Review: Wintry mix

Hannu Lintu
Photo by Veikko Kähkönen

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

Attendance at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert this past Saturday (September 29th) was rather light. Which was a shame, since it brought us a pair of impressive performances by violinist Leila Josefowicz and guest conductor Hannu Lintu.

Maestro Lintu is no stranger to the Powell Hall stage, having made several appearances here over the years, most recently in an all-Russian program this past April. He is a commanding and visually compelling figure on the podium who has a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual control.

That combination of passion and precision was most obvious in the work that concluded this weekend's concerts, Dmitri Shostakovich's massive Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103, (subtitled "The Year 1905"), but you could see it in the newer works comprised the first half of the concert as well.

The evening opened with the American premiere "Flounce" by Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski (b. 1970). A commission by the BBC for its 2017 Proms concert series, Flounce, which clocks in at a brief five minutes, is something of an audio funhouse in which short phrases leap up like flying fish from (to continue the metaphor) a churning musical sea. The work opens with an exuberant orchestral outburst which soon gives way to more delicate textures that call for a wide variety of unusual techniques from the players before building again to a big and comically abrupt finish.

Among those unusual techniques, as Tim Munro observes in his program notes we see:

Brass players blow tone-less air through their instruments, producing gusts of white noise. Trumpeters slap their mouthpieces with palms, giving a popping sound, while trombonists make clacking noises with their tongue. Clarinetists clutch hard and quickly release the reed with their tongues, producing a sharp noise called a "slap tongue."

The string players get to make their share of odd noises as well by bouncing their bows, pressing them hard against the strings, playing on the "wrong" side of their bridges. "A single bass player," Mr. Munro writes, "makes a breathing sound by playing the wood below their strings (the tailpiece)."

Add a percussion section that includes a slide whistle, a Super Ball (by Wham-O, as seen on TV!), a "U-shaped vibraslap, the descendant of an instrument made from jawbones, emitting a rattle," and "a long tube filled with beans to produce the calming sound of rain" and you have a collection of noisemakers that even Spike Jones might have envied.

All this should be fairly entertaining, and it mostly is, although many of the more outré sounds were, at least in this performance, lost in the overall orchestral din. This is, I suspect, one of those works that will come across better on recordings than it does live. It's certainly easier to hear orchestral details in the BBC recording of the world premiere than it was in Powel Hall.

That said, the musicians of the SLSO did a bang-up job of it all, playing with enthusiasm and precision. Given the difficulty of the score and the quality of the performance, the response from the relatively small audience was disappointingly tepid. I can understand the lack of enthusiasm for the work itself--it's the sort of thing that doesn't much invite repeated hearing--but Mr. Lintu and the orchestra deserved longer and more enthusiastic applause for their hard work.

Leila Josefowick

Up next was the St. Louis debut of the 2009 Violin Concerto by another of Mr. Salonen's fellow countrymen, Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958). Best known as the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 to 2009, Mr. Salonen, like Mr. Lintu, studied conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Conservatory. This weekend's soloist, Ms. Josefowicz, worked closely with Mr. Salonen during the composition process and gave the work its world premiere.

In notes for the Violin Concerto on his publisher's web site, Mr. Salonen points out that his goal was "to cover as wide a range of expression as I could imagine over the four movements of the Concerto: from the virtuosic and flashy to the aggressive and brutal, from the meditative and static to the nostalgic and autumnal." I'd say he succeeded, although to my ears the work had an undercurrent of neurasthenic anxiety that lent an edge to even the more tranquil moments.

You can hear that nervous energy most clearly in the opening movement, titled "Mirage." Starting almost in midphrase, "as if the music had been going on for some time already" (to quote Mr. Salonen), the solo line dashes up and down in a brilliant "perpetual motion" display and while the emphasis shifts periodically to other parts of the orchestra the violin remains the focus of the movement and, indeed, the work as a whole.

Not for Mr. Salonen the alteration of solo and tutti passages of the classic concerto. Here the soloist plays more or less nonstop for the work's entire half-hour run time and employs just about every technique in the book. It's the sort of work that only a true virtuoso would attempt.

Needless to say, Leila Josefowicz is exactly that kind of virtuoso. Her technique was flawless, even in the most demanding passages (of which there are many). More importantly, though, she faithfully conveyed the wide range of moods Mr. Salonen was striving for. That included the somewhat nervous dreaminess of the second movement (titled "Pulse I"), the wild, jazzy excess of the "Pulse II" third movement ("Something very Californian in all this," writes Mr. Salonen. "Hooray for freedom of expression.") and the nostalgic sense of farewell in "Adieu," the final movement.

This time around the audience's applause was sustained and enthusiastic. Ms. Josefowicz's performance had great physical energy, virtuoso flair, and good, close communication with Mr. Lintu. She deserved every bit of the standing ovation she received. Also singled out in curtain call bows for their solo work during the concerto were Associate Principal oboe Phil Ross, Assistant Principal viola Jonathan Chu, and Principal cello Daniel Lee.

The Shostakovich symphony took up the second half of the program. Indeed, at nearly 70 minutes, it was almost twice as long as the entire first half. Written in 1957, this sprawling, cinematic work was, publicly, a memorial to the "Bloody Sunday" massacre of a group of unarmed protestors by the Imperial Guard of Tsar Nicholas II on January 9th, 1905. It was a key event in the 1905 Russian Revolution which led, in turn, to the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in 1917. Privately, though, Shostakovich apparently had a different act of political violence in mind: the bloody repression by Soviet forces of the Hungarian uprising in October of 1957. "Don't forget," he said to choreographer Igor Belsky, "that I wrote that symphony in the aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising." (cited in "Shostakovich: A Life Remembered" by Elizabeth Wilson).

When I saw Mr. Lintu conduct Shostakovich's harrowing Symphony No. 8 back in 2015, I was very taken with the way his perfectly calibrated interpretation honored the composer's every note. I heard that same degree of keen musical insight in his approach this time as well.

There is usually a mix of horror, beauty, tragedy, and triumph in Shostakovich's more mature symphonies, and the Eleventh is no exception. Despite the work's epic length, it grabs the listener's attention from the ominous, wintry string chorale and distant trumpet and horn calls of the opening and doesn't let up until the defiant finale. Yes, the graphic musical description of the massacre in the second movement is the sort of thing that apparently moved British musicologist Robert Layton to describe Shostakovich (in the 1967 Penguin Books edition of "The Symphony") somewhat dismissively as a "documentary composer," but I think Shostakovich transmuted those external experiences into something that transcended external influences.

Mr. Lintu and the musicians delivered that sound with tremendous power. There was a number of striking solos throughout the work, including Cally Banham's mournful English horn and Tzuying Huang's bass clarinet in the final movement.

That final movement, by the way, concludes with a massive G minor chord on the tubular bells, openly contradicting the orchestra's more optimistic G major chord. The combined sound of the bells and gong has a long decay time, and Mr. Lintu clearly intended that chord to slowly die away before lowering his arms and turning to accept the audience's applause. Some of the audience didn't wait for that to happen Saturday night. Mr. Lintu looked bemused. I don't blame him. The enthusiastic ovation was deserved, but giving the work a few seconds to truly end would have been more respectful.

From St. Louis, Mr. Lintu moves on to guest spots in Baltimore, Boston, Tokyo, Singapore, and Cincinnati before returning to Finland and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He currently has no return engagement scheduled with the SLSO, but given his apparent popularity with both audiences and orchestral management, I expect that we will be seeing him again before too long.

Next at Powell Hall: Bramwell Tovey conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and viola soloist Beth Guterman Chu Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, October 5 and 6. The program consists of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 ("Pastorale") and Berlioz's "Harold in Italy." Then Ben Whiteley conducts the orchestra, chorus, and vocal soloists in "A Celebration of Muny at 100" on Sunday, October 7, at 3 pm. The concerts take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Happy road warrior Hannu Lintu returns to Powell Hall

Conductor Hannu Lintu
Photo by Veikko Kähkönen

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In an interview with flautist and music writer Tim Munro in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's program book, SLSO Artistic and Operations VP Erik Finley notes that the 2018/2019 season is "an in-between time" for the orchestra. That's because, while former Music Director David Robertson's tenure ended at the end of the previous season, the orchestra's new Music Director, Stéphane Denève, won't officially take over until the fall of 2019.

In the interim, Mr. Finley put together the orchestra's program with substantial input from the musicians themselves, resulting in a season that has been dubbed "From Our Family to Yours." That includes what Finley refers to as the orchestra's "extended family" of guest conductors who have appeared on the podium frequently and whose names will be familiar to St. Louis music lovers.

Such as, for example, the man who will conduct the SLSO this weekend (Friday and Saturday, September 28 and 29): Finland's Hannu Lintu.

Maestro Lintu is no stranger to the Powell Hall stage, having made several appearances here over the years, most recently in an all-Russian program this past April. He is, as I have noted in reviews of some of his previous appearances here, a commanding and visually compelling figure on the podium. His big gestures are striking, but he can also coax delicate sounds with a minimum of physical display. He has, in short, a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual control.

The degree of control would appear to be a result of his studies at the Sibelius Academy (where Mr. Lintu now has a part-time teaching assignment) with the noted conductor and teacher Jorma Panula (b. 1930) whose notable students also include Osmo Vänska and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. In a 2017 interview with Paul E. Robinson for Musical Toronto, Mr. Lintu said that Mr. Panula's secrets for producing such successful students are fairly simple. "First of all," he noted, "Panula has an instinct for recognizing conducting talent. He seems to know who is gifted even before teaching begins. Secondly, he doesn't teach technique. He lets his students do what they want as long as they show what they want and express their own ideas...Panula does not do so much teaching. He is more like Yoda. What he does is a kind of Zen. Just being around him and having discussions is really inspirational. Another point he emphasizes: a conductor must have the will, a strong need to express how he feels about the music he conducts or he will not succeed." That will shows up clearly in Mr. Lintu's forceful presence on the podium.

Composer Lotta Wennäkoski

Born in Rauma, Finland, in 1967, Mr. Lintu studied piano and cello at the Turku Conservatory and conducting at the Sibelius Academy, graduating with honors in 1996. He quickly found work as chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic (1998-2001). He was chief conductor of the Helsingborg (Sweden) Symphony from 2002-2005, the Tampere (Finland) Philharmonic from 2009-2013, and Ireland's RTÉ National Symphony starting in 2010. In recent years he has been in demand world wide--so much so that he now spends a great deal of his time on the road. And unlike some performers who view travel as something of a necessary evil, Mr. Lintu finds it liberating.

"[W]hen I am in Helsinki, with my own orchestra," he observed in a 2017 interview with Ottawa-based arts journalist Peter Robb, "it means I don't have much time to study anything because I have lots of meetings, rehearsals, and interviews. When I am travelling I am sort of resting..I know this doesn't make much sense but why slow down? I still like travelling. I like hotels and airports and airplanes." Given that recent conducting assignments have taken him as far afield as Boston, Budapest, Tokyo, Detroit, and Paris, it's fortunate that he's a happy road warrior.

Since 2013, Mr. Lintu has also been Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has been great advocate of the work of 20th and 21st century Finnish composers. That includes older and more traditional composers like Joonas Kokkonen (1921-1996), Einar Englund (1916-1999) and Erik Bergman (1911-2006) as well as younger voices like that of fellow Sibelius Academy graduate Lotta Wennäkoski (b. 1970), whose 2017 work "Flounce" receives it's USA premiere by the SLSO this weekend.

Conductor/composer Essa-Pekka Salonen
Photo by Minna Hatinen

In addition, Mr. Lintu has been a champion of the work of composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958). Best known as the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 to 2009, Mr. Salonen, like Mr. Lintu, studied conducting with Jorma Panula. His 2009 Violin Concerto will receive its St. Louis debut this weekend. The soloist will be Leila Josefowicz [http://www.leilajosefowicz.com/], who worked closely with Mr. Salonen during the composition process and gave the work its world premiere.

Part of what makes that advocacy of new and under-represented music possible is funding, as Mr. Lintu pointed out in the Robb interview. "Sometimes I think in Europe financing is automatic. It's a machine. They just feed us with money." As a result he feels that "we should take an even bigger responsibility to play things that haven't been played much and introducing new composers or those who have been forgotten. That is part of my job with the Finnish Broadcasting Company."

Not everything on this weekend's program is Finnish, though. Indeed, the longest work on the concert will be the Symphony No. 11, Op. 103, by Shostakovich. First performed in 1957 and subtitled "The Year 1905," it's a work that, on the surface, appears to be a patriotic tribute to the bloody events of Sunday, January 9th, 1905, when Tsarist troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators--an event which would eventually lead of the 1917 Communist revolution.

Dmitri Shostakovich, 1950
Photo by Deutsche Fotothek

But, as is so often the case with Shostakovich, publicly stated intent and private intent were not necessarily in sync. Coming shortly after the brutal murder of Hungarian protestors by Soviet machine guns on October 25, 1956, many saw the Symphony No. 11 as a tacit tribute to that uprising rather than the one in 1905. As Rebecca Lentjes points out in her program notes for this weekend, the Eleventh Symphony "is by no means immune from the trend of reading Shostakovich's music for double meanings; according to musicologist David Fanning: 'appearing as it did in October 1957, its message concerning the abuse of dictatorial power invited Aesopian reading as a comment on the Soviet repression of the Hungarian uprising.' Shostakovich himself allegedly encouraged this interpretation, reportedly commenting to a friend: 'Don't forget that I wrote that symphony in the aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising.'"

Mr. Lintu has proven in previous appearances here to be a persuasive interpreter of the Russian repertoire in general and of Shostakovich in particular. His 2013 performance of the Symphony No. 8, for example, was especially striking. So it will be interesting to see how he approaches the somewhat more approachable Symphony No. 11.

But then, Mr. Lintu is a great admirer of the symphonic form in general. "I must say I always prick up my ears when I hear a new symphony is being played somewhere," he said in a 2015 interview with Lotta Emanuelsson, "because the symphonic tradition means a lot to me. The 'symphony' is a format affording endless different options while at the same time providing a strong sense of form. And it still has infinite potential to explore."

We'll all have the opportunity to join him in that exploration Friday and Saturday at 8 pm as he conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violinist Leila Josefowicz in Lotta Wennäkoski's "Flounce", Esa-Pekka Salonen 's Violin Concerto by the composer/conductor, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11. The concerts take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center. The Saturday performance will also be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio.

Symphony Review: Sunshine and shadow with Mozart and Shostakovich

Hannu Lintu

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu
What: Music of Mozart and Shostakovich
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: April 10 and 11, 2015

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

There was something vaguely disconcerting about leaving Powell Hall Friday morning after hearing the SLSO and guest conductor Hannu Lintu perform Shostakovich's harrowing 1943 "Symphony No. 8" in C minor. Walking out into that bright spring morning was a bit like suddenly waking up from a nightmare. For just a moment, the light seemed a little dimmer.

The eighth symphony is the kind of thing that prompted British critic Robert Layton to somewhat dismissively label Shostakovich a "documentary composer, far more bound up with this time" than some of his contemporaries. He wasn't entirely wrong. Certainly understanding the twin horrors of Hitler and Stalin that lie behind the scarred face of this work can enhance one's appreciation of it. In Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov's 1979 "Testimony," allegedly based on Shostakovich's memoirs, the composer is quoted as saying: "I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders... That is what my symphonies are about, including Number Eight." But I think the Shostakovich Eighth is no more inextricably bound up with World War II than the Beethoven "Eroica" is with the Napoleonic wars.

Jonathan Chu
stlsymphony.org

In any case, Mr. Lintu and the orchestra gave us an awfully good account of the music Friday morning. This was a beautifully and precisely calibrated performance that honored the composer's every intention. Mr. Lintu is, as I have noted before, a commanding and visually compelling figure on the podium. His big gestures are striking, but he can also coax delicate sounds with a minimum of physical display. He displays, in short, a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual control—a winning combination for a work as complex as this one.

The gradually building tension of the long first movement was handled just right, so that the shattering climax and violent, mechanistic parody of a march that come about halfway through had maximum impact. The Allegretto second movement, which combines a march with a slightly demented dance, had a nice sarcastic edge.

The Allegro Non Troppo third movement is essentially "perpetual motion" music from Hell driven by what Mark Wigglesworth calls a "machine-like ostinato." It came across as appropriately driven without sounding frantic. The trumpets and trombones executed the weird little "oom-pah" dance interlude towards the end with impressive precision.

Strong dynamic contrasts underscored the despair of the fourth movement passacaglia, and the fifth movement's slow journey towards the light was beautifully paced. The final, luminous measures on flutes and strings were breathtakingly lovely. Mr. Lintu gave it a good ten count before lowering his baton at the end, so we could all appreciate the silence.

Beth Guterman Chu
stlsymphony.org

Although scored for a massive orchestra (around ninety players), the Shostakovich Eighth is filled with solo and small ensemble passages that put all of the principal players in the spotlight at some point. Mr. Lintu gave them all a chance to stand at the end and they all deserved it. I was especially impressed by the horns this time around—Shostakovich often drives them up to the top of their register—but the truth is everyone played flawlessly.

The concert opened with the "Sinfonia concertante" in E-flat major for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364, by Mozart—music so different it might as well be from another planet. Conducting without a baton and gracefully sculpting phrases from the air, Mr. Lintu gave us another finely tuned and classically balanced reading.

The soloists—both members of the SLSO string section—were the wife and husband team of Beth Guterman Chu on viola and Jonathan Chu on violin. As you might expect, their playing had the special kind of warmth and camaraderie that come from musicians who know each other well and anticipate each other's moves. They seemed to be having a wonderful time, which meant that we in the audience did as well.

Next at Powell Hall: Vasily Petrenko conducts Scriabin's "Symphony No. 3" and Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3" and with soloist Simon Trpceski on Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, at 8 p.m. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Preview: Mozart and Shostakovich offer stark contrasts at the SLSO Friday and Saturday, April 10 and 11, 2015

Dmitri Shostakovich
shostakovich.hilwin.nl

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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."

That's probably not the prevailing view of Shostakovich these days, but I do think that a full appreciation of his "Symphony No. 8 C minor," op. 65, which the SLSO is performing this weekend, requires some understanding of the time and place of its origin.

Shostakovich wrote the work in a little over two months, during the summer of 1943 (although he probably had it sketched out in his head long before that). It was a time when the tide of the war was turning against Germany. Leningrad was still under siege but the Germans had been defeated at Stalingrad earlier that year, and the overall mood was more optimistic. Official composers were expected to reflect that in their music.

But Shostakovich was unable to comply. Yes, he was glad to see the Nazis lose, but he could take no joy in seeing Stalin win. He recalled all to clearly the Soviet dictator's reign of terror. In Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov's 1979 "Testimony," allegedly based on Shostakovich's memoirs, the composer is quoted as saying: "I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death. There were millions of them in our country before the war with Hitler began. The war brought much new sorrow and much new destruction, but I haven't forgotten the terrible pre-war years. That is what my symphonies are about, including Number Eight."

Stalin in 1943
en.wikipedia.org

"Between 1937 and 1939 alone," wrote Mark Wigglesworth in his notes for the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra recording the Shostakovich Eighth, "one and a half million Russians were liquidated. People were forced to inform on each other and in one region a quota was even established whereby everyone needed to inform on five people. If you could only name four, you had to be the fifth. In addition, Stalin's policy of agricultural collectivism led to such poverty and famine that there were even reports of parents eating children."

Against such a backdrop, only a memorial would suffice

Laid out in five movements—the last three of which are played without pause—and running just over an hour, the "Symphony No. 8" can sometimes feel overwhelming in its intensity. This is especially true of the long (just under 30 minutes) first movement. Marked Adagio, Allegro Non Troppo, it begins with a dramatic three-note theme in the lower strings, variations of which recur throughout the piece, and rises to a shattering climax in a violent, mechanistic parody of a march before fading out in a despairing lament for solo trumpet and strings. It's reminiscent of the opening movement of Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 5," which was probably the composer's intent.

That would be powerful enough all by itself, but Shostakovich follows it with a grotesquely martial Allegretto and a propulsive Allegro Non Troppo which, as Mr. Wigglesworth writes, "seems to go the whole hog in expressing the total crushing of an individual. The relentlessness of its machine-like ostinato shows no pity at the human shrieks that ride above it". It's fast and, like the mechanized warfare that seems to have inspired it, relentlessly loud.

A final blast of winds and percussion leads to the Largo fourth movement. It's a passacaglia with a repeating bass line that rises only to repeatedly fall back again. Higher instruments try—and fail—to escape the pull of its gravity. Blogger Paul Serotsky calls this movement "static, chilled, drained, the frozen heart of the symphony."

But nothing stays frozen forever. As the Allegretto final movement begins, that plodding bass line yields to what Mr. Serotsky calls "the first friendly sound in the entire symphony": a little phrase on the bassoons that sounds almost jaunty. Like the first movement, this one also builds to a massive orchestral outburst. But instead of falling into despair at the end, it yields to soft, hauntingly beautiful music in the flutes and strings. Maybe it's hope. Maybe it's just resignation. It is, in any case, in C major. And it's the end.

The Mozart family, c. 1780
en.wikipedia.org

The concerts will open with a work so different from the Shostakovich that it might as well have been composed on another planet. It's the "Sinfonia concertante" in E-flat major for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364, by Mozart. Written when the composer was touring Europe in 1779, the work is generally considered to be Mozart's most successful experiment in this form, which is essentially a symphony with a group (a pair, in this case) of instrumental soloists.

There's no horror here, but there is around a half-hour of great music. That includes a Presto finale that begins with what New York Philharmonic program annotator James M. Keller calls "a tune of ineluctable charm" and then moves on to a theme which is "the perfect expression of late-18th-century mores. For a moment we are transported to the drawing room of an 18th-century aristocrat. The conversation is clever and cultured, but suddenly all heads turn as one of the assembled eminences—a Voltaire, perhaps, or a Franklin—imparts an observation that towers above the surrounding babble, and then brings the proceedings back to earth with an irrepressible chortle."

Which seems only right, as Mozart was a fellow much given to irrepressible chortles, musical or otherwise.

The soloists for the Mozart are both members of the band: Assistant Principal Viola Jonathan Chu (playing violin this time around) and Principal Viola Beth Guterman Chu. They're also married to each other, a fact which has at least the potential to add an air of intimate communication to their performance.

At the podium will be Hannu Lintu. When I saw him here in October 2013 I found his style on the podium to be a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual rigor—fire combined with ice. For a program with contrasts as stark as this one, that could be a good fit.

The Essentials: Hannu Lintu conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with violinist Jonathan Chu and violist Beth Guterman Chu on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., April 10 and 11. The program features Mozart's "Sinfonia concertante," K. 364 and Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 8." The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Lighs! Camera! Swans!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swan song

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

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

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

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

Simone Lamsma
Photo: Otto van den Toorn

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

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

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

Hannu Lintu
Photo: Kaapo Kamu

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

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

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

Swan Song

Photo: Vanessa Briceno

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu with pianist Conrad Tao
What: Music of Sibelius and Prokofiev
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: February 1 and 2, 2013

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It’s every orchestra manager’s nightmare: just a few days before the scheduled performance of a virtuoso showpiece the soloist gets sick and a replacement must be found. And not just any replacement; it has to be someone who knows the piece and has the chops to pull it off.

If there were any nightmares around Powell Hall earlier this week when scheduled pianist Markus Groh fell ill, they have surely turned into sweet dreams now that his replacement, 18-year-old prodigy Conrad Tao, has delivered a bang-up performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. This is the music of youth—Prokofiev was only a few years older than Mr. Tao when he started writing it—with ample wit, nose-thumbing cheer, and some ridiculously difficult writing for the soloist, especially in the final movement. Mr. Tao and guest conductor Hannu Lintu did full justice to the vital energy of Prokofiev’s score and were rewarded with spontaneous applause after the first movement and a thunderous ovation after the last.

But Mr. Tao wasn’t finished. After multiple bows, he returned with an encore: Liszt’s equally thorny Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, delivered all the fire one could wish for. This was Mr. Tao’s debut with the orchestra and it could not have gone better. He’s a tremendously talented young man (and a fellow Midwesterner, hailing from Urbana, Illinois) at the beginning of what looks like a very promising career.

The orchestra was in excellent form as well. Scott Andrews gets a nod for his fine clarinet solo in the first movement, of course, but fine playing was the order of the day everywhere.

Bracketing the Prokofiev was a pair of deeply felt performances of music of Mr. Lintu’s countryman, Jean Sibelius.

The concert opened with a Finlandia that was one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen, with slow but majestic treatment of the famous “Finlandia Hymn” (now one of Finland’s most popular national songs) and an expansive finale. In this, as in the Sibelius Symphony No. 5 (the 1919 revised version) that closed the program, Mr. Lintu was a commanding and visually compelling figure on the podium. His big gestures were striking—at one point in Finlandia, for example, he held the baton with both hands and swept it down from overhead to signal a Really Dramatic Moment. But he also coaxed delicate sounds with a minimum of physical display. His interpretations were, in short, a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual control—fire combined with ice.

Sibelius’s 5th symphony is a combination of fire and ice as well. It covers a vast range of emotional territory, from the first movement’s unearthly bassoon lament (beautifully played by Principal Andrew Cuneo) over ghostly ppp strings to the grand sweep in the final movement of the “swan theme”—so called because Sibelius wrote it after witnessing a flight of sixteen swans, which he described as “one of the greatest experiences of my life… Nature’s mystery and life’s melancholy.”

From 1892 until his death in 1957, Sibelius lived and worked in a home made entirely of wood (he didn’t want to hear the sound of rain in metal gutters) on Lake Tuusula in the Finnish forest, where he often went for long walks. The love of nature informs every bar of the 5th. It’s impossible to hear this music and not conjure up images of pines, snow, and brisk northern winds.

Mr. Lintu and the orchestra brought out all of the mystery and wildness in this remarkable score. The opening of the first movement sounded a little bit scrappy in places on Friday night, but the finale, with that sweeping final statement of the swan theme and those final six chords separated by just enough silence, had all the power and majesty you’d want. It was, altogether, a potent experience.

Mr. Lintu last conducted the orchestra in November of 2012. Let’s hope he returns to us again soon.

Next on the calendar: David Robertson returns to the podium to conduct Strauss’s On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Radu Lupu is the soloist. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3, February 7-9. For ticket information: stlsymphony.org.