Review: Get your war on

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

Cristian Macelaru

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War may be, as the classic songs says, good for absolutely nothing, but opposition to it has certainly inspired some great music, as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra program this past weekend (March 10 and 11, 2018) demonstrated.

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

Guest conductor Cristian Macelaru led the SLSO in two works inspired by the horrors of World War I--Benjamin Benjamin Britten's 1940 "Sinfonia da Requiem" and Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Symphony No. 4" from 1931. Also on the program was the "Violin Concerto No. 3," one of several works Camille Saint Saëns wrote as part of a nationalist response to France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

The Britten work opened Saturday night's concert with, literally, a bang on the tympani and bass drum. It's the beginning of the ominous tread of the death march that makes up the first movement (titled "Lacrymosa") of the "Sinfonia." Mr. Macelaru placed the percussion section on a platform at the back of the orchestra, which gave added power to their sound. He took that movement a bit on the slow side, which made the contrast with the skittering "Dies Irae" that followed that much more stark. The brass attacks were impressively crisp in the second movement and the concluding "Requiem aeternam," with its majestic plea for peace in the form of a noble and tranquil melody in the strings, had great power. It was, in short, a moving performance of a work that Britten (quoted in an April 27, 1940, piece in the New York Sun) said was intended to be "just as anti-war as possible."

The Vaughan Williams symphony that closed the concert is also fiercely anti-war, but whereas Britten's "Sinfonia" ends with peace, the Vaughan Williams is angry to the very end, expressing the composer's disgust with a world that had not only failed to learn the lessons of the First World War, but was determined to repeat the process.

From the harsh, dissonant opening--cribbed, as the composer would later admit, from the opening of the final movement of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9"--to the complex fugal march of the finale, this is angry and ultimately nihilistic music. There's a kind of majestic horror to the piece, rather like a Shakespearean tragedy boiled down to its essence, and Mr. Macelaru's intensely committed performance brought out every bit of its drama.

The electrifying first movement had a compelling and savage intensity, with powerful playing by the strings and brasses. The despairing second movement was capped by a pristine performance of the sad flute solo by Mark Sparks, which contrasted strongly with the breakneck pace of the third, played with appropriately violent precision. The ominous transition to the deranged march of the fourth movement was perfectly paced and played with ferocious perfection.

James Ehnes
Photo by Ben Ealovega

I've always liked the Vaughan Williams Fourth, but I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that listening to it can be emotionally exhausting, at least when it's done this well. It looked like it could be pretty physically taxing for the orchestra as well, but they all played beautifully.

The Saint Saëns concerto closed out the first half of the concert and while it, too, is a dramatic work, it's also elegant and charming. There's plenty of flash in the solo violin part, especially in the Spanish flair of the final movement (a reminder that the concerto was written with Pablo de Sarasate in mind), but there's also lyrical beauty in this music. That's most apparent in the second movement, a gently rocking barcarolle that concludes with a delicate duet for clarinet and violin harmonics.

Soloist James Ehnes is not, as I noted the last time he appeared here, a showy artist. Tall and imposing in white tie and tails, he cut a magisterial figure on stage Saturday night.

He approached the first movement with authority and restraint, but had no hesitation about throwing his whole body into its dramatic final pages. He and Mr. Macelaru gave the second movement a feathery delicacy, especially in the final duet with the clarinet, and they tore into the finale with impressive passion.

The standing ovation that followed was no surprise, but the encore was: Sibelius's "Humoresque No. 3 in G minor" for Violin and Orchestra, op. 89, no. 1. It's unusual to get an encore with orchestral accompaniment, but as Mr. Ehnes pointed out in his tongue-in-cheek introduction, "the maestro didn't think I had enough to do in that last piece." It was a completely charming miniature, conjuring up images of Finnish folk fiddling, and a great way to send us off to the intermission.

Next at Powell Hall: Bernard Labadie conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and soprano soloist Lydia Teuscher Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, March 16 and 17. The program consists of Haydn's "Symphony No. 99," the "Symphony in C minor" by Henri-Joseph Rigel, and opera and concert arias by Mozart. Resident Conductor Gemma New leads the orchestra in "Pinocchio's Adventures in Funland," a Family Concert on Sunday, March 18, at 3 pm. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Tales of old Vienna

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson with violinist James Ehnes
What: Music of Brahms, Berg, and Beethoven
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: March 8 and 9, 2013

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“Beautiful” isn’t a word you often hear applied to the twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, but I can’t think of a better one to describe the performance of Alban Berg’s 1935 Violin Concerto by soloist James Ehnes and the symphony under David Robertson.

Yes, the need to derive all of the concerto’s thematic material from a single twelve note sequence (first stated by the violin at the very beginning) can lead to a sense of emotional aridity at times, but on the whole it’s a very compelling piece, especially when played this well.

Berg was not, of course, a didactic musical revolutionary along the lines of his mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, so his essays in serialism are often relatively approachable. And in the case of the concerto, he was strongly influenced by a personal tragedy—the death, at age 18, of Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler by her second husband, the famed Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius. It turned what might have been a more abstract piece into a kind of Serialist version of Strauss’s “Death and Transfiguration,” complete with a sublime conclusion based on a direct quote of Bach’s setting of the chorale “Es ist genug (It Is Enough).”

But let’s return to the performance. Mr. Ehnes is not a showy artist. Unlike some deservedly famous fiddlers, he dresses conservatively and is not given to flashy gestures. He is, nevertheless, both an impressive technician and a sensitive musician who brought out all the drama and pathos in Berg’s music. He played the difficult Allegro that opens the second movement, for example, with the ease of a true virtuoso but did not lack for tenderness in that transcendent Bachian finale. Both he and Mr. Robertson turned in a performance that would likely have drawn a prolonged standing ovation had the music been (say) Tchaikovsky rather than Berg. At least on Friday morning that didn’t happen, which seems rather unfair. Greatness in the execution of difficult material, it seems to me, ought to get more recognition rather than less.

If Berg wore his heart on his sleeve in his concerto, Beethoven went to the other extreme in his Symphony No. 2, which closed the program. Written in 1802, the year in which the composer’s deafness was becoming apparent and in which he composed the famous “Heiligenstadt Testament”—a letter intended for (but never sent to) his brothers documenting his despair and hinting at suicide—the symphony shows not a trace of the anguish that plagued its creator. “In this Symphony,” wrote Hector Berlioz, “everything is noble, energetic, proud.” It’s as though the composer sought release from his dark mood in unstintingly sunny music.

As is often the case with these concert standards, Mr. Robertson put his own personal stamp on the music without imposing himself on it. Tempi were well chosen, orchestral details were nicely highlighted, and the performance as a whole brought out all of the lyricism, drama, and (especially) good humor in the score. I’m not saying it supplanted my Roger Norrington recording in my affections, but it came awfully close.

The concert opened with an equally well-turned reading of Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn from 1873. The theme, titled "Chorale Saint Antoni", is from wind partita originally attributed to Haydn. It now appears to be of uncertain authorship and some orchestras have taken to referring to it instead as the “Saint Anthony” variations, but no matter what the name, this set of eight variations and passacaglia finale never fails to entertain.

As befits the origins of its theme, the work features some magnificent writing for the orchestral winds and brasses. It was all delivered splendidly by the orchestra winds, which this week included out-of-town guests Ann Choomack on piccolo (from the Richmond Symphony) and Bob Lauver on horn (from the Pittsburgh Symphony. The rapid passages of the fifth and eighth variations were especially impressive.

As Paul Schiavo points out in his concert notes, the symphony has given us a number of programs this season featuring Viennese composers. This was one of the weightier ones—no waltzes this time, unless you count the demented one that pops up at the end of the first movement of the Berg concerto—but no less delightful for all that.

Next on the calendar: The regular season resumes March 23 and 24 with Copland’s Quiet City and Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, Bernstein’s Serenade (with David Halen on solo violin), and a flute concerto by Christopher Rouse with Mark Sparks as soloist. Mr. Robertson conducts. For ticket information: stlsymphony.org.

TPTBT (The Place to Be Tonight): Saturday, March 9

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson with violinist James Ehnes
What: Music of Brahms, Berg, and Beethoven
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: Tonight at 8
Why: “Beautiful” isn’t a word you often hear applied to the twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, but I can’t think of a better one to describe the performance of Alban Berg’s 1935 Violin Concerto by soloist James Ehnes and the symphony under David Robertson. Yes, the need to derive all of the concerto’s thematic material from a single twelve note sequence (first stated by the violin at the very beginning) can lead to a sense of emotional aridity at times, but on the whole it’s a very compelling piece, especially when played this well. Add in elegant performances of Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn (it probably wasn't really his them, but what the heck) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, and you have nicely varied (if weighty) evening of Viennese music. See my review at 88.1 KDHX for details.