Symphony Preview: Back to the future

It's a mix of the old and new at the St. Louis Symphony this weekend (Friday and Saturday, October 28 and 29) as Jun Märkl returns to conduct the orchestra and soloist Jeremy Denk in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major (K. 488), Liszt's Prometheus, and the Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor, op. 25, as arranged by Arnold Schoenberg.

Franz Liszt in 1858
Photo by Franz Hanfstaengl

Prometheus, which opens the concerts, is old because it was first performed in 1855. But it's also new because this is its first appearance with the SLSO.

Prometheus was already something new at its first performance, even though the composer conducted an earlier version for chorus and orchestra in Weimar in 1850. That's because this revised version was one of the first examples of the symphonic poem, a.k.a tone poem, a genre that Liszt effectively invented.

Many composers have written works labeled "symphonic poem" since then (Liszt himself wrote a total of thirteen), and what they all have in common is a reliance on some external, non-musical source for their inspiration. That source could be almost anything, including a novel (Albert Roussel's Resurrection), a poem (Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht), a painting (Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead), a place (Respighi's Pines of Rome), or a historical event (Smetana's Sárka). Or, in the case of Prometheus, a story out of mythology.

We all know the story of the Greek god Prometheus, punished for giving mankind the gift of fire by being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten every day by an eagle, only to have it grow back overnight (talk about your extraordinary rendition…). For Liszt, it was a story of pain, redemption, and triumph, with a grand fugue and a triumphant ending.

The piece was regarded as radical "new music" at the time and got, as a result, its share of negative press (the infamous Eduard Hanslick, who gave Wagner such grief, called it "an interestingly orchestrated instrument of torture"). These days it's just great musical drama.

The Mozart piano concerto is likely to be the most familiar piece on the program but here, too, there are surprises. The relationship between the soloist and the orchestra is a close one, with lots of give and take between the two, and the piano part looks both backward towards Bach with complex contrapuntal passages and forward to the Romantic era with harmonies that would probably have sounded a bit radical to the composer's Viennese audiences. That's most apparent in the first movement cadenza (which, contrary to his usual practice, Mozart actually wrote down) as well as in the touching Adagio second movement.

In a 2013 interview for San Francisco Classical Voice this weekend's soloist, Jeremy Denk, observed that "a very important part of playing a Mozart concerto is the wonder of each moment." So take the time to enjoy those moments when you see him on stage this weekend.

The concerts conclude with music that's old and new simultaneously: Arnold Schoenberg's 1937 orchestral transcription of Brahms's 1861 Piano Quartet in G minor. That might seem like an odd combination, given the kind of music for which Schoenberg is best known, but in his essay "Brahms the Progressive" Schoenberg claimed that the earlier composer was actually "a great innovator in the realm of musical language, that, in fact, he was a great progressive.”

It's an argument that has been met with some skepticism but there's not much doubt that Schoenberg was a great admirer of Brahms, and his orchestral expansion of the 1861 piano quartet-it's far too elaborate to be described as straightforward orchestration-sounds like both a homage to and a radical re-thinking of the original.

Arnold Schoenberg
By Man Ray, CC BY-SA 2.0

You can hear that in dramatic opening of the first movement. The notes are all Brahms, but the music feels Wagnerian in its intensity. As René Spencer Saller points out in her SLSO program notes, the orchestration is also very different from the sound world of Brahms, with instruments that the earlier composer would never have used such as the xylophone, bass clarinet, and E-flat clarinet.

In a 1939 note to San Francisco Chronicle music critic Alfred Frankenstein, Schoenberg said that his intention was "to remain strictly in the style of Brahms and not go farther than he himself would have gone if he lived today" and "to watch carefully all the laws which Brahms obeyed and not to violate them, which are only known to musicians educated in his environment." I'm not convinced that he actually did that, but what he did accomplish was to pour some old musical wine into new bottles without damaging the vintage in any way. This is the mid-19th century seen through the lens of the early 20th, and if accepted on its own terms it's very rewarding.

The Essentials: Jun Märkl conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist Jeremy Denk in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, Liszt's symphonic poem Prometheus, and an orchestral transcription of the Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor. Performances are Friday at 10:30 a.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m., October 28 and 29 at Powell Hall in Grand Center. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis public radio.

A snowbound symphony

As I sat here contemplating snowpocalypse 2014, I started putting together a mental list of classical works that would make for appropriate listening for the snowbound.  I don't claim that this is exhaustive—it's just what I was able to come up with off the top of my head—but it does look nicely balanced to me.  Feel free to leave a comment with your own suggestions.

[ADDED 22 December 2022] Don't have all these handy? Never fear: here's a free Spotify playlist.

The list is in alphabetical order by composer.

Leroy Anderson

Leroy Anderson: Sleigh Ride – This cheerful orchestral depiction of a sleigh ride—complete with whip cracks and a derisive whinny from the horse performed by solo trumpet at the end—is probably the best-known piece in the list.  Ironically, Anderson got the idea during a heat wave in 1946. It was published in 1948, first recorded by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops in 1949, and had lyrics grafted on to it in 1950 by Mitchell Parish.  Anderson's own recording (on Decca) hit the Cashbox best sellers chart in 1950.

Debussy: Des pas sur la neige (Footprints in the Snow) – There's a wintry solitude to this music, with its fragmented melody and suggestion of a slow procession through the landscape.  It's from the composer's first book of "Preludes" from 1910.

Debussy: The Snow is Dancing – At the other end of the spectrum is this fanciful miniature from the "Children's Corner Suite" from 1908.  Unlike most of Debussy's music, the titles are all in English—probably a nod to the English governess of Debussy's daughter Claude-Emma, to whom the suite is dedicated.  The music wasn't meant to be performed by children—some of it is pretty challenging—but rather to reflect the world of childhood.

Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius: Sleigh Ride – Written at the request of the great Norwegian musical miniaturist Edvard Grieg for an 1887 Christmas party, this piece was orchestrated by Delius in 1890 and prefaced with this description: "On Christmas Even I stood in the open air.  The moon shone bright over a billowing landscape.  The sound of an approaching sleigh was heard from a distance, but it soon rushed by and disappeared.  And then gradually it was once more still and bright and peaceful."  The opening with sleigh bells and a perky melody on the flute is really pretty irresistible.

Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 12, Chasse-neige (Snow storm) – Liszt's twelve "Transcendental Etudes" (Études d'exécution transcendante) are the Mt. Everest of piano music.  Originally published in 1837, the pieces were revised to make them less absurdly difficult to play in 1852, but even so they present technical challenges that separate the virtuosi from the run of the mill players.  This musical storm begins softly and relentlessly builds to a massive blizzard of notes.

Leopold Mozart: A Musical Sleigh Ride – We don't think much about Wolfgang Mozart's dad these days, but he had a fairly substantial career as a musician and composer.  Many of his works have been lost over the centuries but a few—like this charming miniature and his "Cassation in G for Orchestra and Toys" (a.k.a. the "Toy Symphony")—are still performed now and then.  Leopold Mozart loved using non-traditional sounds in his pieces, including bagpipes, whistles, and even (in anticipation of Spike Jones) pistol shots.

Wolfgang Mozart: German Dance No. 3, K. 605 (Sleigh Ride) – The younger Mozart's sleigh ride is a lilting dance in three-quarter time complete with tuned sleigh bells and an ingratiating posthorn solo.

A scene from Lieutenant Kijé

Prokofiev: Troika – This depiction of a ride in a traditional Russian three-horse sleigh comes from music written for the satirical 1933 film "Lieutenant Kijé," about a non-existent soldier created by a clerical error and kept "alive" by bureaucrats afraid of the Czar's wrath, should the mistake be discovered.  It's easily the most popular piece from the score and has been appropriated by a number of rock/pop stars including Greg Lake ("I Believe in Father Christmas") and Helen Love ("Happiest Time of the Year").

Strauss: An Alpine Symphony – Completed in 1915, this mammoth tone poem (it runs close to an hour) depicts and Alpine ascent and descent, complete with a trek across a glacier and a thunderstorm.  Strauss loved the mountains.  He built a villa for himself in the Bavarian Alps and often vacationed in Alpine regions.  That affection clearly shows in this music.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 ("Winter Dreams") – First performed in 1868, Tchaikovsky's first attempt at a symphony had a rough time being born.  It took nearly a year to compose and received a fair amount of unflattering criticism along the composer's former teachers.  The structure is a bit clunky in places, but the first movement (subtitled "Dreams of a Winter Journey") is so powerfully evocative of a haunted journey through a frigid landscape that I, for one, am inclined to overlook the work's flaws.

Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Tchaikovsky: Waltz of the Snowflakes – This final number from the first act of the "Nutcracker" ballet also depicts a wintry sojourn, but a much cheerier one than the "Winter Dreams" symphony.  The Nutcracker Prince has just defeated the Mouse King and, as a snowstorm rises, he and Clara are transported to the Kingdom of Sweets.  The addition of a wordless children's chorus in the final bars adds a lovely touch of whimsy.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia Antartica (Symphony No. 7) – Adapted from the music Vaughan Williams wrote for the 1947 film “Scott of the Antarctic,” the “Sinfonia Antartica” is pure symphonic wind chill.  Its five movements leave an indelible impression of the forbidding landscape and tragic end of Scott’s ill-fated expedition.  In the score, each movement is preceded by a literary quotation.  Vaughan Williams didn’t explicitly say that they should be read as part of the performance, but when they are (as in the Andre Previn/London Symphony recording from many years ago) the theatrical effect can’t be denied.

Vivaldi: Winter (from "The Four Seasons") – This is easily one of the most vivid bits of tone painting you'll find anywhere, with snowstorms, icy winds, and quiet evenings by the first all colorfully captured.

That's my quick list.  I limited myself to orchestral pieces, so Schubert's 1828 "Winterreise"  ("Winter Journey") song cycle has been left out in the cold, so to speak, along with (probably) many others.  I also rejected Arnold Bax's "November Woods" on the premise that he was thinking more autumnal than wintry.  What would you add to the list?  Let me know.

Personal bests

[Above: Arnaldo Cohen plays Rachmaninoff]

Who: Pianist Arnaldo Cohen and The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Warren-Green
What: Music of Sibelius, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: January 27–29, 2012

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The word “substitute” often has pejorative undertones, but this weekend at Powell Hall defies them. Pianist Arnaldo Cohen and conductor Christopher Warren-Green may have been substitutes for Louis Lortie and Vassily Sinaisky, respectively, but their work Friday morning was beyond reproach, providing a highly caffeinated mix of Sibelius, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky to go with the free donuts at the 10:30 AM Coffee Concert.

In his program notes, Paul Schiavo reminds us that the notion of “self-expression, and especially the expression of personal feelings, as one of music’s primary purposes” is largely a product of the Romantic era. Certainly that’s true of Sibelius’s turbulent En Saga, which opened the program.

Sibelius wrote that the piece was “the expression of a state of mind” related to “a number of painful experiences”, a statement clearly borne out by the restless string and dramatic wind passages. Mr. Warren-Green’s conducting was disciplined without sacrificing one iota of passion. The orchestra played up to its usual standard, with great solo work from Acting Principal violist Kathleen Mattis and Associate Principal clarinetist Diana Haskell (who has a CD on sale at the boutique, FYI).

Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is not openly autobiographical, but it did occupy the composer’s thoughts for nearly half of his life. Consider: he started sketching it in 1830, revised it at least four times, first performed it in 1855 (with Hector Berlioz, no less, on the podium), revised it in 1856, and then saw it virtually banned in Vienna until 1869 because of a snarky review by the overly influential critic Eduard Hanslick. Besides, the flash of the piano part (rendered with fluid grace by Mr. Cohen) and the (then) innovative use of recurring thematic material are pure Liszt. Mr. Warren-Green conducted with great assurance here as well.

It was Hanslick who dubbed this the “Triangle Concerto” because of the liberal use of that humble member of the percussion battery in a duet with the piano in the second half of the piece. He meant it as an insult, but in fact it’s a charming sonic accent. Liszt knew what he was about. “In the face of the most wise proscription of the learned critics,” he wrote, “I shall, however, continue to employ instruments of percussion, and think I shall yet win for them some effects little known.”

Tchaikovsky was taking his share of knocks from critics when he began work on his Symphony No. 4, a situation exacerbated by his anxiety over the possible discovery of his homosexuality and a brief and disastrous marriage to a former student. He poured all of his hope and despair into the work — so much so that some critics originally dismissed it as too programmatic and not enough like a real symphony. His friend and fellow composer Sergei Taneyev even complained that “in every movement there are phrases which sound like ballet music” — as if this were, somehow, unsymphonic.

Personally, I’ve always regarded the Fourth as one of Tchaikovsky’s most compact and dramatically impressive symphonies. A good performance never fails to deliver the passion, and Friday’s was first class all the way. Tempi were very well chosen and the cumulative power of the work was stunning; Mr. Warren-Green should have been conducting with a lighting rod, given the amount of electricity he generated. The musicians played with their customary polish, with the pizzicato strings in the third movement being particularly impressive.

Next at Powell Hall: Friday and Saturday at 8, February 3 and 4, Concertmaster David Halen is the soloist for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski on the podium. Also on the program will be the overture to Weber’s Oberon and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 (“The Great”). For more information you may call 314-534-1700, visit stlsymphony.org, like the Saint Louis Symphony Facebook page, or follow @slso on Twitter.