Symphony Review: Denève and Gerstein celebrate Ravel

What’s better than an afternoon with the music of Maurice Ravel? Last Sunday the answer was: an afternoon with the music of Ravel performed by Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist Kirill Gerstein. Beginning with the gossamer fairy tale world of the “Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) Suite", continuing with both of the composer’s piano concertos, and wrapping up with the excessively popular “Boléro,” this was a sparkling celebration of one of the previous century’s great orchestrators and melodists.

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

As Denève pointed out in his pre-concert remarks, Ravel is renowned for his skill as an orchestrator but less often recognized for the long, irresistible melodic lines of his music. Denève held out the second movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major as an example. It’s a good one, and only one of many we heard during the program.

Stéphane Denève
Photo: Dilip Vishwanat, courtesy of the SLSO

Denève last conducted “Ma mère l’oye” here in 2018. Looking back on my review of that concert, I find that everything I wrote about that resplendent performance would fit this latest one like one of Ravel’s tastefully tailored suits. His approach, then and now, was finely shaded and utterly idiomatic. The musicians responded with their usual élan. 

Ravel provided many wonderful solo moments in his transparent score and the SLSO musicians fully did them justice. The includes, by is not limited to, the interaction between Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews and newly appointed Principal Contrabassoon Ellen Connors in  Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast), the percussion section under Principal Will James in the Gamelan-flavored exotica of Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas), and the chirping woodwinds as the birds in Petit Pouchet (Tom Thumb) who devour poor Tom’s breadcrumb trail through the forest.  

Up next was something you don’t see every day, Chauncey (as they used to say on "Rocky and Bullwinkle"): both of Ravel’s piano concertos in back-to-back performances. Granted, there was an intermission in between, but even so that’s not something every pianist could do. Certainly, there aren’t many who could manage that particular double header as well as Kirill Gerstein did.

It's not just that the Concerto in G and the Concerto for the Left Hand are technically challenging (although they certainly are) but rather the fact that they also call for a deep understanding of Ravel’s characteristic sound world. As a consistently dynamic performer with a wide expressive range and spectacular technique, Gerstein was an ideal choice for this music.

Although completed at around the same time (they were both premiered in 1932) the two concertos inhabit very different emotional spaces. The Concerto in G is the more popular of the two—snappy and jazzy in its outer movements and touchingly lyrical in its famous Adagio assai second movement. The  aforementioned long melodic line in that movement was played beautifully by Gerstein and Principal English Horn Cally Banham. It’s a consistently sunny piece, played with elegance and wit by Gerstein and Denève

The Concerto for the Left Hand in D is another story. Composed on commission for pianist Paul Wittgenstein (who had lost his right arm in World War I), the concerto unfolds in a single 20-minute movement with four interconnected sections. It’s a remarkable piece, with a dark bitonal introduction featuring the contrabassoon (another nice bit of work from Connors) that sounds a bit like a more menacing version of the opening of “La Valse.” The piano enters with a defiant cadenza that sounds like it couldn’t possibly be played by one hand, and we’re off.  There’s a central march/scherzo that might have been written by Shostakovich and an ultimately triumphant finale preceded by yet another alarmingly difficult cadenza.

I can’t praise Gerstein’s work enough here. I have been impressed by his previous work with the SLSO, but this display of virtuosity and emotional range was truly spellbinding. The Concerto for the Left Hand, in particular, was very welcome, given that we haven’t hear it here since 2012 when Leon Fleisher played it with David Robertson at the podium. It was most gratifying to see it done so well by Gerstein and Denève.

Finally, there was Ravel’s Greatest Hit. Denève and the band did a bang-up job of “Boléro,” no question, with impeccable solo and soli moments all the way around. Nearly every player gets a moment in the spotlight, making this a real showpiece for an orchestra with a deep talent pool like that of the SLSO. This is especially true in the early moments of the work, in which the soloists are out on their own with little more than plucked strings and the snare drum behind them. This time around that meant Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews, flautist Jessica Sindell, and Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo—the latter playing at the top of his range, as Ravel seems fond of doing with that instrument.

While “Boléro” is one of those works that might be too popular for its own good, it felt like the perfect finale for this particular concert. Its big, gaudy, Technicolor sound neatly balanced the translucent tints of “Ma mère l'oye” and was a fitting contrast to the darker colors of the Concerto for the Left Hand. Fine bit of programming, that.

If you missed this set of concerts, never fear. St. Louis Public Radio’s recording, complete with intermission interviews, will be available at the SLSO web site for the next month.

Next from the SLSO: Stéphane Denève conducts the orchestra and soloist James Ehnes in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Performances are Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, January 25 and 26, at the Stifel Theatre downtown. Note that this one, like the other Stifel concerts, won’t be available afterwards.

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

Symphony Preview: Reveling in Ravel

This weekend (January 17 and 19) St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Music Director Stéphane Denève returns for a program devoted entirely to a composer I love almost as much as he does: Maurice Ravel (1875–1937). Like Ravel, Denève has studied at the Paris Conservatoire. Unlike the composer (who was expelled), our MD graduated with honors and has gone on to make a name for himself as an exponent of French music in general and Ravel in particular.

[Preview the music with my Spotify playlist.]

I have written extensively about all four of the works on this weekend’s program over the past decade or thereabouts. This week’s preview is based on that earlier material.

Ma mère l'oye
New York City Ballet

The concerts will open with the “Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) Suite”, based on a two-piano suite originally written for Mimie and Jean, the two children of Ravel's friend Cipa Godebski, an expatriate Polish artist, and his wife Ida. The kids were supposed to give the work its first performance at the Société Musicale Indépéndantes in 1910, but stage fright got the better of them and two other youngsters got the opportunity.

The work proved popular enough to merit an orchestration in 1911 and later even a full-length ballet, but it's the former that we'll hear this weekend. Inspired by the fairy stories of Charles Perrault as well as anonymous folk sources, the five movements make up a veritable musical toy box brimming with auditory delights.

Denève’s first appearance with the SLSO following his appointment as MD included a transcendent performance of the suite. This is a true showpiece for the orchestra, with lots of opportunities for solo and small ensemble work. I look forward to hearing it in the drier acoustics of the Touhill.

Next, we’ll have both of Ravel’s two piano concertos, beginning with the Concerto in G, written mostly between 1929 and 1932. For the composer, it represented an attempt to improve his own less than stellar skill as a pianist.

Ravel, as Washington University's Hugh Macdonald wrote in program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (link no longer available) was not a virtuoso at the keyboard. “In his public appearances as a concert pianist,” notes Mr. Macdonald, “he had preferred to play easier pieces…. But rather than write a piece within his own capacity, he decided to write a concerto of proper difficulty and simply acquire the technique to play it.” Thus began the long and difficult nativity of the Concerto in G.

That process began as early as 1911 according to Macdonald. That was when Ravel, who had been born in the Basque town of Ciboure, sketched out a “Basque Concerto” based on themes from that region of France.  The project was scrapped, but the second movement would live again—this time with a jazzier flavor—as the notoriously difficult Adagio assai movement of the G major concerto.

Maurice Ravel birthday party, New York City, March 8, 1928
L-R: Oscar Fried, conductor; Eva Gauthier, singer;
Ravel at piano; Manoah Leide-Tedesco, composer-conductor;
and composer George Gershwin

Unfortunately, Ravel’s health was declining, resulting in memory problems and difficulty concentrating. So when it came time for the French premiere of the concerto in January 1932 the solo role went to Marguerite Long, who taught piano at the Paris Conservatoire between 1906 and 1940. And even she found it a challenge.

“It is a difficult work,” she observed in the posthumously published Au Piano avec Maurice Ravel, “especially in respect of the second movement where one has no respite.”

Part of the delay in composing the Concerto in G was the result of the composer setting it aside to work on his Concerto for the Left Hand. Ravel wrote it during 1929 and 1930 for pianist Paul Wittgenstein (the older brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein), who was just at the beginning of what looked like a successful career when World War I broke out. Called up for military service, Wittgenstein was shot in the right elbow during the Battle of Galicia. He was captured by the Russians and sent to a POW camp in Siberia where the injury to his arm proved to be so severe that amputation was necessary.

For the vast majority of pianists, that would be a career-ending event, but Wittgenstein refused to give up. The camp had no piano so, as Dakota White relates at the World War I Centennial web site, Wittgenstein drew the outline of a keyboard on a wooden crate and used it to practice during his confinement. After the war, he was able to use his family's wealth and social connections to commission works for the left hand from leading composers of the day, including Ravel.

Wittgenstein gave the work its premiere on January 5th, 1932, with Robert Heger conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and recorded it in 1937 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bruno Walter. You can hear that performance on YouTube . It’s still worth listening to, despite the dated mono sound.

There's a nocturnal feel to the concerto. There’s a dark bitonal introduction featuring the contrabassoon, flashy cadenzas for the soloist, and a central march/scherzo which, like the Adagio assai in the G major concerto, shows the composer’s fascination with jazz. It feels like Ravel is inviting us to a dance in the graveyard—a celebration of renewed life in the shadow of the massive death of the "war to end all wars." Ravel served as an ambulance driver in the cataclysm, and I think the horrors he saw influenced many of his post-war works, including this one.

The soloist for both of these very demanding concertos is a frequent visitor to our town, Kirill Gerstein. I last saw him here in October, 2022, when he gave us a disciplined and grandly romantic Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff with Hannu Lintu (another familiar face) at the podium. In addition to his frequent guest appearances with the SLSO, he recorded a Gershwin album with the band for Myrios in 2018, which I would highly recommend. His performances, in my experience, are often a singular mix of strong technique and interpretive creativity.

Ida Rubenstien, 1922
Public Domain

The concerts close with one of the most popular orchestral works ever written and certainly the best-known thing Maurice Ravel ever produced: “Bolero.” Composed originally on commission for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, “Bolero” was first performed by her at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928 with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and designs by Alexandre Benois.

The scenario, as printed in that first program, describes a wild night in a Spanish tavern that gets wilder when a female dancer leaps on to a table as "her steps become more and more animated." The late New York Times music critic Louis Biancolli (quoted in the 1962 edition of Julian Seaman's "Great Orchestral Music: A Treasury of Program Notes") goes into greater detail, describing an increasingly erotic bacchanal, which ends (as the key changes to C major) in a knife-wielding brawl.

Sex and violence always sell, I guess. There are many more fascinating facts to be had about "Boléro," including its sexual subtext. Actor/writer Albert Brooks had some fun with that aspect of the work on his subversively brilliant 1975 LP "A Star is Bought." The original is out of print, sad to say, but the whole thing is available on YouTube.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in an all-Ravel program Friday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm, January 17 and 19, in auditorium at the Touhill Center on the University of Missouri–St. Louis campus. The Friday performance will be broadcast Saturday, January 18, at 7:30 pm on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3 and will also be available for a limited time at the SLSO web site.

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

Symphony Preview: Some of my favorite things

This Friday and Sunday, November 3 and 5, Music Director Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and pianist Paul Lewis in a program that I pretty much guarantee will include at least one of your favorites. It certainly includes my favorite of the five piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827).

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

"Beethoven Letronne" by Blasius Höfel
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Common

The concerto in question is Beethoven's Fourth in G major, Op. 58, composed in 1806 and first performed in March 1807 at a private concert at the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. The public got its first exposure to it at an infamous four-hour concert on December 22nd of the following year at Vienna's Theater an der Wien, with the composer as both soloist and conductor.

That concert was such an unpleasant, ill-prepared disaster that it was not until Mendelssohn revived the work in 1836 that it began to catch on with the public, which has loved it ever since.

The Fourth is my favorite in part because it's so concise. I don't think there's a spare note in the entire work, and everything is perfectly proportioned. It's also remarkably innovative for its time in that it begins with a short declaration by the solo piano which is then taken up by the orchestra. Normal procedure would have been to have the orchestra state all the major themes before the piano made its first entrance. Instead, the movement seems to grow out of a dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra.

The second movement is a dialogue between the soloist and the band as well, but this time it's in the form of a call and response, in which dramatic pronouncements by the orchestra are met, at least initially, with more subdued and lyrical material by the soloist.

This unusual structure has given birth to a notion (first advanced by Beethoven's biographer Adolph Bernhard Marx in 1859) that the movement was inspired by the story of Orpheus’s descent into Hades. When I first heard this movement, though, it conjured up the image of an argument (or maybe a debate), with the aggressive stance of the orchestra met, at first, with attempts at calm reason, then with agitation, and finally with a kind of resignation. It's as if, after trying in vain to calm and placate its orchestral partner, the piano finally sighs and say, "OK, OK, you win. Let's just drop it."

Gluck in 1775
by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis
Public Domain

It is, in any event, hard to say what Beethoven actually had in mind. The bottom line is that when the movement comes to its tragic conclusion, I have always felt a need to exhale slowly and then bask in the relief of the jolly, Haydnesque Rondo finale.

“In the 4th piano concerto,” said Joshua Weilerstein on his “Sticky Notes” podcast this past June, “Beethoven turns his entire musical brand so to speak upside down. Instead of a blazing fire, we get a gentle warmth, instead of drama, we get tenderness. And instead of virtuosity, we get a practically transcendental level of simplicity.”

Speaking of Orpheus in the underworld, the work immediately preceding the Beethoven concerto is the popular “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Act II Scene 2 of the opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” (1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787)—a pairing that surely isn’t coincidental. In the opera it accompanies a ballet that introduces a scene set in Elysium. The work’s prominent role for the flute has made it a favorite among folks like James Galway (whose recording is on the SLSO’s Spotify playlist), while the serene mood it creates has earned it a place on albums and playlists emphasizing music for relaxation.

Maurice Ravel in 1925
en.wikipedia.org

After intermission it’s back to the Baroque as re-imagined by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937). Written between 1914 and 1917, “Le Tombeau de Couperin” began life as a six-movement solo piano work that invokes the style and form of the 17th century French keyboard suites epitomized by François Couperin (1668–1733). Each of the movements was dedicated to a friend of Ravel’s who died in World War I. That lends a dual meaning to the work’s title since “tombeau” literally translates as “tomb” but musically it means “tribute to” or “in memory of.”

That sounds like it ought to be music for lamentation. Instead it’s a bubbly, graceful, and altogether charming work, especially in the 1919 four-movement version for full orchestra that will be on the program this weekend. James M. Keller describes Ravel’s orchestration as “crystalline”—the perfect adjective as far as I’m concerned.

“Crystalline” would not be a bad description of the sound of the final work on the program, the Symphony No. 1 (“Classical), Op. 25, by Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953). It’s not a word one would use to label most of the composer’s output, and thereby hangs a tale.

Prokofiev’s "Classical" symphony came about in part as a reaction by the composer to his growing reputation as an aggressive modernist—said reputation springing from his spiky Piano Concerto No. 2 and his electrifying "Scythian Suite." He also felt that he was becoming too dependent on the piano as a compositional medium. So in 1917, with the socialist revolution exploding around him, he retreated, sans piano, to a village outside of St. Petersburg and completed the symphony he had begun the previous year.

Prokofiev in New York, 1918
Photo by Bain News Service

“When our classically inclined musicians and professors (to my mind faux-classical) hear this symphony, they will be bound to scream in protest at this new example of Prokofiev’s insolence,” wrote the composer in his diary. “But my true friends will see that the style of my symphony is precisely Mozartian classicism and will value it accordingly, while the public will no doubt just be content to hear happy and uncomplicated music which it will, of course, applaud.”

Audiences have been applauding ever since.  The symphony does, indeed, take the Classical style and give it a distinctly 20th-century sound. It will also give our orchestra's string section something of a workout as it demands a lot from them, with rapid passages in the first movement and a high soft entry in the second, and generally requires players that can handle the lightness and transparency of the orchestration.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the SLSO and piano soloist Paul Lewis in a program consisting of Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from “Orfeo ed Euridice,” Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 (“Classical”). Performances take place at the Touhill Center on Friday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, October November 3 and 5.  The Friday performance will be broadcast Saturday evening, November 4, at 7:30 pm on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3 and will be available for streaming for a limited time at the SLSO web site.

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

Symphony Review: Tessa Lark comes out on top in soloist reshuffle

Two weeks ago The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra got hit with what must be every professional orchestra’s headache: the sudden cancellation of a featured soloist due to illness. What made it a full-on migraine was the fact that the soloist, violinist Nicola Benedetti, was scheduled for a two-week residency during which she would play two violin concertos written for her and first performed by her: one by James MacMillan (who also conducted the first of the two concerts) and one by Benedetti’s husband Wynton Marsalis.

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

For the February 10th and 11th concerts the SLSO elected to substitute Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture rather than engage a new soloist on such short notice. This past weekend (February 18th and 19th), with SLSO Music Director Stéphane Denève at the podium, there was both a replacement soloist—the Grammy-nominated Tessa Lark—and not one but two works for violin and orchestra: the “Poème” Op. 25 by Ernest Chausson (1855–1899) and “Tzigane” by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937).

The bad news is that we’ll have to wait until a future date to see Benedetti perform both works live with the SLSO. The good news is that Lark’s performance was stunning and that the substitutions resulted in a program entirely by French composers that was also international in scope.

Allow me to explain.

It began with the “Marche écossaise sur un théme populaire” (“Scottish march on a popular theme”) by Claude Debussy (1862–1918). Originally written for two pianos and later orchestrated by the composer, the “Marche ecossaise” was commissioned by a man Debussy believed to be a Scottish General but who was, in fact, an American diplomat. In any case, this entertaining if trifling mix of the Gallic and the Caledonian is great fun to hear, especially when preceded by a performance of the original march by local bagpipe virtuoso Chris Apps.

Chris Apps

Decked out in traditional Highland gear, complete with beret and kilt, Apps cut a striking figure as he walked on stage Sunday afternoon to deliver a rousing rendition of the tune. Hearing that tune it its original form enhanced the pleasure of listening to Debussy’s transformation of it. Starting as a march and ending with a jig, it all sounds more like Delius than Debussy—especially in the calme (meno tempo) interlude—but that made it no less enjoyable.

Things became more lyrical with the entrance of Lark for Chausson’s “Poème.” Inspired by a Turgenev novella, the Poème” is a work of otherworldly beauty, and Lark’s intensely Romantic performance perfectly captured that. The slowly dying trills that end the Poème were especially effective, as were the two cadenzas the composer provided to showcase the soloist.

Next, Lark had a chance to demonstrate her technical prowess in Ravel’s “Tzigane.” Inspired by the playing of the Hungarian-born violinist Jelly d’Arányi, “Tzigane” is an outrageously difficult piece. The slow, smoldering romanticism of the opening eventually gives way to a wildly energetic finale that will test the skill of the best violinists. Lark proved more than equal to both the intense passion of the long solo introduction and the wild, fiery finale. If you missed her performance last weekend, never fear: classical radio station WQXR has provided a YouTube video of her playing the original violin and piano version.

The second half of the program consisted of two popular orchestral blockbusters: Debussy’s sunny “Ibéria” and Ravel’s apocalyptic “La Valse.” This is music that Maestro Denève clearly knows well—he conducted both without a score—and clearly loves. I know I loved what he did with both of them and, judging from the response, so did the audience.

Tessa Lark and Stéphane Denève
Photo: Chuck Lavazzi

Although Debussy never spent more than a few hours in Spain, he nevertheless had plenty of exposure to Spanish music and dance. That, and his imagination, were all he needed to conjure up this Ivesian collage of day and night in the town of San Sebastián, just a few miles from the Spanish-French border. It’s colorful music with constantly shifting melodic and harmonic perspectives, rather like a French “New Wave” film.

That means there is a plethora of opportunities for individuals and whole sections to move in and out of sonic focus. A few examples include the languorous oboes and English horn in the second movement (“The Fragrances of the Night”), the solo by Concertmaster David Halen in the third movement (“The Morning of a Festival Day”), and the piquant sound of the strings in the first movement (“In the Streets and Byways”). Debussy subdivided the first and second violins into multiple groups here, producing an unusually complex sound.

The way the entire orchestra seems to breathe in a dreamlike state during the second movement is also impressive. The SLSO hasn’t played this music since 1997, but under Denève’s direction they performed with their accustomed precision.

This weekend's concerts concluded with Ravel's “La Valse,” a work that began in 1911 with the title “Wein” (“Vienna”). Before it could be completed, however, World War I (in which the composer served as an ambulance driver) intervened, and by the time it premiered in 1920 it had become something far more profound. Beginning in darkness at the very bottom of the orchestra, “La Valse” rises to what at first seems to be a gleaming homage to the 19th century Vienna of the Strauss family. Over the course of the next ten minutes or so, though, it becomes less joyous and more frenzied. The violent, crashing finale has always made me think of a huge, ornate machine spinning faster and faster until it hurls itself to pieces.

Denève last conducted “La Valse” with the SLSO in 2018, shortly after his appointment as Music Director. Back then I called his performance “dramatic, subtly shaded, and exceptionally effective.” It was certainly all of that Sunday afternoon, with the hushed opening (basses playing pianissimo and muted) starting in the near silence Denève achieved by holding the first downbeat until everyone had settle down and stopped coughing. From there the inexorable build to the frankly horrifying conclusion was masterfully done and beautifully played.

Denève, in his pre-concert remarks, described “La Valse” as “dancing on a volcano…which, I guess, means a lot today.” I can’t disagree. I was reminded, not for the first time, of Barbara W. Tuchman’s “The March of Folly.” Sometimes, it seems, the dance macabre can be a waltz.

Next at Powell Hall: The regular season takes a break for some “one of” concerts. Kevin McBeth conducts the orchestra, the IN UNISON Chorus, and soloist Kennedy Holmes in a “Lift Every Voice: A Black History Month Celebration” on Friday, February 24 at 7:30 pm. Brent Havens conducts the orchestra and vocalist Nick Adams in “The Music of the Rolling Stones” on Saturday the 25th at 7:30 pm. And Stephanie Childress conducts the SLSO Youth Orchestra on Sunday the 26th at 3:00 pm in “Music Without Boundaries,” an immersive 45-minute concert for children ages 5–10. Soloists include Rulin Olivia Zhang (erhu), Amir Salesevic (accordion), and the UMSL Percussion Ensemble under Matthew Henry.

The regular season resumes Friday at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 10:30 am, March 3 and 4, as Stephanie Childress conducts the orchestra in music of Haydn, Schumann, and Oswald Huỳnh.

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

Symphony Notes, Part 1: The play's the thing

I'm writing this week's edition of "Symphony Notes" in two parts because, first of all, there were two different St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) programs originally scheduled for May 1-3, and second, because the first of the two planned concerts was unusual, if not unique.

Maurice Ravel in 1925

That first concert, originally scheduled for Friday May 1st only, was "Maurice Ravel: A Musical Journey". The SLSO described it as "a symphonic play, in collaboration with playwright Didi Balle. The program traces the life of the French composer and pianist through his music, performed by the SLSO and featuring the Jean-Paul and Isabelle Montupet Artist-in-Residence Jean-Yves Thibaudet."

In a 2019 interview with me, SLSO Music Director Stéphane Denève described the piece as "informative" with "a great sense of drama":

So it's really a very good balance. And I'm really very proud of this project because it's a multimedia project with projections, actors, and soloists. So you have a journey into themes connected with Ravel's music and it's very unique as an art form. It's not a concert and it's not a play, it's something in-between. I think it will be fun to bring that here.

The audience will hear a lot of Ravel's music. There will be an actor on stage [Scott Lowell] who actually looks quite a lot like Ravel. They can expect to learn a lot about the context and really enjoy it because it's full of emotion. It's all about the great mystery of the relationship between the work of a man and the man himself. It's always interesting to see the reality of the human being behind so many masterworks. Sometimes, since we play so many pieces from the past, we forget this link, which I think is fascinating.

Scott Lowell
Photo: Joanna DeGeneres

"Maurice Ravel: A Musical Journey" is so new that there are, as far as I can tell, no audio or video recordings of it available. What we do have is a Spotify playlist created by the SLSO that at least gives you an idea of which Ravel works would have been on the program. For the most part, it reads like a "Ravel's greatest hits" list, albeit without "Bolero."

Which some of you will possibly see as a big plus.

But seriously, folks: the list includes the second of the two suites from Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloé" ballet, a suite from his 1911 ballet "Ma mère l'Oye" ("Mother Goose"), the Piano Concerto for Left Hand (written in 1929-1930 for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right hand in the war), and the 1910 orchestral version of his 1899 solo piano piece "Pavane pour une infante défunte."

You'll often see that last one translated as "Pavane for a Dead Princess," implying something funereal, but Ravel actually described it as "an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court." Just an evocation of the past, not a dirge.

It is, in any case, a wonderful collection of stuff and worth a listen even without the play. There is also, oddly, a somewhat different playlist for this same play posted to YouTube in 2019. I'm assuming the SLSO's is a more accurate reflection of what we would have heard on the 4th.

Playwright Balle, I should note, has written several other works of what she calls "classical music theatre," including "The Spirits of St. Louis." Her web site describes this as "A Symphonic Horror for Halloween" and says it was commissioned and performed by the SLSO under Marin Alsop, although some time with Professor Google failed to turn up any mention of an actual performance.

Pour a glass or two of a French wine (from the Basque region if you can, since that's where Ravel was born) and enjoy the music. One can rarely go wrong with Ravel.

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

Review: The St. Louis Symphony shows its virtuosity in music by Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Mussorgsky/Ravel

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

For some years now, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) has been bringing younger guest conductors to town to make their local debuts on the Powell Hall stage. Every one of them has been very impressive, in my experience, leaving me with real hope about the future of classical music.

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

Marcelo Lehninger
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

This weekend was no exception, as Brazilian-born Marcelo Lehninger made his first St. Louis appearance last night (Friday, November 22) with an evening of music that showcased the virtuosity of both piano soloist Simon Trpceski and the members of the SLSO. Despite having to conduct from a chair because of a recently broken foot, Mr. Lehninger was a strong physical presence on the podium, leading the band in dynamic and insightful performances of this highly varied program.

He also had one of the most striking conductor entrances I have ever seen, gliding on stage on a small scooter that supported his temporarily disabled pedal extremity.

The concert opened with work that the SLSO presented for the first and (until this weekend) only time back in 1970: the "Concert Music for Strings and Brass," Op. 10, by Paul Hindemith. Composed in response to a commission by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930, "Concert Music" is a product of what is often called the composer's "neoclassical" phase, although the densely contrapuntal texture really harks back to the Baroque era. Combine that texture with the unusual orchestration of a dozen brass instruments (four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, and a tuba) plus strings, and you have the potential for serious balance issues that could make the individual melodic lines hard to hear.

Happily, that wasn't the case Friday night. The strings got overwhelmed a bit at the beginning, but overall Mr. Lehninger made it easy to discern the individual threads of Hindemith's musical tapestry and got some excellent playing from the orchestra in the process. The SLSO strings were especially adept in their handling of the rapid passages that open the second half of the piece, and some minor intonation issues in the horns aside, the brasses were strong all the way through, with fine solos from Associate Principal Trumpet Tom Drake and Principal Trombone Tim Myers.

At around 17 minutes, the "Concert Music" is a short piece--a trait it shared with the next work on the program, Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10, from 1912. Prokofiev played it as his entry for the prestigious Anton Rubinstein Prize for pianists at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1914 (which he won), and there's a kind of cocky, "look what I can do" attitude about the piece. Combined with the composer's trademark mordant sense of humor, it makes for an entertaining experience for the listener and a significant technical challenge for the pianist.

Simon Trpceski
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

And Simon Trpceski was certainly the man for the job. An internationally known artist whose career has taken him to every continent except (as far as I know) Antarctica, Mr. Trpceski played the best Rachmaninoff Third I've ever heard when he was here in 2015. He did an equally fine job with the Prokofiev, delivering every bit of wit and virtuoso flash in the first and third movements with an impeccable sense of style and a mischievous delight while giving full voice to the wistful nostalgia of the second. The result was a performance that was (to quote a Robert Palmer lyric) simply irresistible.

The audience response was warm and enthusiastic, resulting in not one but two Prokofiev encores: the "March" from his "Music for Children" and the "Scherzo Humoristique."

The evening concluded with a work that was no doubt as familiar to the orchestra as it was to the audience: Maurice Ravel's 1922 orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition." Inspired by a visit the previous year to a posthumous exhibition of the works of Russian artist Victor Hartmann, Mussorgsky's original is as colorful and evocative as it is difficult to play. Ravel, who was justifiably regarded as an expert orchestrator, filled his transcription with ingenious touches, like the high woodwinds chirping away in the "Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells"; the alto sax playing the voice of a troubadour in "The Old Castle"; the hair-raising evocation of "The Hut on Fowl's Legs" (home of the witch Baba-Yaga from Russian folklore); and the triumphant final movement, based on a sketch for "The Great Gate at Kiev".

That means there are multiple opportunities for individual members and sections of the orchestra to show off, and they certainly did so Friday night. Highlights included (but were not limited to) Principal Tuba Derek Fenstermacher's solo in "Bydlo," which pushes the instrument towards the very top of its register; Tom Drake's flawless delivery of the rapid fire trumpet line in "Samuel Goldenbereg and Schmuyle"; the haunting alto sax of Jeffrey Collins in "The Old Castle"; and the entire woodwind section for playing so precisely in the "Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells" despite Mr. Lehninger's alarmingly fast tempo.

Speaking of Mr. Lehninger, he was once again a strong physical presence, clearly enjoying every moment of this work and putting his own personal stamp of this very familiar material without taking undue liberties. His take on the opening "Promenade" was magisterial. His "Gnomus" snarled and threatened. His decision to have the alto sax fade out slowly at the end of "The Old Castle" added a touch of sadness to the troubadour's voice. And his take on the closing "Great Gate of Kiev" had a degree of subtlety and marked dynamic contrast not always heard in this exultant finale. It was an altogether winning and captivating reading, garnering enthusiastic "bravos" from the crowd.

Next at Powell Hall: Andrew Grams conducts the orchestra and St. Louis Children's Choirs in a complete performance of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" ballet, with special lighting design by Luke Kritzeck, whose portfolio includes work with the San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony, and Cirque du Soleil. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, November 29-December 1.

Tanglewood 2019, part 1: Ravel's big score

I spent the last weekend in July at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the scenic Berkshires as part of a group of two dozen music critics attending the annual meeting of the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA). It was a Wagner weekend, with three of the four concerts on our schedule dedicated to a complete concert performance of Die Walküre: Act I on Saturday night and Acts II and III in separate concerts on Sunday. Not surprisingly, the Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI) sessions we attended were focused entirely on Wagner and his world.

---

Sue Elliott
Photo by Hilary Scott

Day one began with "Wagner's Alchemy: Die Walküre and the Ring Cycle" by TLI Director Sue Elliott. A well-informed and engaging presenter, Ms. Elliott led us through a fascinating glimpse "under the hood" of Wagner's creative process, complete with musical illustrations.

Next was a lunch session with Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Music Director Andris Nelsons and soprano Christine Goerke, who was singing the demanding role of Brünnhilde in the Walküre performances. Moderated by Tanglewood Director Tony Fogg, the discussion featured some insightful comments from Ms. Goerke on singing Wagner, enlivened by her droll sense of humor.

I missed the next two sessions-a discussions of "The Wagner Voice: Truths and Myths" with English dramatic soprano Jane Eaglen and "The Struggle Between Power and Love" (the subtext of the entire "Ring" cycle) with pianist Jeffrey Swann. But I was back for the MCANA opening night reception and the presentation of our annual Best New Opera Award.

This year, the award went to p r i s m, a complex work by Ellen Reid (music) and Roxie Perkins (libretto) about a woman trying to work her way back to reality after a sexual assault that leaves her with a crippling case of PTSD. The opera had its premiere in Los Angeles last November. Ms. Reid was unavailable to accept in person because of a family wedding, but Ms. Perkins was on hand and spoke eloquently for both of them.

The evening concluded with a concert by Mr. Nelsons, the BSO, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus that was rather a case of too much of a good thing. Running around two hours and twenty minutes, the program consisted of Shostakovitch's oddly schizoid Symphony No. 2 ("To October"), Mozart's early Piano Concerto No. 12 with soloist Paul Lewis, and a performance of the complete score of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé ballet.

Pianist Paul Lewis

Written for a 1927 celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Shostakovitch's second symphony consists of a graphic orchestral description of the violence of the revolution that ends with the sound of a factory horn (or, in this case, members of the brass section) followed by a noisy hymn to Lenin with the chorus. The choral section is a bit creepy in its adulation of the revolutionary theorist ("Oh, Lenin! You Forged freedom through suffering," and so on) but the overall effect was certainly rousing and entertaining in a campy Ed Wood way. The elegant and superbly balanced Mozart concerto that followed was a welcome palate cleanser, with impeccable playing by Mr. Lewis.

The performance of the Daphis et Chloé that concluded the evening was certainly a powerful one, with some bravura singing by the chorus, although at times the tempi Mr. Nelsons chose were a bit too loving for my taste. I'm not convinced that all ballet scores work as concert pieces, in any case, particularly when they have repetitive narrative sections that make sense in a fully staged performance but become a bit tedious otherwise. I think Ravel's own Daphnis et Chloé suites are a better choice for the concert hall.

Still, it was a gratifying finish to my first day, and the sound of the Koussevitzky Music Shed, at least from our seats in section 1, was quite good. Even the 45-minute slog in heavy traffic back to our hotel couldn't dampen the mood.

Review: Fantastic symphony, fastastic night

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

Stéphane Denève
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

In remarks from the podium before the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert Friday night (May 10, 2019) Stéphane Denève, who takes over as Music Director in the fall, promised "a fantastic night together." I'm happy to say that he made good on that promise.

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

The concerts opened with the local premiere of the tone poem "Nyx," written in 2011 by composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. The title refers to the Greek goddess of the night, a powerful figure in mythology and the mother of all the other gods, and the music undoubtedly has a kind of dark, elemental power that's extremely appealing. A joint commission by Radio France, the Barbican Centre, the Atlanta Symphony, Carnegie Hall, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company, the work is a kind of concerto for orchestra, clearly written with a virtuoso ensemble in mind. The SLSO is just that kind of ensemble, and it made the piece positively sparkle.

Salonen is a horn player, so it's not surprising that the horn section had some of the most elaborate writing, although there are also long, complex passages for clarinet. Thomas Jöstlein and the other five members of the horn section played their part brilliantly, and Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews deserves a medal of some sort for his impressive solos. Rapid, whirling passages for the high woodwinds were delivered with panache and precision, and a fanciful duet for celesta and harp was nicely done by Peter Henderson and Allegra Lilly, respectively.

In short, congratulations are in order for the entire band.

Mezzo Rinat Shaham
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

Up next was Ravel's 1903 song cycle "Shéhérazade," inspired by the protagonist of the "1001 Nights." The lyrics by Symbolist poet Tristan Klingsor (real name: Arthur Justin Léon Leclère) are a bit heavy on the kind of pulp fiction Orientalism that I associate with Sax Rohmer, but combined with Ravel's colorful and sensuous music it can be irresistible in the hands of a skilled singer.

This weekend's soloist, mezzo Rinat Shaham, is exactly that sort of singer. In a strapless pale gown, Ms. Shaham cut a striking figure on stage, but it was her complete emotional investment in the lyrics, in combination with her supple voice, that made this such a memorable performance. Ms. Shaham's extensive operatic background was evident in the way she started and remained completely in character for each of the three songs, from the wide-eyed wonder of "Asie" ("Asia"), to the longing of "La flûte enchantée," to the regret of "L'indifférent" ("The Indifferent One"). Mr. Denève led the orchestra in backing her up with some exquisite playing, including a fine solo by Principal Flute Mark Sparks in "La flûte enchantée."

The final concert of the season usually features a popular blockbuster of some sort. This year it was Hector Berlioz's 1830 "Symphonie Fantastique," a wildly imaginative piece that Leonard Bernstein once famously described as "the first psychedelic symphony in history." Inspired by the composer's own obsessive (to put it mildly) pursuit of the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, the work tells the tale a young musician who dreams about his ideal woman (first movement), pursues her at a ball (second), and then flees to the country to escape his longing (third). Overdosing on opium, he dreams he is being beheaded for her murder (fourth movement) and then literally goes to Hell (fifth), where he encounters his love for the last time, now transformed into a demon and presiding over a witches' Sabbath.

Like "Nyx," it's a genuine orchestral showpiece, with a large orchestra that includes instruments rarely heard in concerts, from the little E-flat clarinet to the coarse-sounding ophicleide (now usually replaced by the tuba) and tuned iron bells. Berlioz also asks the players to employ uncommon techniques, such as having the strings play col legno (with the wood of their bows instead of the strings) in the finale.

The musicians of the SLSO have demonstrated in the past that this music holds no terrors for them, so it's no surprise that they covered themselves with glory Friday night. Up on the podium, Mr. Denève delivered a consistently engrossing reading filled with interesting details and concluding with a downright hair raising final two movements, played attacca (in quick succession, without pause) for maximum dramatic effect. It clocked in at close to an hour--a bit long for this work--but felt much shorter.

This was the final concert of the regular St. Louis Symphony Orchestra season. Post-season activity continues at Powell Hall through June, though; check the SLSO web site for details.

Symphony Preview: Three faces of Eve

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

Mezzo Rinat Shaham

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concludes its regular concert season this weekend (May 10-12, 2019) as Music Director Designate Stéphane Denève conducts three works inspired by exotic women. Only one of them was real, though, and even she wasn't exactly what the composer hoped for.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The concerts open with the local premiere of the tone poem "Nyx," written in 2011 by composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who will take over the post of Music Director at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra next year. The title refers to the Greek goddess of the night, a powerful figure in mythology and the mother of all the other gods. "She is an extremely nebulous figure altogether; we have no sense of her character or personality," writes Mr. Salonen in his program notes:

It is this very quality that has long fascinated me and made me decide to name my new orchestral piece after her. I'm not trying to describe this mythical goddess in any precise way musically. However, the almost constant flickering and rapid changing of textures and moods as well as a certain elusive character of many musical gestures may well be related to the subject.

He goes on to note that his real challenge in composing the piece was "to write complex counterpoint for almost one hundred musicians playing tutti at full throttle without losing clarity of the different layers and lines." The score calls for a big ensemble with a lot of percussion instruments, including glockenspiel, tam-tam, tom-tom, vibraphone and bongos. It certainly makes a glorious noise, as you can hear in the composer's own recording.

As to whether it achieves that clarity, the composer says "I leave it to the listener to judge how well I succeeded." I think he did, and conjured up something dark, elemental, and potent in the process. Come see for yourself this weekend and decide.

Maurice Ravel in 1925
en.wikipedia.org

The legendary woman behind the next work, Ravel's song cycle "Shéhérazade," surely needs no introduction. The musical immortality of the fictional author of the "1001 and One Nights" was guaranteed by Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful 1888 symphony/tone poem, but Ravel's much shorter and more transparently scored set of three songs deserves to be heard far more often than it is.

Ravel was fascinated by Scheherazade and her stories. His first published work, in 1898, was an orchestral overture named for her. It was not well received, convincing the composer that a planned opera based on the "1001 Nights" would be a non-starter.

It all might have ended there if it hadn't been for La Société des Apaches, a group of artists, writers, and musicians in Paris circa 1900 who would hang out every Saturday at the home of the artist Paul Sordes. In addition to Ravel, the group's membership included the Symbolist poet Tristan Klingsor (real name: Arthur Justin Léon Leclère) who, in 1903, published a collection of 100 free-verse poems titled "Shéhérazade." Ravel read them, liked them, and decided to set three of them to music.

Ravel's compositional approach, as Thomas May writes in this weekend's program notes, was unusual. Impressed by the conversational rhythms of the music his colleague Debussy had written for "Pelléas et Mélisande," "Ravel had Klingsor recite his texts out loud to accentuate their beautiful rhythms and the sensuality of the sounds of the words. He was intent on translating these aspects into his musical setting." The resulting music unspools in a languorous, exotic line that mimics and enhances the feel of spoken French. As Caroline Rae writes in notes for the Phliharmonia Orchestra:

Ravel's magically evocative setting of Klingsor's texts brims with mystery and desire. All three songs are tranquil and reflective, opening and closing in a veiled piano, while the sensuous orchestral sound combines with a rich harmonic palette, in which added seconds, sevenths and ninths abound, to create a sense of yearning and nostalgia...moving from rich voluptuousness and gentle lyricism to languid sensuousness.

It's good thing that Ravel's music is so seductive because, as Mr. May notes, "Klingsor's poems are problematic for contemporary audiences sensitive to stereotypes of other cultures." Indeed. "Asie," ("Asia") the first (and longest) of the three songs, reads like something out of Sax Rohmer, with images of "beautiful silk turbans / Above dark faces with gleaming white teeth" ("de beaux turbans de soie / Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires"), "Plump mandarins sitting under parasols" ("Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles") and a "cruel assassins smile / As an executioner lops off a guiltless head ("des assassins souriants / Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d'innocent"). It's a reminder that the Orientalism of authors and poets of a century ago had very little to do with the actual Orient.

Parenthetical note: "Shéhérazade" is nearly always sung by a soprano or mezzo-soprano. This weekend's soloist, for example, is mezzo Rinat Shaham, whose stage credits range from Mozart's "Don Giovanni" to Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle." But, as James M. Keller writes in notes for the San Francisco Symphony, Ravel might actually have had a male voice in mind:

From the outset, Ravel's Shéhérazade has been in the domain of sopranos (or mezzo-sopranos with a comfortable upper range), but in 1965 the late baritone Martial Singher wrote to the Ravel scholar Arbie Orenstein that the composer had something quite different in mind: "I had remarked to Ravel that the texts of those songs were certainly meant for a man. He confirmed (this must have happened about 1935) that he had had in mind a male voice when writing them, but that only women singers with strong musical backgrounds had been interested in them. "

Charles Kemble and Harriet Smithson
as Romeo and Juliet
By Francis (François-Antoine Conscience)

The concerts will conclude with a work inspired by a woman who wasn't at all mythological: the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson. To composer Hector Berlioz, though, she was something of a goddess. His pursuit of her, ill conceived and ultimately disastrous as it was, moved him to compose one of his greatest works, the "Symphonie Fantastique."

Berlioz's first exposure to Smithson came when he saw her play Ophelia in 1827 in a highly edited production of "Hamlet" by the actor Charles Kemble (who also played Hamlet) at the Odéon in Paris. Although considered a somewhat mediocre performer in Britain, she bowled the French over with her sensitive "mad" scene and completely transfixed poor Berlioz, even though he didn't understand a word of English.

He became infatuated with her immediately. He sent her letters. He sent hand-delivered notes. He did everything but mail himself to her in a box like poor Waldo in the Velvet Underground's "The Gift". The depth of his obsession can be seen in a letter he sent to his friend Ferdinand Hiller (quoted on Melissa Ide and Leslie Merriman's Interdisciplinary Shakespeare site):

... today it is a year since I saw HER for the last time_________oh! unhappy woman! how I loved you...trembling I write, HOW I LOVE YOU! If there is another world shall we find each other again?...Shall I ever see Shakespeare? Will she know me?...Will she understand the poetry of my love?...oh! Juliet, Ophelia, Belvidera, Jane Shore, names that hell repeats unceasingly...Oh! sublime ones! sublime ones! annihilate me! summon me to your golden clouds! deliver me!...Go, go Henriette Smithson and Hector Berlioz will be reunited in the oblivion of the tomb, which will not prevent other unhappy ones from SUFFERING AND DYING."

And so on.

Today he would have been hit (justifiably) with a restraining order. Instead, he wrote his "Symphonie Fantastique," a work Leonard Bernstein once famously described as "the first psychedelic symphony in history, the first musical description ever made of a trip, written one hundred thirty odd years before the Beatles."

Subtitled "An Episode in the Life of an Artist," the "Symphonie Fantastique" tells, in dramatic and musically explicit terms, the story of a "young vibrant musician" who becomes sexually obsessed with an "ideal" woman. He dreams of her in the first movement; unsuccessfully pursues her at a ball in the second; and flees to the country to escape his longing in the third. In the fourth movement "March of the Scaffold" (often performed by itself) he overdoses on opium (the LSD of the early 19th century) and dreams he is being beheaded for her murder. The work ends with the hallucinatory "Dreams of a Witches' Sabbath," in which the protagonist envisions himself at an infernal dance, presided over by the object of his affection, now transformed into a demon.

Even after the premiere of the "Symphonie Fantastique" Berlioz continued to pursue Smithson, going to far as to threaten to kill himself with an opium overdose if she didn't marry him. In 1833, after seeing a performance of "Lélio" (Berlioz's rarely-performed sequel to the "Symphonie Fantastique"), she finally agreed, but they did not live happily ever after. The marriage fell apart after a decade and both Smithson's health and fortunes went into decline. Some great music emerged from the wreckage, but I doubt that was any comfort to Ms. Smithson.

The Essentials: Music Director Designate Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, May 10-12. Performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Review: Do I hear a waltz?

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

Pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton

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

In his remarks from the podium before the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday night (February 3, 2018) Stéphane Denève (who was named as the SLSO's 13th Music Director last summer) said that although he had conducted the orchestra many times in the past "tonight is my last time I will do so (pause) as a guest conductor."

It got a good laugh, and demonstrated an attitude of charming good humor that bodes well for his tenure, which begins with the 2019-2020 season.

Mr. Denève's performance was a good omen as well. He conducted an all-French (and mostly Ravel) program with a passion and authority that demonstrated his love for the music and his desire to communicate that love to his audience.

The concert began with a nuanced and sensitive reading of Ravel's Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) Suite from 1911. Mr. Denève showed considerable flexibility in his choice of tempos and dynamics, often with striking results. In the final movement, Le jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden), for example, his choice of a very deliberate tempo made the gradual build to the section's shimmering finale tremendously effective.

Based on a collection of piano works for children from the previous year, the suite is a treasure trove of auditory delights that showcases Ravel's skill as an orchestrator and offers many opportunities for members of the band to show just how good they can sound. Needless to say, the members of the SLSO did just that. The strings positively glowed in Petit Pouchet (Tom Thumb), the percussion section reveled in the Chinoiserie of Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas), and the duet between Vincent Karamanov's contrabassoon and Diana Haskell's clarinet in Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) was a real charmer. There was also excellent work here by Principal Flute Mark Sparks and Associate Principal oboe Phil Ross.

Next was Francis Poulenc's sublimely silly Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra from 1932 in a completely winning performance by identical twins Christina and Michelle Naughton. Graduates of Julliard and the Curtis Institute, the Naughton sisters have been getting rave reviews around the world, and after seeing their impressive mix of technical skill and theatrical savvy, I understand why. They romped through the composer's big, noisy musical playground with a cheerful give and take that was a joy to watch, and they handled the technical challenges with ease. Watching them play the ethereal Gamelan-inspired final section of the first movement, for example, was like seeing anti-gravity in action, as their fingers seemed to barely touch the keys.

Multiple curtain calls and a standing ovation led, inevitably, to an encore that was a bravura exercise in virtuosity: Boogie for piano four hands by contemporary American composer and pianist Paul Schoenfeld. The same playful interaction that distinguished their performance of the Poulenc was evident here as well as their hands flew up and down the keyboard with a speed that often made it impossible to tell which twin was playing what.

After intermission, it was time for a new work, Guillaume Connesson's 2012 Flammenschrift, a piece that Mr. Denève aptly described as having "a punch in your face energy."

Inspired by (and using the same instrumentation as) Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Flammenschrift can perhaps best be described as Beethoven sped up and stuffed into a nine-minute vitamin pill. The opening five-note theme is deliberately imitative of the famous opening of Beethoven's symphony, while the second theme called to mind the triumphal transformation of the symphony's final movement. There is also a contrasting lyrical second section, but mostly Flammenschrift is an energetic rollercoaster of a piece with a harmonic palette which, while obviously contemporary, is still fairly listener friendly.

Stéphane Denève
Photo by Jessica Griffin

In his introductory remarks, Mr. Denève noted that he wants to present newer works which musicians like to play and listeners are likely to want to hear more than once. If Flammenschrift is any indication, I'd say he's on solid ground.

The concert concluded with two waltz-themed works by Ravel: the Valses nobles et sentimentales from 1911 and the 1920 "poème choreographique" ("choreographic poem) La valse. The latter was played after the former without pause--an interesting choice that highlighted both their similarities (including some identical thematic material) and their differences.

Originally composed as a solo piano work, Valses nobles et sentimentales was intended by Ravel as an homage to a set of piano pieces Shubert had written nearly a century earlier: the Valses sentimentales from 1823 and the Valses nobles from 1826. As such, it's a graceful and often tender tribute to the classic Viennese waltz, and it got an appropriately loving performance from Mr. Denève. The Épilog, which recapitulates themes from the previous seven short sections, had an almost dreamy quality, as though the composer had fallen asleep with the waltzes spinning around in his head.

Paired with La valse, though, the dream eventually turns into a nightmare.

Like the earlier work, La valse started out life as a loving tribute to life in three-quarter time, with the simple title Vien (Vienna). But before it could be completed, World War I and the death of the composer's mother intervened. Vien had now become La valse, a work that begins in darkness in the bassoons and low strings, rises to ecstatic heights, and finally crashes to the ground in what has always sounded to me like the musical depiction of the collapse of the complex structure of 19th-century Europe in the so-called "war to end all wars".

Mr. Denève's La valse was dramatic, subtly shaded and exceptionally effective. I liked the way he slowed Ravel's machinery down just a bit before the final moments; it made that crashing finale that much more sinister. The orchestra sounded splendid and the entire performance was, for me, a huge success.

Stéphane Denève is, as I noted when I first saw him perform back in 2011, a very charismatic conductor who takes an obvious joy in his work. His combination of precision and vigor on the podium will, I think, make him a worth successor to (as the Brits might say) our right trusty and well-beloved David Robertson.

Next at Powell Hall: Bramwell Tovey conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, and Children's Chorus Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, February 9 - 11. The program consists of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. More information is available at the SLSO web site, as always.

Symphony Preview: French connections

Maurice Ravel in 1925

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This weekend's St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts (on Friday and Saturday, February 2 and 3) mark the first appearance here by conductor Stéphane Denève since his appointment as the orchestra's 13th music director last July. Appropriately enough, it's an all-French program that mixes the familiar with less the well-known and just a splash of the new--rather like the 2018-19 program, details of which were released earlier this week.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is heavily favored, contributing three of the five works we'll hear this weekend. As someone who has always been a great admirer of Ravel's work in general and his orchestrations in particular, I view that as a very good thing.

The concerts will open with the Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) Suite, based on a two-piano suite originally written for Mimie and Jean, the two children of Ravel's friend Cipa Godebski, an expatriate Polish artist, and his wife Ida. They were supposed to give the work its first performance at the Société Musicale Indépéndantes in 1910 but stage fright got the better of them and two other kids got the opportunity.

The work proved popular enough to merit an orchestration in 1911 and later even a full-length ballet, but it's the former that we'll hear this weekend. Inspired by the fairy stories of Charles Perrault as well as anonymous folk sources, the five movements make up a veritable musical toy box brimming with auditory delights.

The suite opens with the brief, tranquil Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty) with its placid flute melody. Next is Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb), who gets lost in a forest of wandering strings while chirping birds in the woodwinds and violins eat his breadcrumbs. Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas) is a brilliant exercise in pentatonic Chinoiserie complete with tam-tam, cymbals, and xylophone.

Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) is one of the most charming inspirations, with the serene Beauty on clarinet answered by the growling Beast on contrabassoon. The final Le Jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden) is a long, romantic build to a shimmering finale that is quintessential Ravel.

Francis Poulenc in 1922
Photo by Joseph Rosmand

This is a true showpiece for the orchestra, with lots of opportunities for solo and small ensemble work.

Up next is the exuberant Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Francis Poulenc (1889-1963), first performed in 1932 by the composer himself and Jacques Février as soloists with Désiré Defauw conducting the La Scala Orchestra. Like so much of Poulenc's orchestral works, the concerto is chockablock with appealing musical ideas, including what Roger Dettmer at AllMusic.com describes as "bits of once-popular chansons (like croutons in salad)" to complement Poulenc's own themes.

There's a bit of Javanese gamelan-inspired music at the end of the first movement (Poulenc had heard some at the Paris Colonial Exhibition a year earlier), a Mozartian second movement that slowly morphs into a major romantic climax, and a final Rondo that Mr. Dettmer describes so picturesquely that I find myself obliged to quote him in full:

Returning to the mood of the first movement, the Allegro molto finale begins with percussive flourishes before it takes off like an Alfa-Romeo in a Grand prix through the avenues and allées of day-and-night Paris, past marching bands and music halls. There is, however, an interlude lyrique et romantique when the Alfa stops for a bedroom tryst, where perfume and perspiration mix with the smoke from Gauloises, after which the race resumes, even more racily.

If that doesn't make you want to hear Christina and Michelle Naughton perform the concerto this weekend, I don't know what will.

Guillaume Connesson
Photo by Fanny Houillon

The second half of this weekend's program opens with the St. Louis premiere of Flammenschrift, written in 2012 by Guillaume Connesson (b. 1970). Written in response to a commission for a Beethoven-related work from the conductor Daniele Gatti and the Orchestre national de France, Flammenschrift uses the same orchestration as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony but also, if Connesson's other works are any indication, a very contemporary harmonic palette and a flair for orchestral color that Ravel would probably approve of. Here's the composer himself describing the piece (by way of René Spencer Saller's program notes for the SLSO):

Flammenschrift, or "fire-letter," is a word that Goethe used in his poem "Marienbad Elegy." I wished to compose a "Furies' tune" that draws a psychological portrait of Beethoven and, more generally, pays homage to the music of Germany. For Beethoven, I portray an angry, seething, impetuous man, whose interior violence shows through in numerous pages of his music. In his works, Beethoven constantly celebrated the fraternity of man, but he was often harsh with his loved ones and domestic servants. My desired musical portrait originates in this paradox. This misanthropic Beethoven-seen walking down the street looking disheveled, with his misshapen hat, this loner cursed by destiny but sanctified by genius-has always fascinated me: he constructed a very significant image of the artist in the 19th-century imagination that endures to the present day.

This weekend's concerts will conclude with Ravel's La Valse, a work that began in 1911 with the title Wein (Vienna). And, in fact, a bit of it shows up in a piece from that same year that will be played immediately before La Valse at these concerts, the Valses nobles et sentimentales. Before it could be completed, however, World War I (in which the composer served as an ambulance driver) intervened, and by the time La Valse was submitted to (and foolishly rejected by) Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes in 1919, it had become something far more profound.

Stéphane Denève
Photo by Jessica Griffin

"At the close of World War I," writes Carl E. Schorske in Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, "Maurice Ravel recorded in La valse the violent death of the nineteenth-century world. The waltz, long the symbol of gay Vienna, became in the composer's hand a frantic danse macabre. Ravel wrote: 'I feel this work a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, observed Ravel, "linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny'".

That about sums it up. I can't hear it without envisioning a huge, ornate machine spinning faster and faster until it hurls itself to pieces-as the complex structure of 19th-century Europe did in the so-called "war to end all wars". The piece is, needless to say, brilliantly orchestrated, and its crashing finale is thrilling-but also a bit unnerving. It reminds me of the old joke about the problem with history being that every time it repeats itself, the price goes up.

To circle back to the Valses nobles et sentimentales, the title (usually translated as "Noble and sentimental waltzes," although "romantic" might be more a better translation than "sentimental") was intended by Ravel as an homage to a set of piano pieces Shubert had written nearly a century earlier: the Valses sentimentales from 1823 and the Valses nobles from 1826. Indeed, Ravel claimed that he was "intent on writing a set of Schubertian waltzes." Personally, I don't see how anyone could mistake the bracing, elegant, and brilliantly orchestrated set of seven short waltzes and an epilogue as anything but pure Ravel.

The Essentials: Music Director Designate Stéphane Dèneve conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and duo pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton on Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, February 2 and 3. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.