Symphony Review: Travels in time and space with the SLSO

Location, location, location. It’s the real-estate agent’s mantra. And also, as it happens, a possible theme for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday night (January 28th).

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

Stéphane Denève and the SLSO curtain call

That is, at least, what Music Director Stéphane Denève suggested in his pre-concert remarks and, upon reflection, I’d say his point is well taken. The opening work, James Lee III’s “Visions of Cahokia,” is directly inspired by the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site just across the river in Illinois. Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium)” also hearkens back to an ancient civilization—specifically Athens in the late 4th century BCE. And the 1902 Symphony No. 2 of Sibelius evokes the darkness of the majestic, windswept Finnish landscape, at least for me.

Interestingly, Maestro Denève also hears echoes of the northern Italian coastal town of Rapallo, where the composer began work on the symphony in 1901. At the same time, conductor Robert Kajanus, who first recorded the symphony in 1930, saw the Symphony No. 2 as a musical depiction of Finland’s struggle for independence. Which just goes to show you that a great work of art can mean more than one thing.

However you hear the Sibelius Second, I’d say you heard a darn fine performance of it last weekend. The composer’s use of silence can sometimes make his symphonies feel episodic, but I never got that sense from Denève’s approach, which always kept a sense of momentum, assisted by subtle shadings of tempo and dynamics.

The orchestral playing was of its usual high order—a thing of great importance in a work that often highlights individual sections of the band for long stretches of time. The big, warm horn passages and dance-like themes of the flutes contributed greatly to the expressive first movement, while the nuanced string pizzicatos and the ominous tone of the bassoon melodies in the second movement gave it a sense of gravitas. The skittering string motifs of the third movement stood in sharp contrast to the more lyrical trio section, with its oboe solo accompanied by the clarinets and horns. And the triumphant conclusion of the fourth movement gave the expanded horn and brass sections a chance to really strut their stuff.

James Lee III and Stéphane Denève

Lee’s “Visions of Cahokia” also allowed individual sections and players to shine. Lee has, as I have noted in the past, serious skills as an orchestrator and an impressive ability to summon a strong sense of time and place in his music. The bird calls of the flutes and use of exotic percussion instruments like the rain stick contributed to a sense of mystery and wonder in the second movement (titled “Na Yimmi,” the Choctaw word for “faith”) and the explosions of brass and percussion in the third movement colorfully evoke the games and celebrations of the Mississippian culture that flourished here from roughly 800 to 1600 CE.

That said, I’m a bit ambivalent on his use of rhythmic cliches to suggest Native American music. The combination of shaken bells and an obsessive four-note drum figure with the accent on the first beat (ONE-two-three-four, ONE-two-three-four) has, perhaps, been a bit over-used in both the concert hall and movie theatre. I was reminded the works of so-called “Indianist” composers like Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881–1946) and Arthur Farwell (1872–1952) in the early 20th century.

Still, “Visions of Cahokia” has a dramatic impact that can’t be denied. And it certainly got a rousing performance from Denève and the orchestra. Lee’s music artfully combines a distinctly contemporary harmonic palette with an approachability that was sadly absent from a great deal of “new music” in the last century. It’s good to see this sort of thing being championed by Denève.

The first half of Saturday night’s concert closed with the Bernstein “Serenade,” in the exceptionally capable hands of violin soloist James Ehnes. Ehnes is, as I observed in his previous appearances here, a performer whose solid technique and artistic insight do not come wrapped in the kind of flashy package of some other violinists. He strikes a more conservative figure on stage but, as he demonstrated in the rambunctious Allegro molto vivace finale of the fifth movement of the “Serenade,” he’s fully capable of throwing himself into the music with physical abandon when it’s appropriate to do so.

Stéphane Denève and James Ehnes

With Denève and the orchestra as his sympathetic partners, Ehnes gave us all the wide emotional range of Bernstein’s music, from the warmth of the Allegretto second movement, to the short, spiky Presto of the third and the passionate slow burn of the Adagio fourth. The latter tapers off into a delicate duet between the violin and harp, nicely done by Ehnes and Principal Harp Allegra Lilly.

There was an equally compelling moment in the dramatic Molto tenuto first section of the fifth movement, in which the violin and cello have an intimate duet that possibly reflects the dialog between Socrates and the seer Diotima in Plato’s text. Ehnes and Principal Cello Danny Lee infused it with a passionate intensity Saturday night.

Finally, let me not fail to praise Principal Tympani Shannon Wood and the SLSO’s percussion section. The members of the latter were kept extremely busy in both the “Visions of Cahokia” and the "Serenade." The Bernstein, in particular, requires five players dashing to and fro among a variety of instruments, including the xylophone, marimba, and tubular bells in addition to the usual battery of drums; quite a workout.

Next at Powell Hall: Norman Huynh conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Concert.” As with all these movie events, the orchestra plays the score live to accompany the film on the big screen. Showings are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 2 pm, February 3–5. The regular season returns Friday at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 8 pm, February 10 and 11, as James MacMillan conducts the orchestra along with violinist Nicola Benedetti and SLSO Principal English Horn Cally Banham in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Overture,” Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini,” and MacMillan’s own Violin Concerto No. 2 and “The World’s Ransoming.”

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

Symphony Preview: Getting with the program

This weekend, four of the five works Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) will perform are unabashedly programmatic--what they used to refer to as "program music" in Music Appreciation classes. The fifth, by way of contrast, is by a guy who did his level best to insist that he only wrote "absolute" music.

Composer John Adams
Photo: Vern Evans

As I learned back when they still routinely taught music in the public schools (yes, I am a geezer) the difference between "absolute" music (your basic sonatas, concertos, symphonies, etudes, et al.) and "program music" (the "symphonic poem" and anything else with a descriptive title) was that the former had no specific external reference while the latter was inspired by or descriptive of something non-musical. That "something" can encompass anything from a literary classic (Schumann's "Manfred Overture") to a painting (Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead") to a mountain-climbing expedition (Richard Strauss's "Alpine Symphony")--all of which have been heard on the Powell Hall stage recently.

The program this weekend opens a pair of short pieces of "program music" that involve being transported. Not in the emotional sense of being swept away, but in the far more mundane sense of being taken from one place to another by a machine.

Up first is John Adams's "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" from 1986. The work is described as a "fanfare for orchestra" on the composer's web site, where Mr. Adams explains the title by posing a question: "You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn't?"

Running around four minutes, "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" is a headlong rush down narrow country roads. The woodblock, clarinets, trumpets, and synthesizer keep up a fast, steady beat while the rest of the orchestra races ahead, holding on for dear life. In his notes on Adams's web site, Michael Steinberg describes the piece as "joyfully exuberant," but to me it has always had a "how the hell do you stop this thing?" subtext.

And, yes, it's also great fun.

Arthur Honegger in 1928
By Agence de presse Meurisse -
Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Public Domain, Link

Up next is Arthur Honegger's "Pacific 231," a piece inspired by the composer's love of train travel. "I have always loved locomotives passionately," he once noted. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses." Originally titled simply "Mouvement Symphonique No. 1" (the first of a series of three), the title "Pacific 231" was added later as an acknowledgement of its inspiration in the many hours he spent in train travel in his youth.

This is music so vividly descriptive of the experience of riding on a powerful locomotive that it eventually became the basis of a 1949 film that featured footage of locomotives synched up with the music. Not that the visuals are really necessary; you can hear the massive engine start up and begin to gather speed at the beginning in the percussion, low strings, and brasses. Soon other instruments join in as the momentum increases. The city and suburbs swirl past until, finally, you're flying through open fields with the woodwinds and higher strings. Finally there's a massive orchestral crash as the air brakes kick in and the mighty 231 slows to a stop at your destination.

If you have ever ridden on a high-speed intercity train of the type they have in Europe, you'll recognize the feeling.

Guillaume Connesson
Photo by Fanny Houillon

The inspiration for the next work, a saxophone concerto by Guillaume Connesson, is also inspired by a "train," but only in the homophonic sense. Titled "A Kind of Trane," it's a tribute to the virtuosity and frenetic energy of the late jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

First performed at the World Saxophone Congress in 2015, "A Kind of Trane" is scored for two saxophones (soprano in the first and third movement and alto in the second) and, in fact, was played by three different soloists at its premiere. As Tim Munro writes in this week's program notes, the first two movements are inspired by specific Coltrane albums--"A Love Supreme" and "Ballads," respectively, while the final, wildly virtuosic movement (titled "Coltrane on the Dance Floor") "contrasts the freedom of Coltrane's playing with what he thinks is the 'robotic' nature of today's dance music."

That last movement really is a killer, demanding pretty much everything a player can give. Watch the performance by Nicholas Prost, who first performed it at the 2015 premiere, to see what I mean. The music builds to a wild climax until the solo line collapses into a few quiet toots, as though the exhausted Coltrane has collapsed into a chair and reached for a stiff drink.

For this performance, one soloist will tackle all three movements. Fortunately, that one performer is Tim McAllister, who has displayed the kind of superhuman virtuosity this music clearly needs in previous appearances with the SLSO.

Albert Roussel in 1913
Public Domain, Link

In contrast to those last three pieces, the next item on the bill of fare is Albert Roussel's Symphony No. 3 in G minor, Op. 42, from 1930. It has no programmatic subtitles. Indeed, Roussel, in a 1928 interview, declared that his goal as a composer was "to achieve...a music that is entirely self-contained, music that aims to free itself from any pictorial or descriptive element and completely removed from any geographical connection."

Did he succeed with his third symphony? There are certainly no descriptive titles to any of the four movements but, least to me, they all conjure up some fairly specific images.

The pounding rhythms of the Allegro vivo first movement, for example, suggest the kind of mechanical precision that characterizes the 1924 "Ballet Mécanique" of his contemporary George Antheil (an American composer living in Paris at the time), although that driving motion is tempered by lyrical passages. The Adagio second movement is a sometimes unsettling mix of the eerie and ominously dramatic. To me, it conjures up memories of the Catacombs and/or Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but your mileage could vary.

The third and fourth movements, in sharp contrast, suggest wild nights at a rowdy cabaret in Montmartre or maybe the more unbuttoned Quartier Pigalle, home of the Moulin Rouge. Or a lively jazz club anywhere, really.

That said, your reaction might be completely different. Which would, of course, reinforce Roussel's insistence that the Symphony No. 3 isn't "about" anything in particular.

I forgot to mention her, didn't I?
officialboderek.com

Wrapping things up is one of the most popular orchestral works ever written and certainly the best-known thing Maurice Ravel ever wrote: "Boléro." 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 in a knife-wielding brawl.

There will be no weapons at Powell Hall this weekend, fortunately, so you will be able to enjoy Ravel's Greatest Hit in safety.

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." Happily, that album is still available in digital form from Amazon and is mandatory listening for anyone who enjoys a good, smart laugh.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with saxophonist Timothy McAllister on Friday at 10:30 am and 8 pm and Saturday at 8 pm March 6 and 7. Performances take place at Powell Symphony Hall in Grand Center.

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

St. Louis classical calendar for the week of March 2, 2020

From string quartets to machine-inspired music, there's a world of variety on concert stages this week.

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The Chamber Music Society of St. Louis

Monday, March 2, at 7:30 pm, The Chamber Music Society of St. Louis presents Baroque Brass. St. Louis Symphony guest conductor Nicholas McGegan leads a program of music for trumpet, horn and strings by Vivaldi, Telemann, and others. Baroque Brass takes place at the Sheldon Concert Hall in Grand Center. For more information: chambermusicstl.org.

The Kemper Art Museum presents The Darmstadt School as part of their Music at Kemper series on Thursday, March 5, at 6 pm. "Musicians Tracy Andreotti (cello), Henry Claude (percussion), Greg Mills (piano), and Henry Skolnick (bassoon) perform a selection of works by mid-20th-century experimental composers associated with the Darmstadt School. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Bartolozzi, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown engaged with alternate forms of composition and notation, including serialism and graphic scores, that called for active interpretation by performers." The concert takes place at the Kemper Art Museum on the Washington University campus. For more information: kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

St. Louis Cathedral Concerts presents a concert by organist Dr. Lynn Trapp on Sunday, March 8 at 2:30 pm. "A consummate artist of the highest caliber, Dr. Lynn Trapp holds a distinguished career as a concert organist, pianist, conductor, composer and liturgist. From Carnegie Hall, NYC to Westminster Abbey, London his many concert appearances, more than 100 publications, academic awards, and clinician work has brought him great respect nationally and internationally. His career archives are established in perpetuity at the Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame." The concert takes place at the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End. For more information: cathedralconcerts.org.

Timothy McAllister

Stéphane Denève conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, along with saxophonist Timothy McAllister on Friday at 10:30 am and 8 pm and Saturday at 8 pm March 6 and 7. The program consists of Honegger's Pacific 231, John Adams's A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Guillaume Connesson's saxophone concerto A Kind of Trane, Rousell's Symphony No. 3, and Ravel's Bolero. Performances take place at Powell Symphony Hall in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The Touhill Performing Arts Center presents presents The Arianna String Quartet in American Fantasy on Friday March 6 at 8 pm. "In a program dedicated to the boundlessness of the American spirit, the Arianna Quartet performs three quartets that showcase distinct and diverse soundscapes inspired by American experiences. The ASQ leads this program with Frederick Tillis' Spiritual Fantasy No.12, an exultant and contemplative jazz and spiritual inspired work that embodies the sound of Tillis' unique American perspective. American composer Reena Esmail's mesmerizing string quartet “Ragamala” follows, exploring the layered textures of the Indian tradition of raags, where free explorations and elaborations of singular musical ideas evolve into transcendent expressions of time and space. Dvorak's celebratory “American” Quartet rounds out the evening with a fusion of sounds inspired by Native American drumming traditions, African American spirituals, twittering birdcalls from the American Midwest, and Czech folk music tradition." The Touhill Center is on the campus of the University of Missouri at St. Louis. For more information: touhill.org.

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: Powerful and idiosyncratic classics by Matthias Pintscher and Kirill Gerstein

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

Matthias Pintscher
Photo by Felix Broede

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The Friday night (February 1) concert by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra was notable for a pair of powerful and somewhat idiosyncratic interpretations of music by Rachmaninoff and Mendelssohn by guest conductor Matthias Pintscher along with a persuasive local premiere of Scriabin's 1897 Piano Concerto by Kirill Gerstein.

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

According to pianist Garrick Ohlsson, Scriabin's son-in-law, the pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky, once observed that the composer's music can "overthrow you emotionally" and that "[y]ou have to have ice cubes in your veins" to handle it. I don't know about the state of his veins, but there's no doubt in my mind that Kirill Gerstein brought just the right mix of steely precision and emotional warmth to his performance of the concerto Friday night.

Scriabin was still very much under the influence of Chopin when he wrote his first and only piano concerto, and Mr. Gerstein brought out that poetic sensibility even in the relatively flashy opening and closing movements. The Andante second movement was especially moving, with its lovely simple theme and four strongly contrasting variations that ran the gamut from fanciful to grave.

The orchestra played extremely well under Mr. Pintscher's direction. A special shout-out is due Associate Principal Clarinet Diana Haskell for her impressive work here. Scriabin provided the clarinet with a number of important passages, especially in the second movement, and Ms. Haskell's limpid tone and clear articulation made the most of them.

Kirill Gerstein
Photo by Marco Borggreve

The performance got an enthusiastic reception, prompting an encore of a waltz by (appropriately enough) Chopin. Taken at an unusually fast tempo, it made for a dazzling showpiece.

The concert opened with a bold and dynamic interpretation of Rachmaninoff's 1909 symphonic poem "Isle of the Dead." Inspired by a popular painting by the Swiss Symbolist Arnold Böcklin that depicts the stark landscape of an island necropolis towards which a white-robed figure is being rowed, the work is dominated by the "Dies Irae" theme that pops up in much of Rachmaninoff's work. It's a haunting and powerful work that got a sweeping and dramatic reading from Mr. Pintscher and the orchestra.

There were outstanding solos by Associate Concertmaster Heidi Harris, Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks, and Principal Flute Mark Sparks. The horn section under Roger Kaza distinguished itself both here and throughout the rest of the evening with a bold, rich sound.

Closing the concert was an unusually dark and weighty take on Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish"), a work that the composer began during an 1829 visit to Scotland and didn't finish until a decade later. Inspired strongly by a visit to what Mendelssohn described as the "broken and mouldering" ruins of Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh, the symphony certainly has a somberness that is somewhat untypical of Mendelssohn. Even so, Mr. Pintscher's compelling interpretation gave the work more high drama and gravitas than I have heard in the past.

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

The perky second movement (which might or might not paraphrase the folk tune "Charlie is My Darling") sounded even more cheerful than usual by way of contrast, and the hymn-like finale had a bit of lingering solemnity that seems to reflect Mr. Pintscher's description of it (in a program interview with Tim Munro) as a "waving farewell" or "a tombeau" (i.e. a memorial). I wouldn't necessarily call it my favorite take on this familiar music, but it made me hear it in a different way--no small feat for a piece this well worn.

The orchestral playing was of a high order once again, with notable work by Mark Sparks and Jennifer Nitchman on flute, Jelena Dirks and Xiomara Mass on oboe, bassoonists Andrew Cuneo and Felicia Foland, and the horns under Associate Principal Thomas Jöstlein.

As the Music Director of the contemporary music group Ensemble Intercontemporain and a composer of some note, Mr. Pintscher had an interesting and novel take on the Romantic works on the program. His conducting style was active and graceful, with big, commanding gestures. The result was an impressive local debut, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the Powell Hall stage again in the future.

Next week Music Director Designate Stéphane Denève conducts the conducts the orchestra and chorus, along with SLSO Concertmaster David Halen, in Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, The Lark Ascending and Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams, and the Brahms Symphony No. 2. Performances are Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, February 8-10.

Symphony Preview: Chalk, cheese, and haggis

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

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

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

Aleksandr Scriabin
en.wikipedia.org

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

Basically, Rachmaninoff was sane while Scriabin was a loony.

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

Rachmaninoff in 1900
en.wikipedia.org

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

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

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

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey
By Kaihsu at English Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

Review: London pride

Conductor Michael Francis
Photo by Marco Borggreve

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It has been a few years since my wife and I have been to London, but I feel like we took another visit there Friday night (November 23) with that wonderfully evocative performance of Vaughan Williams's "A London Symphony" by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of guest conductor Michael Francis.

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

A native of Great Britain and a former double bass player with the London Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Francis presumably knows well the city that inspired Vaughan Williams and, in fact, his short pre-performance talk was both entertaining and enlightening. It hadn't occurred to me, for example, that the march theme in the final movement might have been inspired by the sight of British troops marching off to war, but given that the work was first performed in 1915 it makes sense.

Vaughan Williams went to some lengths to point out that while "A London Symphony" was suggested by London it was not literally descriptive of it. "The title A London Symphony, he wrote, "may suggest to some hearers a descriptive piece, but this is not the intention of the composer. A better title would perhaps be 'Symphony by a Londoner'". Even so, I can't hear it without thinking of both my visits to the city itself and the misty paintings Monet did of it (and which the composer likely knew).

Performances of "A London Symphony" usually run around 45 minutes, but Mr. Francis's take on the piece was so well paced and compelling that it seemed to fly by. This was one of those performances during which I took almost no notes because I was so swept up in the experience. It was as though Vaughan Williams were speaking to us directly, without an intermediary.

The high quality of the orchestral playing had something to do with that, of course. The string sound was solid as always and there were notable solos by Cally Banham on English horn and Beth Guterman Chu on viola. The trumpets under Associate Principal Thomas Drake and the horns under Principal Roger Kaza were also in fine form.

The concert opened with an equally vivid reading of Elgar's "In the South (Alassio)," a lavish, sweeping tone poem that is the composer's love letter to Italy in general and in particular to the Italian Rivera town where he and his wife were vacationing in the winter of 1903-1904. The leaping opening theme, which Elgar described as "Joy of living (wine and macaroni)," bubbled with good cheer, the lumbering march inspired by "strife and wars" was suitably ominous, and the evocation of the Neapolitan popular song in the central viola tune was rendered beautifully by Beth Guterman Chu.

Joshua Bell

Mr. Francis conducted with big, fluid gestures that mirrored the wide dramatic range of his interpretation. This was a bold and varied performance that perfectly captured the many moods of this colorful work.

Sandwiched between these two large-scale works, Bruch's 1866 Violin Concerto No. 1 felt like a piece of more modest charms, but no less appealing for all that. It's warm, heartfelt, and utterly irresistible music, and it got an intense and very physically demonstrative interpretation from superstar violinist Joshua Bell.

Mr. Bell made his Carnegie Hall debut performing the Bruch concerto with the SLSO back in 1985 at the tender age of 17, so Friday night's performance had a special resonance. It was certainly an exuberant one, in which the space set aside for the soloist at the conductor's left seemed barely able to contain Mr. Bell's extroverted approach. The music combines virtuoso flash with heartfelt emotion, and Mr. Bell found plenty of both in his technically flawless presentation. Multiple curtain calls led, inevitably, to an encore: a short, flashy selection from John Corigliano's score for the 1998 film "The Red Violin."

The concert repeats tonight at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm (November 24 and 25). Next weekend, John Storgårds conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and pianist Ingrid Fliter Friday at 10:30 am and Saturday at 8 pm, November 30 and December 1. The program consists of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Bruckner's Symphony No. 9. All performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: On wings of song

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

Einojuhani Rautavaara

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"Human music making," as music blogger Darren Giddings reminds us, "has been inspired by birdsong throughout history." If you doubt that, take a look at the program Resident Conductor Gemma New and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will be presenting this weekend (March 23-25, 2018).

The most obvious example of this is the second work on the program this weekend: "Cantus Arcticus, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra," written in 1972 by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. A student of Finland's most celebrated composer, Jean Sibelius, Rautavaara (as René Spencer Saller points out in her program notes) "shared with his mentor a devotion to the natural world and the pleasures of tonality." Sibelius's admiration of the sounds of birdsong never got quite as literal as Rautavaara's does in this piece, though.

Commissioned by the University of Oulu to write a work for the school's first doctoral degree ceremony, Rautavaara responded not with the expected pomp and circumstance but rather with a work of lonely, ethereal beauty that uses recordings of bird songs from Oulu and the surrounding area as a major sonic element. You can find a more detailed description of the music by Chris Morrison at Allmusic.com, but rather than just reading about it, I'd like to recommend listening to it on line before you go. There's a performance by the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra on YouTube that includes a synchronized display of the score--which will give you a sense of just how technically challenging this music is.

The other work in which recorded birdsong plays an important role is Ottorino Respighi's "The Pines of Rome," the second in his popular trilogy of tone poems evoking the sights and sounds of his native city--including the recorded song of a nightingale. Here's the composer himself (writing in the third person) describing what he had in mind (quoted in Dr. Richard E. Rodda's program notes for the National Symphony Orchestra):

While in his preceding work, Fountains of Rome, the composer sought to reproduce by means of tone an impression of nature, in Pines of Rome he uses nature as a point of departure, in order to recall memories and visions. The centuries-old trees which dominate so characteristically the Roman landscape become testimony for the principal events in Roman life.

"Pines" opens with children playing boisterously around "The Pines of the Villa Borghese," then changes to "The Pines Near a Catacomb," where a mysterious chant begins and then suddenly stops. Then the moon rises, and the music depicts the peaceful "Pines of the Janiculum" (a hill west of Rome with a spectacular view of the city), complete with the recorded nightingale.

The last (and most spectacular) movement is "The Pines of the Appian Way." "The tragic country is guarded by solitary pines," writes Respighi. "Indistinctly, incessantly, the rhythm of innumerable steps. To the poet's fantasy appears a vision of past glories; trumpets blare, and the army of the Consul advances brilliantly in the grandeur of a newly risen sun toward the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill." It's exceptionally thrilling music that will get the surround-sound treatment in Powell Hall this weekend, with extra brass players sounding forth from the balcony.

Erkki-Sven Tüür
Photo by Ave Maria Mõistlik 

Opening the second half of this weekend's concerts will be a 2017 work by Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür in which nature also plays a major role. Co-commissioned by the SLSO, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic, "Solastalgia for Piccolo Flute and Orchestra" is described by the composer (quoted in Ms. Saller's program notes) as expressing "the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment":

Where I live, the impact of global climate change manifests itself in that winters are no longer winters and summers no longer summers. In my childhood it was ordinary for cars to drive to mainland on a 25 kilometer ice bridge in the winter. There was a lot of snow. And summers were so warm that swimming in the sea was the most natural thing in the world. Today's reality is that the difference between winter and summer equinoxes is often only 4 to 5 degrees. There is no place to hide from the ubiquitous environmental change caused by human activity.

At a time when, at least in this country, a depressingly large percentage of the population continues to loudly deny the reality Mr. Tüür describes in his words and his music, this piece feels very timely.

The piccolo soloist this weekend will be Ann Choomack who, when she's not playing in the SLSO flute section, is a faculty member at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina. Solo works for her instrument are not all that common, so it's good to see her take the spotlight.

The concerts will open with Rimski-Korsakov's popular "Capriccio espagnol" from 1887. Its title not withstanding, the work was actually composed entirely in Russia. "It reflects the composer's research and imagination," notes Ms. Saller "more than his travels as an officer in the Imperial Navy." It also reflects the composer's remarkable skill as an orchestrator--an area in which he was largely self-taught. He got so good at it that he went on to write a book on the subject--"Principles of Orchestration." The tome was begun in 1873 and completed posthumously by Maximilian Steinberg in 1912, who would finally publish it in 1922. The book is still available today, in both print and digital editions, from Dover Books.

The "Capriccio" is lively and colorful music, with plenty of opportunities for individual sections of the orchestra to show off, and includes a virtuoso violin solo that leads into the spirited "Fandango asturiano" finale. It should be a good high-energy start for the concert.

The essentials: Gemma New conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and piccolo soloist Ann Choomack Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, March 23-25. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Spring is coming

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

Ctirad and Šárka
Painting by Věnceslav Černý

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It's an evening of Romantic blockbusters this weekend (March 2 and 3, 2018) as Christian Arming makes his conducting debut with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a program that includes Tchaikovsky's popular Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, with Rémi Geniet (also making his local debut) as soloist.

The concerts will open with the symphonic poem "Sárka," the third of the six works that make up Smetana's epic cycle "Má vlast" ("My Homeland"). It's an interesting choice, in that it's based on a fairly bloody bit of Czech legend.

The story comes from the tale of the legendary "Maiden's War" which may (or may not) have taken place in the 6th or 7th century. First described in the twelfth-century "Chronica Boëmorum" and later in the fourteenth-century "Dalimil's Chronicle," this literal war between men and women was supposedly sparked by the death of Libuse, the last in a line of matriarchal rulers of Czech society. Here's Vaclav Ledvinka, director of Prague's city archives, describing what Czech legend says happened as a result:

When Libuse died, the matriarchal system of power came to an end, and a patriarchal system was introduced, with the arrival of Prince Premysl, the forefather of the Premyslid dynasty, which later ruled the Czech Lands for several hundred years. The women were apparently furious at this change, and this led to a civil war between Czech women and men.

One of the fighters in that civil war was Sárka, a lieutenant of the fierce warrior woman Vlasata. In the legend, Sárka seduces the warrior Ctirad and then, with the help of her fellow Amazons, slaughters him and his men in their sleep.

Smetana's tone painting is fairly literal and concludes with a particularly violent orchestral outburst. "The music is vivid and suspenseful," writes René Spencer Saller in her program notes, "with sharply contrasting motives: churning tempests reminiscent of The Flying Dutchman reveal the heroine's rage, a sinuous clarinet suggests her seductive wiles, a march represents the advancing male army, and rumbling bassoons mimic the snores of the doomed men." I keep hoping the SLSO will perform all of "Má vlast" one of these days (the orchestra's complete recording with Walter Susskind is still one of my favorites) but meanwhile it's good to hear bits of it now and then.

Next on the program is Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 38, known as the "spring" symphony-even though it was composed in the dead of winter, during an amazingly productive four days at the end of January, 1841. The symphony comes from a happy time in Schumann's life-he had just married his one great love, Clara Wieck, the previous September-and it's not hard to hear that joy in this energetic and sunny work.

It doesn't start that way, mind you. The Introduction to the first movement, marked Andante un poco maestoso, is a solemn invocation of grey winter skies, reflecting the opening stanza of "Frühlingsgedicht," the Adolf Böttger poem that inspired the composer:

Du Geist der Wolke, trüb und schwer
Fliegst drohend über Land und Meer
Dein grauer Schleier deckt im Nu
Des Himmels klares Auge zu

You spirit of the clouds, grey and heavy
Looming over land and sea
Your obscure veil obscures in a frozen moment
The clear eye of heaven

But this isn't "Game of Thrones," and winter is going rather than coming. An exuberant horn call leads to the main Allegro molto vivace and spring bursts out in all its glory, mirroring the final stanza of the poem:

O wende, wende deinen Lauf-
Im Thale blüht der Frühling auf!

O turn, O turn and change your course-
In the valley spring blooms forth!

From there on it's springtime for Schumann.

Ms. Saller has a nice, compact analysis of the symphony in her program notes, but if you want a closer look, check out conductor Kenneth Woods's detailed commentary, written to accompany his own recording of the work with the Orchestra of the Swan. That's where I got the information on the Böttger poem.

The concerts will conclude with the excessively popular Tchaikovsky concerto, a work which has not lacked for fine performances by the SLSO in recent years. That includes the unorthodox but compelling Kirill Gerstein version in 2013 and the volcanic Yefim Bronfman approach in 2011.

The soloist this time around is the young (mid-twenties) French pianist Rémi Geniet, whose recent recital at the Morgan Library got a glowing write-up from the New York Music Daily blog, which heaped praise on both his technical facility and (perhaps more relevant for this weekend) his ability to shine new light on established classics. It will be interesting to hear his perspective on a well-loved warhorse like the Tchaikovsky.

Finally: if you're wondering why there's no Sunday afternoon concert, that's because Resident Conductor Gemma New will lead the SLSO Youth Orchestra Sunday at 3 pm with a program of Britten's "Soirées musicales," Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien," and Sibelius's Symphony No. 2. You probably know that last two pieces, but you might not be familiar with the Britten. It's a brilliantly re-imagined collection of five pieces by Rossini, orchestrated in a witty and fanciful style. Ms. New and her young players should have a good time with it, as will you.

The Essentials: Christian Arming conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and piano soloist Rémi Geniet Friday and Saturday at 8 pm March 2 and 3. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Review: Noble and sentimental Beethoven with Stephen Hough, Robert Spano and the St. Louis Symphony

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

Conductor Robert Spano
Photo: Angela Moriss

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There was a lot to be thankful for Friday night (November 25, 2016) as Atlanta Symphony Music Director Robert Spano conducted the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a program that opened with a pair of late Romantic symphonic poems and closed with one of the greatest of the early-nineteenth century piano concertos.

The first half of the concert was pure "program music," beginning with Pohjola's Daughter from 1906, one of Jean Sibelius's many tone poems inspired by the Kalevala, an epic poem by Elias Lönnrot based on Finnish oral folklore and mythology. This is dark, dramatic music depicting the Finnish equivalent of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, with the mythical hero Väinämöinen trying and ultimately failing to win the heart of the titular daughter of the Northland.

Mr. Spano brought out all the drama and vivid tone painting in the score, starting with the brooding evocation of the stark northern landscape brought to life at the start by the orchestra's deepest voices highlighted by solos from, among others, Danny Lee's cello and Tzuying Huang's bass clarinet. Väinämöinen arrived in a powerful and precise fanfare from the brasses, to which Allegra Lilly's harp and Jennifer Nichtman's flutes replied with a perfectly translucent treatment of the theme for Pohjola's daughter.

The SLSO had, surprisingly, never performed this piece before, but you certainly wouldn't have known that from the quality of the playing. Every section of the ensemble sounded perfect, which made the lack of more enthusiastic applause a bit baffling. Yes, this is a piece that ends as softly as it begins, but I don't think the audience should need (to quote a line from Amadeus) "a good bang at the end...to let them know when to clap."

Up next was Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome) the first in Ottorino Respighi's very popular "Roman trilogy" of tone poems composed between 1916 and 1928. In only 15 minutes, the music takes you through a day in Rome as viewed through the lens of four of its famous fountains. We see the sun rise through the mists of the fountain at Valle Giulia, spend the morning frolicking with mythical creatures at the Triton Fountain, marvel at Neptune's majestic chariot at the Trevi Fountain at noon, and finally watch the sun go down behind the Fountain at Villa Medici. "The air is full of the sound of tolling bells, the twittering of birds, the rustling of leaves," wrote Respighi his notes on the score. "Then all dies peacefully into the silence of the night."

Like so many of Respighi's scores, Fountains is a virtual textbook of orchestration, with elements of Debussy, Ravel, and even Richard Strauss all mixed with Respighi's own unique point of view to produce a rich palette of instrumental color. You could hear all of that in exquisite detail throughout this performance, beginning with the shimmering violin harmonics and Jelena Dirks's elegant oboe solo in the opening pages. The play of the Triton fountain's naiads was brought to sparkling life by Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout's harps, the high winds, and the percussion section, while the brasses brought out the majesty of the Trevi fountain.

Mr. Spano brought all this together in a reading that favored somewhat brisk tempos, especially in the Trevi movement, that never felt rushed and that missed none of the many wonderful details of the score. It was thoroughly entrancing and warmly received.

Pianist Stephen Hough
Photo: Hiroyuki Ito

After intermission, Stephen Hough joined the orchestra for a noble and graceful reading of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. Although written under the cloud of war and occupation in Vienna in 1809, this is music that opens in a majestic vein, becomes tender and even wistful in the second movement, and then segues without pause into a cheerful and exuberant rondo.

In his performances of the first three Rachmaninoff concertos with the SLSO back in the spring of 2012, Mr. Hough demonstrated that he had plenty of power when that was called for, but also the ability to display real delicacy. You could hear the power immediately in the oratorical keyboard flourishes that open the first movement and the delicacy in the little diminuendo and touch of rubato that concluded the third solo passage, just before the orchestra entered with the commanding declaration of the first theme.

Throughout the concerto, Mr. Hough and Mr. Spano found lots of shading and subtlety in the music, which made the more dramatic declarations that much more potent. The adagio second movement was pure poetry and the rondo finale danced with rhythmic vitality. The performance as a whole had a real feel of forward momentum, in fact.

As Paul Schiavo points out in his program notes, this is a concerto that integrates the soloist with the orchestra in ways that were novel at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and Mr. Hough and Mr. Spano honored that with a truly collaborative performance.

Although I'm familiar with Mr. Spano's work from recordings, this was my first opportunity to see him in person. He's essentially an upper body conductor, making effective and precise use of his hands and baton, but not much given to the kind of podium choreography that has endeared SLSO Music Director David Robertson to so many of us here. He nevertheless comes across as a warm and engaging character who takes joy in making music. Which is, ultimately, the bottom line.

Next at Powell Hall: Ward Stare conducts the orchestra and violin soloist David Halen in suites from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty ballets along with Borodin's Prince Igor Overture and the complete second act of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet. TheNutcracker selections will be accompanied by projected visuals presented in partnership with the Webster University Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., December 2-4, at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: A little traveling music

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Guest conductor Robert Spano steps up to the podium this weekend (November 25-27, 2016) to lead the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a couple of vivid tone poems and a Beethoven piano concerto so noble in character it picked up the nickname "Emperor."

Jean Sibelius

The concerts open with Pohjola's Daughter from 1906, one of Jean Sibelius's many tone poems inspired by the Kalevala, an epic poem by Elias Lönnrot based on Finnish oral folklore and mythology. Originally published in 1835 and then again in an expanded edition in 1849, the Kalevala quickly attained the status of national epic in Finland and acted as a source of inspiration for Sibelius for many years.

The story told in Pohjola's Daughter is that of the aged but still vigorous warrior, minstrel, and sorcerer Väinämöinen. On his way home from one of his many adventures, he encounters one of the many daughters of Pohjola, a magical land in the far north. This particular daughter is seated on a rainbow and spinning cloth out of gold and silver fibers.

Poor Väinämöinen is smitten but, as Richard Freed writes in program notes for the National Symphony Orchestra, "she is not impressed. His overtures are answered in riddles, and when he perseveres the temptress sets him on a series of impossible tasks. He deals successfully with every challenge but the last, in which he wounds himself beyond the powers of his own magic to heal. Defeated but not humiliated, old Väinämöinen resumes his journey and the healing of his wounds begins as the laughing girl and her attendant spirits vanish."

Pohjola's Daughter begins with a vivid evocation of the dark and brooding Finnish landscape conjured up initially by low strings and deep-voiced wind instruments like the bassoon, contrabassoon, and bass clarinet. Before long, Väinämöinen arrives on the scene in the form of a heroic brass fanfare, to which Pohjola's daughter responds, decked out in diaphanous flutes and harp. Väinämöinen's futile attempts to perform his assigned tasks make up the dramatic middle section, after which the two main themes come back, followed by a quiet coda in which the strings slowly fade to black as poor Väinämöinen limps home to mull over his bad romantic choices.

Ottorino Respighi

Somewhat surprisingly, this weekend will mark this work's first performance by the St. Louis Symphony. Or maybe not; Sibelius was regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned for much of the 20th century despite being championed by luminaries like Leonard Bernstein. It wasn't until the 1980s that critics started to once again appreciate the Finnish master's unique voice.

Up next is The Fountains of Rome, the first in Ottorino Respighi's very popular "Roman trilogy" of tone poems composed between 1916 and 1928. In only fifteen minutes, Fountains takes you through a day in Rome. "In this symphonic poem", wrote Respighi in a preface to the score (quoted in its entirety in Paul Schiavo's program notes), "the composer has endeavored to give expression to the sentiments and visions suggested to him by four of Rome's fountains, contemplated at the hour when their characters are most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or at which their beauty is most impressive to the observer."

We see the sun rise through the mists of the fountain at Valle Giulia, spend the morning frolicking with mythical creatures at the Triton Fountain, marvel at Neptune's majestic chariot at the Trevi Fountain at noon, and finally watch the sun go down behind the Fountain at Villa Medici. "The air is full of the sound of tolling bells, the twittering of birds, the rustling of leaves," Respighi concludes. "Then all dies peacefully into the silence of the night."

It is, in short, a quick trip to the Eternal City without long security lines or jet lag. Such a deal!

There are many apocryphal stories about how the work that concludes this weekend's concerts, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73, got the nickname "Emperor." Personally, I think it's just a nod to the noble character of the work overall and of the main theme of the first movement in particular.

Beethoven
As if you didn't know.

Its noble character not withstanding, the concerto was written under the cloud of war and occupation. When Beethoven was writing the work in 1809, Vienna was not so much the fabled “City of Dreams” as a metropolis of nightmares. The French laid siege to it with shelling so fierce that at one point the composer took refuge in his brother's house and covered his head with pillows to escape the din. “[L]ife around me”, he wrote, “is wild and disturbing, nothing but drums, cannons, soldiers, misery of every sort.” The royal family-including Beethoven's friend and patron Archduke Rudolf-fled, along with many of the notable families with whom the composer had become close.

Left alone and, once the French occupation began, in difficult financial circumstances due to rapid inflation, Beethoven had little else to do but compose. The fifth concerto is probably the most famous work to emerge from this difficult period, although the Op. 81a piano sonata (“Les Adieux”) is probably a close second. Both were dedicated to Rudolph.

Much has been written about the Concerto No. 5, so I won't presume to waste your time with my own analysis, especially when there are concise and informative articles on Wikipedia and at the Classy Classical blog. The magisterial first movement, the wistful second, and the jolly concluding rondo all show Beethoven at his best.

The soloist this weekend will be the multi-talented Stephen Hough (he's a composer and a writer on music and theology as well as a virtuoso pianist), whom I last saw in the SLSO's 2012 "Rach Fest"-a series of concerts in which Mr. Hough took on the daunting task of performing Rachmaninoff's first, second, and third piano concertos over the course of two weeks. He demonstrated then that he had both tremendous power and a delicate touch, which should serve him well in the Beethoven.

The essentials: Robert Spano conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and piano soloist Stephen Hough in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor"), Respighi's The Pines of Rome, and Pohjola's Daughter by Sibelius. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., November 25-27, at Powell Hall in Grand Center. The Saturday concert will be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio For more information: stlsymphony.org.