Symphony Review: Nicholas McGegan brings a pair of theatrical hits by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to Powell

As our little group approached Powell Hall Friday night (March 10th), a tour bus pulled up with what appeared to be a group of students who were there to take in a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert. If so, their chaperones made a good choice.

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

With early music guru Nicholas McGegan (who has a long association with the SLSO) at the podium, this fast-paced and entertaining pair of works for orchestra and chorus by Beethoven and Mendelssohn would certainly have made for an ideal introduction to classical music and the whole SLSO experience. At just over 90 minutes (including intermission), it was a bit shorter than the typical evening at the symphony (normal run time is around 2 hours or so) and the music was listener friendly. No experience was required, and a good time was had by all.

Sarah Price

The evening began with the Beethoven’s “Selections from Egmont,” op. 84, composed on commission for an 1810 revival of Goethe’s 1788 tragedy. The play is a fictionalized account of the execution of Lamoral, Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavere (1522–1568), who was beheaded for resisting Spanish rule and the imposition of the Inquisition on the Netherlands. Running around a half-hour, Beethoven’s Op. 84 consists of a noble and emotionally charged overture along with two songs (for the fictional character of Clärchen, Egmont’s love interest), four entr’actes (scene change music), two bits of underscoring, and a final “Victory Symphony.” That last bit is essentially a repeat of the final 90 seconds of the overture and follows Egmont’s call for independence.

McGegan approached all this with that combination of unbridled joy and meticulous attention to detail which has characterized his work here in the past. The opening of the overture set the tone for the performance overall. Marked Sostenuto ma non troppo (“Sustained, but not too much,” literally), it was majestically slow—which made the gradual build to the main theme all the more commanding. The two-note “execution” violin motif just before the Allegro con brio coda was striking decisive and the coda itself was stirring, with nice accents by Ann Choomack on piccolo.

After a long pause for latecomers (who had, perhaps, not noticed that the concert started at 7:30 rather than 8) soprano Danielle Yilmaz gave a defiant performance of “Die Trommel gerühret” (“Beat the drums”), in which Clärchen declares her love and support for Egmont in militaristic terms. Clärchen’s other song, “Freudvoll und leidvoll” (“Full of joy, full of sorrow”), got an equally strong performance from soprano Sarah Price. She let us hear the emotional ambiguity of the lyrics, which move from waver between doubt (Andante con moto) and ecstasy (Allegro assai vivace) before finally settling on the latter.

Enrico Lagasca
Photo: Jiyang Chen

The entr’actes and underscore pieces were all neatly done, with some fine oboe solos by Jelena Dirks and excellent playing by the horns, especially in “Clärchen’s death.” The “Victory Symphony” brought it all to an electrifying finish.

The second half of the concert belonged to Mendelssohn’s 1843 revision of his setting for chorus and orchestra of Goethe’s 1799 dramatic poem “Die Erste Walpurgisnacht” (“The First Walpurgis Night”). In what was, surprisingly, the work’s first performance here, McGegan led the orchestra and chorus in a real barnburner of a performance. It was sung in English, as many of Mendelssohn’s choral works were even in his day. The multi-lingual composer knew he was a Hot Property in Britain and made sure his music would work just as well in English or German.

The story deals with a group of German Druids who prefer to celebrate Beltane eve in the old-fashioned way, without interference from Christian authorities. Their solution is to scare the Christian forces away by disguising themselves as assorted imps, devils, and demons. The opportunities for high drama here are obvious, and Mendelssohn made the most of them in a score filled with big, commanding choruses and an orchestra unusually rich in brass and percussion parts. “It’s very high energy music,” observed McGegan in an interview for my video blog. “Mendelssohn lives in the era before decaf.”

The sturm und drang gets off to a rousing start with the turbulent “Overture: bad weather.” The “dark and stormy night” tone painting is reminiscent of the “Hebrides” Overture—not exactly surprising, since it was written at around the same time—and McGegan’s reading was so vivid you could almost feel the wind and rain. His entire podium presence, in fact, was a wonderful mix of precise cueing and physical enthusiasm.

There are a few solo numbers in “The First Walpurgis Night,” but the chorus is the real star of the show. Under the direction of Webster University’s Trent Patterson, the SLSO singers displayed just the right mix of power and precision that’s called for here. Their enunciation was admirably crisp, although it wasn’t obvious just how good it was until I heard the Saturday night broadcast, since Powell Hall’s acoustics can muddy things a bit.

That said, the soloists were impressive as well. Tenor Thomas Cooley was a radiant Druid welcoming the spring as well as a comically petrified Christian soldier who decided “onward” is not his preferred direction. Bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca was an imposing Priest, although he was having a bit of trouble with his high notes on Friday (I suspect allergies might have been the issue). In any case, he sounded fine in Saturday night’s broadcast.

The SLSO Chorus
Photo: Dilip Vishwanat for the SLSO

For my money, though, the most impressive performance was that of alto Victoria Carmichael (of the SLSO Chorus) as “An aged woman of the people” warning of the violence that can be expected from the Christians if the Druids are discovered: “On their ramparts they will slaughter / Mother, father, son, and daughter!” That’s potent stuff that calls for exactly the kind of forceful delivery it got from Carmichael.

It was good to see and hear the chorus in action again, especially in music that gives them a chance to display their strength as an ensemble. And I have always found McGegan to be a welcome presence on the podium. His association with the SLSO goes back a long way—to a 1986 “Messiah” in fact—so his rapport with the band has, by now, a kind of cozy familiarity.

Next at Powell Hall: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and pianist Vikingur Ólafsson in a one-night-only preview of the program they will take on the orchestra's March European tour. The concert consists of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Grieg's Piano Concerto, and Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances." The concert takes place on Thursday, March 16, at 7:30 pm. Stephanie Childress will conduct the SLSO Youth Orchestra and Concerto Competition winner Ayan Amerin in the Allegro non troppo from the Violin Concerto in D major by Brahms and the Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich on Sunday, March 19 at 3 pm. The regular concert season resumes in mid-April.

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

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

Hans Graf

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

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

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

DeWayne Trainer

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

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

Maureen Thomas

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

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

Debby Lennon

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

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

Laurel Dantas

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

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