Symphony Review: A hot time in the cold town with Slatkin and the SLSO

Before he started his pre-concert chat with the audience at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) concert Saturday night (January 13) Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin smiled and said, “Look how many of you made it!”

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

He was referring to the fact that despite a light snowfall and Antarctic wind chill values, the Busch Concert Hall at the Touhill Center was packed (it was officially sold out, but bad weather always results in some no-shows). The audience was rewarded for braving the deep freeze by an impeccably  performed and consistently entertaining program of music from (mostly) the 1920s.

La création du monde

It was second of three concerts demonstrating the influence of what Slatkin calls “vernacular music”—jazz, folk, spirituals, theatre, and popular music in general—on the classical canon. It consisted of three infrequently heard works by European composers inspired by American jazz and dance tunes and was followed by one big whopping hit by an American composer inspired by a visit to Paris. It would have gotten serious points for variety even if it hadn’t been so well done.

It all started with the 1923 ballet “La création du monde” (The Creation of the World) by Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), a work heavily influenced by the composer’s brief infatuation with jazz and ragtime (even though the latter was in its sunset years by then).  With a scenario by Blaise Cendrars based on the poet’s 1922 collection of African folk tales, the ballet featured Picasso-esque sets and costumes by Fernand Léger that looked impressive but were clumsy and awkward for the dancers. Which may explain why “La création du monde” is rarely seen but often heard.

Scored for a small wind ensemble, percussion (including a typical jazz drum kit), and a string quartet with the alto sax replacing the viola, it’s a piece in which every player can be clearly heard. But it’s also one in which quasi-independent instrumental lines often converge into what could, in less skilled hands, turn into mere cacophony. That makes it a bit of a challenge for both the players and the audience.

Section I, with its fast-moving fugue, is a good example. Keeping the individual lines clear here looks tricky in the score, but Slatkin and the musicians kept everything clearly delineated. This is music that requires close attention by the listener, and this neatly balanced performance made that easy. The roster of fine performers included Nathan Nabb on sax, Peter Henderson on piano, Kevin Ritenauer on the drum kit, and Jelena Dirks on oboe.

Ebony Concerto

Parenthetical note: the tune of the oboe’s soulful, blues-drenched solo sounded so much like the one Gershwin wrote for his Concerto in F two years later that I suspect Milhaud’s theme might have been on his mind at the time.

Jazz was certainly on the mind of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) in 1945 when he wrote his brief “Ebony Concerto” for clarinetist Woody Herman and his band. It crams a lot of musical variety into its ten minutes without overwhelming the listener with its ingenious mix of 1940’s jazz and the composer’s neoclassicism.

It also defies expectations by using the soloist more as a featured member of the band than as an individual player. There were long stretches in which SLSO Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews was more observer than participant, with prominent musical roles taken over by the large sax section. Still, when Andrews was given the chance to cut loose and strut his stuff, he did so beautifully, showing his wide expressive and dynamic range. I don’t often think of Stravinsky’s neoclassical works as being “fun,” but I can’t think of a better way to describe this one.

Intermission and another stage change brought the “Kleine Dreigroschenmusik” (“Little Threepenny Music”) by Kurt Weill (1900–1950). Scored for a 1920’s dance band with a bandoneon (a conertina much favored by Agentine tango composers) added for a bit of spice, it’s a suite of tunes from Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 “play with music” “Der Dreigroschenoper” (“The Threepenny Opera”) that the composer put together in 1929 at the request of legendary conductor Otto Klemperer. Without Bertolt Brecht’s pungent lyrics, most of the tunes sound deceptively cheerful, although even without its words, the “Kanonensong” (“Canon Song”) still feels dark and threatening.

Slatkin and the band gave us a performance marked by crisp, precise playing, careful attention to Weill’s small touches of humor, and more outstanding solo work. A tip of the hat is also due to Winnie Cheung on bandoneon. Her instrument is only called for in three of the eight movements, but the obvious joy in her performance was contagious.

Kleine Dreigroschenmusik

When Weill and Brecht were completing work on “Der Dreigroschenoper” George Gershwin (1898–1937) was putting the finishing touches on the work that concluded Saturday night’s show, “An American in Paris.” As someone who loves visiting the City of Light, I have to say that Gershwin did a bang-up job of capturing city's lively sidewalk cafes and bustling boulevards as well as (in the blues-infused central section) the charm of Paris at night.

Slatkin could probably conduct this score blindfolded at this point. His 1974 recording with the SLSO (“that orchestra is all gone now,” he quipped, “but the conductor is still here”) is one of the best you can buy, especially in the digitally remastered version that came out last summer. His performance Saturday night was a perfect balance of lush romanticism and a scrupulous attention to orchestral detail. It was the perfect way to end an evening that was both engaging and revelatory.

As a bonus, we got an encore: an orchestration by Leonard Slatkin’s father Felix (1915–1963), the St. Louis-born violinist and concertmaster for Twentieth Century Fox Studios, of Alfred Newman’s main theme for the 1943 film “The Song of Bernadette.” It features prominent solos for the violin and cello which, on the original soundtrack, were played by Leonard Slatkin’s father and mother (Eleanor Aller). 

Saturday night those parts played with great warmth by concertmaster David Halen and Principal Cello Daniel Lee. Newman’s music was shamelessly moving as only a vintage Hollywood score can be, especially when played this well. The arrangement was reconstructed from the soundtrack (a major accomplishment all by itself) by Leonard Slatkin's wife, composer Cindy McTee.

Finally, here’s a laurel wreath for the stage crew. Saturday’s concert effectively featured four different ensembles: Milhaud’s augmented quartet, Stravinsky’s 1940’s big band (plus harp), Weill’s 1920’s cabaret band, and Gershwin’s big, late Romantic orchestra. That meant three big stage changes with the biggest of the lot (from Weill to Gershwin) taking place while the audience watched. It’s a tribute to their professionalism that these changes all went quickly and smoothly, with the precision of a well-oiled machine.

Next from the SLSO: Leonard Slatkin and the orchestra return to the Touhill for two concerts. Slatkin conducts a joint performance by the orchestra and youth orchestra on Saturday, January 20, at 7:30 pm, with music by Brahms, Copland, and Tchaikovsky. On Sunday, January 21, at 3 pm, Slatkin conducts the orchestra and pianist Jeffrey Siegel in Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in a program that also includes John Alden Carpenter’s “Krazy Kat” ballet, Paul Turok’s “A Jopin Overture,” and selections from Mary Lou Willams’s “Zodiac Suite” with guest artists The Aaron Diehl Trio.

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

Symphony Preview: And (almost) all that jazz

This Saturday (January 13) St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin presents the second of three concerts demonstrating the influence of what Slatkin calls “vernacular” music—jazz, folk, spirituals, theatre, and popular music in general—on the classical canon. In the first half of Saturday’s concert, the emphasis is on jazz.

[Preview the music with the SLSO's Spotify playlist.]

Darius Milhaud, 1923
By Agence de presse Meurisse
Public Domain

The evening opens the ballet “La création du monde” (The Creation of the World) by Darius Milhaud (1892–1974). A member of that group of somewhat eccentric French anti-Romantic composers known as "les six" (the others were Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, and Louis Durey), Milhaud enjoyed a brief infatuation with jazz that began with a 1920 performance of the Billy Arnold Jazz Band in London and reached its apex during a USA tour two years later when the composer heard jazz bands in Harlem.

“The music I heard was absolutely different from anything I had ever heard before and was a revelation to me” he wrote in his 1953 biography “Notes Without Music.”

Against the beat of the drums the melodic lines crisscrossed in a breathless pattern of broken and twisted rhythms... Its effect on me was so overwhelming that I could not tear myself away… When I went back to France, I never wearied of playing over and over, on a little portable phonograph shaped like a camera. Black Swan records I had purchased in a little shop in Harlem. More than ever I was resolved to use jazz for a chamber work.

“La creation” was the result of that resolution. Upon his return to Paris Milhaud got in touch with Blaise Cendrars, who had published Anthologie nègre (a collection of African folk tales) the year before. Cendrars’s scenario involved “giant gods, trees which impregnate the earth with their seed, leaves transformed into animals, men and girls emerging from the trees and performing a mating dance, until they disperse, leaving a single couple on stage, united in love.” Milhaud’s score, for a band of 19 soloists, makes prominent use of the piano, sax, and percussion.

It went over well enough in jazz-infatuated Paris but, as Svend Brown wrote in program notes for a 2007 performance of the score by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the ballet “was more a chic succès de scandale than a true success. The costumes designed by Fernand Léger (who also created the set) worked magnificently visually, but were hell to dance in—heavy and inflexible, they made it difficult to move freely.”

Woody Herman, 1943
By General Artists Corporation-management 
Public Domain

Which may explain why “La création du monde” is rarely seen but often heard. The small size of the ensemble will be a test of the SLSO’s mettle, but it will also offer an opportunity for many of the section principal players to shine.

Speaking of which, SLSO Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews steps into the spotlight next in the “Ebony Concerto” by Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971). Written in 1945 for Woody Herman and his band The Herd (who premiered it in 1946 at Carnegie Hall), it’s a pithy work that crams a lot of musical variety into its ten minutes without overwhelming the listener. Yes, it’s jazzy, but it’s jazz heard through a heavy Stravinsky filter.

That filter made things a bit challenging for Herman and The Herd. “The piece was extremely difficult and the band struggled mightily,” writes an anonymous author at the Carnegie Hall web site. “After the first rehearsal,” recalls Herman, “we were all so embarrassed [that] we were nearly crying.” Check out the YouTube video of the recording by Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble InterContemporain with its synchronized display of the score to see the kind of thing that made grown men cry.

Fortunately, it all came together at the concert, which also included plenty of The Herd’s popular hits.

Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, 1942
By Wide World Photos
Public Domain

Next, we head back to the theatre for the “Kleine Dreigroschenmusik” (“Little Threepenny Music”) by Kurt Weill (1900–1950). Scored for winds and percussion, it’s a suite of tunes from Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 “play with music” “Der Dreigroschen Oper” (“The Threepenny Opera”) that the composer put together in 1929 at the request of legendary conductor Otto Klemperer. In fact it’s Klemperer who conducts the performance on the SLSO’s Spotify playlist

Without the bitterly satirical lyrics that Brecht wrote for them, Weill’s suite is a mix of a half dozen appealing “ear worms” marinated in the spirit of 1920s popular song and dance and bookended with a dramatic overture and finale. But the suite’s accessibility doesn’t necessarily mean that Weill’s motivation in creating the site was largely mercenary.

Weill might have felt that his music would be more properly appreciated outside of the theatre, where he could use a larger ensemble and rely on the skills of conservatory-trained musicians. Given the success of his theatrical works, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that he had studied composition with Ferrucio Busoni and wrote extensively for the concert hall before he embraced the stage.

When Weill and Brecht were completing work on “Der Dreigroschen Oper” George Gershwin (1898–1937) was putting the finishing touches on his first major orchestral work, “An American in Paris,” which closes Saturday night’s concert. Begun during a trip to Paris two years earlier, the work is a reminder of just how much solid craftsmanship lurks behind Gershwin’s irresistible tunes.

Gershwin in 1937
Photo: Carl Van Vechten
en.wikipedia.org

In a 1928 interview for Musical America Gershwin described “An American in Paris” as “a rhapsodic ballet” intended “to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris, as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere." As someone who has visited Paris several times and who has fallen in love with the City of Light, I’d say he succeeded completely.

The lively opening with its colorful evocation of the city's sidewalk cafes and bustling boulevards (complete with honking taxi horns in the percussion section) is a masterful bit of musical imagery. And the bluesy central section evokes not only the homesickness of the traveler but also the charm of Paris at night.

Plus, Gershwin’s orchestration is a reminder of how far he came in such a short period of time. This is, after all, a guy who went from being a Tin Pan Alley "song plugger" to an accomplished composer and orchestrator in only thirteen years. In another seven years he would write one of the mainstays of twentieth-century American opera, "Porgy and Bess.” Not shabby.

Slatkin and the SLSO recorded “An American in Paris” 50 years ago as part of the orchestra’s multi-LP set of Gershwin’s complete orchestral works for Vox (now available in digitally remastered format on ArchivMusic). Although the SLSO’s playlist for this Saturday’s concert does not feature that recording (opting instead Leonard Bernstein’s sonically dated version from 1959), it is also available on Spotify

The Essentials: Leonard Slatkin conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and clarinet soloist Scott Andrews in works by Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill, and George Gershwin on Saturday, January 13, at 7:30 pm at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. For more information, visit the SLSO web site.

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

Symphony Preview: Just folks

Folk traditions, in one form or another, serve as the basis for the penultimate St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) program this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30). Music Director Stéphane Denève conducts with piano soloist Piotr Anderszewski.

[Preview the music with my Spotify playlist.]

The program opens with the local premiere of the tone poem “Apu” by Gabriela Lena Frank, Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra, founder of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and a graduate of my alma mater, Rice University.

Gabriela Lena Frank
Photo by Mariah Tauger

Ms. Frank's background is one of ethnic diversity, as her biography clearly attests:

Born in Berkeley, California (September, 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces often reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.

In short, as Frank says in an interview for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, “I don't look like most composers in classical music. I'm not white; I'm a woman; and I'm alive... And: I'm hearing-impaired.”

The Peruvian side of her background is on display in “Apu,” as it was in her "Leyendas," selections from which were performed here in 2020 as part of the SLSO’s chamber music series. “In Andean Perú,” says Frank in her program notes, “spirits are said to inhabit rocks, rivers, and mountain peaks…The apu is one of the more well-known spirits that is sometimes portrayed as a minor deity with a mischievous side who is rarely seen.”

Like the supernatural practical jokers in other folk traditions around the world, Apu is probably someone you want to keep happy. “Simple folk song and a solemn prayer often successfully placate the apu,” says Frank, “to ensure safe passage through the mountains.” That song is the subject of the first movement, Pinkillo Serrano, while the prayer is heard in the second movement, Haillí. Apu himself shows up in the final movement, traipsing through the tuned percussion instruments and generally raising a ruckus before evaporating like the morning dew.

You won’t find a recording of “Apu” on the Spotify playlist, but fortunately you can watch Marin Alsop conduct the 2017 world premiere performance by the National Youth Orchestra on YouTube.

Since Frank cites Béla Bartók as a source of inspiration, it’s only right that the next item on the program is the "Piano Concerto No. 3", which he wrote during the final year of his life (1945) in New York. Unlike his first two concertos, which he wrote for himself (he was a formidable pianist), the third was composed for his second wife, Ditta. The hope, according to Geoffrey Norris in a 2016 article for The Gramophone, was "that it would give her some sort of legacy after his death, both in terms of her own profile as a pianist (though she seems never to have played it in public) and in the income she might accrue from royalties when it was taken up by others."

A more prosperous Bartók in 1927

That was probably a good bet. Although Bartók's three concertos have never been as popular as those of Big Guns like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, they have always had their ardent supporters. And the third concerto is probably the most accessible of the three. It is, in Norris's words "altogether of a gentler, more reflective if scarcely (in the outer movements) less dynamic mien" than the first two. "András Schiff," he notes, "describes it as 'a wise man's farewell.’" And so it was; when the composer died on September 26, 1945, it fell to his friend, the violinist and composer Tibor Serly, to complete the final 17 measures. The concerto was his last musical will and testament.

That's not to say it's funereal. Lively dance-like elements dominate both the opening and closing movements, and the Adagio religioso that separates them is classic Bartók "night music", with emotionally intense chorales flanking a middle section that evokes the nocturnal sounds of nature. And all the way through, you can hear the influences of the folk music he collected during his life.

That brings us to the Big Finale, the score for the 1913 ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”) by Igor Stravinsky. The third in a series of series of successful collaborations between Stravinsky and impresario Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (the previous two being "The Firebird" from 1910 and "Petruska" from 1911), "Sacre" was, like “Apu” and the Bartók concerto, inspired by folk elements (Russian ones, to be precise).

The first performance of “Sacre”—at the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on May 29, 1913, with Pierre Monteux conducting—became a notorious succès de scandale. "It is arguably," writes Paul-John Ramos at classic.net, "the most famous debacle in western artistic history":

Audience members found the quiet, yet active, introduction ridiculous. When the curtain rose and [choreographer Vaslav] Nijinsky's dances began, the auditorium went into a rage, their sophistication insulted… Debris was thrown, as well as punches. The work was performed in full, but only with the help of Nijinsky calling steps from atop an offstage chair.

Later performances were less riotous. In fact, when Monteux conducted a concert performance in the Casino de Paris the following year, Stravinsky was carried from the hall in triumph on the shoulders of audience members. Today the music sounds less radical but still packs a tremendous dramatic punch, as was the case when David Robertson opened the 2011-2012 SLSO season with it.

Stravinsky in 1903
By Unknown Photograf -
archives de FinitoR
Public Domain, Link

A wide assortment of performances of both the orchestral score and the ballet are available online. The SLSO picked the composer’s own 1962 Columbia Symphony Orchestra recording for its Spotify playlist, but I find it rather bloodless. As he got older and more austere in his musical language, Stravinsky the conductor tended to treat the music of his younger self as something that needed taming.  For my playlist, I have instead chosen a thoroughly unbuttoned 2005 recording by Peter Eötvös and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.

I have also included the 1929 recording by Monteux himself with the Grande Orchestre Symphonique for its glimpse of what it was like to play this insane music before it became a standard repertoire item. On his “Sticky Notes” podcast, Joshua Weilerstein points out that the rhythmic instability Stravinsky wrote into the work’s final moments by using “off balance meters that have 5 or 7 beats in the bar” can be lost in more streamlined recent performances. “You can almost hear the panic” in this performance, observes Weilerstein, “but in a way this recording, which is unstable and not together, has more of that visceral excitement that Stravinsky surely wanted.” For a deeper dive into the music, there's also a version of Leonard Bernstein's 1958 New York Philharmonic recording synchronized with pages from the score.

As for videos of the ballet itself, you can see not one but two recreations of Nijinsky's original choreography performed by the Orchestra and dancers of the Ballet Mariinski Theater under Valery Gergiev at the Mariinski Theater in 2008 and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 2013. The sound and videography are great in both cases. It's as close as you'll ever get to seeing what so excited and outraged audiences over a century ago.

“Sacre” was originally scheduled as the season closer in 2020, but the pandemic put that plan on hold. It will be good to finally hear Denève’s approach to this remarkable piece at last.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève returns to conduct Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Apu,” Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with soloist Piotr Anderszewski), and Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.” Performances are Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, April 29 and 30. The Saturday performance will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classical 107.3.

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

Symphony Preview: A visit to Russia House with Graf, Hadelich, and the SLSO February 27-March 1, 2015

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If you missed last week's big double dip of Russian romanticism or if (to quote a famous Big Band-era lyric) you just "can't get enough of that wonderful stuff," the St. Louis Symphony has another helping helping of it for you this weekend as Hans Graf leads the orchestra and violinist Augustin Hadelich in a program of Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Lyadov.

"Lyadov?" I hear you cry, "who the heck is that?"

Anatoyl Lyadov
en.wikipedia.org

A reasonable question. "Anatoly Lyadov," writes Daniel Durchholz in his SLSO program notes, "is considerably less well-known than Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky or Igor Stravinsky, and to some degree that may be his own fault. Though a composer of considerable skill and a professor (albeit an eccentric and pedantic one) at the St. Petersburg Conservatory whose students included Sergey Prokofiev and Nikolay Myaskovsky, Lyadov produced no works of sustantial [sic] length and grandeur, as had a number of his contemporaries."

Lyadov's laziness (and resulting unreliability) essentially conspired with his self-criticism to prevent him from producing a large body of work, although he did write a number of piano miniatures (his 1893 "Musical Snuffbox" still shows up as an encore piece on a regular basis). Even so, he became associated with (if not an actual member of) the "Mighty Handful" (a.k.a. the "Russian Five") of composers who were so important in the formation of the Russian nationalist school. The actual five were Mily Balakirev (composer of the fiendishly difficult "Islamey" for piano), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.

Appropriately for a Russian nationalist, Lyadov is represented this weekend by three orchestral miniatures based on Russian folklore: "Baba-Yaga" (Op. 56), "The Enchanted Lake" (Op. 62), and "Kikimora" (Op. 63). They're short (4-7 minutes each), colorful, and great fun. Which makes them a great way to open the concert (and provide multiple opportunities for latecomers to be seated).

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

Eduard Hanslick in 1865
en.wikipedia.org

Worse yet, it was roundly condemned by critics at its 1881 Vienna premiere. Eduard Hanslick, the notoriously conservative critic who Wagner had mercilessly parodied a decade earlier in "Die Meistersinger," was especially scornful. After admitting that the work was "musical and is not without genius," he went on to unload a tub of bile that would not be out of place on AM talk radio. It's worth quoting at length, if only to illustrate just how clueless critics can sometimes be (the translation comes from Minneapolis Symphony program notes by Donald Ferguson).

"[S]oon savagery gains the upper hand," he ranted, "and lords it to the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played; it is yanked about, it is torn asunder, it is beaten black and blue. I do not know whether it is possible for anyone to conquer these hair-raising difficulties, but I do know that Mr. Brodsky martyrized his hearers as well as himself. The Adagio with its tender national melody, almost conciliates, almost wins us; but it breaks off abruptly to make way for a finale that puts us in the midst of a Russian kermess [a German country festival]. We see wild and vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell bad brandy. Friedrich Vischer once asserted in reference to a lascivious painting, that there are pictures that 'stink in the eye.' Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto brings us for the first time to the horrid idea that there may be music that stinks in the ear."

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Today it can be hard to understand what Hanslick was gassing on about (although his description of the finale suggests that anti-Russian bigotry could be involved). Apparently written as a kind of therapy after Tchaikovsky's disastrous attempt at marriage failed and he was plunged into the despair heard so tellingly in his "Symphony No. 4," the concerto is an unfailingly sunny piece that never fails to please. Yes, it's technically demanding, but generations of violinists have mastered it and made it a central part of the repertoire.

Costume sketch for The Firebird by Leon Bakst
en.wikipedia.org

The concerts will conclude with a suite that Stravinsky put together in 1945 from the music for his 1910 ballet "The Firebird". The first in what turned out to be a series of successful collaborations between the composer and impresario Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, "Firebird" contains hints of the upheaval Stravinsky would generate with "Rite of Spring" and "Les Noces" but also pays homage to the work of Rimski-Korsakov, especially the Orientalism of (say) "Le Coq d’Or".

Interestingly, Stravinsky owed the opportunity to write "Firebird" to the laziness of—yes—Anatoly Lyadov. Diaghilev originally commissioned Lyadov to write the score but (according to Verna Arvey in "Choreographic Music") when, after months of waiting, Diaghilev went to see Lyadov to view his progress, the composer said, "it won't be long now. It's well on its way. I have just bought the ruled paper."

Soon Lyadov was out and Stravinsky was in. The premiere of "Firebird" put Stravinsky on the map, musically speaking, and it remains one of his most popular works. Stravinsky prepared three concert suites from the ballet: one in 1910, a second in 1919, and the third in 1945. In both the second and third suites the composer reduced the size of the orchestration. The last and leanest suite is the one you'll hear this weekend.

Both the conductor and violin soloist this week have appeared with the SLSO in the past. On the podium will be Hans Graf, former conductor of the Houston Symphony and an artist-in-residence at the Shepherd School of Music at my alma mater, Rice University. At his last SLSO appearance, Graf gave us masterful readings of Rachmaninoff's first and second piano concertos along with a wonderfully transparent interpretation of Shostakovich's dark and acerbic "Symphony No. 1." That bodes well for this weekend.

The young Italian-born violinist Augustin Hadelich, last heard here two years ago 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 Tchaikovsky.

The essentials: Hans Graf conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with violin soloist Augustin Hadelich on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., February 27-March 1. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Triple time

Les Noces by the
Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by David Robertson
What: An all-Stravinsky program
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: September 16 and 17, 2011

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The St. Louis Symphony kicked off the 2011–2012 season this weekend with a triple shot of energetic and often brutal Stravinsky ballet scores that show the composer in his most self-consciously “Russian” mode. Written for Sergey Diaghilev’s Paris-based Ballets Russes (which also played up the fiercely exotic stereotypes of Russian culture prevalent in the French capital), Petrushka, Les Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), and Les Noces (The Wedding) still pack quite a punch today, especially when given the kind of dynamic, bravura performances delivered by Maestro Robertson and company Friday night.

Yes, there were some issues in the horns during Petrushka and the soloists in Les Noces were often inaudible, but overall the evening did full justice to this flashy and engrossing music. This is powerful stuff, with the same grab-you-by-the-throat immediacy that sent Parisians into such paroxysms of love and hate a century ago.

Perhaps the wildest ride of the evening was not, as you might expect, Sacre but rather the premiere SLSO performance of the 1923 choral ballet Les Noces. With an often surrealistic text adapted by Stravinsky from songs collected by Russian folklorist Pyotr Vasilievich Kireevsky, Les Noces runs at breakneck pace through a somewhat barbaric description of a Russian peasant wedding that, to quote British critic Alfred Kalisch, is “enough to convert intending brides and bridegrooms to celibacy.” Scored for four pianos, an expanded percussion battery (never was that word more appropriate!), chorus, and four soloists, the piece has a visceral impact that can’t be denied.

It was obvious that principal singers Dominique Labelle (soprano), Kelley O’Connor (mezzo), Thomas Cooley (tenor), and Richard Paul Fink (baritone) were thoroughly invested in their rapidly shifting roles, so it’s a pity they were so often overwhelmed by the orchestra and chorus. The problem, I think, is that Les Noces was conceived for the theatre, where the orchestra would be in a pit rather than on stage competing with the singers. Even when you place them in front as Mr. Robertson wisely did, it’s difficult for soloists of any caliber to be heard over the general din, let alone effectively communicate what amounts to a half-hour long patter song. The projected English text helped, but even so witnessing this performance of “Les Noces” was rather like holding on to a bar of a musical roller coaster—exhilarating and a bit exhausting.

The singing of Amy Kaiser’s chorus was wonderfully precise. This material sounds mind bogglingly difficult for soloists and choir alike, with no room for anything other than pinpoint accuracy. If there were a Purple Heart for choral singing, the Symphony Chorus would certainly have earned it.

The program opened with Stravinsky’s 1941 orchestration of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—something of a love note to the composer’s adopted country—followed by compelling reading of the complete Petrushka ballet. The score is, of course, strongly descriptive all by itself, but even so the projected images of the original sets, costumes, and members of the original Ballet Russes cast (including the great Najinsky in the title role) added considerably to the experience. We’ve become so accustomed to hearing great ballet scores performed in concert that it’s easy to forget how vital the element of sight is to those sounds. The Symphony’s use of what it calls a “visual narrative” is a welcome reminder of the theatrical roots of this music.

The visual narrative elements were much more sparse in the powerful performance of The Rite of Spring that concluded the evening, but given the nearly overwhelming force of this music, that’s probably just as well. As he did with the other works on the program, Mr. Robertson literally threw himself into this performance, dancing about the podium and conducting with broad but precise gestures; no Fritz Reineresque “vest pocket beat” here. This was not self-conscious theatricality, however, but clearly a genuine enthusiasm for the music. Both he and his musicians were clearly in the moment at every point, resulting in a performance that did equal justice the moments of exquisite delicacy and raucous violence in this still remarkably fresh music.

This was, in short, a very exciting beginning for the new season. My only real complaints are that, first, the house wasn’t nearly as full as it should have been and, second, that some audience members were apparently in such a hurry to get to the parking lot that they couldn’t even be bothered to applaud the great performances they’d just heard. Yes, I realize that this was a very full evening and that the two intermissions required to completely reset the stage before and after Les Noces resulted in a concert that ran a good half-hour longer than usual. Even so, would it have killed some of you to take another minute or two do let the musicians know you appreciate their hard work? I think not.

Next at Powell Hall: Maestro Robertson conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and the world premiere of Stephen Mackey’s Stumble Into Grace with Orli Shaham as piano soloist. Performances are Friday and Saturday, September 23 and 24. For more information you may call 314-534-1700, visit slso.org, or follow them on Facebook or @slso on Twitter.