Conducting for bucks, or, how much is that music director in the window?

David Robertson conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

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We've all seen the news stories about how inflated salaries have become at the highest levels of the American corporatocracy. Whether the performances of the companies they manage is good, bad, or indifferent, compensation for those at the top continues to rise. Honeywell made headlines earlier this year when it was revealed that its CEO made 333 times what the average worker did, for example, and other companies commonly pay the big shots 100 times what their employees make.

As revealed in a recent article by New York Times classical music editor Zachary Woolfe there's a similar (if much less outrageous) trend in salaries of the music directors of America's major orchestras. At a time when many orchestras are experiencing financial difficulties, he notes, "the amount orchestras pay their conductors is increasing. Another marker has been passed as the average compensation for the music directors of 64 American ensembles analyzed in an annual report by the arts consultant Drew McManus topped $600,000 for the first time."

A glance at Mr. McManus's report, which is based on 2015/16 data, indicates that the list of orchestras with the highest-paid music directors includes our own St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which paid David Robertson $1.04 million. That made him one of only nine conductors who made over $1 million.

Mr. Woofle notes that "national debates about chief executive compensation have included sobering discussions about how much that pay has skyrocketed compared with an average worker's salary. Perhaps orchestras should consider anchoring their music directors' packages to a sane multiple of their players' base pay: "Ten times what the musicians make," [former Seattle Symphony Orchestra music director Gerard] Schwarz said. "That to me sounds reasonable."'

Stéphane Denève

So how does Mr. Robertson's salary measure up by that standard? Fairly well, as it turns out. A recent article at Slippedisc.com points out that SLSO musicians are making just under $100k annually right now and will make over that in 2021/22. Unless Mr. Robertson's compensation increased significantly after 2016, that would make it more or less in line with Mr. Schwarz's suggestion. I don't know whether Stéphane Denève's paycheck will be significantly different when he takes over officially in 2019, of course.

Fortunately, the SLSO can afford to pay well. Unlike many American orchestras, it's on a fairly sound financial footing these days . It ended the 2017 Fiscal Year with a small surplus and signed a new five-year contract with the American Federation of Musicians. Ticket revenues continue to grow and the orchestra's Live at Powell Hall events, featuring movies and guest appearances by performers from the world of popular music, continue to be very popular.

Review: Farewell Symphony

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

David Robertson

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In her program notes for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts this past weekend (May 4 - 6, 2018), René Spencer Saller quotes composer and jazz trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis as describing the final, quiet moments of his "Swing Symphony" this way: "It's a wistful feeling; it's not sad, and it's not happy. It's a feeling of contentment, a quiet celebration. It's like the last breath you take: 'We did this. We had a good time.'"

He could easily have been describing the mood among many at Powell Hall on Sunday afternoon, when the quirky, fade-out trumpet solo that brought Mr. Marsalis's piece to an end also brought to an end David Robertson's tenure as Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. I have no doubt that Mr. Robertson will return as a guest conductor at some point (as Leonard Slatkin continues to do), but these were the last notes of the last concert he will ever conduct as the orchestra's leader. The champagne toast to Mr. Robertson in the lobby at intermission had a celebratory air, but overall it was hard for me to ignore the fact that this marked the end of an era.

That era was marked by, among other things, a cheerful and well-considered advocacy for newer works in general and American music in particular. It seems only appropriate, then, that the program consisted entirely of American music composed since World War II, beginning with a nicely shaded performance of the "Three Dance Episodes" from Leonard Bernstein's wartime musical "On the Town." The final dance, "Times Square: 1944" had an especially nice swing and a cheerfully raucous trumpet solo by Associate Principal Thomas Drake.

Up next was another Bernstein composition, the "Prelude, Fugues, and Riffs" for clarinet and jazz band. It was written in 1949 for the Woody Herman combo, but the band broke up before the piece could be performed. The work didn't see the light of day in its final form until October 16, 1955, as part of an episode for the cultural television show Omnibus, to which Bernstein was a frequent contributor. It's a piece that crackles with energy, from the driving brass and percussion opening to the concluding "Riffs" section with its wild, keening clarinet solo.

Scott Andrews

SLSO Principal Clarinet had the solo spot this weekend, accompanied by guest instrumental ensemble the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis on lead trumpet and the SLSO's Gerard Pagano on bass trombone. If there were any doubts as to whether a classically trained musician could but lose and "wail," Mr. Andrews's ecstatic performance surely put them to rest.

The concerts concluded with Mr. Marsalis's "Swing Symphony" (officially his Symphony No. 3), first performed by Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in 2010. With seven movements and a running time of over an hour, it's an big work that encompasses, as Ms. Saller points out in her notes, "a whirlwind tour of jazz history, moving from ragtime to big band, bebop, hard bop, Afro-Cuban mambo, and the modal experiments of Miles Davis and John Coltrane." I'd add that there is also, in the penultimate "Think Space: Theory" movement, a nod to the jazz/classical fusion that Gunther Schuller called "third stream jazz" in the late 1950s in the form of a complex jazz fugue.

That's an ambitious undertaking made even more so by the fact that it's cast as a kind of modern version of the Baroque concerto grosso, with the larger ensemble (the full orchestra) set against the smaller solo group (the Lincoln Center jazz band). Unfortunately, the size of the Powell Hall stage made it impossible to clearly separate the two groups. The jazz band was surrounded on all three sides by the orchestra, which made it hard to clearly hear the differences between the two, at least from our seats in the Dress Circle.

Wynton Marsalis

Still, there is much that's powerful and ingenious in this work. The first movement, "St. Louis to New Orleans," moves seamlessly from the sounds of ragtime to low-down blues, while the "All-American Pep" movement that follows is a wonderfully hallucinatory tribute to 1920s jazz. "Midwestern Moods" is a driving tribute to the Kansas City style big band sound (described by Mr. Robertson as "eight beats to the bar and no cheating"), "Manhattan to L.A" evokes the infectious sounds of Latin jazz, and "Modern Modes and the Midnight Moan" includes a brilliantly manic trumpet solo by Mr. Marsalis, along with a final section that vividly evokes a smoky, late night club. The classical fusion sounds of "Think Space: Theory" act as a bridge to the final movement, "The Low Down Up on High," with its echoes of Afro-American sacred music and a final, oddly unresolved trumpet solo that fades out into breathy silence.

It's a vivid sonic tapestry, in short, with some especially inventive writing for the jazz band (I don't think have ever seen such a wide variety of mutes in a brass section, for one thing). The structure of the work is, perhaps, a bit too episodic for its length, but on the whole it was a great pleasure to hear it.

The "Swing Symphony" bristles with great solo moments for both the jazz band and orchestral musicians, and they got bravura performances from everyone when we heard the work on Sunday afternoon, under Mr. Robertson's deeply committed and well-paced direction. The packed house responded with multiple standing ovations for Mr. Robertson, Mr. Marsalis, and the musicians. As valedictory appearances go, it was unbeatable.

We did this. We had a good time.

This past weekend's concerts concluded the SLSO regular subscription season, but special events continue at Powell Hall throughout May and June, beginning with a showing of the classic musical film "An American in Paris" this coming Saturday and Sunday, May 12 and 13, 2018. The orchestra will perform the score live under the direction of Norman Huynh. The regular season resumes in September.

Symphony Preview: Exit music

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

David Robertson

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The old chestnut about all good things coming to an end plays out over the next four weeks at Powell Symphony Hall as David Robertson's tenure as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's Music Director--a thing widely acknowledged as very good, indeed--comes to an end at the close of the current season.

The SLSO is observing this passing of an era, not with lamentation, but rather with celebration. Specifically, it's giving local music lovers four big concerts--three with Mr. Robertson at the podium and one with Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, who has proven to be very popular locally. The concerts are packed with flash and crowd-pleasing works, as well as with high-profile soloists like pianist Simon Trpceski, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, and, for the final concert series, celebrated trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Not shabby, eh? Here is an overview of what you can expect.

Pianist Simon Trpceski

Saturday and Sunday, April 14 and 15: David Robertson conducts the orchestra in Aaron Copland's rousing "Fanfare for the Common Man," Rachmaninoff's much-loved Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Mr. Trpceski at the keyboard), and Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2 ("Romantic").

The Copland and Rachmaninoff surely need no introduction, but you might not be as familiar with the Hanson. Written on commission from noted conductor Serge Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony in 1930, it's a bold, expansive work, rich in appealing melodies. Because Hanson was then a guest conductor at the Interlochen Arts Camp, he offered the main theme of the second movement to the organization as a kind of theme song; it's still played there today at the end of every student concert.

Music from the symphony was also used (without permission) in the film "Alien." Mr. Hanson was reportedly less than thrilled with that appropriation.

Standing room tickets are now being sold for these concerts. The Saturday concert will be preceded by a pricey dinner-and-cocktails gala to honor Mr. Robertson.

Conductor Hannu Lintu

Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21: Hannu Lintu conducts the orchestra and chorus in a blockbuster of a program consisting of the original 1867 version of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," Tchaikovsky's "Nocturne in D minor" and "Variations on a Rococo Theme" (both for cello and orchestra with Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan as soloist), and Rachmaninoff's cinematically colorful oratorio "The Bells," based on poems by Edgar Allan Poe.

You undoubtedly know "Night on Bald Mountain" in Rimski-Korsakov's orchestration, which corrects what the older composer saw as Mussorgsky's "mistakes" in composition and orchestration. If you've never heard the original, though, you're in for a treat. It's loaded with raw power--as is the Rachmaninoff work.

Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28: Mr. Robertson returns to the podium to conduct Jörg Widmann's 2007 Violin Concerto with Mr. Tetzlaff as soloist and Anton Bruckner's monumental Symphony No. 4, known as the "Romantic" (although the word seems redundant when applied to Bruckner's expansive symphonic vision).

I'm not familiar with the Widman concerto, but I can heartily recommend the Bruckner. Mr. Robertson has proved to be an impressively sympathetic Brucknerian, as he demonstrated forcefully in his excellent Bruckner 7th back in 2011, and I regret not having the chance to hear him conduct more of the composer's imposing musical cathedrals. Expect greatness.

Wynton Marsalis

Friday through Sunday, May 4-6: It's the grand finale as Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra join the SLSO for Leonard Bernstein's "Three Dance Episodes from On the Town" and "Preludes, Fugues, and Riffs" for clarinet and jazz band. The latter was written in 1949 for the Woody Herman combo but never actually performed by them; SLSO Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews has the solo spot this time.

The concerts will conclude with Mr. Marsalis's "Swing Symphony," featuring Mr. Marsalis on trumpet and the Lincoln Center band along with the SLSO. When Simon Rattle conducted this back in 2012 with the London Symphony, reviews were ecstatic. "It was the start of a journey through jazz's history," wrote Ivan Hewett at The Telegraph. "The energy and invention were amazing; at one point we had a swinging fugue. One could hear the sounds of America itself, above all the hoot of trains." Sounds like a good time.

And with that, we will draw the curtain on Mr. Robertson's remarkably successful time as SLSO Music Director, a post he has held since the 2005-2006 season. The orchestra's fortunes were a bit in decline at the time, partly because of labor issues and partly because Hans Vonk, who had been Music Director since 1995, had to resign abruptly in 2002 due to an illness that would later be diagnosed as ALS, a.k.a. "Lou Gehrig's disease." Under Mr. Robertson's direction, the SLSO once again commanded international attention, toured extensively, expanded its community outreach programs, and recorded several important works, including a truly wonderful Gershwin disc with Kirill Gerstein for Myrios. His cheerful podium presence and lively pre-concert talks will be very much missed, but he leaves behind a significant legacy.

Which, ultimately, is all any of us can hope for, seems to me.

Review: The big score

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

David Robertson and the score of Elegie
Photo by Tim Munro

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

There was a sparse crowd for David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert Friday night (January 26, 2018), presumably because the program was heavily weighted towards newer music. That's a shame, because those who stayed away missed the USA premiere of the moving 2016 Elegie: Remembrance for Orchestra by Peter Ruzicka, a highly personal take on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto by Julian Rachlin, and Harmonielehre, the first big, multi-movement orchestral work by John Adams.

"Beautiful" is a word I find myself applying all too rarely to much of what has been written for the concert hall in the last half-century or so, but beautiful is exactly what Mr. Ruzicka's Elegie is. Inspired by the "Porazzi theme," an enigmatic 13-bar fragment that Richard Wagner is said to have written the night before he died, the Elegie is scored for percussion, three flutes, and a string ensemble in which each player has a slightly different melodic line.

That sounds like a gimmick and rather looks like one, since the resulting score is around 3 feet tall and requires an extra-large podium, but the sound is breathtaking. The music begins so softly that it's almost inaudible and then, for the next nine minutes, alternates between sharply dissonant passages and bits of Wagner's original melody in a more conventional harmonic form. The music rises to a climax and then slowly subsides to a quiet, resigned conclusion, like the final breath of life. It was magical, and I'd be happy to hear it again.

Julian Rachlin in Tel Aviv
Photo from Wikipedia, public domain

Which is something I also don't find myself thinking very often about recent music.

Up next was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, a piece which is so well known that performances of it can become, as Mr. Robertson wryly observed in his pre-concert talk, a kind of "musical wallpaper." It's a fair point; it has been played so many times by so many great musicians that it can be difficult for any one performer to make us listen to it with fresh ears.

And yet, that's exactly what soloist Julian Rachlin did Friday night. Decked out in a double-breasted tux, black tie, and red pocket square, Mr. Rachlin cut a dashingly retro Fritz Kreisler-esque figure on the stage, and played with an idiosyncratic style that created the illusion of improvising the music on the spot rather than playing a work written over 160 years ago. This was especially apparent in the first-movement cadenza, with its wide dynamic range and marked dramatic contrasts.

Mr. Robertson had said earlier that what he liked most about Mr. Rachlin was that the violinist seemed to actually speak via his instrument. And, in fact, what we got from Mr. Rachlin Friday night was as much a conversation with Mr. Robertson and the orchestra as it was a performance. Closely attuned to Mr. Robertson and the band, Mr. Rachlin delivered a subtly shaded reading that made this venerable warhorse sound almost new, and did it with impeccable virtuosity.

John Adams
Photo by Vern Evans

I loved it, and so did the rest of the audience, who applauded long and enthusiastically enough to warrant an encore: Eugene Ysaÿe's dramatic Sonata No. 3 for solo violin. At nearly seven minutes, it was a lengthy choice for an encore, as well as a technically challenging one, and was very well received.

The second half of the concert was devoted to John Adams's Harmonielehre. The title refers to the music theory book of the same name by Arnold Schoenberg, the inventor of serialism and the teacher of Mr. Adams's teacher Leon Kirchner. Since Mr. Adams explicitly rejected serialism, the title can be seen as a kind of ironic declaration of independence from the 12-tone row. The work was also an attempt to find some kind of rapprochement between the simplicity of minimalism and the harmonic richness that Wagner (also Mr. Ruzicka's source of inspiration) created in his later works, mostly notably Tristan und Isolde, with its famed opening chord.

This is big, dramatic music that has its origins not in the arid mathematical world of serialism but in the more romantic world of dreams and Jungian psychology. The dramatic opening and closing movements, as a result, are musical realizations of dreams that Mr. Adams had when composing the work, while the middle movement, titled "The Anfortas Wound," is explicitly Jungian. In composing it, Mr. Adams notes that he "was deeply affected by Jung's discussion of the character of Anfortas, the king whose wounds could never be healed. As a critical archetype, Anfortas symbolized a condition of sickness of the soul that curses it with a feeling of impotence and depression."

Peter Ruzicka
Photo by Anne Kirchbach

Mr. Robertson and the SLSO have performed and recorded Harmonielehre (for the orchestra's Arch Media label) in the past, so the high quality of Friday night's performance was no surprise. I have never been a big fan of Mr. Adams's style, but even I was swept away by the power of this music. That second movement--with its meandering theme that rises, falls, and never goes anywhere--was the epitome of despair. And the final moments of the last movement, with Principal Horn Thomas Jöstlein and the rest of his section playing pavillons en l'air (bells up, to get a more potent sound), were just plain thrilling.

Up next: members of St. Louis Symphony perform next at the Pulitzer Foundation, with concerts of chamber works by George Crumb, Toro Takemitsu, and Kaija Saariaho on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 30 and 31. The full orchestra plays at Powell Hall Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, February 2 and 3, with an all-French program under the baton of Music Director Designate Stéphane Dèneve.

Symphony Preview: On the road again

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

The Granada Theatre

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Jack frost may be nipping at our noses this week in St. Louis, but the members of our St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Music Director David Robertson won't be feeling it. That's because, in an example of very serendipitous timing, they're off on a tour of sunny California--Mr. Robertson's last tour as Music Director, I'm sorry to say.

Through Friday, January 19th, violin soloist Augustin Hadelich, and the orchestra will be serenading residents of the west coast with the program of Shostakovich, Britten, and Thomas Adès that got such well-deserved applause here last weekend. Or at least they will once they're all in California.

Yesterday (Monday the 15th) they played the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert (78 degrees and sunny), but because of flight delays about third of the orchestra was delayed in Denver so long that they never made it to the concert. So instead of the originally-scheduled Britten Violin Concerto, the orchestra presented Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and Augustin Hadelich performed the Mendelssohn concerto as part of a new program of works better suited to the reduced forces.

Tuesday the 16th is another big travel day, with a three-hour bus trip to Santa Barbara (64 and sunny) where the full orchestra plays the original program at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara. Wednesday it's on to the Mondavi Center at UC-Davis (61, partly sunny), and finally the Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University on Friday where, for a change, it will be 55 with a chance of rain.

At least that will give them a chance to decompress a bit before returning home, where we're expected to have highs in the 50s by the weekend.

They'll be coming back just in time for the SLSO to celebrate 50 years at Powell Hall with a day-long open house, culminating in a showing of the classic musical The Sound of Music. The film was the last one to be shown in the old St. Louis Theatre in 1966 before it was closed down for the renovations that would transform it into elegant Powell Hall.

The Monday Center

As Sarah Bryan Miller of the Post-Dispatch reminds us in her brief history of Powell Hall, the transformation was one devoutly wished, since at the time the SLSO was effectively without a home and was playing in the rather unsuitable Khorassan Room of the Chase Hotel after their long-time home the Kiel Opera House (now the Peabody Opera House) was no longer available. The opening of the 2600-seat Powell, with its European-style gilt and red velvet, was welcomed by audiences, musicians, and critics alike.

Alas, the theatre's pipe organ was sacrificed as part of the renovation, so we'll never hear Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony as the composer intended.

It's not just the SLSO that's celebrating the hall's anniversary, by the way. On Tuesday, January 16th, the St. Louis Public Library opens an exhibit at the central library downtown of historical posters, conductor's sheet music, photographs and other memorabilia from Powel Hall's half century. It'll be on view daily through March 17th.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra resumes its regular season on Friday and Saturday, January 26 and 27, as violinist Julian Rachlin joins Mr. Robertson for a program of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, John Adams's Harmonielehre, and the American premiere of Elegie: Remembrance for Orchestra, written in 2014 by German composer/conductor Peter Ruzicka.

Review: Young at heart

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

Augustin Hadelich

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

The audience might have been grayer than usual at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's 10:30 am Coffee Concert Friday (January 12, 2018), but the music was all the work of composers in the prime of their youth.

The concert opened with a suite from the chamber opera (four singers and a small pit band in its original form) Powder Her Face, which premiered in 1995 when composer Thomas Adès was only 24. Based on the life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993), whose elegant and fashionable life took a bizarre turn after a near-fatal fall down an elevator shaft in 1943 turned her into something of a sex addict, the opera has generally gotten good reviews despite (or maybe because of) the R-rated nature of its story.

You can hear a fair amount of the eccentricity in the suite--a 2017 co-commission by the SLSO along with four other notable orchestras and Carnegie Hall--which uses a full-size orchestra and a huge percussion battery. The tango-style Overture sounds like a dance band in hell complete with discordant, wailing saxophones (played with bluesy precision Friday morning), but the music soon gives way to an almost saccharine Scene with Song featuring impeccable solos by Concertmaster David Halen and Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. There's also an intoxicated Waltz with icy string pizzicatos and a Hotel Manager's Aria with the horns, at the bottom of their register, acting as the voices of death.

There's humor, ingenuity, and aural variety in this music--more than I recall hearing in my only other exposure to Mr. Adès's work, his In Seven Days (Concerto for Piano With Moving Image), which the SLSO performed in 2012. It was, in fact, great fun to hear--something I find myself saying all too rarely about a lot of newer music--and performed with genuine élan (in the French sense of mouvement d'amour) by conductor David Robertson and his forces.

Up next was the Violin Concerto by Benjamin Britten, written in 1938 and 1939 when the composer was in his mid-twenties. Composed in response to the horror of the Spanish Civil War, the concerto was described by Britten as "without question my best piece," but he went on to say that it was "rather serious I'm afraid."

That it is. As an indictment of modern warfare with its ensuing trauma, I'd put it right up there with Nielsen's fifth symphony and Vaughan Williams's fourth. The concerto opens with a five-note figure on the tympani that's soon joined by an anguished, ascending theme on the violin. The two ideas dominate the rest of the movement, sometimes in opposition to each other, sometimes joined so closely that it's hard to tell them apart. The second movement is a wildly virtuosic scherzo that feels like one of Hieronymus Bosch's creepier paintings set to music. It's almost monothematic, based largely on a triplet figure that's first stated by the violin and then gurgles away in the bassoons before moving on to the rest of the orchestra. A cadenza leads to the final movement. Marked "Andante lento," it's a passacaglia (a series of variations on a repeating theme in the bass line) that moves contrapuntally around the orchestra and drips with anguish until the work concludes on a hushed and uncertain note, vacillating between major and minor but never really settling on either.

The soloist has his work cut out for him here. In a 2010 interview for violinist.com, violinist Janine Jansen describes the concerto as "quite demanding," and she's not exaggerating. The Vivace second movement is especially hair raising, with lots of "double stops and even double-stop harmonics" (to quote Ms. Jensen again), but the cadenza that leads into the Passacaglia is no less fearsome.

Nor are all the challenges technical. The emotional profundity of both the opening Moderato con moto and the closing Passacaglia demands a musician who has heart as well as nimble fingers. I'm happy to say that the young Italian-born violinist Augustin Hadelich is just such a performer.

His commitment to the music was obvious from the first notes, as both his facial expressions and body language displayed a deep, intense connection to both Mr. Britten and Mr. Robertson. Yes, his skill in negotiating the flashy stuff on his 1723 Stradivarius was unassailable, but what really made this performance work was his ability to put across the intense feeling behind those notes.

Mr. Robertson did a superb job shaping the music, bringing out all the drama and passion. He began slowly, on the low end of moderato, which made the build to the fervent central section of the first movement that much more powerful. He and Mr. Hadelich produced a second movement that hummed with energy, leading into a monumental final movement.

Music blogger Ben Hogwood once wrote that hearing this was like being in a "massive church." After Friday's performance, I see what he meant. I especially liked the fact that Mr. Robertson allowed the silence after the uncertain ending to linger before finally lowering his baton and accepting the applause. It was an incredibly dramatic moment.

The concert concluded with the Symphony No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich, written when the composer was still a student at the Leningrad Conservatory and first performed when he was 19 years old. It's a remarkable study in contrasts, with chamber music-style solo passages cheek by jowl with the full-tilt swagger of the composer's more popular works. Perky melodies reminiscent of the stuff Shostakovich probably heard during his work as a cinema pianist pop up in the first and second movements, standing in stark juxtaposition to the brooding and sporadically anguished gloom of the third. And the final Allegro molto wraps everything up in a classic flourish of brass and percussion, reflecting the young composer's brash confidence while still retaining the sense of sarcasm that is always just below the surface.

It's rather like a noisy and diverse party in which the guests have nothing much in common other than their relationships to the host.

There are a lot of great solo moments in this piece, such as Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks's plangent solo in the third movement, Mr. Halen's Korngold-esque moment in the finale, and Shannon Woods's tympani break in that same movement. There was excellent playing as well by Principal Flute Mark Sparks, Associate Principal Trumpet Thomas Drake, Principal Cello Daniel Lee, Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo, and Associate Principal Clarinet Diana Haskell. I'm told the reed players were a bit concerned about the effects of this weather on those little bits of cane that are the heart and soul of their instruments, but they sounded just fine to me.

The Shostakovich First is, to say the least, episodic, often coming to a complete halt while the composer shifts gears. Mr. Robertson's interpretation gave it a real sense of momentum nevertheless, building up considerable excitement in the more bombastic sections and bringing out all the details in the more transparently scored moments. Great work, and well deserving of the standing ovation it got.

The SLSO will be taking this program on the road January 16-19, with performances at multiple venues in California at Palm Desert, Santa Barbara, UC-Davis, and Stanford. The season locally resumes the weekend of January 26-28.

Symphony Preview: News of the world

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

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1935

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In the introduction to his chapter on Shostakovich in the 1967 Penguin Books edition of The Symphony, British musicologist Robert Layton described the Russian symphonist somewhat dismissively as a "documentary composer, far more bound up with this time than...Prokofiev, or any other of his Soviet contemporaries."

These days that would probably be a minority view. Yes, Shostakovich was heavily influenced by the economic and political turmoil that characterized 20th century Russian history. How could it be otherwise? But even in the early Symphony No. 1, which David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will perform this weekend (January 12 and 13), you can hear how he transmuted those external experiences into a sound that was uniquely his own.

Written as a Leningrad Conservatory graduation piece and first performed in 1926 (when the composer was only 19), Shostakovich's First Symphony is a remarkable study in contrasts, with chamber music-style solo passages cheek by jowl with the full-tilt bombast of the composer's more popular works. Perky melodies reminiscent of the stuff Shostakovich probably heard during his work as a cinema pianist pop up in the first and second movements, standing in stark juxtaposition to the brooding and sporadically anguished gloom of the third. There's a piano part that calls to mind Stravinsky's Petrushka. And the final Allegro molto wraps everything up in a classic flourish of brass and percussion, reflecting the young composer's brash confidence while still retaining the sense of sarcasm that is always just below the surface.

It is, in short, a collage of external influences unified by Shostakovich's unique sensibility. It's not a documentary, it's art, even if it's a bit rough around the edges.

Also on the program is a piece that Mr. Layton might also have considered a "documentary" work in that it was inspired by the geopolitical news of the day. It's the Violin Concerto Op. 15, written by Benjamin Britten in 1938 and 1939 and later revised in 1950. Composed for Spanish violinist Toni Brosa, the concerto reflects the composer's sorrow over the Spanish civil war, which tore the nation apart from 1936 to 1939, ending with the triumph of Franco's brutal fascist regime.

Britten was very fond of the work. "It is without question my best piece," he observed. "It is rather serious I'm afraid." That was putting it mildly. Running around 40 minutes, the concerto is a dramatic and sometimes disturbing piece that combines fierce technical challenges with strong emotional content.

The concerto opens with a short (five note) figure on the tympani (a possible reference to the opening of Beethoven's Violin Concerto) that's soon joined by an anguished, ascending theme on the violin. The two ideas dominate the rest of the movement, sometimes in opposition to each other, sometimes joined so closely that it's hard to tell them apart. The second movement is a wildly virtuosic scherzo that feels like one of Hieronymus Bosch's creepier paintings set to music. It's almost monothematic, based largely on a triplet figure that's first stated by the violin and then gurgles away in the bassoons before moving on to the rest of the orchestra.

Benjamin Britten (R) and tenor Peter Pears with canine friend

A cadenza leads to the final movement. Marked "Andante lento," it's a passacaglia (a series of variations on a repeating theme in the bass line) that drips with anguish. "I began to feel as if I was in a massive church," writes Ben Hogwood in his Good Morning Britten blog, "the horns intoning a chant that gets taken up by the strings, as if the orchestra is slowly standing in response to the soloist's pleas for peace. Here the music sounds more like Shostakovich than any Britten so far, but at no point is it derivative. The closing notes are, in a sense, infuriating, because Britten deliberately plays between the major and minor key. The home 'note' of D isn't in question, but he creates continued uncertainty by refusing to resolve, and that stays with the listener afterwards".

Much, I imagine, like the uncertainty about the future one might feel when one's country has fallen under the heel of fascism.

"It's quite demanding, definitely," notes violinist Janine Jansen in a 2010 interview for violinist.com about her recording of the concerto with Paavo Järvi and the London Symphony. "There are some places, like the Scherzo, in the second movement, where it's very fast and there are a lot of double stops, and even double-stop harmonics. So it's quite tricky...But it is written so well, it's really an amazing piece to play, even with its difficulties. One doesn't think about it during the performance because one is so taken by the music and especially, for me, the end of the piece. The whole coda --this is the most impressive moment. It starts like a prayer, but it ends in a kind of scream, it's incredible. Every time one plays it, one can't move afterwards, physically and emotionally."

The soloist this weekend is Augustin Hadelich. I last heard him here in 2013 in a performance of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 that combined virtuoso flash with real emotional sensitivity. He'll certainly need both of those skill sets for the Britten concerto.

The concert opens with a newly assembled suite from the 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face by contemporary British composer Thomas Adès. The opera is based on the life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993), whose elegant and fashionable life took a bizarre turn after a near-fatal fall down an elevator shaft in 1943. She emerged from the ordeal with no sense of smell or taste and a voracious sexual appetite--a great deal of which was on display in the notorious 1963 divorce trial that ended her marriage to Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. A lavish lifestyle and bad investments eventually led to a penniless death but (to quote a Tom Lehrer lyric about a very different historical figure) "the body that reached her embalmer / was one that had known how to live."

The suite, a 2017 co-commission by the SLSO along with four other notable orchestras and Carnegie Hall, consists of three dance episodes from the opera (published 2007 as Dances from Powder Her Face and performed by the SLSO in October 2013) along with five additional movements. The original scoring for a 15-piece pit orchestra has been expanded to symphonic proportions, with a large percussion battery that includes a pop gun, a washboard, two whips (!) and a paper bag.

"I'm not making this up, you know," as Anna Russell once said.

The Essentials: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violin soloist Augustin Hadelich Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, January 12 and 13. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Review: The bittersweet joy of David Robertson's last New Year's Eve concert

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

David Robertson

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The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's 2017 New Year's Eve concert was, I expect, a somewhat bittersweet occasion for both the audience and conductor David Robertson. It was the last one he will conduct as Music Director--his contract expires at the end of this season--and over the dozen seasons of his tenure he has endeared himself to local audience as well as to yours truly.

Although I have been covering the SLSO for many years now, this was my first opportunity to attend the annual New Year's Eve celebration. I had read about what a festive occasion it was and I was not disappointed. With Mr. Robertson chatting and cracking jokes between numbers, the evening was nicely balanced mix of classics both light and substantial, along with more popular numbers and even an excerpt from the score Charlie Chaplin wrote for his film Modern Times.

The orchestra first performed the Modern Times score back in 2007 as the film played out on the screen. Associate Principal Oboe Cally Banham played the English horn solo in the film's big tune, "Smile," back then in her first season with the SLSO and she repeated it on Sunday, to beautiful effect, along with Principal Horn Roger Kaza.

Mr. Robertson has always been effusive in his praise of the SLSO musicians, and the program he put together for his final New Year's concert gave many of them chances to shine. That included, but was hardly limited to, Principal Trumpet Karin Bliznik in the Liszt/Doppler Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Mr. Kaza in Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, and the entire percussion section in John Adam's dynamic Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

Concertmaster David Halen also turned in an impressive violin cadenza in the Hungarian Rhapsody, immediately following which Mr. Robertson held up a sign that said "Wow!" It was one of the many funny bits that Mr. Robertson distributed freely throughout the concert, and which added to the celebratory atmosphere. This was an evening as bubbly as the champagne available at the bar.

That's not to say that there weren't more solemn moments. Reflections of the way the SLSO became a representative of the St. Louis area after the events in Ferguson led to a moving performance, with members of the IN UNISON Chorus and Symphony Chorus, of the setting of the spiritual "Deep River" that concludes Michael Tippet's oratorio A Child of Our Time. It was preceded by an equally powerful a cappella rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," with IN UNISON director Kevin McBeth taking the podium so that Mr. Robertson could join the singers.

Mr. Robertson would take the vocal solo spot later in the evening [delete comma] with "Trouble" (from The Music Man), accompanied by the chorus and orchestra under the baton of Chorus Master Amy Kaiser, who tap danced her way out to the podium. Like, I said: bubbly.

There was also a haunting performance of Moonlight (from Britten's Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes), in recognition of the orchestra's highly praised Carnegie Hall performance of the complete opera back in 2013. This is music that demands a lot, especially in the delicately scored opening and conclusion, but the SLSO musicians did it to perfection.

Speaking of perfection, what could possibly have been better than SLSO violinists Xiaoxiao Qiang and Joo Kim, in their bright formal gowns, playing the hell out of Sarasate's flashy Navarra? This short work is typically demanding of its two soloists, with rapid passages and a LOT of harmonics, but they carried it off in excellent style.

The concert concluded with a rousing Candide Overture (another piece that asks a lot of the orchestra), followed by an unexpectedly charming encore as Mr. Robertson's young sons Nathan and Alex took up violin and piano, respectively, to join the band in "The Missouri Waltz" while their mom, pianist Orli Shaham, captured them on video with her smartphone. After which, we all sang "Auld Lang Syne" and made our various ways home, filled with both seasonal cheer and the understanding that this was something like the end of an era.

Like I said: bittersweet.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra resumes its regular season January 12th and 13th, as Mr. Robertson conducts the orchestra and violinist Augustin Hadelich in Britten's Violin Concerto, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, and a suite from the opera Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès. The concerts are, as always, at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Fast away the old year passes

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

Conductor Nicholas Buc

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The week between Christmas and New Year's Eve is often a quiet one in Lake Woebegon, but the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has a couple of big events coming up for the final weekend of 2017 nevertheless.

Friday and Saturday, December 29 and 30, 7 pm: DreamWorks Animation in Concert -- DreamWorks Animation is the animated film division of DreamWorks Studios, which was originally founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg along with former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and recording industry mogul David Geffen. The DreamWorks Animation division of has been in the forefront of the digital animation revolution for nearly two decades now, with hits like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and Puss in Boots, to name only a few. The company has been very shrewd about producing animated movies that appeal to both kids and adults, with plenty of fast, colorful 3-D action mixed with sophisticated humor and sly parodies of pop culture. It has also engaged some of Hollywood's leading composers to write scores for its hit films.

DreamWorks Animation in Concert features music by, among others, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri, and Hans Zimmer. The concert features music from Mr. Peabody and Sherman, How to Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians, Monsters vs. Aliens, and many other DreamWorks hits, with clips from the movies on the big screen to accompany the music. It's a kind of big, post-Christmas gift box for lovers of animation and film music.

Conducting the orchestra is composer and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Buc. A graduate of New York University and a recipient of the Elmer Bernstein award for film scoring, Mr. Buc written for film and TV world-wide and has conducted a number of "in concert" film programs, including Pixar in Concert, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and Back to the Future.

David Robertson

Sunday, December 31, 7:30 pm: BMO Private Bank New Year's Eve Celebration - David Robertson conducts the orchestra for the last time as SLSO Music Director in the annual New Year's Eve gala. The SLSO web site promises "an enchanting evening full of magical music and unforgettable surprises." And by "surprises" they mean "the concert program" because that is, in fact, a secret that won't be revealed until the music starts.

Still, we can make educated guesses based on previous years. Expect lots of good humor, both from the music and from Mr. Robertson, who can be a very funny guy when he gets his hands on a microphone. In 2012, for example, the orchestra did Morton Gould's "Tap Dance Concerto" and featured some good-natured sing-alongs with the audience. Dance music has, in fact, been a major part of the New Year's concerts. And waltzes are always associated with New Year's Eve in any case.

The concert is immensely popular and is, in fact, sold out as this is being written. But don't despair! In 2015 St. Louis Public Radio began broadcasting the concert live and will do so again this year, starting with pre-concert conversations at 7 pm.

Review: For the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" poses no difficulties

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

The St. Louis Symphony Chorus
Photo by Jerry Naunheim, Jr.

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The reverent and magisterial performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis by David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on Saturday, November 18th, reminded me of what a challenging piece was when it was first performed back in 1824--and still is today.

For singers, it's something of a marathon. Running around 75 minutes or more, it's the longest concert piece Beethoven wrote and the chorus sings for nearly all of it. The four soloists often do little more than add emphasis. Add in the fact that Beethoven was not especially adept at writing for the human voice and you have a work that can be a tough nut for vocalists to crack.

It's a challenge for listeners as well. The musical structure is large and ungainly, with a tendency to ramble. In his book Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music, British musicologist Rey M. Longyear went so far as to dub the Missa Solemnis as "one of the greatest failures in the history of music." "Despite its sublime moments," he wrote, "especially in the outer movements (Kyrie and Agnus Dei), the work is uneven, even patchy, and the overlong conclusions of the Gloria and Credo simply stupefy rather than edify."

I wouldn't go that far, but I must admit that this is a piece that sometimes conjures up a bewildering variety of sonic environments. This is music that looks back to the counterpoint of the Baroque but also forward to the massive sound blocks of Bruckner. It's ancient and modern, reverent and raucous.

So, yeah, the Missa Solemnis is a real workout for both the performers and the audiences. It is, therefore, a real tribute to Mr. Robertson and the SLSO that they did such a fine job with it when I heard it Saturday night.

The Kyrie was every bit as sublime as Mr. Longyear says it is, beginning with a deliberate tempo and building to an imposing climax that prepared us for the power of the Gloria that followed. The big fugue on "in Gloria Dei Patris. Amen." may, indeed, be longer than necessary, but the chorus certainly sang it with authority and clarity.

The central Credo that followed is the very heart of the piece and benefitted from heartfelt performances by the soloists: soprano Joélle Harvey and bass-baritone Shenyang (both so remarkable in the San Francisco Symphony's Missa Solemnis in 2015), mezzo Kelley O'Connor, and tenor Stuart Skelton. All four have operatic experience, a fact very much apparent in the way they invested the "Crucifixus etiam" section with real anguish. They're strong singers--perhaps a bit too strong in Mr. Skelton's case, as his Wagnerian heldentenor sometimes overwhelmed his fellow soloists. The chorus once again sang heroically here, especially in the massive double fugue that concludes the movement.

The Sanctus featured soaring vocals from Ms. Harvey and Ms. Skelton on "pleni sunt coeli" and the entire quartet blended nicely with Concertmaster David Halen in what Sir Donald Francis Tovey (quoted in Christopher H. Gibbs's program notes) called an "aria-concerto of violin, voices, and orchestra." This is another one of those sublime moments, and Mr. Halen has never sounded better.

David Halen

The concluding Agnus Dei is probably the most obvious example of Beethoven's colliding sound worlds, including the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting textures like the noisy "battle music" that pops up in the middle of the calls for peace and an idiosyncratically low key finale. Once again, Mr. Robertson and his forces made it work, bringing this difficult but important masterpiece to a satisfying conclusion.

The SLSO's performances of the Missa Solemnis on Saturday and Sunday, November 18th and 19th marked the last time David Robertson will conduct the chorus before his tenure as Music Director ends in the spring of 2018. It was, I expect, a moving experience for the members of the chorus and, in fact, Chorus Master Amy Kaiser did seem to be holding back tears as she took her much-deserved bows Saturday night.

Next at Powell Hall: Jun Märkl conducts the orchestra with soloists Karen Gomyo, violin, and Catalina Cuervo, soprano, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, November 24 - 26. The concert consists of Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy, Chausson's Poéme, Falla's El amor brujo Ballet Suite, and Ravel's Bolero. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center. .

Review: A potent Fifth of Beethoven

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

Roger Kaza

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Attracting big-name international soloists, as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra does on a regular basis, is a sure sign that an orchestra is playing in the big leagues. So does having first chair players that are good enough to take the solo spot themselves. Friday night (October 27, 2017) we had examples of both.

The concert opened with the Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major by Richard Strauss. Written in 1943, when the composer was in his eighties, it's a warm and nostalgic look back on the cultural traditions that had been seriously poisoned by the Nazi regime under which Strauss labored. The last movement in particular, as Music Director David Robertson pointed out in his pre-concert talk, has a kind of grace that recalls the horn concertos of Mozart.

In the solo spot was SLSO Principal Horn Roger Kaza, delivering a technically solid performance that was a model of classical restraint. That approach worked especially well in the Rondo finale, which skipped along beautifully. For me, though it was a bit less effective on the first and second movements, where a bit more passion would have been welcome. Mr. Kaza also muted his horn a bit too much, I thought, often causing him to be swamped by the orchestra. He and Mr. Robertson showed real rapport, though, and got impeccable support from his fellow orchestra members. It was, overall, a very satisfying piece of work that drew a standing ovation.

Up next was Alban Berg's Seven Early Songs, composed between 1905 and 1908 when he was studying with Arnold Schoenberg but not fully orchestrated and published until 1928. Like the Strauss concerto, this is also music that largely looks back to the past, although in this case that past includes Strauss himself. There's a yearning and ecstatic romanticism to this music that makes it very approachable even if, as René Spencer Saller points out in her program notes, it rather annoyed Schoenberg.

The soloist was soprano Christine Brewer, who is both a big-name international performer as well as a local favorite, with stage credits that include not only Union Avenue Opera and Opera Theatre of St. Louis but also the Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and English National Opera. No surprise, then, that her singing here combined a luminous, powerful sound with a clear grasp of the text.

Soprano Christine Brewer
Photo: Christian Steiner

Those texts come from seven different German poets and vary from Carl Hauptmann's straightforward "Nacht" (Night) with its vivid evocation of a nocturnal landscape to Rilke's "Traumgekrönt" (Crowned in Dreams) with its more elliptical sexual references. Ms. Brewer showed the sensitivity to the varied moods of the songs that I have come to expect of her over the years. From the post-coital blush of "Libesode"(Ode to Love") to the quiet contemplation of "Im Zimmer" (Indoors), it was all there, and delivered with great authority.

The concert concluded with a rousing Beethoven Symphony No. 5, conducted without a score and with real fire. The Fifth has been performed and recorded so many times by so many different orchestras that it can be difficult for a conductor to put his own stamp on the work, but Mr. Robertson nevertheless managed to do just that with a driving, high-energy interpretation that created tangible excitement.

It even had some surprises to offer, including a headlong first movement and a graceful second that ran, with only the briefest pause, straight into the ghostly third. The orchestra played superbly, with fine solo work from everyone, including Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks in the first movement cadenza and flautist Ann Choomack on piccolo in the finale.

In a 2006 program note on the Beethoven Fifth for the Performance Today radio program, Christopher H. Gibbs noted that "it is difficult to divest this best known of symphonies from all the baggage it has accumulated through nearly two centuries and to listen with fresh ears to the shocking power of the work and to the marvels that Beethoven introduced into the world of orchestral music." Mr. Robertson's energetic approach jettisoned quite a bit of that baggage, reminding us of the work's remarkable power and originality.

Next at Powell Hall: SLSO Resident Conductor Gemma New leads the orchestra in John William's score for Jurassic Park, accompanying a showing of the film. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., November 3-5. As with all film events, there will be popcorn, drink specials, and you'll be able to bring food and drink into the hall with you; so be careful to avoid spills.

Review: Thanks for the memories

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

David Robertson and Orli Shaham

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When I reviewed the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's world premiere of Steven Mackey's Stumble to Grace a few years ago, I was struck by the music's whimsy and humorous sensibility as well as by its flashy orchestral writing. All of those qualities were present once again last Sunday (October 22, 2017) at Powell Hall, as the SLSO opened their concert with Mackey's 2015 Mnemosyne's Pool.

Laid out in five movements and running around forty minutes, Mnemosyne's Pool is scored for a massive orchestra (nearly 100 musicians), including a percussion battery that includes everything from a triangle to a brake drum. The wildly inventive variety of sounds that Mackey produces with those forces provides much of the work's charm.

The title refers to the Greek goddess who presided over the pool of memory in Hades, and in his notes at the Boosey and Hawkes website, Mr. Mackey says that the work centers on "the role of memory in musical creation and reception." An abrupt change in the melodic line "asks the listener to remember an earlier point in the line instead of continue inexorably forward."

To me, the many shifts of mood and orchestral color in Mnemosyne's Pool did, in fact, evoke memories, but they were memories of other composers. The first section, for example, unfolded as a kind of passacaglia that reminded me of Bach. Later a bassoon figure brought Bartok to mind while other passages strongly suggested the work of Leonard Bernstein. There were no explicit quotes or even paraphrases (Mr. Mackey is too original for that), but the overall effect was a kind of kaleidoscopic total recall of a century or so of sound, all filtered through Mr. Mackey's unique sensibility.

In his spoken introduction, maestro David Robertson noted that Mnemosyne's Pool was a work that he had come to love, and his enthusiasm showed in everything he and the SLSO musicians did. The work is, as a Musical America critic noted, a kind of "concerto for orchestra" that bristles with remarkable solo passages for nearly every instrument, and the members of the band all had chances to strut their stuff. Will James and his percussion section, in particular, covered themselves with glory.

After intermission, the orchestra turned to more familiar territory, beginning with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

First performed in 1870 and then revised in 1877 and 1880, Romeo and Juliet manages the neat trick of compressing the essential emotional themes of Shakespeare's five-act tragedy into around 20 minutes of music. Mr. Robertson's interpretation was appropriately theatrical, featuring strong dramatic contrasts, beginning with a hushed opening chorale and delicate string pizzicati that made the transition to the first statement of the battle music all the more potent. The famous "love theme" had a lush, swooning feel, enhanced by especially fine playing from Associate Principal Horn Thomas Jöstlein and the rest of the horn section.

The concert concluded with one of the great showpieces of the twentieth century, Rachmaninoff's brilliant Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini from 1934. The Russian expatriate was one of the previous century's great pianists, and the Rhapsody served him well as he toured Europe and America, including an appearance with the SLSO in December of 1934. The piece is a sort of mini-concerto, consisting of 24 variations on (appropriately) the twenty-fourth and last of Niccolò Paganini's Caprices for solo violin -- a tune that has proved irresistible for composers from Liszt to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

At the keyboard was Orli Shaham, who first met Mr. Robertson when two were appearing together at Powell Hall in 1999. They were married in 2003, the same year Mr. Robertson became the SLSO Music Director, but have rarely appeared together with the orchestra. With Mr. Robertson's tenure coming to an end this season, this past weekend's appearance could be the last one they ever do together with the SLSO, which lent a kind of poignancy to the event.

The performance itself displayed the mix of nuance and technical skill that I have come to expect from Ms. Shaham. You could hear the former in the subtle gradations of tone that mirrored changes in the mood of the music, accompanied by changes in facial expression and body language that indicated a deep involvement with the score.

As for Ms. Shaham's virtuosity, it was apparent in every precisely rendered note of this challenging work. This was particularly noticeable in her seemingly effortless way with the fiercely difficult final variation, which even the composer was said to have found a bit daunting.

The applause Sunday was prolonged enough to move Ms. Shaman to play an encore for us: Bach's Prelude in E minor, BWV 855a, in the B minor transcription by the Russian pianist Alexander Siloti. The luminous mix of Baroque and late Romantic elements was an ideal way to end the concert.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in music by Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, and Beethoven Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 27-29. Soprano Christine Brewer will perform Berg's Seven Early Songs and SLSO Principal Horn Roger Kaza will play Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2. The concerts will conclude with Beethoven's popular Symphony No. 5. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Getting very near the end

Orli Shaham
Photo: Christian Steiner

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There are, as you probably know, major changes coming at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the next few years. Long-time Music Director David Roberson concludes his tenure with the group at the end of the 2017-18 season, to be replaced by the young French conductor Stéphane Denève in the 2019-2020 season.

It's an amicable parting to be sure, but it means that the current season is one of "lasts," one of which will be the last joint appearance on the Powell Hall stage this Saturday and Sunday of Mr. Robertson and his wife, pianist Orli Shaham. Ms. Shaham will play Rachmaninoff's bravura Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in a program that also includes Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet and Mnemosyne's Pool, a 2015 orchestral work by Steven Mackey.

They only perform jointly a couple of times a year and although Ms. Shaham has been a frequent soloist with the SLSO, they haven't both shared the stage here in St. Louis that often, but this is still a significant milestone for local music lovers. I dropped a couple of questions about that into a virtual bottle and floated them to Ms. Shaham over the Interwaves.

Chuck: You've said that you're looking forward to making chamber music with the SLSO in your performance of the Rachmaninoff. Can you elaborate on that? How is performing this like performing chamber music, in your view?

Orli: Rachmaninoff varies many aspects of the theme in each of the 24 variations. Specifically, he constantly changes up the instrumentation, so you end up with many different groupings of musicians from all the different sections of the orchestra. There are some very intimate moments in which it's just the piano and a few solo strings or a few solo winds, or one particular section of the orchestra with the piano. In that way it's really like chamber music on a grand scale.

David Robertson
Photo: Dan Dreyfus

Chuck: You and David Robertson met backstage at Powell Hall in 1999 and married in 2003, the same year as his appointment as music director at the SLSO. Now that you're preparing to play your last joint concert with Mr. Robertson and the orchestra, what impact do you feel the whole St. Louis experience has had on you and your family? What are some of your better memories from these years?

Orli: Over the years, we've had a wonderful relationship with both our St. Louis Symphony family as well as with many, many people all around St. Louis City and County.

From the very beginning, we felt embraced by the St. Louis community. I remember the first time people took us on tours around the neighborhoods and told us where we should have a good coffee or a quick lunch, and maybe even make our home. That warm welcoming atmosphere from the community and from the musicians on the stage has been a staple of our time there. We've had a lot of situations where people just made us feel like we've always been St. Louis citizens.

Just one example of that was this summer. We spent much of in Australia (some of it for work and some of it on vacation with the kids). We specifically wanted to come back to the states in time to see the eclipse - and of course there was no better place to see it than in St. Louis. But David had to stay in Sydney because he had performances there, so it was just me and the kids. I thought "gosh it might be a little lonely to share this experience with them," but it would still be totally worth it. Sure enough, when I mentioned to some of the musicians that we'd be in town for the day, before I could even blink, a plan was in place: A wonderful gathering with a number of musicians from the orchestra and their families, other children for my kids to play with, and a brilliant idea for the perfect spot. It turned out not only to be a great celestial event but a great social one as well.

The Essentials: David Robertson conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, with piano soloist Orli Shaham, in music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Steven Mackey Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 21 and 22. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.