Symphony Preview The Comeback Kid

For Valentine’s Day weekend, Music Director Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra have a program that features a pair of passionate audience favorites by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, along with the world premiere of Anna Clyne’s multi-media Concerto for Orchestra, “PALETTE.”

I covered Clyne’s work extensively in an interview with her on my video blog. In this piece I’m going to concentrate of the two Romantic blockbusters by liberally re-writing material I first published about a decade ago.

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

Tchaikovsky circa 1872

There’s little doubt that the "Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy" is one of the Greatest Hits of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893). First performed in Moscow in 1870 and then revised in 1877 and 1880, the work manages the neat trick of compressing the essential emotional themes of Shakespeare's five-act tragedy into around 20 minutes of music. The "love theme" is, as Daniel Durchholz writes in his program notes for a 2014 St. Louis Symphony performance, "one of Tchaikovsky's best and most memorable melodies." With lyrics by Buddy Bernier and Bob Emmerich, it even became a hit song: "Our Love," recorded by the Larry Clinton band in 1939.

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943), which concludes the concerts, inspired not one but two pop songs (three if you count a 1975 Eric Carmen ballad), both recorded by Frank Sinatra: “I Think of You” from 1957 (adapted from the second theme of the first movement by Jack Elliott, Don Marcotte) and “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” The latter was adapted by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman. Sinatra’s recording rose to number 17 on the Billboard charts in 1945.

Of somewhat more interest than the concerto’s success as a source of Top 40 inspiration, however, is the remarkable story of its troubled origins.

Rachmaninoff’s career got off to promising start. By the age of 20 he had already finished his Piano Concerto No. 1, had his opera Aleko produced to great acclaim at the Bolshoi Theater, and published a plethora of works for orchestra and solo piano. That includes his immensely popular Prelude in C-sharp minor, which the composer would later come to loathe. In short, Rachmaninoff’s star was on the rise

That star fell abruptly when the composer's Symphony No. 1 had its St. Petersburg premiere in 1897. The performance was a debacle. Conductor Alexander Glazunov, a notorious alcoholic, was said to be conducting under the influence and critics hated it. Vituperatively.

Rachmaninoff in 1900
en.wikipedia.org

The psychological impact on the young Rachmaninoff's was devastating. He spiraled down into a depression so severe that friends urged him to seek help from one Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who was then making a name for himself in Moscow with hypnotherapy.

Dahl hypnotized Rachmaninoff daily for three months. "I heard repeated, day after day,” recalled the composer, ”the same hypnotic formula as I lay half somnolent in an armchair in Dr. Dahl's consulting room. 'You will start to compose a concerto—You will work with the greatest of ease—The composition will be of excellent quality.' Always it was the same, without interruption."

The result was everything Rachmaninoff could have hoped for. Ideas for the concerto "began to well up within me," he reported. The second the third movements were completed by the autumn on 1900 and by the spring on 1901 the entire work was ready for a November Moscow premiere under Alexander Siloti, with the composer at the piano. It was a hit and has remained so ever since. Rachmaninoff was on the comeback trail.

The SLSO recorded all of Rachmaninoff’s concertos in 1990 under Leonard Slatkin with Abbey Simon at the keyboard. You can listen to the 2023 remaster of the Concerto No. 2 on Spotify. I think it holds up quite well. The soloist this weekend will be Nikolai Lugansky, who gave us a superlative Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 back in 2017 with John Storgårds at the podium. Lugansky recorded all of the concertos in the early 2000s, so this will likely be familiar territory for him.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Anny Clyne’s “PALETTE,” Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy," and Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 with piano soloist Nikolai Lugansky. Performances are Friday and Saturday, February 14 and 15, at 7:30 pm at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri—St. Louis campus. Saturday night’s concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3 and will be available as an on-demand stream for a month starting the week of February 17th.

Symphony Review: The St. Louis Symphony says 'bon voyage' with a big night of orchestral showpieces

It was a veritable love fest at Powell Hall last Thursday, March 16th. Stéphane Denève professed his love for pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. Ólafsson declared his love for the musicians of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the audience. And the audience demonstrated their love for all of them with multiple standing ovations. To top it off, the opening work on the program was Prokofiev’s “Love for Three Oranges” suite.

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

Denève conducts the SLSO
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

The occasion for this outpouring of affection was a special “bon voyage” concert in which Denève and the band presented the program that they and Ólafsson will be playing on their four-country, five-city European tour March 21 through 31. In addition to the Prokofiev, that program consists of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff’s valedictory “Symphonic Dances,” and encores by Bernstein and Bizet. If it goes as well on the tour as it did Thursday night, St. Louis will be well represented on the other side of the Atlantic.
 
Denève said that he chose the suite Prokofiev created from the score for his 1921 opera “The Love for Three Oranges” because it was a showcase for the excellence of the SLSO musicians. He then proved that point with a performance of this wildly colorful score that reflected all its many eccentric moods. The second movement, “Magician Celio and Fata Morgana Play Cards,” was a perfect combination of menace and mock pomposity, with great crashes of sound from the brass and percussion. The fourth movement “Scherzo” was light, fleet, and a striking study in contrasts. And in “The Prince and Princess” (the fifth movement) the voice of the strings was both romantic and uneasy.

Prokofiev composed both the opera and the suite with an American audience in mind, which may be one reason why the music sounds like a cross between a circus and a lunatic asylum. It is, in any case, flashy and entertaining and gave every member of the band a chance to show why the SLSO can be fairly described as an orchestra of virtuosos.

Vikingur Ólafsson plays the Grieg Concerto
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

Up next was Grieg’s enormously popular Piano Concerto. This dependable old warhorse is so well known that you’d think it would be difficult to find anything new in it. But Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson demonstrated that it can still be done.

When Ólafsson last played the concerto with Denève and the SLSO in 2021 I was struck by the originality and energy of his approach. This was especially true in the first movement cadenza, which was something of a microcosm of the performance as a whole. Both then and this past Thursday, it was a study in extremes, nearly coming to a complete halt before building steadily to the boiling power of the big restatement of the main theme.

Ólafsson was less physically demonstrative than he was when he made his debut here in 2021, but no less artistically and technically solid. The near-capacity house rewarded him with warm applause, and he reciprocated with a subtly beautiful encore: Ólafsson’s own arrangement of the “Ave Maria” by his fellow countryman Sigvaldi Kaldalóns (1881–1946). Those of you keen on hearing it again can find it on Ólafsson’s 2022 album “From Afar” on Spotify.
 
The concert concluded with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances,” another large-scale work that also showed off the band to good advantage. Unlike Prokofiev’s frenetic suite, though, this was not a soundscape drenched in bright primary colors. The sonic world of the “Symphonic Dances” is one of encroaching shadows and nocturnal imagery. Not surprisingly, it was the last thing Rachmaninoff wrote.

Denève conducts the SLSO
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

Denève last conducted this in 2019. At the time I felt that he had brought a wide variety of expression to the work, with tempos on the slow side, a feeling of intense emotional commitment, and recognition of the way the composer used silence as a musical element. That was still true this time around, although there were some tweaks here and there. The Non allegro first movement, for example, got off to a brisker start than I recall, but that could just be my memory playing me false.

No matter: it was still a grand performance with important solo moments finely rendered. That includes, among many others, Michael Weiss-Holmes’s melancholy alto sax solo in the first movement and Concertmaster David Halen and English horn Cally Banham in the second. There was some darned fine playing throughout by Peter Henderson on piano, Principal Harp Allegra Lilly, and the flutes under Matthew Roitstein. Congratulations to all.

But, wait: there was more!  The orchestra is bringing along a pair of high-energy encores: the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 opera/operetta/musical (it has been through multiple revisions over the years) “Candide” and the “Farandole” from Bizet’s incidental music for the play “L'Arlésienne.” The latter, with its insistent percussion and quotes from the Provençal Christmas carol “La Marche des rois,” is always a guaranteed rouser. They both got an enthusiastic reception Thursday night, despite coming as surprises at the end of a long concert.

More information about the SLSO’s upcoming tour is available at the orchestra’s web site, including pictures from Thursday’s concert.

Next at Powell Hall: Powell will be dark while the band is away, except for a concert by bluegrass banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on Friday March 31 at 7:30 pm. St. Louis Speakers Series presents Anthony Ray Hinton on Tuesday, April 11 at 8 pm. One of the longest-serving death row prisoners in Alabama history, Hinton was released after 30 years of time for a crime he did not commit.

Regular concerts resume in mid-April. Note, however, that the Powell Hall lot will be closed as of March 20th as the renovation and expansion of Powell Hall begins. More information about parking is available at the SLSO web site.

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

Symphony Preview: The Grand Tour

Music Director Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra are off on their annual European concert tour on March 21st. But before they leave, they’re offering a one night only “bon voyage” concert of the music they’ll be playing on the tour on Thursday, March 16, at 7:30 pm.

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

It all starts with the lively and acerbic suite Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) created in 1924 from the score for his 1921 opera “L'amour des trois oranges” (“The Love for Three Oranges”).  Prokofiev wrote both the music and the libretto for the opera, which was commissioned by the Chicago Opera Association during the composer’s 1918 visit to the USA. He based it on the 1761 commedia dell’arte farce “L'amore delle tre melarance” by Carlo Gozzi (1720 – 1806) which was itself based on the fairy tale of the same name by 16th century Italian poet Giambattista Basile (1583 – 1632).

Prokofiev in New York, 1918
Photo by Bain News Service

“The story,” writes Benjamin Pesetsky in this week’s program notes, “is too silly to dwell on.” He’s right, so we won’t (although Wikipedia has a detailed synopsis for the curious). Let’s just say Prokofiev combined his ancient Italian sources with a jigger or two of sarcasm, a pinch of surrealism, shook the whole thing vigorously and served it over ice to an audience which found it somewhat baffling.

The suite is great fun, though, combining the composer’s quirky sense of humor, inventive orchestration, and rhythmic drive to create a colorful musical circus complete with acrobats, clowns, and strutting sorcerers. The third movement “March” was once quite well-known, having been appropriated as the theme for the CBS radio crime drama “The FBI in Peace and War,” which ran from 1944 through 1958. If you’re curious as to what that sounded like, the GSMC Classics podcast network offers all 88 episodes via Apple Podcasts. And probably via every other podcast platform as well.

Denève last conducted the suite with the band in 2007. Sadly, I missed that concert, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Up next is the popular Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16, written in 1868 by Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907). It was his first and only piano concerto. Indeed, it was his only completed concerto of any kind.

The interior of Grieg's hut at Troldhaugen

That’s because Grieg was fundamentally a miniaturist. He was at his best in short forms like his “Lyric Pieces” and other works for the piano. Longer works like his “Symphonic Dances,” the “Lyric Suite,” and his incidental music for Ibsen’s gargantuan drama “Peer Gynt” are, ultimately, little more than a collection of short pieces. It’s what he did, and he did it darned well.

It’s not surprising, then, that his piano concerto tends to sound a bit episodic. The episodes are all entrancing, though, and the concerto was an instant hit at its 1869 Copenhagen premiere by the Royal Danish Orchestra with Edmund Neupert as soloist. Neupert, to whom the concerto was dedicated, wrote to Grieg (who was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict) describing the happy event:

The triumph I achieved was tremendous. Even as early as the cadenza in the first movement, the public broke into real storm. The three dangerous critics, [composer Niels] Gade, [pianist/composer Anton] Rubenstein, and [composer Emil] Hartmann, sat in the stalls and applauded with all their might. I am to send you greetings from Rubenstein and say that he is astounded to have heard a composition of such genius. (Cited in program notes by Robert C. Bagar and Louis Biancolli for the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York).

Our soloist this Thursday (and at every performance on the tour) will be Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, who has earned praise for his recordings of everything from Bach to Philip Glass. He was the soloist the last time Denève and the SLSO presented the Grieg concerto in 2021. At the time I wrote that he made “a stunning impression…with a performance that blended nuance and poetry with virtuoso flair.”

Rachmaninoff in 1921
Public Domain, Wikimeida Commons

During the intermission that follows, you’ll have the opportunity to see why taking an orchestra on tour is just a major logistical effort the SLSO production team assembles large cargo trunks in the foyer. Immediately after this concert, large instruments will be packed into trunks and begin their journey to Europe on Friday.

This evening concludes with the "Symphonic Dances" by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943). It’s a work I have found oddly compelling since I first heard it on a 1961 LP recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, who conducted the work's first performance in 1941. I was immediately struck by the "late night" feel of the piece--and not just because of the chimes in the last movement. It was only later that I learned that Rachmaninoff had, in fact, originally titled the three sections "Noon," "Twilight," and "Midnight." The composer dropped the titles, preferring the let the music speak for itself, and it does so eloquently.

The work is filled with evidence of Rachmaninoff's genius as an orchestrator, with elaborate and complex string writing, inventive use of brasses and winds (including a short but poignant solo for alto sax), and an effective but never overwhelming use of the large percussion battery. This is dramatic music that is nevertheless steeped in autumnal melancholy. The final movement is a struggle between the “Dies Irae” and the “Resurrection” theme from Rachmaninoff’s 1915 “All-night Vigil” which, while emphatically resolved in favor of the latter, still seems to carry the sense of a life approaching its conclusion.

In the program notes for the SLSOs last performance of the work in 2019, Denève described it as “redeeming--it's a piece of hope. The ending is an Alleluia, a triumph over death. It was his last work, and maybe, because he composed this piece, he felt he could die."

The Essentials: 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.

Symphony Review: A potent double debut at the St. Louis Symphony

It was a double debut this past weekend (Saturday and Sunday, November 26 and 27) as both conductor Xian Zhang and pianist George Li made their first appearances with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. We’ve had some impressive debuts at Powell Hall over the years, but it’s unusual to be treated to two of such outstanding quality at once.

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

With three decades of podium experience behind her Zhang, who is currently in her seventh season as Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony, radiated confidence from the moment she strode on to the stage. She approached the opening work—the overture to the comic opera “L’Italiana in Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”) by Rossini—with a cheerful gusto that was the perfect match for this lively and appealing piece. She captured all of Rossini’s high-spirited humor and gave the composer’s trademark crescendos plenty of punch.

Xian Zhang
Photo: B Ealovega

The band was in fine form as usual, playing with pristine clarity. There were also high-caliber solos from Associate Principal Oboe Phil Ross and Associate Principal Flute Andrea Kaplan.

Zhang’s approach to the Rossini overture was emblematic of her overall podium style. She had a strong physical connection with the music that recalled former SLSO Music Director David Robertson. Her movements were economical and fluid, and her cueing was precise and unambiguous. I had the impression that she would be easy to follow. Given her generally brisk tempo choices, that struck me as an essential virtue.

This was a concert that simply bristled with energy and excitement. I’d be happy to see her return to Powell Hall in the future.

I’d  be happy to see Georgi Li return as well, based on the excellence of his performance in the next piece, Rachmaninoff’s 1934 “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Op. 49. This set of 24 variations on the twenty-fourth and last of Niccolò Paganini's "Caprices" for solo violin served as a showpiece for the composer’s formidable keyboard skill during his lifetime and has continued to do the same for pianists ever since.

Li demonstrated an admirable variety of tone and a wide emotional range in the “Rhapsody”—crucial skills in a work that encompasses a wide assortment of moods. From the swooning romanticism of the popular 18th variation to the pointillist exactitude of the first three variations,  to the big power chord pianism of the final five, Li proved to be a master of all he surveyed. In addition, he and Zhang were always in synch, even though there appeared to be little direct interaction between them. It was the sort of thing that makes one wonder if there might actually be something to telepathy.

Next was a perfect encore: Giovanni Sgambati's transcription of the ethereal "Melodie dell'Orfeo," part of the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice." The melancholy lyricism of the piece was an ideal “palate cleanser”.

The concert concluded with galvanizing interpretations of "The Fountains of Rome" and "The Pines of Rome,” the first two of the three tone poems Ottorino Respighi composed between 1916 and 1928 to celebrate the Eternal City.

George Li
Photo: Simon Fowler

Like so many of Respighi's scores, both “Fountains” and “Pines” are virtual textbooks of orchestration, with elements of Debussy, Ravel, and even Richard Strauss all mixed with Respighi's own unique point of view to produce a rich palette of instrumental color. The shimmering violins and Jelena Dirks's elegant oboe set the scene for “The Fountain of Valle Giulia at Dawn”. Roger Kaza’s horns sang out bright golden light for “The Triton Fountain in the Morning” while the play of the fountain's naiads was brought to sparkling life by Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout's harps.  The brass and percussion sections embodied the majestic “Fountain of Trevi at Midday” and the bucolic atmosphere of “The Villa Medici Fountain at Sunset” was enhanced by the birdsong of flutists Matthew Roitstein and Jennifer Nitchman, along with Ann Choomack on piccolo.

“Pines” brought the evening to a big cinematic finish.  Weaving nature painting with bits of Roman history, “Pines” takes us from noisy children running riot at the Villa Borghese (raucous arguments from the horns and brasses, played with spirit and precision), to a haunting “Pines Near a Catacomb"—solemn, slow themes in the low strings, brasses, and piano—where a mysterious chant begins in the trumpet (a perfect solo by guest artist William Leathers from offstage left), builds in the full orchestra, and then cross-fades to a peaceful moonlight night in “The Pines of the Janiculum.” Peter Henderson’s piano and John Estell’s celesta set the mood along with the woodwinds and, finally, the recorded sound of a nightingale.  

The certified rouser, though, was the final movement, “The Pines of the Appian Way,” in which the Roman army approaches slowly to the ominous tread of the percussion, piano, and contrabassoon. Trumpets, trombones, tuba and even an organ (guest artist Andrew Peters) join in and eventually the audience was literally engulfed in sound as the six offstage brass players (placed house left and right in the dress circle) were added to the mix. To work properly, this final section needs to build gradually and inexorably, with close coordination between the onstage and offstage players. It certainly did Saturday night, garnering thunderous applause.

Next at Powell Hall: If it’s December it must be time for Handel’s “Messiah.” Baroque-era specialist Laurence Cummings leads and appropriately downsized St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, December 2-4. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3.

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

Symphony Preview: Twilight time

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

This weekend (October 18-20) Stéphane Denève returns to conduct the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) in an early 20th century program that moves from light to darkness (or at least twilight) with a lyrical pause in between.

The light comes first, in the form of a suite from Francis Poulenc's 1923 ballet "Les Biches." Written for the Ballets Russe and choreographed by the Polish dancer Bronislava Nijinska, it's an immediately appealing piece. Its fusion of classical and then-contemporary pop influences can easily be enjoyed without much concern about its original minimalist scenario or cultural references.

Francis Poulenc in 1922
Photo by Joseph Rosmand

That said, all that stuff makes pretty intriguing reading. This week's program notes by Tim Munro provide an excellent summary of the action accompanying each of the six selections of the suite, while the Wikipedia article on the ballet goes into considerable depth about the origins of the music and the contents of the full-length score. That full score consists of nine numbers, including three for mixed chorus with what, according to the University of Ottawa's Christopher Moore, the composer called "beautiful but slightly obscene texts (from the 18th century)".

And if that's not enough, conductor/scholar Leon Botstein has a fascinating article on the ballet's connections to the Surrealist movement in a program note for his 1992 performance of the suite with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Even the title requires some footnotes. According to Poulenc's biographer Carl Schmidt (in "Entrancing Muse: A Documented Biography of Francis Poulenc") the composer acknowledged that biche, with its multiple possible meanings, is not really translatable into any other language. Wordreference, for example, will tell you it means "doe" ("a deer, a female deer...") as well as "darling" or "honey." Wikipedia adds that "it was also used as a slang term for a coquettish woman." Moore, in an article for the "Musical Quarterly," takes it a step farther, noting that "the word biches is itself pregnant with double entendre, referring most obviously to does, but also, in the underworld of Parisian slang, to a woman (or ironically, a man) of deviant sexual proclivities."

That synchs up with Mr. Munro's suggestion that the subtext of "Les Biches" includes veiled references the composer's sexual identity. "As a gay man in post-World War I France," he writes, "he masked the truth of his sexuality. A work like 'Les biches' allowed him to hint at topics and relationships otherwise taboo in polite society: the game of sexual courtship, gender fluidity, same-sex partnerships."

If that looks like a lot of heavy baggage for around 20 minutes of consistently beguiling music (or if your eyes just started to glaze over a couple paragraphs ago), here's a far more pithy summary by Maestro Denève from this week's program notes:

"Les biches" has something to do with Mozart. There is a saying: "Humor is the politeness of despair." In Mozart, you have music in a major key, which appears very light, but there is such sadness and melancholy behind it. Poulenc has this elegance--he was a dandy who would never complain--but you get hints of an internal despair. I programmed it to show that depth and lightness can go together.

Prokofiev in New York, 1918
Photo by Bain News Service

Up next is Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, op. 19, composed in 1917 but, because of the Russian revolution, not actually performed until 1923 when Serge Koussevitzky conducted the premiere in Paris. It wasn't particularly well received, partly because it's overall lyricism seemed tame compared to the kind of sarcastic and savage music for which the composer was known at the time.

I have quite a bit more to say about the Prokofiev concerto, but since I already said it in a preview article back in 2016, there's no need to plagiarize myself here. I merely note that its lyrical qualities don't make it any easier to play, so our soloist this weekend, Karen Gomyo, has her work cut out for her.

Fortunately, Ms. Gomyo is no stranger to Powell Hall, and has impressed the hell out of me every time I have seen her here. This past April, for example, I called her Tchaikovsky violin concerto "technically pristine and warmly expressive." I look forward to seeing what she does with this very different music.

This weekend's concerts conclude with Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances," a work I have found oddly compelling since I first heard it on a 1961 LP recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, who conducted the work's first performance in 1941. I was immediately struck by the "late night" feel of the piece--and not just because of the chimes in the last movement. It was only later that I learned that Rachmaninoff had, in fact, originally titled the three sections "Noon," "Twilight," and "Midnight." The composer dropped the titles, preferring the let the music speak for itself, and it does so eloquently.

Rachmaninoff in 1921
Public Domain, Wikimeida Commons

The work is filled with evidence of Rachmaninoff's genius as an orchestrator, with elaborate and complex string writing, inventive use of brasses and winds (including a short but poignant solo for alto sax), and an effective but never overwhelming use of the large percussion battery. This is dramatic music that is nevertheless steeped in autumnal melancholy--very appropriate now that fall seems to have finally arrived here.

The "Symphonic Dances" is the composer's last completed work (he died two years after its premiere), and there's a sense throughout of a life approaching its conclusion. "'Symphonic Dances'" writes Maestro Denève in this week's program notes, "is redeeming--it's a piece of hope. The ending is an Alleluia, a triumph over death. It was his last work, and maybe, because he composed this piece, he felt he could die."

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra along with violin soloist Karen Gomyo in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, a suite fro Poulenc's ballet "Les Biches," and Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances." Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm October 18-20. Performances take place at Powell Symphony Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Insecurity complex

This weekend (Friday and Saturday, October 4 and 5) the noted Dutch conductor Edo de Waart leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Elgar's Symphony No. 1. They're big works by composers who were, at various points in their lives, beset by crippling writer's block.

Rachmaninoff in 1900
en.wikipedia.org

Probably the most famous case is that of Rachmaninoff. When his Symphony No. 1 had its St. Petersburg premiere in 1897, the twenty something composer seemed destined for greatness. His Piano Concerto No. 1, his opera "Aleko," and numerous other works had met with great success. The performance, alas, was a disaster that plunged the composer into a depression so deep that it took months of hypnotherapy to release his composer's block.

I went into the gory details in an earlier symphony preview article so I won't repeat them here, but suffice it to say that by the time Rachmaninoff got around to writing his "Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor," Op. 30, in 1909, he had his mojo fully working. The work was a hit, but so difficult to perform that for many years the composer himself was its only advocate.

It wasn't until the great Vladimir Horowitz recorded it in 1930 and began to actively promote it that it started to rise in popularity. These days it's so much a part of the standard repertoire that two of the finalists in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition,Fei-Fei Dong and Sean Chen, picked it for their final-round concerts.

This week's soloist, Joyce Yang (herself a silver medalist in the 2005 Cliburn Competition), is no stranger to the concerto, having garnered rave reviews for previous performances. "She played with a polished, pearly evenness that was remarkable for its ease up and down the keyboard," wrote Charles Pasles in the Los Angeles Times. That bodes well.

Interesting local note: Horowitz gave the Rach 3 its St. Louis premiere on January 27, 1928. The pianist had arrived in the USA just two weeks previously and had already created a sensation with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham. Post-Dispatch music critic Thomas B. Sherman loved Horowitz ("a powerful tone and a sparkling and expertly controlled technique") but hated the concerto, calling it "as dull a thing as the noted Muscovite expatriate has ever done". History has rather overruled him that one.

Like Rachmaninoff, Edward Elgar had his share of insecurities, many of them stemming from his humble origins in rural Worcester from the fact that, unlike Rachmaninoff, he was largely self-taught as a composer, without the usual conservatory training. As Calvin Dotsey writes in notes for the Houston Symphony, the composer "struggled in obscurity for many years before finding fame in 1899 with his 'Enigma Variations,' a musical tribute to his wife and the close friends that had believed in him. Even after he had become a national figure and received a knighthood, money continued to be scarce for years to come, and Elgar suffered from periods of self-doubt and composer's block."

Edward Elgar, circa 1900
en.wikipedia.org

Too, many 19th century composers felt intimidated by the long shadow cast by Beethoven, so they didn't even attempt to write symphonies until they felt very sure of their craft. Brahms, for one, didn't feel confident enough to write a symphony until he was 43, and Elgar didn't finish his until he was 51.

Elgar's situation was further complicated, as Mr. Dotsey points out, because of the way Britain's musical landscape at the time was largely under foreign occupation:

In addition to the "giants" behind him, Elgar faced pressure as the first British composer of orchestral music to ever win widespread international acclaim. Despite Britain's poets, novelists, painters, scientists, playwrights and sprawling empire, for nearly two centuries British musical life had been dominated by foreigners: Handel and J. C. Bach took up residence in London, and Haydn, Mendelssohn and Dvorák had all made significant visits (a young Elgar actually played violin in an orchestra conducted by Dvorák at a choral festival in 1884). The reception of Elgar's First Symphony reflected not merely on himself, but on his nation, which had long been mocked by Germans as "das Land ohne Musik" ("the land without music").

Happily, the December 3, 1908, premiere of Elgar's first symphony was a massive hit. As recounted in Meirion Hughes's "The English Musical Renaissance and the Press 1850-1914: Watchmen of Music," The Daily Telegraph called it "a masterwork to our national musical literature." The Morning Post dubbed it "a work of the future [that] will stand as a legacy for coming generations."

Better yet, it was a hit with the public. "The symphony was an immediate success," notes the elgar.com web site, "with Elgar being recalled to the platform several times both during and after the symphony's first performance and the first London performance four days later. The symphony received around 100 performances during its first year and remains a standard of the classical repertoire, still performed regularly today." That said, the work isn't heard all that often here in the USA, so this weekend is a rare chance to experience it.

Mr. Dotsey has an excellent description of what you can expect to hear in Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in the program notes I cited earlier, as does Paul Horsley in program notes for the Kennedy Center. So I'll just add that, like most of Elgar's music, the symphony strongly reflects the inner life of the man who composed it. As David Cox writes in his chapter on Elgar in "The Symphony" (Penguin Books, 1967, edited by Robert Simpson):

Elgar's personality presented many contrasts, which are reflected in his music. Exuberance and joyous acceptance were offset by nightmarish self-doubt. Crude patriotic feelings contrast with the sensitive, poetic, near-mystic side of him... Now emotional, generous, warm-hearted; now withdrawn, irritable, discontented. At times aggressive and abrupt, hiding a shy, extremely sensitive nature.

Personally, I can hear many of those facets of his persona in this piece. There's quiet British confidence in the opening theme of the first movement, but it quickly gives way to an agitated sense of drama. The second movement scherzo is bustling and a bit anxious, and its middle section is a positively bellicose march. The Adagio third movement is surely "generous" and "warm-hearted," conjuring up images of a quiet English country fireside, and the dramatic final movement concludes with a powerful, confident restatement of the opening theme of the first movement that Elgar said expressed his "massive hope for the future."

Thank God he never lived to see Boris Johnson and Brexit.

The essentials: Edo de Waart conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra along with pianist Joyce Yang in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Elgar's Symphony No. 1 on Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, October 4 and 5. Performances take place at Powell Symphony Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Chalk, cheese, and haggis

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

Version 3 of "Island of the Dead"
en.wikipedia.org

Share on Google+:

In the first half of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts this weekend (February 1 and 2), guest conductor Matthias Pintscher will lead the band in a pair of works by Russian Romantic composers who, while close friends, were still as different as chalk and cheese.

Aleksandr Scriabin
en.wikipedia.org

The composers in question are Serge Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Aleksandr Scriabin (1872-1915). Rachmaninoff, famously, was so stung by the harsh criticism of his first symphony that he spiraled into a depression that was cured only after extensive hypnotherapy. Scriabin, on the other hand, was a raging egomaniac unacquainted with self-doubt. Rachmaninoff was a stable family man. Scriabin was an eccentric who fathered illegitimate children while separated from his wife. Rachmaninoff was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church with strong moral beliefs. Scriabin was a Theosophy-addled mystic who began to see himself as divine.

Basically, Rachmaninoff was sane while Scriabin was a loony.

At the time Scriabin wrote the work that represents him this weekend, though, he hadn't yet achieved those heights of weirdness. Written in 1896, when the composer was only 24, his one and only Piano Concerto shares what SLSO program annotator Tim Munro calls the "inward-looking nature" of Chopin, whom Scriabin greatly admired. "Its restrained music," he writes, "allows few outbursts, holding its hand close, asking us as listeners to lean in, to observe closely." In a detailed analysis for the Pianist Musings blog, pianist and composer Kathryn Louderback adds that Scriabin "masterfully orchestrated the piece so the piano is enhanced, yet the orchestra also shines on its own. AND he created his own sound based on Classical and Romantic roots injected with his own style."

Rachmaninoff in 1900
en.wikipedia.org

The soloist this weekend is Kirill Gerstein, whose previous appearances here have included a surprisingly lyrical Tchaikovsky 1st back in 2013, a bravura performance of British composer Thomas Adès's "In Seven Days" in 2012, and a brilliantly improvisatory "Rhapsody in Blue" in 2014--a performance repeated here and recorded for CD on the Myrios label in 2017. A Gilmore Artist Award winner, Mr. Gerstein has shown himself to be equally at home with both Romantic classics and new music (some of which he has commissioned himself), which would seem to make him a good bet for a work like the Scriabin concerto, which looks back to Chopin while still anticipating the composer's more radical later works.

The Rachmaninoff tone poem that opens the concerts this weekend draws its inspiration not from an earlier composer, but rather from a painting. Written in 1908, when the composer was 35, "Isle of the Dead" is based on a landscape of the same name that was the most popular thing created by the Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin. The stark depiction of an island necropolis towards which a white-robed figure is being rowed apparently struck a sympathetic chord over a century ago and is still compelling today. Böcklin painted five different versions of it (one of which was destroyed in World War II) in the 1880s, and reproductions were apparently common in an early 20th century Europe still reeling from war and influenza.

Dominated by the "Dies Irae" theme that shows up in so much of Rachmaninoff's work, "Isle of the Dead" captures the ominous and majestic feel of the painting remarkably well, considering that the composer had seen only a black and white print of the original. A rocking 5/8 theme, suggestive of the sea and the boat, begins in the low strings and gradually takes over the orchestra. A more lyrical second theme (intended to represent the life force) rises in the strings about half way through, only to be beaten down by a series of relentless brass-and-percussion hammer blows. The piece ends with a return to the eternal sea.

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey
By Kaihsu at English Wikipedia

The Mendelssohn piece on the program--the "Symphony No. 3 in A minor", op. 56, "Scottish"--also drew some inspiration from death and ruin. Although most of it wasn't written until 1842, Mendelssohn got the idea for the slow introduction to the first movement when he visited the ruined Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh on an 1829 walking tour of Scotland. "In the evening twilight," he wrote, "we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved...Everything round is broken and mouldering and the bright sky shines in. I believe I today found in that old chapel the beginning of my 'Scottish' Symphony."

That opening theme aside, though, the "Scottish" nature of the symphony is a subject of some debate among critics and program annotators. Some, like the Eric Bromberger (in program notes for the San Diego Symphony), feel that "no one is sure what that nickname means. This music tells no tale, paints no picture, nor does it quote Scottish tunes." British composer and conductor Julius Harrison (in "The Symphony," edited by Robert Simpson, 1967), on the other hand, thought the symphony "illustrates the near-scenic aspect of Mendelssohn's romantic art" and felt that the jaunty clarinet theme of the Vivace non troppo second movement has "a touch of 'Charlie is My Darling' about its dotted quavers--something Mendelssohn may have remembered and set down."

I fall more into the late Mr. Harrison's camp, but wherever you come down on the "Scottishness" of this music there's no getting around its unflagging appeal and elegant construction. To hear this music is to love it.

The Essentials: Matthias Pintscher conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, February 1 and 2. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Review: Thanks for the memories

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

David Robertson and Orli Shaham

Share on Google+:

When I reviewed the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's world premiere of Steven Mackey's Stumble to Grace a few years ago, I was struck by the music's whimsy and humorous sensibility as well as by its flashy orchestral writing. All of those qualities were present once again last Sunday (October 22, 2017) at Powell Hall, as the SLSO opened their concert with Mackey's 2015 Mnemosyne's Pool.

Laid out in five movements and running around forty minutes, Mnemosyne's Pool is scored for a massive orchestra (nearly 100 musicians), including a percussion battery that includes everything from a triangle to a brake drum. The wildly inventive variety of sounds that Mackey produces with those forces provides much of the work's charm.

The title refers to the Greek goddess who presided over the pool of memory in Hades, and in his notes at the Boosey and Hawkes website, Mr. Mackey says that the work centers on "the role of memory in musical creation and reception." An abrupt change in the melodic line "asks the listener to remember an earlier point in the line instead of continue inexorably forward."

To me, the many shifts of mood and orchestral color in Mnemosyne's Pool did, in fact, evoke memories, but they were memories of other composers. The first section, for example, unfolded as a kind of passacaglia that reminded me of Bach. Later a bassoon figure brought Bartok to mind while other passages strongly suggested the work of Leonard Bernstein. There were no explicit quotes or even paraphrases (Mr. Mackey is too original for that), but the overall effect was a kind of kaleidoscopic total recall of a century or so of sound, all filtered through Mr. Mackey's unique sensibility.

In his spoken introduction, maestro David Robertson noted that Mnemosyne's Pool was a work that he had come to love, and his enthusiasm showed in everything he and the SLSO musicians did. The work is, as a Musical America critic noted, a kind of "concerto for orchestra" that bristles with remarkable solo passages for nearly every instrument, and the members of the band all had chances to strut their stuff. Will James and his percussion section, in particular, covered themselves with glory.

After intermission, the orchestra turned to more familiar territory, beginning with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

First performed in 1870 and then revised in 1877 and 1880, Romeo and Juliet manages the neat trick of compressing the essential emotional themes of Shakespeare's five-act tragedy into around 20 minutes of music. Mr. Robertson's interpretation was appropriately theatrical, featuring strong dramatic contrasts, beginning with a hushed opening chorale and delicate string pizzicati that made the transition to the first statement of the battle music all the more potent. The famous "love theme" had a lush, swooning feel, enhanced by especially fine playing from Associate Principal Horn Thomas Jöstlein and the rest of the horn section.

The concert concluded with one of the great showpieces of the twentieth century, Rachmaninoff's brilliant Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini from 1934. The Russian expatriate was one of the previous century's great pianists, and the Rhapsody served him well as he toured Europe and America, including an appearance with the SLSO in December of 1934. The piece is a sort of mini-concerto, consisting of 24 variations on (appropriately) the twenty-fourth and last of Niccolò Paganini's Caprices for solo violin -- a tune that has proved irresistible for composers from Liszt to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

At the keyboard was Orli Shaham, who first met Mr. Robertson when two were appearing together at Powell Hall in 1999. They were married in 2003, the same year Mr. Robertson became the SLSO Music Director, but have rarely appeared together with the orchestra. With Mr. Robertson's tenure coming to an end this season, this past weekend's appearance could be the last one they ever do together with the SLSO, which lent a kind of poignancy to the event.

The performance itself displayed the mix of nuance and technical skill that I have come to expect from Ms. Shaham. You could hear the former in the subtle gradations of tone that mirrored changes in the mood of the music, accompanied by changes in facial expression and body language that indicated a deep involvement with the score.

As for Ms. Shaham's virtuosity, it was apparent in every precisely rendered note of this challenging work. This was particularly noticeable in her seemingly effortless way with the fiercely difficult final variation, which even the composer was said to have found a bit daunting.

The applause Sunday was prolonged enough to move Ms. Shaman to play an encore for us: Bach's Prelude in E minor, BWV 855a, in the B minor transcription by the Russian pianist Alexander Siloti. The luminous mix of Baroque and late Romantic elements was an ideal way to end the concert.

Next at Powell Hall: David Robertson conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in music by Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, and Beethoven Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 27-29. Soprano Christine Brewer will perform Berg's Seven Early Songs and SLSO Principal Horn Roger Kaza will play Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2. The concerts will conclude with Beethoven's popular Symphony No. 5. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Getting very near the end

Orli Shaham
Photo: Christian Steiner

Share on Google+:

There are, as you probably know, major changes coming at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the next few years. Long-time Music Director David Roberson concludes his tenure with the group at the end of the 2017-18 season, to be replaced by the young French conductor Stéphane Denève in the 2019-2020 season.

It's an amicable parting to be sure, but it means that the current season is one of "lasts," one of which will be the last joint appearance on the Powell Hall stage this Saturday and Sunday of Mr. Robertson and his wife, pianist Orli Shaham. Ms. Shaham will play Rachmaninoff's bravura Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in a program that also includes Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet and Mnemosyne's Pool, a 2015 orchestral work by Steven Mackey.

They only perform jointly a couple of times a year and although Ms. Shaham has been a frequent soloist with the SLSO, they haven't both shared the stage here in St. Louis that often, but this is still a significant milestone for local music lovers. I dropped a couple of questions about that into a virtual bottle and floated them to Ms. Shaham over the Interwaves.

Chuck: You've said that you're looking forward to making chamber music with the SLSO in your performance of the Rachmaninoff. Can you elaborate on that? How is performing this like performing chamber music, in your view?

Orli: Rachmaninoff varies many aspects of the theme in each of the 24 variations. Specifically, he constantly changes up the instrumentation, so you end up with many different groupings of musicians from all the different sections of the orchestra. There are some very intimate moments in which it's just the piano and a few solo strings or a few solo winds, or one particular section of the orchestra with the piano. In that way it's really like chamber music on a grand scale.

David Robertson
Photo: Dan Dreyfus

Chuck: You and David Robertson met backstage at Powell Hall in 1999 and married in 2003, the same year as his appointment as music director at the SLSO. Now that you're preparing to play your last joint concert with Mr. Robertson and the orchestra, what impact do you feel the whole St. Louis experience has had on you and your family? What are some of your better memories from these years?

Orli: Over the years, we've had a wonderful relationship with both our St. Louis Symphony family as well as with many, many people all around St. Louis City and County.

From the very beginning, we felt embraced by the St. Louis community. I remember the first time people took us on tours around the neighborhoods and told us where we should have a good coffee or a quick lunch, and maybe even make our home. That warm welcoming atmosphere from the community and from the musicians on the stage has been a staple of our time there. We've had a lot of situations where people just made us feel like we've always been St. Louis citizens.

Just one example of that was this summer. We spent much of in Australia (some of it for work and some of it on vacation with the kids). We specifically wanted to come back to the states in time to see the eclipse - and of course there was no better place to see it than in St. Louis. But David had to stay in Sydney because he had performances there, so it was just me and the kids. I thought "gosh it might be a little lonely to share this experience with them," but it would still be totally worth it. Sure enough, when I mentioned to some of the musicians that we'd be in town for the day, before I could even blink, a plan was in place: A wonderful gathering with a number of musicians from the orchestra and their families, other children for my kids to play with, and a brilliant idea for the perfect spot. It turned out not only to be a great celestial event but a great social one as well.

The Essentials: David Robertson conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, with piano soloist Orli Shaham, in music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Steven Mackey Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 21 and 22. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Review: Macelaru and Shaham create autumnal drama at the St. Louis Symphony

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

Cristian Macelaru

The St. Louis Symphony gave us an appropriately autumnal concert this weekend (October 21 - 23, 2016), featuring Rachmaninoff's nocturnal Symphonic Dances in a finely nuanced interpretation by guest conductor Cristian Macelaru and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Orli Shaham is that delivered both power and poetry at the keyboard.

Friday night's concert opened with a spectacular performance of Sergey Lyapunov's HD Technicolor orchestration of Balakirev's 1869 "Oriental Fantasy" Islamey. Originally written for solo piano and regarded as one of the most technically difficult works for that instrument, Islamey is essentially a series of restatements of two tunes: a dance the composer heard while traveling in the Caucasian mountains and a lyrical Armenian folk song.

In the piano original, the musical interest is largely generated by the increasingly elaborate ornamentation of these melodies and the sheer thrill of watching a pianist navigate Balakirev's musical thicket-something the composer himself couldn't do, despite being a formidable pianist. In the orchestration, it comes from hearing the melodies tossed among the instruments in a kind of musical tennis match. That requires an exacting attention to detail from both the conductor and the musicians.

We definitely got that Friday night, with virtuoso playing all the way around. Mr. Macelaru took the lively outer sections of the piece at an almost alarmingly brisk tempo, which contrasted nicely with the intense romanticism of the middle. He found poetic nuances in this showpiece that made it more than just flashy.

The Beethoven Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 that followed also had its share of poetry. This was especially true in the unusual second movement in which dramatic pronouncements by the orchestra are met with more subdued and expressive material by the soloist. Ms. Shaham's playing was intensely poignant here, which made the quick transition to the jolly, Haydnesque Rondo finale that much more effective.

Decked out in an elegant and shimmering blue gown Ms. Shaham cut a very striking figure at the keyboard. As usual, she was strongly focused on the music, completely "in the moment" as we say in the theatre biz. This was true even when she wasn't playing but just listening to the orchestra or watching Mr. Macelaru. Reacting to your performing partners is as important in music as it is in theatre, and Ms. Shaham excels at this.

Orli Shaham

Her keyboard technique was impeccable as it always has been in my experience, as was her sensitivity to the changing moods of the most remarkable of all the Beethoven concerti. She brought out all the lyricism in the score and added some of her own. It was a masterful performance that received a standing ovation. She followed it up with an encore by the composer whose music would take up the last half of the program, Serge Rachmaninoff: a pristine reading of his haunting Prelude in G-sharp minor, Op. 21 No. 12.

"Haunting" is also a word that describes much of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, Op. 45. Written in 1940 and first performed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941, this would prove to be the last completed orchestral work by the composer, and there's a sense throughout the piece of a life approaching its conclusion.

I have always been struck by the “late night” feel of this music-and not just because of the chimes in the last movement. Indeed, Rachmaninoff originally titled the three sections “Noon,” “Twilight,” and “Midnight”. The composer later dropped the titles, but they still effectively describe the emotional progression of this music from light to a darkness which is not entirely dispelled by the vigorous final pages of the last dance.

The Symphonic Dances is filled with evidence of Rachmaninoff's genius as an orchestrator. The elaborate and complex string writing, inventive use of brasses and winds, and an effective but never overwhelming use of the large percussion battery all demand a great deal from the musicians, and the members of the SLSO definitely rose to the challenge.

To pick just a few examples: The long pastoral interlude for woodwinds in the first dance, with its poignant alto sax solo by Nathan Nabb, was especially effective. The brass section had real bite in the second movement's spectral waltz. And Roger Kaza's horns were impeccable throughout. There was fine work as well from harpist Allegra Lilly and from all the members of the percussion section.

On the podium, Mr. Macelaru demonstrated that same combination of drama, subtlety, and control that made his debut with orchestra back in 2014 so impressive. He got a lot of sound out of the band, but it was never overwhelming or distorted; just beautifully balanced.

Next at Powell Hall: Jun Märkl conducts the 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.

Symphony Preview: The SLSO deals a pair of threes Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, 2015

This weekend's St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts offer a pair of threes: Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3" and Scriabin's "Symphony No. 3" ("The Divine Poem"). Both were written during the first decade of the 20th century when their creators were in their thirties. Both composers were Russian Romantics who were prodigious pianists. And both made significant contributions to the literature for both piano and orchestra.

Aleksandr Scriabin
en.wikipedia.org

(They both also experienced synaesthesia—the association of specific colors with certain musical keys—but that's another story.)

The personalities, however, of Serge Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Aleksandr Scriabin (1872-1915) were radically different, even though they were close friends from their days at the Moscow Conservatory. Rachmaninoff, famously, was so stung by the harsh criticism of his "Symphony No. 1" that he spiraled into a depression that was cured only after extensive hypnotherapy. Scriabin, on the other hand, was a raging egomaniac unacquainted with self-doubt. Rachmaninoff was a stable family man. Scriabin was an eccentric who fathered illegitimate children while separated from his wife. Rachmaninoff was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church with strong moral beliefs. Scriabin was a Theosophy-addled mystic who began to see himself as divine.

Basically, Rachmaninoff was sane while Scriabin, as Paul Schiavo writes in his program notes, "was, by any measure, quite mad."

How mad? Well, he became convinced that he could levitate and walk on water, for one thing. "I am the apotheosis of world creation," he said of himself. "I am the aim of aims, the end of ends." And at the time of his death in 1915 at the age of 43 (brought on by septicemia stemming from a sore on his upper lip), Scriabin was working on a "Universe Symphony". It would be a multi-media experience that would be performed in the Himalayas and would result in "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world." "The universe," as Scriabin's biographer Faubion Bowers wrote, "would be completely destroyed by it, and mankind plunged into the holocaust of finality." All we have are sketches of the first part, titled "Mysterium". Which might be just as well.

The intent behind the "Symphony No. 3," while less apocalyptic, was certainly ambitious. "The Divine Poem," ran a note presumably written by Scriabin and distributed at the work's 1905 Moscow premiere, "represents the evolution of the human spirit, which, freed from the legends and mysteries of the past that it has surmounted and overthrown, passes through pantheism and achieves a joyful and exhilarating affirmation of its liberty and its unity with the universe."

"The Divine Poem," writes Philip Huscher in his program notes for a Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance from this January, "is the longest work Scriabin wrote. It is scored for a very large orchestra, handled with the care and imagination of a much more experienced orchestrator. It is also the first of his works to be called a poem, signaling the shift from abstract symphony to a new, unnameable [sic] kind of music."

The symphony consists of a short introduction and three movements, all played without pause and running around fifty minutes. Scriabin titled the movements "Struggles," "Delights," and "Divine Play." Mr. Schiavo has a nicely detailed analysis of it in his notes for the SLSO program as does Mr. Huscher in his notes for the CSO. The former is heavier on musical detail while the latter includes fascinating quotes by the composer (Scriabin found few subjects more worthy of comment than Scriabin). They're both worth reading.

Although Scriabin died young, his compositions—especially his solo piano works—anticipated the twentieth century's near-total collapse of conventional notions of harmony (at least among "classical" composers) in ways that those of his longer-lived friend did not. He did it, however, in ways that were completely idiosyncratic, creating his own personal notions of harmony, including his famous "Mystic chord"—C, F♯, B♭, E, A, D. 

That failed to endear him to the serialists and others looking for a more rational and mathematical system.  "The strength of Alexander [sic] Scriabin," wrote Vladimir Horowitz for a 1956 recording of his sonatas, "…was unashamed Byronic romanticism.  It is one of those peculiar ironies that this strength in an earlier era may have turned out in retrospect to be his weakness in the age in which we live.  Today, in a more material age, unfortunately the tendency is to regard romanticism in any form with indulgent tolerance."

By the time Rachmaninoff got around to writing his "Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor," Op. 30, in 1909 he had fully recovered from the crippling depression brought on by the failure of his "Symphony No. 1" over a decade earlier and had achieved international recognition as both a virtuoso pianist and a composer. He wrote the concerto at his family's country estate, Ivanovka, in the summer of 1909 for a concert tour of the USA. The concerto's first two performances took place that November with the New York Symphony Society conducted by Walter Damrosch (the premiere) and Gustav Mahler (several weeks later).

Rachmaninoff in 1900
en.wikipedia.org

The Rachmaninoff Third is the K2 of piano concerti. Fiercely difficult, it's a reminder of what a prodigious pianist Rachmaninoff was. For many years after its premiere, its only real advocate was the composer himself. Even the virtuoso to whom the piece is dedicated, Josef Hofmann, never attempted to perform it in public. It wasn't until the great Vladimir Horowitz recorded it in 1930 and began to actively promote it that it started to rise in popularity. These days it's so much a part of the standard repertoire that two of the finalists in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (Fei-Fei Dong and Sean Chen) picked it for their final-round concerts.

Still, it's not the sort of thing a pianist takes on lightly. Our soloist this weekend, Macedonian pianist Simon Trpcheski, is no stranger to the work, having recorded it for the Avie label with this weekend's guest conductor, Vasily Petrenko (who conducted a very impressive Rachmaninoff "Isle of the Dead" here in October, 2011). It also can't hurt that the orchestra played the work as recently as May of 2012 (under Peter Oundjian, with Stephen Hough as the keyboard).

An interesting local note: when the concerto had its St. Louis premiere on January 27, 1928, the soloist was Horowitz (the "young Russian pianist," to quote Post-Dispatch critic Thomas B. Sherman). The pianist had arrived in the USA just two weeks previously and had already created a sensation with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham. Mr. Sherman loved Horowitz ("a powerful tone and a sparkling and expertly controlled technique") but hated the concerto, calling it "as dull a thing as the noted Muscovite expatriate has ever done". History has rather overruled him that one.

The essentials: Vasily Petrenko conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with pianist Simon Trpcheski in Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor" and Scriabin's Symphony No. 3, "Le Poème divin," on Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, at 8 p.m. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.