Festival and Gerdine Young Artists programs performing opera excerpts. They were accompanied by members of the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Roberto Kalb and, in two of the selections, by Assistant Conductor Jacobsen Woolen. Working in the limited space in front of the orchestra on the Loretto-Hilton stage, MaryAnn McCormick, James Blaszko, and Seán Curran provided some limited staging that provided a good sense of the dramatic shape of the selections without cluttering up the space with set pieces. The evening was a perfectly balanced mix of old and new, familiar and rare, comic and tragic, all delivered with a degree of professionalism that speaks well to the quality of OTSL's programs for emerging artists.

The septet from The Merry Widow
Photo by Eric Woolsey

There were so many wonderful performances that I can't list them all here, so I'll content myself with listing some of my personal favorites, beginning with an enchanting "Qui di sposa eterna fede," the great "lovers' farewell" duet from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" by tenor Matthew Cairns and soprano Elena Villalón. Ms. Villalón was also impressive earlier as Marzelline in "Jetzt, Schätzchen, jetzt sind wir allein," a comic duet from Beethoven's "Fidelio," with tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson as her hapless would-be suitor Jaquino.

There were other terrific love duets as well. Soprano Sydney Baedke and baritone Hayden Smith were touching in "The Zephyr/One Star: from Rick Ian Gordon's "Grapes of Wrath" while soprano Lisa Marie Rogali and Mr. Cairns got the delicate bloom of "Suzel buon di" (from Mascagni's "L'Amico Fritz") just right. Soprano Katerina Burton and tenor Ángel Vargas were properly tragic in "No, Non dir questo" from Puccini's "La Rondine."

"A Real Slow Drag" from Treeomonisha
Photo by Eric Woolsey

There was plenty of great comedy as well, in numbers like "To part is such sweet sorrow" from "Die Fledermaus" with Ms. Baedke, soprano Jessica Niles, and baritone Gregory Feldmann and "You're back where you first began" (from "The Merry Widow") with the male septet, headed by baritone Leroy Y. Davis as Danilovitsch, performing a kick line courtesy of Mr. Curran. The rapid-fire patter ensemble from "Il barbiere di Siviglia" in which everyone tries to convince poor Don Basilio that he has scarlet fever, was done to a fine comic turn. The quintet consisted of Mr. Feldmann as Figaro, mezzo Jamie Groote as Rosina, and baritone Heeseung Chae as an enraged Dr. Bartolo, with tenor Calvert Young as Almaviva and bass Griffen Hogan Tracy as the befuddled Basilio.

There were some immensely appealing rarities in the evening, such as the scene from Dvorak's "Rusalka" in which the sorceress Jezibaba (mezzo Rehanna Thelwell in a performance of hair-raising intensity) cons poor Rusalka (beautifully sung by soprano Greer Lyle) into giving up her voice so she can become human and wed her prince. One of my favorites was the brief scene from Ravel's "L'heure espagnole," with mezzo Courtney Elvira as Concepción, the wife of clockmaker Torquemada (tenor Ndumiso Nyoka) who smuggles her lovers upstairs in clocks. Everyone involved got the comic absurdity of the situation just right.

Elena Villalón as Marzelline in Fidelio
Photo by Eric Woolsey

The concert concluded with two great ensemble numbers: the complex "Tonight Quintet" from "West Side Story" with its multiple vocal lines and "A Real Slow Drag," the toe-tapping finale from Scott Joplin's "Treemonisha." The latter featured the entire ensemble led by Ms. Burton as Treemonisha and mezzo Tesia Kwarteng as Lucy, along with the graceful dancers from OTSL's "Fire Shut Up In My Bones."

It was a delight hearing the orchestra on the stage rather than down in the pit. The acoustics in the theatre are fairly dry, making it easier to hear individual instrumental voices in a way that's not really possible in Powell Hall. Although the band occasionally overwhelmed the singers, the balance was pretty good overall.

"Center Stage" was a one-night-only event and while I understand the necessity of that from a scheduling stand point, given its high quality, it's a pity there aren't more performances. You can, in any case, see many of these performers in the regular season shows, which continue through June 30th.

Review: Slatkin takes flight with a diverse program at the symphony

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

Leonard Slatkin
Photo by Lewel Li

No doubt about, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin got his two-week concert series off to a strong start Saturday night (April 27, 2019) with three very different and very fascinating pieces.

The concert started with Loren Loiacono's 2017 "Smothered by Sky." The composer describes this six-minute work as a "mini-concerto for orchestra" and, in fact, it bristles with flashy writing for most of the sections in the orchestra. She keeps the percussion section especially busy, banging away on a wide variety of devices, including rarely heard instruments like the flexatone (a popular item in cartoon soundtracks) and non-instruments like brake drums.

Quoted in the SLSO program, Ms. Loiacono says the work deals with the concept of "escape velocity" in physics but goes on to note that the piece "does not attempt to literally depict a rocket taking off or a satellite going into orbit. Instead, it embraces the metaphor behind that narrative, of barreling through atmospheric chaos in order to transcend gravity itself."

To my ears, though, there was a distinct sense, as the work began, of taking flight in the energetic percussion sounds, followed by a feeling of weightlessness in music for the high strings and woodwinds. Frantic brass outbursts increase in frequency until everything suddenly evaporates with a quick passage on the sizzle cymbal. Is that the sound of breaking earthly bonds or a flameout? It's up to the listener to decide.

It was, in any case, given a thrilling performance by the band, with especially impressive work by percussionists Will James, Alan Stewart, and Stephen Kehner with the reliable Tom Stubbs on tympani.

Olga Kern
Photo courtesy of St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

Next was an equally thrilling Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1. Originally written while Rachmaninoff was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, the concerto was later revised substantially on the eve of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and it's not hard to hear the faint echoes of that turbulence in the sweep and drama of this remarkably concise and vigorous work.

Soloist Olga Kern displayed the same virtuosity and keen musical insight that I heard when she played Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" here with Mr. Slatkin in 2010. She pounded out those power chords in the first movement cadenza impressively and perfectly captured the wistful yearning of the second movement. In an interview with me n earlier in the week, Mr. Slatkin praised Ms. Kern's "wide variety and range of skills and styles," and you could certainly hear that in her performance.

Between the two of them, they generated positively volcanic energy in the opening pages and reveled in Rachmaninoff's unabashed Romanticism all the way to the end. Mr. Slatkin appears to have a solid sense of how to indulge Rachmaninoff without ever sounding indulgent. An enthusiastic standing ovation resulted in an electrifying encore from Ms. Kern: Prokofiev's motoric Etude Op. 2 No. 4, written when the composer was a brash young lad of 18.

The evening concluded with a stunning performance of Bernstein's highly theatrical Symphony No. 3 ("Kaddish"). Originally completed in 1963 just after the death of JFK and then revised in 1977, it's a work of wide-ranging theatricality and philosophical depth scored for massive forces (large orchestra, chorus, children's chorus, mezzo-soprano soloist, and speaker) that pushes everyone to their limits.

The work has not met with universal approval over the years. "Some of the responses to the new work were venomous," writes Tim Munro in his program notes. "The American press reactions to the original version," writes Jack Gottlieb in liner notes for Bernstein's 1978 recording of the revised edition, "read like notices of a controversial Broadway play: 'mustn't be missed!' and 'a melodramatic tearjerker!'"

Narrator Charlotte Blake Alston
Photo by Deborah Boardman

Some of the venom, no doubt, came from the narrator's confrontations with God, which condemn The Supreme Being for indifference to suffering and evil: "Tin God! Your bargain is tin! It crumples in my hand!" But as David Denby writes in a 2017 New Yorker article, this quasi-adversarial relationship with God is an essential facet of Bernstein's faith. "For Jews," he notes, "questioning not just God but the Old Testament itself--arguing with its contradictory assertions and laws--is an essential activity, central to the two-thousand-year-long project of interpretation."

Love it or hate it (I come down mostly on the "love it" side) the "Kaddish" Symphony can't fail to make a strong impression, especially in a performance as compelling as this one. A long-time champion of Bernstein's work, Mr. Slatkin pulled together the many disparate and complex elements of Bernstein's score into a powerful and consistently gripping whole.

That's not an easy task, given the sheer magnitude of the piece. The 90-piece orchestra and full chorus completely filled the stage, forcing the children's chorus and director Barbara Berner to perform on the orchestra floor in front of the stage. This could easily have been a recipe for chaos, but it all came together beautifully.

Narrator Charlotte Blake Alston delivered her lines with a gravitas that somewhat gave even the more melodramatic excesses of Bernstein's prose a sober dignity. Mezzo Sasha Cooke both sang and acted her part to perfection, most notably in the touching "Kaddish 2" portion of the second movement, which is a sort of lullaby for God.

Mezzo Sasha Cooke

I have praised Amy Kaiser and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus for their fine work in the past and they rose to the occasion once again in this challenging and complex score. The singers are required to hum, clap, and sing tricky counterpoint. At one point Bernstein breaks the chorus up into (at least) a half dozen small groups, each led by a different member of the chorus and each singing wildly divergent versions of '"amen." Only a chorus as polished as this one could make it all sound so coherent.

The first and only previous performance of this work by the SLSO was back in 1965, with Eleazar de Carvalho on the podium and Bernstein's wife, the actress Felicia Montealegre, as the narrator. That made it effectively a new piece for all concerned, which makes the high quality of the performance that much more impressive.

Leonard Slatkin concludes his two-week stint with the SLSO Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 3 pm, May 3 and 4, with a program of music by Tchaikovsky and Samuel Barber, along with the world premiere of "The Paper-Lined Shack" by Jeff Beal. Performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Review: A spectacular Holst "Planets" brings the St. Louis Symphony season to a close

Christine Brewer
Photo: Christian Steiner

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The St. Louis Symphony is bringing its regular season to a spectacular close this weekend (May 6-8, 2016) with Maestro David Robertson leading a simply excellent performance of Holst's The Planets, preceded by an equally impressive Vaughan Williams Flos campi (featuring Associate Principal Viola Kathleen Mattis) and a powerfully neurasthenic Berg Altenberg Lieder with soprano Christine Brewer.

Holst was a relatively obscure composer teaching at the St. Paul's School for Girls in Hammersmith when his suite The Planets, composed between 1914 and 1916, had its first public performance under Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic in 1918.  The piece was an immediate success—which was not, as it turned out, a welcome development for the rather shy and retiring composer.  Indeed, like many composers who became known for a single piece, Holst eventually came to actively dislike his Greatest Hit, feeling that it overshadowed his other work.

He had a point.  Holst's many choral arrangements, as well as his music for wind band, chamber orchestra, and symphony orchestra, are well worth hearing (his Fugal Overture and Japanese Suite are favorites of mine) so it's a shame that The Planets is pretty much the only thing that ever makes it on to concert programs.  But it's so engaging that it's easy to understand the appeal.

Holst was a mystic and astrologer who cast horoscopes for himself and his friends, so his planets aren’t so much astronomical bodies as they are aspects of the human psyche supposedly influenced by those bodies. Each one of the seven movements is a mini tone poem capturing, for example, mindless aggression ("Mars, the Bringer of War"), good-humored warmth (“Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity”), comic pomposity (“Uranus, the Magician”), or even the rage against the dying of the light and ultimate serenity that come with aging (“Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age”).

Those portraits are brilliant exercises in orchestration. Holst calls for a massive ensemble, including harps, celesta, organ, and rarely heard instruments like the bass oboe (its mournful sound used most tellingly in “Saturn”, beautifully played by Phil Ross).  When the full forces of the SLSO were deployed in playing that score—as in the relentless 5/4 death march of "Mars", with its angry fanfares that go nowhere—the sound was as overwhelming as it was precise. 

But it was in the individual solos that you could hear the real strength of this band.  That included Tim Myers on tenor tuba in "Mars", harpists Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout and keyboard player Peter Henderson on celesta in "Mercury", and Roger Kaza and the other horns in "Venus, the Bringer of Peace"—which also featured Concertmaster David Halen, Principal Cello Danny Lee, and Mark Sparks's flute section.  Karin Bliznik's trumpets were wonderfully clear in "Jupiter" and Andrew Cuneo's bassoons had great comic bite in "Uranus", a movement which seems to owe a little something to Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice.  There were many others as well, but you get the idea—we have a great bunch of musicians here.

David Robertson
Photo: Scott Ferguson, St. Louis Symphony

Mr. Robertson conducted a beautifully shaped performance the brought out all the nuances of the score while still respecting the big, climactic moments.  His "Mars" was hair raising, his "Venus" was sheer serenity, and the relentless tread of the passing years in "Saturn" was heartbreaking. 

Most remarkable of all, though, was his treatment of the final movement, “Neptune, the Mystic.” The score calls for a wordless women’s chorus "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed." The final bar of the music, for voices alone, is "to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance."  Mr. Robertson's approach was to put the women of the SLSO chorus in the halls outside of the dress circle so that, at least from our seats in the orchestra parquet, their voices seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.  The final fade-out was so subtly done that it was almost impossible to be sure that the piece had really ended; surely those two chords were still being sung somewhere?  Leonard Slatkin and Courtney Lewis did something similar when they conducted The Planets here in 2013, to equally magical effect.

The concerts opened with a far less familiar work by Holst's friend and fellow composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Written in 1925, Flos campi (Flower of the field) is a remarkably beautiful piece written for the unusual combination of viola and mixed chorus along with the orchestra.  Cast in six movements and played without pause, it's a series of reflections on texts from one of the most openly sensual bits of the Bible, the Song of Solomon.  The texts for each movement are printed in the score and, for these performances, were projected on a screen above the orchestra.

By turns poetic, sensuous, pastoral, and even cinematic, it's quirky stuff.  The writing is often very contrapuntal but at the same time completely transparent, so the effect is one of lyrical beauty—all of which came through clearly in this performance.  Kathleen Mattis delivered the solo viola part with real passion, including the arrhythmic, bitonal opening duet with Jelena Dirks's oboe.  Mr. Robertson conducted with great sensitivity and the chorus sang their often complex part to perfection.  You couldn't have asked for a more blissful opening number.

That made for a very effective contrast with the music that followed.  Alban Berg's Fünf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskarten-Texten von Peter Altenberg (Five Orchestral Songs to Picture-Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg), Op. 4 (a.k.a the Altenberg Lieder) were written around the same time as The Planets, but are as far away from Holst's picturesque mysticism as it's possible to get.  The five short songs (one is only a page long) use as their texts elliptical and eccentric poems of Peter Altenberg (real name: Richard Engländer), who sent them to friends on picture postcards—hence the title of this work.

Berg set these elusively bleak poems to intense and unsettling music scored for a large orchestra—around 100 players—that is generally deployed in small groups, so the sound overall is one of chamber music-like delicacy.  That means that individual performers and sections are often very exposed and that there's no room for anything less than very polished and sensitive playing—which is exactly what we got on Friday night.  For her part, soprano soloist Christine Brewer sang and acted Berg's songs with real conviction, combining her customary technical prowess with a real commitment to the text.

A final note: on Friday night, Mr. Robertson took a few moments at the top of the second half to say farewell to second violinist Deborah Bloom, who is retiring after 42 years with the orchestra.  He praised both her musicianship and her dedication to the orchestra's community partnership program with local schools—an essential aspect of the orchestra's mission, if we hope to keep the classics alive.  I thought it was a gracious gesture, and a reminder of why Mr. Robertson has such a good relationship with the musicians.

The final presentation of this concert on Sunday, May 8 concluded the regular season, but the orchestra will be presenting a number of "special event" concerts in May and June.  For more information, visit the orchestra web site.

Symphony Review: A jolly evening of "Music You Know" at the St. Louis Symphony

Celeste Golden Boyer
celestegoldenboyer.com

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Since the inception of the "Music You Know" programming in November of 2014, I have become a great admirer of the St. Louis Symphony's concert series devoted mostly to relatively short works -- most of which are likely to be familiar to SLSO regulars -- paired with an equally accessible new piece.

Yesterday (Friday, April 19, 2016) was the last concert in the 2015/2016 series sponsored by the Whitaker Foundation, and like those that have gone before, it was a jolly business all the way around, with Maestro David Robertson conducting and chatting about the music in between selections.

The fun began with a pretty much perfect run through the lively and tune-filled overture to Leonard Bernstein's 1956 operetta Candide. A standard encore for the orchestra on its tours, the piece is an ideal distillation of Bernstein's skills as a melodist and orchestrator, as well as a display of the sunny optimism once characteristic of America.

Up next was an equally accomplished performance of the "Dance of the Hours" from Amilcare Ponchielli's 1876 opera La Gioconda. It was distinguished by, among other things, some lovely work by harpists Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout in the opening measures, along with pristine playing throughout the piece. It has become hard to take this music seriously after the comic demolition jobs it received from Walt Disney in Fantasia in 1940 and Allan Sherman in his 1963 LP My Son, The Nut, but a performance this good makes it easier to banish thoughts of dancing ostriches and Camp Granada.

The first half concluded with the Chaconne in G minor for Violin and Orchestra, a work attributed to Baroque composer Tomaso Vitali, despite the fact that it contains some very un-baroque key changes. Whatever its origins, Second Associate Concertmaster Celeste Golden Boyer did a splendid job with the solo part, delivering all the dark passion inherent in the music.

The second half started with another winner, the prelude to Engelbert Humperdinck's 1893 opera Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck (the original German composer, not the 1960s singer who appropriated his name) was a protégé of Richard Wagner, and there's more than a hint of Die Meistersinger in the piece, especially in the big contrapuntal section towards the end. It's big, complex music and the SLSO musicians more than did it justice. A shout-out is due to Roger Kaza's horns for the powerful, burnished sound of their many exposed passages here.

David Robertson
stlsymphony.org

More images from Fantasia are inevitably summoned up by the next selection, Paul Dukas's popular 1897 tone poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice, partly because -- as Mr. Robertson reminded us -- the music so vividly depicts the story that Disney's animators put on the screen. It's a piece filled with brilliant orchestral details, from the delicate opening measures for flutes, clarinet, harps, and strings, to the comically animated broom depicted by the bassoons, to the massive orchestral climaxes as the hapless apprentice tries to bring that broom under control. This was another bravura performance by the orchestra, with tips of the hat due to (among others) Andrew Cuneo's bassoons and the flutes under Associate Principal Andrea Kaplan.

The new work was next: Cyrillic Dreams by cellist and composer Stefan Freund, an associate professor at the University of Missouri and co-founder of the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. Inspired by a visit to Moscow and St. Petersburg, the work is essentially a short concerto grosso in which a solo string quartet consisting of the leaders of the first violins, second violins, violas, and cellos is set against the orchestral strings. The work opens with soaring, yearning opening theme on cello, which is then taken up by the viola, the violins, and eventually the full orchestra. Over the ensuing nine minutes the music rises to rapturous heights in a way that reminded me of the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams.

Stefan Freund

The solo quartet consisted of Principal Cello Daniel Lee, Assistant Principal Viola Jonathan Chu, Associate Principal Second Violin Kristin Ahlstrom (substituting for the originally scheduled Allison Harney), and (substituting for the originally scheduled David Halen) Associate Concertmaster Heidi Harris. They sang with their instruments flawlessly, as did the entire string section. If only the audience member with the nonstop cough had been polite enough to leave the auditorium instead of hacking all the way through the piece, the experience would have been ideal.

The evening came to an appropriately blazing finish with the horns and brasses in particularly fine form in Wouter Hutschenruyter's orchestral arrangement of "The Ride of the Valkyries" from Wagner's Die Walküre.

"Just look at this orchestra's recent birth rate," quipped Mr. Robertson at one point during the evening: "They are a happy group of active people." Indeed they are, and their joy in making music inevitably spills over into the audience.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts orchestra with tympani soloist Shannon Wood on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., April 30 and May 1. The program consists of William Kraft's Timpani Concerto No. 2, "The Grand Encounter," and Schubert's Symphony No. 9. Performances take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand.

Review: Leonard Slatkin brings home the passion of Berlioz's "Romeo et Juliette" Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, 2016

Leonard Slatkin
Photo: Alexander Ivanov / leonardslatkin.com

Even if I hadn't seen the video blog in which St. Louis Symphony Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin named Berlioz's 1838 Roméo et Juliette, Symphonie dramatique (op. 17) as one of his favorite works to conduct, I would have guessed as much from the fierce joy and commitment of the interpretation he gave this monumental work with the SLSO Orchestra and Chorus Friday night (March 11, 2016). If you'll pardon the expression, he and his forces completely killed it.

If you've never seen this remarkable mashup of symphony, oratorio, and opera performed live—and there's a good chance you haven't, given what a big undertaking it is—I hope you had a chance to experience this. With over 100 musicians on the stage and over 80 (by my count) in the chorus, this is a work which, while massive in scope, has moments of real delicacy and intimacy. Maestro Slatkin's interpretation was beautifully shaped and dramatically compelling, and the musicians played and sang with real perfection.

Tenor Sean Panikkar's description of Queen Mab in the second movement's "Grande fête chez Capulet" (essentially, "big party the Capulet's place") was delightfully droll. Mezzo Kelley O'Connor expertly captured the ecstasy of young love in the first movement's "Strophes," assisted by Allegra Lilly's flowing harp. And bass Renaud Delaigue was the passionate voice of morality in the imposing choral finale. Both the full chorus and the smaller chamber chorus that is featured in the first two movements sang with the power and clarity I have come to expect from them.

Maestro Slatkin's interpretation got off to a dramatic start, adopting a strikingly brisk tempo for the opening "Combats" section, which portrays the war between the Montagues and the Capulets with rapid-fire thrusts and parries from the strings and brasses. It proved to be emblematic of an overall approach that brought out all the drama in Berlioz's music.

The orchestra responded with some of the finest playing of the season, from the unearthly violin harmonics in the famous "Queen Mab" scherzo that makes up the fourth movement to the powerful brass declarations that announce the intervention of the Prince in the first. There were many impressive solo passages as well, such as Jelena Dirk's haunting oboe melody in the "Tristesse" ("sadness") section of the second movement and Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews's dramatic depiction of Juliet's awakening in the sixth movement.

The SLSO's Roméo et Juliette is history now, but the season continues this Friday through Sunday (March 18-20) as Jun Märkl conducts a program the features Schumann's Symphony No. 2 ("Rhenish") and Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Concertmaster David Halen as soloist. There's also a Pulitzer Series concert Wednesday at the Pulitzer Arts Center. For information these and other upcoming SLSO events, check out the web site.

Concert Review: Dreamy Shakespearean music with Hans Graf and the St. Louis Symphony February 27 and 28, 2016

Hans Graf

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We call it a soundtrack now, but back before movies and recorded sound the music that accompanied a dramatic presentation was performed by live musicians and was known as "incidental music." This weekend, as part of its ongoing Shakespeare Festival, the St. Louis Symphony and guest conductor Hans Graf gave us sterling performances of a couple of excellent examples from the mid-nineteenth century.

[Find out more about the music with my Symphony Preview.]

The concerts opened with a brief (six-movement) suite from the score Gabriel Fauré wrote in 1889 for an Odéon Theatre production of "Shylock," a verse adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" by the playwright and poet Edmond Haraucourt. The play, which (its title notwithstanding) emphasized the romantic subplot over Shylock's tragedy, quickly dropped from sight. Fauré's music has fared little better and, in fact, this weekend marked its first appearance on the Powell Hall stage.

DeWayne Trainer

It's engaging music, though, painted with the sonic equivalent of pastels and shot through with some lovely instrumental details. Concertmaster David Halen, for example, had elegant solos in the second movement "Entr'acte" and the fifth movement "Nocturne," which accompanies a moonlit love scene in Portia's garden. The winds and brasses also acquitted themselves well in the "Entr'acte" with the noble music that accompanies the entrance of Portia's suitors, and harpists Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout helped set the dreamy atmosphere in the opening "Chanson".

That "Chanson" was the first of two languorous love songs Fauré wrote for the play, and tenor DeWayne Trainer delivered them with great feeling, along with a real sense of what program annotator Paul Schiavo calls Fauré's "quiet rapture." Mr. Graf conducted with a sure hand, bringing out all the delicate shades of this shimmering score.

Maureen Thomas

The main event this weekend, though, was the complete incidental music that Mendelssohn wrote for an 1843 production of Shakespeare's comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The "Overture," "Scherzo," "Nocturne," and (especially) the "Wedding March" are well known, of course, but the rest of the hour or so of music Mendelssohn wrote is rarely heard, probably because it's so closely integrated with the text. Out of that context, some of the brief music cues can sound like disconnected snippets.

Maestro Graf's solution to that problem was to collaborate with playwright John Murrell and Canadian actress Maureen Thomas to create a kind of mini-version of the play in which Ms. Thomas plays all ten of the principal roles, skillfully switching between characters with small but clearly delineated changes in voice, body language, and even accent. Ms. Thomas appeared with the symphony this weekend, turning in a bravura performance that made for a very entertaining evening. The use of special blue lighting and a darkened stage for the "fairy land" sequences were also very effective.

Debby Lennon

Mendelssohn included music for two of the songs in Shakespeare's text: "You spotted snakes," which the fairies sing as a lullaby for their queen Titania in Act II, and "Through the house give gathering light," based on short speeches by Titania and Oberon in the final act. They're irresistibly melodic and were impeccably sung by the women of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus and soloists Laurel Dantas and Debby Lennon. Although both women are sopranos, Ms. Lennon's voice has a rich lower register, which made for a nice contrast with Ms. Dantas's lighter sound. The singers all skipped on and off the stage for their scenes just like the fairies they portrayed, producing some nice chuckles from the audience.

Mr. Graf found lots of interesting moments and elegantly shaped phrases in this music, especially in the coda of the "Overture," and his "Scherzo" was noticeably fleet-footed. He took it at a tempo that might have been risky with a less capable orchestra, but there were no such concerns here. This was, overall, a very coherent and dramatically effective reading.

Laurel Dantas

Mendelssohn's transparent orchestration gives individual members of the band many opportunities to take the spotlight. A couple that stood out for me were provided by Roger Kaza's horns in the "Nocturne" and the duo of Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews and Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo in the droll "Funeral March" that accompanies Bottom's absurdly overacted play-within-a-play death scene.

The St. Louis Symphony's Shakespeare-themed concerts continue next weekend as Gilbert Varga conducts the orchestra in selections from Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" and Tchaikovsky's rarely heard "Hamlet" overture. The program includes Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2 with Denis Kozhukhin as the soloist. Performances are Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., March 5 and 6; visit the SLSO web site for details.

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 Review: Emanuel Ax brings down the house at Powell Hall

Emanuel Ax

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson
What: Music of Elgar, Detlev Glanert, and Brahms
Where: Powell Hall, St. Louis
When: April 25 and 26, 2015

It has been over two and one-half years since renowned pianist Emanuel Ax last appeared on the Powell Hall stage. Based on the stunning performance he and David Robertson gave us of the Brahms Second Concerto this past Sunday, that's at least two years too long. Combined with an impeccable version of Elgar's "Introduction and Allegro" and a new work by Detlev Glanert, it made for a thoroughly satisfying afternoon at the symphony.

Brahms' "Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major," Op. 83, is one of the most formidable of the Romantic piano concerti, although not for the usual reasons. Yes, it's technically challenging, but audibly less so than some of the late 19th-century finger-busters by (say) Rubinstein, Scharwenka, or Medtner.

With the Brahms, though, it’s partly a matter of sheer endurance. With four movements (as opposed to the usual three) and a running time of around fifty minutes, the piece was, at the time of its 1881 premiere, the longest piano concerto ever written. The real challenge, though, is artistic. The pianist who takes on the Second has to have not only technique and stamina but also a grasp of symphonic form—which is not guaranteed, even among some of the world’s most prominent players.

Mr. Ax, however, clearly has all three. The opening of the Allegro non troppo first movement, with Thomas Jöstlein's lovely horn solo and Mr. Ax's graceful reply, was a thing of beauty. But when, only a few pages later, the piano part began to explode in a flurry of runs and octaves, Mr. Ax tore them off with ease.

The Allegro appassionato second movement crackled with energy. The lyrical third movement Andante soared on the wings of the soulful duet between Mr. Ax and the heartfelt cello of Danny Lee. And the following Allegretto grazioso finale, which Mr. Robertson and Mr. Ax elected to play attacca (without pause), demonstrated that Mr. Ax can make the piano dance as well as sing and thunder.

Throughout the performance, Mr. Ax and Mr. Robertson did a marvelous job of clarifying and maintaining the momentum of Brahms' massive and occasionally murky musical architecture. The Brahms Second is a symphonic-weight concerto and it got an exceptionally well thought-out reading when we heard it Sunday afternoon.

Emily Ho
stlsymphony.org

The orchestra, as it so often does, played beautifully. I have already commented on the fine work by Mr. Jöstlein and his colleagues in the horn section, but there were also captivating moments from Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks. And, of course, there was Mr. Lee's cello. Mr. Ax shook his hand at least three times during the many curtain calls—a reminder of the real chemistry between them during the second movement.

Sunday's concert opened with another display of solid technique and unimpeachable taste as four members of the SLSO string section—violinists Emily Ho and Nicolae Bica, violist Morris Jacob, and cellist Anne Fagerburg—joined the symphony strings for Elgar's "Introduction and Allegro," op. 47. Written on commission in 1905 to show off the strings of the newly established London Symphony Orchestra, the work follows the form of the Baroque concerto grosso, even including a fugue in the concluding allegro. But it does so with all the profound romantic feeling that can be found in so much of Elgar's music.

Nicolae Brica
stlsymphony.org

Mr. Robertson's approach to this work was wonderfully lush, full-blooded, and intense. It was just lavish enough to be moving without feeling mannered. Every member on the quartet played with warmth and finesse, and the SLSO strings had a rich, deep sound that suited this music well. "Bravi" to all.

The first half of the concert concluded with the St. Louis premiere of "Frenesia" ("Frenzy") by contemporary German composer Detlev Glanert. Commissioned in 2014 to celebrate the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss, the piece was inspired by Strauss’ semi-autobiographical tone poem "Ein Heldenleben."

Morris Jacob
stlsymphony.org

In a video interview with Mr. Robertson played on the Powell Hall movie screen before the performance, Mr. Glanert provided some "Cliff's Notes" for his music, including an interesting explanation of how the work's energetically noisy opening pays homage to the initial measures of "Heldenleben." It was useful information, but didn't change the sense I already had from listening to the work's world premiere performance by Xian Zhang and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (now available on YouTube) that this is mostly a flashy package without much inside.

Still, it's rather fun, even if it often sounds like the score for an "Alien" sequel. Like the tone poem that inspired it, "Frenesia" is marked by strong contrasts in which loud, aggressive orchestral outbursts abruptly give way to passages of surprising delicacy. And like Strauss, Glanert pushes the instruments to their limit and uses a variety of unusual performance techniques. The strings, in particular, got quite a workout, with glissandi, harmonics, and various forms of col legno bowing.

Anne Fagerburg
stlsymphony.org

That makes it a challenge for the musicians, I would think, but the SLSO musicians were more than up to it Sunday afternoon with impressively powerful and controlled playing. That included fine work by Cally Banham on English horn, some wonderfully eerie passages from Danny Lee, and a spectacular flute solo about half-way through from Andrea Kaplan. I'm not sure I ever need to hear this music again, but it was fairly enjoyable while it lasted.

Lorrraine Glass-Harris
stlsymphony.org

The performance of "Frenesia" was preceded by an affectionate farewell from Mr. Robertson for second violinist Lorraine Glass-Harris, who is retiring at the end of this season after over four decades with the SLSO. Ms. Glass-Harris has been featured as soloist with the SLSO, on KFUO radio in "From the Garden-Live!," in Chamber Music St. Louis, and with the Compton Heights Concert Band. She's also a Baroque music specialist, with a 1779 Joseph Gagliano violin and 1750 English bow, so I expect we'll continue to hear from her on the local chamber music scene.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts the orchestra with harpist Allegra Lilly and tuba player Michael Sanders on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., May 1-3. On the program are orchestral selections from "Carmen," Debussy's "Danses sacrée et profane (Sacred and Profane Dances)" for harp and orchestra, Vaughan Williams' 1954 "Tuba Concerto," and the ever-popular "Bolero." The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Review: A pair of threes is a winning hand for the SLSO, Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18

Simon Trpčeski
Photo: imgartists.com

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko
What: Music of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: April 17 and 18, 2015

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

A pair of threes may not be a winning hand at the casino, but it paid off handsomely at Powell Hall Friday night with virtuoso performances by the St. Louis Symphony and guest conductor Vasily Petrenko of Scriabin's "Symphony No. 3", Op. 43 (1902-04) and, with soloist Simon Trpčeski, Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (1909) ."

The Rachmaninoff Third—"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 prodigious pianist Rachmaninoff was.  For many years after its premiere, its only real advocate was the composer himself. 

These days it's a part of the standard repertoire.  Even so, it's a hell of a workout.  By the time Mr. Trpčeski banged out those four final chords that Rachmaninoff often used as his musical signature—one long note and three short, corresponding to “RACH-man-in-off”—he looked like he had run a marathon.

Which, in a way, he had, since his performance had both the virtuoso flash and musical sensitivity that the concerto demands.  He threw himself into this work, displaying a breathtaking energy in the first movement's extended cadenza and getting every ounce of hallucinatory intoxication out of the Intermezzo second movement—one of the best performances I've heard of it, in fact.  This was at least as good as the excellent Rach 3 we got from Stephen Hough and Peter Oundjian three years ago.  It was a nearly ideal combination of passion and poetry—which is probably what you should expect from a pianist who sings Yves Montand's "Les feuilles mortes" ("Autumn Leaves" to us Anglophones) in an interview.

Mr. Trpčeski recorded the concerto for the Avie label with Mr. Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic back in 2010 (copies of it are for sale in the lobby), so both performers obviously know the work well and are comfortable playing it together.  Mr. Petrenko's interpretation was richly expressive, bringing out every bit of Rachmaninoff's dark romanticism without sacrificing a sense of momentum.  The last movement, in particular, was a bit on the brisk side, but the tempo proved to be completely comfortable for both the orchestra and Mr. Trpcheski.

The Rach 3 is the kind of thing guaranteed to get a standing ovation when it's played this well, so you won't be surprised to learn that it got one Friday night.  The audience was rewarded with, first, words of praise for the orchestra from Mr. Trpčeski, followed by a charming encore: Chopin's "Waltz in A minor, B. 150 (Op. Posth.)," written in the mid-1840s but not published until 1955.  It was a nice mental palate cleanser after the Rachmaninoff.

Vasily Petrenko
Photo: imgartists.com

"Moderation," Oscar Wilde once quipped, "is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."  He could well have been referring to the life and work of Aleksandr Scriabin (1872-1915). Although a close friend and contemporary (they were born only a year apart) of Rachmaninoff, Scriabin was a far more eccentric (not to say insane) person.  And although he died young, his compositions—especially his solo piano works—anticipated the twentieth century's near-total collapse of conventional notions of harmony (at least among "classical" composers) in ways that those of his longer-lived friend did not.

First performed in 1905, his "Symphony No. 3" (subtitled "Le Poème divin," "The Divine Poem") has an ambitious program.  The work, according to a note presumably written by Scriabin and distributed at the work's 1905 Moscow premiere,  "represents the evolution of the human spirit, which, freed from the legends and mysteries of the past that it has surmounted and overthrown, passes through pantheism and achieves a joyful and exhilarating affirmation of its liberty and its unity with the universe."

The symphony consists of a short introduction and three movements, all played without pause and running around fifty minutes.  Scriabin titled the movements "Struggles," "Delights," and "Divine Play."  The piece is a richly orchestrated, wildly excessive hymn to excess that makes great demands on the players.  The expanded brass section, in particular, has a lot to do.  And, on Friday night, they did it awfully well. 

And they weren't alone.  The orchestral playing was remarkable for its consistently high quality—impressive, given that the SLSO hasn't performed this music in nearly four decades.  Scriabin is especially fond of the first trumpet here—he seems to have regarded the instrument as his personal voice—so Karen Bliznik deserves a shout-out for her work although, as I say, everybody deserves praise.

Mr. Petrenko had his work cut out for him with this piece.  Scriabin's notions of symphonic construction can sometimes feel repetitious, and there are so many big, swooning climaxes in this music that I think it might be easy to let them become distorted.  But Mr. Petrenko kept Scriabin's big, hyperkinetic musical machine running in top condition.  He allowed the piece to breathe when appropriate (in those delicate passages for the first violins and flutes in the second movement, for example) while still giving full vent to those big, heaven-storming moments.

It was all tremendously exciting, in short, and the audience responded enthusiastically with another standing ovation.  Yes, St. Louis audiences do tend to stand far too easily (and not just at Powell Hall, either), but in this case it was entirely justified.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with pianist Emanuel Ax on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., April 25 and 26.  Ax will be the soloist in Brahms' "Piano Concerto No. 2".  The concerts will include music by Elgar and Glanert. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Brian Owens' Sam Cooke tribute is two shows in one

Brian Owens

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Who: Brian Owens
What: Sam Cooke at the Copa
Where: The Gaslight Cabaret Festival at The Gaslight Theatre, St. Louis, MO
When: March 5, 2015

Brian Owens' "Sam Cooke at the Copa," which opened the spring edition of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, was really two shows in one.

The first and longer of the two was a faithful re-creation of the titular 1964 LP. The second show—the one with the real emotional punch—came towards the end, when Mr. Owens interrupted the LP and took a few minutes to tell us what Cooke's music meant to him and why, complete with short a cappella versions of Cooke's hits "Cupid," "Wonderful World," and "Chain Gang."

He then went back for the last three numbers from Cooke's original set, after which he brought his father up on stage for a powerful duet rendition of "A Change is Gonna Come," originally recorded by Cooke in January of 1964 but not released until after his murder in December of that year. It would go on to become an anthem for the Civil Rights movement.

The first show was a solid nightclub act, polished and entertaining. The second—especially that powerful closer—was real cabaret, with a compelling personal story and a strong emotional core. Both went over very well with the sold-out house.

Recorded in July 8, 1964, during a two-week engagement at the Copacabana nightclub in New York, "Sam Cooke at the Copa" is typical of the sort of thing black artists did back then when they played venues where the audience was mostly white. The set list mixed Great American Songbook standards with Cooke's hits and a couple of songs from what was then a hot trend: protest folk music. Cooke's own band was augmented with Joe Mele's 16-piece Copacabana Band, producing a sound somewhere between classic R&B and "big band" styles. Cooke's unique voice and personality tied it all together.

Mr. Owens used a smaller band (nine pieces) but otherwise stuck closely to the material on the LP, right down to the between-song patter. He even sounded a bit like the later Mr. Cooke, especially in his head voice and falsetto registers. What he didn't do, though, was settle for a straight celebrity impersonation. He brought his own personality to it all, so the result was more an homage than anything else.

The real Brian Owens came across most clearly, though, in that "second show" monologue and especially in "A Change is Gonna Come." Joining with his father in close harmony, Mr. Owens poured his heart into that performance in a way that demolished the "third wall" the Cooke tribute show had (unavoidably) created. Towards the end he asked the audience to sing the refrain while, one at a time, the band members stopped playing and left the stage. Finally, there was only Mr. Owens, his father, and all of us singing "I know a change is gonna come."

That, to me, was real magic.

The Gaslight Cabaret Festival runs through April 11 at the Gaslight Theater in the Central West End. For more information: gaslightcabaretfestival.com.