Killer serial

George Gershwin's portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson and Ward Stare
What: An American in Paris
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: September 30, 2011

Friday’s St. Louis Symphony Concert was one of a series of local arts events kicking off the American Arts Experience—St. Louis, an annual seventeen-day festival “celebrating all mediums of American arts” according to the official web site. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that the most compelling piece of the evening was Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16—a work written in Austria and premiered in London by a composer who would not become an American resident until late in life. It’s also impressive when you consider that the Schoenberg was a late addition to the program, replacing what was going to be a new double bass concerto written and performed by Edgar Meyer.

What made this presentation of the Five Pieces so intriguing? Well, there’s the music itself to begin with. Its complete rejection of nearly every element of Western musical thought—of, in fact, the very notion of melody or harmony as they had existed for centuries—still makes for fascinating (if highly challenging) listening over a century after its composition. I still can’t hear that six-voice fugue in the final movement, for example, and I’ve had the music in my collection since the 1960s.

Then there’s the wonderfully precise performance under Mr. Robertson’s baton. Schoenberg uses the instruments of the orchestra in extreme and unconventional ways here, calling on the performers to employ a wide range of “special effects” techniques, including flutter-tonguing, piano harmonics, and col legno techniques in the strings. It demands a lot from the players, but this is a virtuoso band, and they came through splendidly.

What really made the Schoenberg work, though, was the inventive and enlightening way in which Mr. Robertson chose to present it. This wasn’t a musical performance so much as an illustrated lecture in which each of the brief movements was introduced with commentary setting it firmly in its historical and artistic context and accompanied by a more or less contemporary painting that mirrored the movement’s central idea. The third movement, “Farben” (“Colors”), for example, was accompanied by Robert Dalaunay’s muted color wheel “Premier Disque” while the violent “Peripetie” (Peripetia) was paired with Franz Marc’s unsettling “The Fate of Animals”.

Is that a Leonard Bernstein–style gimmick? An attempt to win over audiences to the work of a composer who, as Mr. Robertson wryly notes, can empty a concert hall more effectively than a shout of “fire”? Possibly. To me, though, it was a fascinating illustration of the way in which different artistic disciplines often influence and are influenced by each other. Schoenberg was a painter as well as a composer and musical theorist, after all, and even an uncompromising work like the Five Pieces, with its compressed thematic structure and often-complex counterpoint, seems to have a strongly visual element. Calling that out might not make the music any more popular (Friday’s performance was the Symphony’s first in over forty years), but it does, I think, make it more comprehensible. With Schoenberg’s post-tonality music, that’s a fair accomplishment.

Visuals also played a strong if more obvious part in the music that concluded the first half of the program, a suite from Aaron Copland’s score for the 1939 documentary The City, accompanied by corresponding scenes from the film. The film itself, essentially a sales pitch for planned suburbs as a solution to the dehumanizing effects of big city life, has been rather sadly eclipsed by reality, but Copland’s music powerfully underscores every scene, from sentimentally bucolic images of a large mythical (and rather ethnically limited) agrarian past to nightmarish images of steel mills and traffic jams. Resident Conductor Ward Stare—a man whose star is unquestionably in the ascendant—led the orchestra in a fine performance.

Mr. Stare was one of two conductors for the opening piece, Charles Ives’s acerbically witty Central Park in the Dark from 1906 (Mr. Robertson was the other). Ives intended the piece as “a picture in sounds of nature and of happenings that men would hear some thirty years or so ago (before the combustion engine and radio monopolized the earth and air) when sitting on a bench in Central Park on a hot summer night.” He paints that picture by contrasting slow-moving and harmonically unfettered string harmonies with increasingly aggressive and chaotic music from the rest of the orchestra that concludes with a realistic portrayal of a runaway horse and carriage careening into a fence—after which the strings continue on serenely on. Humanity comes and goes, but nature is there for the long term.

In this performance, the rest of the orchestra was placed not just offstage but out in the lobby (hence the second conductor). From the orchestra seats it must have been an impressive surround-sound experience. We didn’t get that up in the dress circle, but hearing the cacophonous mix of marches, ragtime tunes (including Emerson and Howard’s 1899 hit “Hello, Ma Baby”), and general noise played by an ensemble that was not only unseen but nearly impossible to locate was probably just as effective. It was a wonderfully ear-opening way to start the evening.

Mr. Robertson was back on the podium to conclude the concert with An American in Paris, which he conducted in his usual cheerfully visceral way. It was a lovely, sympathetic performance that reminded me, once again, of just how much solid craftsmanship lurks behind Gershwin’s irresistible tunes. It was also a reminder of how far the man came in such a short period of time. This is, after all, a guy who went from being a Tin Pan Alley “song plugger” to an accomplished composer and orchestrator in only thirteen years. In another seven years he would write one of the mainstays of twentieth century American opera, Porgy and Bess. What might he have done had he not died so young? It’s always good to hear his work on the concert stage, especially when it’s done so well.

Next at Powell Hall: the “Red Velvet Ball” fund-raising gala with Itzhak Perlman on October 1. The regular season resumes with an all-Mozart program October 7 through 9 with Nicholas McGegan. For more information you may call 314-534-1700, visit stlsymphony.org, like the Saint Louis Symphony Facebook page, or follow @slso on Twitter.

Triple time

Les Noces by the
Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by David Robertson
What: An all-Stravinsky program
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: September 16 and 17, 2011

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The St. Louis Symphony kicked off the 2011–2012 season this weekend with a triple shot of energetic and often brutal Stravinsky ballet scores that show the composer in his most self-consciously “Russian” mode. Written for Sergey Diaghilev’s Paris-based Ballets Russes (which also played up the fiercely exotic stereotypes of Russian culture prevalent in the French capital), Petrushka, Les Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), and Les Noces (The Wedding) still pack quite a punch today, especially when given the kind of dynamic, bravura performances delivered by Maestro Robertson and company Friday night.

Yes, there were some issues in the horns during Petrushka and the soloists in Les Noces were often inaudible, but overall the evening did full justice to this flashy and engrossing music. This is powerful stuff, with the same grab-you-by-the-throat immediacy that sent Parisians into such paroxysms of love and hate a century ago.

Perhaps the wildest ride of the evening was not, as you might expect, Sacre but rather the premiere SLSO performance of the 1923 choral ballet Les Noces. With an often surrealistic text adapted by Stravinsky from songs collected by Russian folklorist Pyotr Vasilievich Kireevsky, Les Noces runs at breakneck pace through a somewhat barbaric description of a Russian peasant wedding that, to quote British critic Alfred Kalisch, is “enough to convert intending brides and bridegrooms to celibacy.” Scored for four pianos, an expanded percussion battery (never was that word more appropriate!), chorus, and four soloists, the piece has a visceral impact that can’t be denied.

It was obvious that principal singers Dominique Labelle (soprano), Kelley O’Connor (mezzo), Thomas Cooley (tenor), and Richard Paul Fink (baritone) were thoroughly invested in their rapidly shifting roles, so it’s a pity they were so often overwhelmed by the orchestra and chorus. The problem, I think, is that Les Noces was conceived for the theatre, where the orchestra would be in a pit rather than on stage competing with the singers. Even when you place them in front as Mr. Robertson wisely did, it’s difficult for soloists of any caliber to be heard over the general din, let alone effectively communicate what amounts to a half-hour long patter song. The projected English text helped, but even so witnessing this performance of “Les Noces” was rather like holding on to a bar of a musical roller coaster—exhilarating and a bit exhausting.

The singing of Amy Kaiser’s chorus was wonderfully precise. This material sounds mind bogglingly difficult for soloists and choir alike, with no room for anything other than pinpoint accuracy. If there were a Purple Heart for choral singing, the Symphony Chorus would certainly have earned it.

The program opened with Stravinsky’s 1941 orchestration of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—something of a love note to the composer’s adopted country—followed by compelling reading of the complete Petrushka ballet. The score is, of course, strongly descriptive all by itself, but even so the projected images of the original sets, costumes, and members of the original Ballet Russes cast (including the great Najinsky in the title role) added considerably to the experience. We’ve become so accustomed to hearing great ballet scores performed in concert that it’s easy to forget how vital the element of sight is to those sounds. The Symphony’s use of what it calls a “visual narrative” is a welcome reminder of the theatrical roots of this music.

The visual narrative elements were much more sparse in the powerful performance of The Rite of Spring that concluded the evening, but given the nearly overwhelming force of this music, that’s probably just as well. As he did with the other works on the program, Mr. Robertson literally threw himself into this performance, dancing about the podium and conducting with broad but precise gestures; no Fritz Reineresque “vest pocket beat” here. This was not self-conscious theatricality, however, but clearly a genuine enthusiasm for the music. Both he and his musicians were clearly in the moment at every point, resulting in a performance that did equal justice the moments of exquisite delicacy and raucous violence in this still remarkably fresh music.

This was, in short, a very exciting beginning for the new season. My only real complaints are that, first, the house wasn’t nearly as full as it should have been and, second, that some audience members were apparently in such a hurry to get to the parking lot that they couldn’t even be bothered to applaud the great performances they’d just heard. Yes, I realize that this was a very full evening and that the two intermissions required to completely reset the stage before and after Les Noces resulted in a concert that ran a good half-hour longer than usual. Even so, would it have killed some of you to take another minute or two do let the musicians know you appreciate their hard work? I think not.

Next at Powell Hall: Maestro Robertson conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and the world premiere of Stephen Mackey’s Stumble Into Grace with Orli Shaham as piano soloist. Performances are Friday and Saturday, September 23 and 24. For more information you may call 314-534-1700, visit slso.org, or follow them on Facebook or @slso on Twitter.