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.

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.

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.

Lighs! Camera! Swans!

Share on Google+

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu with violinist Simone Lamsma
What: Music of Bartók, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: October 18 and 20, 2013

Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu and Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma made triumphant returns to Powell Hall Friday night with an evening of dance-oriented music by Bartók, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky.  The highly charged Swan Lake suite was the highlight for me, but the fact is that the whole program was most impressive.

Let’s start with Ms. Lamsma’s performance of the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 63.  Prokofiev wrote it in 1935, two years after he returned to his native Russia from 15 years of self-imposed exile in the West and one year before he was officially repatriated.  He was happy to return home, as the warmth of the main melody of the second movement seems to attest.  But the outer movements have a drama and drive that frankly sound a bit ominous at times. 

It's a piece that demands a high degree of virtuosity from the soloist—which it undeniably got from Ms. Lamsma.   I was very much taken with her Shostakovich 1st concerto back in March of 2011, and she brought the same combination of laser-like focus and easy virtuosity to the Prokofiev 2nd this time.  This is music that requires a performer who can make the instrument sing in the second movement and toss off tricky passages in the first and third.  Ms. Lamsma negotiated it all with ease.  She and Mr. Lintu were clearly in close communication with each other throughout the concerto, as was obvious in the quality of the performance.

When Mr. Lintu last led the orchestra back in February I found his style on the podium to be a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual rigor—fire combined with ice.  Not surprisingly, then, his Swan Lake suite was marked by dramatic tempo and dynamic contrasts combined with a steely control.  Great, sweeping right hand gestures that required him to hold on to the front rail of the podium for support alternated with careful shaping of phrases with the left.  At one point—during the harp and violin duet in the Act II “Pas D'Action”—he stopped conducting altogether so that David Halen and harpist Allegra Lilly could simply play off each other.

It was all very dramatic and yet so much in control that Mr. Lintu was able to step off the podium to assist a first violinist who had an instrument malfunction and step back without missing a beat.

This was, in short, a 70mm, Technicolor Swan Lake that left Mr. Lintu looking like he'd just completed an aerobic workout.  Which, in fact, he had.  The audience awarded him and the orchestra with a much-deserved standing ovation.  There was excellent solo work by (among others) cellist Danny Lee and Barbara Orland on oboe (that famous Act II theme).

The concert opened with a pretty much flawless Dance Suite by Bartók, written for a 1923 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the Hungarian cities Óbuda, Buda, and Pest to form the national capital Budapest.  A pioneering ethnomusicologist as well as celebrated composer and pianist, Bartók spent much of 1908 tramping through the Hungarian countryside with fellow composer Zoltán Kodály collecting Magyr folk tunes. The melodies he heard then, along with the Arabic music he picked up during a 1913 visit to Algeria, would strongly shape his compositions from then on. 

Those influences are certainly evident in the suite.  Like the composer's Concerto for Orchestra, this is a piece that gives every section a workout, with complex, overlapping rhythms and spiky melodies that summon up the folk material that inspired it.  I think it could easily get a bit sloppy with a less disciplined orchestra and conductor.  Not here, though.  Everyone performed splendidly, with especially fine work by the double reeds (oboe, English horn, bassoon, and contrabassoon) in the opening.

That was, by the way, a kind of fitting memorial to symphony contrabassoonist Andrew Thompson who died suddenly this past Tuesday of a heart attack at the shockingly young age of 27.  Maestro David Robertson paid homage to him after intermission with a moving eulogy and a moment of silence.  And, by God, it was true and absolute silence.

This coming Wednesday (October 23) there’s a Pulitzer Concert with cellist Danny Lee and violinist Helen Kim performing Pierre Boulez’s Anthèmes for Solo Violin and Kodály‘s Sonata for Solo Cello at the Pulitzer Center just west of Powell Hall.  Friday and Saturday it’s back to Powell Hall for a concert featuring Rimski-Korsakov’s Scheherazade along with the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 (the one with the prominent trumpet part in the final movement) and a suite of dances from Thomas Adès’s 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face.  Peter Oundjian conducts with pianist Stewart Goodyear and the symphony’s Karin Bliznik on trumpet.  For ticket information: stlsymphony.org.

Swan Song

Photo: Vanessa Briceno

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu with pianist Conrad Tao
What: Music of Sibelius and Prokofiev
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: February 1 and 2, 2013

Share on Google+:

It’s every orchestra manager’s nightmare: just a few days before the scheduled performance of a virtuoso showpiece the soloist gets sick and a replacement must be found. And not just any replacement; it has to be someone who knows the piece and has the chops to pull it off.

If there were any nightmares around Powell Hall earlier this week when scheduled pianist Markus Groh fell ill, they have surely turned into sweet dreams now that his replacement, 18-year-old prodigy Conrad Tao, has delivered a bang-up performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. This is the music of youth—Prokofiev was only a few years older than Mr. Tao when he started writing it—with ample wit, nose-thumbing cheer, and some ridiculously difficult writing for the soloist, especially in the final movement. Mr. Tao and guest conductor Hannu Lintu did full justice to the vital energy of Prokofiev’s score and were rewarded with spontaneous applause after the first movement and a thunderous ovation after the last.

But Mr. Tao wasn’t finished. After multiple bows, he returned with an encore: Liszt’s equally thorny Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, delivered all the fire one could wish for. This was Mr. Tao’s debut with the orchestra and it could not have gone better. He’s a tremendously talented young man (and a fellow Midwesterner, hailing from Urbana, Illinois) at the beginning of what looks like a very promising career.

The orchestra was in excellent form as well. Scott Andrews gets a nod for his fine clarinet solo in the first movement, of course, but fine playing was the order of the day everywhere.

Bracketing the Prokofiev was a pair of deeply felt performances of music of Mr. Lintu’s countryman, Jean Sibelius.

The concert opened with a Finlandia that was one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen, with slow but majestic treatment of the famous “Finlandia Hymn” (now one of Finland’s most popular national songs) and an expansive finale. In this, as in the Sibelius Symphony No. 5 (the 1919 revised version) that closed the program, Mr. Lintu was a commanding and visually compelling figure on the podium. His big gestures were striking—at one point in Finlandia, for example, he held the baton with both hands and swept it down from overhead to signal a Really Dramatic Moment. But he also coaxed delicate sounds with a minimum of physical display. His interpretations were, in short, a nearly ideal mixture of romantic intensity and intellectual control—fire combined with ice.

Sibelius’s 5th symphony is a combination of fire and ice as well. It covers a vast range of emotional territory, from the first movement’s unearthly bassoon lament (beautifully played by Principal Andrew Cuneo) over ghostly ppp strings to the grand sweep in the final movement of the “swan theme”—so called because Sibelius wrote it after witnessing a flight of sixteen swans, which he described as “one of the greatest experiences of my life… Nature’s mystery and life’s melancholy.”

From 1892 until his death in 1957, Sibelius lived and worked in a home made entirely of wood (he didn’t want to hear the sound of rain in metal gutters) on Lake Tuusula in the Finnish forest, where he often went for long walks. The love of nature informs every bar of the 5th. It’s impossible to hear this music and not conjure up images of pines, snow, and brisk northern winds.

Mr. Lintu and the orchestra brought out all of the mystery and wildness in this remarkable score. The opening of the first movement sounded a little bit scrappy in places on Friday night, but the finale, with that sweeping final statement of the swan theme and those final six chords separated by just enough silence, had all the power and majesty you’d want. It was, altogether, a potent experience.

Mr. Lintu last conducted the orchestra in November of 2012. Let’s hope he returns to us again soon.

Next on the calendar: David Robertson returns to the podium to conduct Strauss’s On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Radu Lupu is the soloist. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3, February 7-9. For ticket information: stlsymphony.org.