Symphony Preview: All aboard for the new SLSO season

“Travel,” wrote Mark Twain in “Innocents Abroad,” “is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” Based on what many of our people seem to think these days, those words feel as relevant now as when Mr. Clemens wrote them down back in 1869.

[Preview the music with my commercial-free Spotify playlist.]

Jacques Ibert
By Louis Silvestre (photographer)
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Public Domain

That makes the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concerts Music Director Stéphane Denève will conduct this Saturday and Sunday (September 17 and 18) particularly appropriate. Or maybe that should be très apropriés, as a nod both to Maestro Denève and the composer of the opening work, Jacques Ibert (1890-1962).

That would be the 1922 suite “Escales” (“Ports of Call”), the three movements of which take us on a 15-minute visit to multiple Mediterranean venues. Ibert composed these musical postcards during the residency in Rome that went along with his award of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1919. “During their residencies in Rome,” writes San Francisco program annotator James M. Keller,  “winners were asked to send specimens of their new work back to the administrators in Paris. Escales served as one of these envois (submitted pieces) from Ibert.”

If you’ve never heard this little gem before (it has, after all, been over two decades since the SLSO last played it) you’re in for a treat. The first movement (Rome – Palerma) “documents,” in Ibert’s words, “the trip at sea from Rome south to Palermo in Sicily.” It does so by combining a languorous evocation of swelling ocean waves with a lively tarantella before returning to calm seas and, presumably, a prosperous voyage. The sinuous second movement (Tunis – Nefta) is heavily influenced by the exotic sights and sounds the composer encountered in Tunisia, while the third (Valencia) wraps up our brief tour with a lively and colorful collage of Iberian dance rhythms.

I first encountered the piece during my college years on a 1968 reissue of Charles Munch’s 1958 LP with the Boston Symphony. This recording is still my favorite, so I have included it in this week’s free Spotify Playlist.

Next, we’re off to Haiti for a suite from the Grammy-nominated 2019 album “Fanm d’Ayiti” (“Women of Haiti") by flutist, composer, and vocalist Nathalie Joachim (b. 1983), who will also be the flute and vocal soloist. Although a native of Brooklyn, NY, Joachim says that the death of her Haitian grandmother in 2015 “ignited a deep desire for understanding in me. In what ways did our voices connect with the voices of other Haitian women? What did our songs tell us about our past, and what might they mean for the future?”

The music that sprang from those questions is fanciful, tuneful, sometimes moving, and imbued with an infectious sense of rhythm that makes it easy to overlook the compositional complexity that lies beneath. I have found myself returning again and again to Joachim’s album, always coming away with a feeling that there is, after all, light in the mad, angry darkness that sometime seems to be enveloping our world.

Nathalie Joachim
www.nathaliejoachim.com

Tim Munro’s program notes include extended comments by Joachim on her work. They’re well worth your time, but her music speaks for itself with a direct emotional vocabulary that expertly mixes the worlds of classical, pop, and folk music. Hers is a voice (literal and compositional) that I would expect to hear much more of in the future.

The sense of joy continues in the final work on this weekend’s program, the Symphony No. 8" in G major, Op. 88, composed in 1889 by Anton Dvořák (1841-1904). Written at a time of great happiness in the composer’s life, the symphony overflows with good humor. Dvořák composed it at his newly acquired country home and filled it with celebrations of rustic life. There are twittering birds, cheerful village bands, wandering violinists, and even at one point, a section that has what The Guardian’s Tom Service calls an episode of “chromatic darkness,” but which has always made me think of a sudden thunderstorm. This is the joy of living, wrapped up in the Czech master’s characteristically infectious melodies and dance-inspired rhythms.

Of course, as Service writes, “you can't have true joy without a sense of darkness” and there is more than a hit of that in the Eighth. Indeed, although officially in G major, the work begins with a somewhat solemn G minor introduction in the cellos. It quickly gives way to a cheerful bit of bird song on the solo flute that takes us into the happy heart of the movement, but it’s a reminder that there is sometimes a big black cloud behind every silver lining.

This symphony abounds with lovely solo passages for the winds, as does so much of Dvořák’s music. The last time the Denève and the SLSO performed it—back in February, 2015—I was very taken with the orchestra’s flute, piccolo, and single and double reed sections. I'm looking forward to a repeat of that this time.

There’s much more to be said about the ingenuity with which Dvořák constructed this symphony, but Service’s article in The Guardian (cited above) and Joshua Weilerstein’s deep dive on his Sticky Notes podcast both say it all better than I could, so I’m just going to refer you to them.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève opens the new SLSO season with Ibert’s “Escales,” Nathalie Joachim’s “Fanm d’Ayiti,” and Dvořák’s Symphony No, 8. Performances are Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, September 17 and 18 at Powell Hall in Grand Center.  The Saturday concert will be broadcast live, as usual, on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3.

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

Italian Passages VI: If it ain't Baroque...

 

[The sixth in an irregular series of commentaries on Minnesota Public Radio’s  Italian Passages classical music-themed cruise and tour of Italy, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the network's daily live concert program, Performance Today and led by PT host Fred Child.]

The Thursday and Friday of our first full Italian adventure week were largely taken up with day trips to, respectively, the town of Ravenna and the metropolis of Bologna.  We also had not one but two excellent programs of Baroque music.

The principal attraction in Ravenna was the basilica of San Vitale, with its Byzantine architecture and early Christian mosaics (pictured above), notable for the feeling of light and joy they convey. After overdosing on paintings and statuary in which the emphasis was on the later Roman Catholic obsession with blood, suffering, and death (what a friend of mine calls “martyr porn”), the simple cheerfulness of the glass mosaics was a welcome relief.  The town itself, with its narrow, mostly motor vehicle-free streets, was also a welcome change of pace.

Bologna has too many principal attraction to count, but the tour focused on the anatomy theatre at the University of Bologna, where students learned human anatomy by dissecting corpses, as well as the "Stabat Mater" library, named after Rossini’s famed choral work. With a founding date of 1088, it’s the oldest continuously operating university in the world. 

The tour also included the city’s stunning Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica (International Museum and Library of Music), which my wife and I first saw a few years ago.  Should you ever make it to Bologna (a course of action we can highly recommend; it’s a fascinating city) a trip to the museum is essential if you’re any kind of music lover. 

The first (and, for me, the best) of our two Baroque concerts took place in the lounge of our ship, the River Countess, when violinist Anthea Kreston, our musician in residence, played Biber’s Passacaglia and the monumental “Chaconne” movement from Bach’s Partita in D Minor.  Both works have in common the fact that they are essentially a series of variations on a bass line, but they are otherwise radically different.

The Biber piece is fairly straightforward set of 64 virtuoso expansions on a simple four-note descending motif that can be found in a wide range of compositions, including the Gethsemane scene in Jesus Christ Superstar and (as Ms. Kreston demonstrated in a humorous “audience participation” moment) the Ray Charles classic “Hit the Road, Jack.” 

The Bach is a different matter altogether.

Possibly inspired by the death of the composer’s first wife, Maria Barbara, this remarkable 15-minute work is a harrowing trip from darkness to light and then back to darkness again (but a different kind of darkness, because it’s Bach). The intimacy of the setting greatly enhanced the already significant power of the music, but it was Ms. Kreston’s muscular, impassioned performance that really put it over. When the last dramatic note sounded there was a brief hush, after which one of our party murmured “what a journey.”  Indeed.

The concert that capped our day in Bologna was less dramatic, but no less engaging.  Titled “Baroque Treasures,” it took place in the small Chiesa dei Santi Vitale e Agricola in Arena (the Church of Saints Vitale and Agricola in the Arena, named after two saints who were martyred in the gladiatorial games) and featured an excessively talented ensemble consisting of violinists Elicia Silverstein and Boris Begelman, cellist Mauro Valli, and the ensemble’s leader, Pedro Alcàcer, on theorbo and Baroque guitar. The lively and varied program included works by well-known composers like Purcell, Vivaldi, and Corelli along with music by lesser-known masters like Alessandro Piccinini (who essentially invented the theorbo) and the violin virtuoso Giovanni B. Fontana.

For me, though, the most memorable aspect of the program was the Allettamento No. 6 by Giuseppe Valentini, a work which has not had a public performance in three centuries.  In her introductory comments, Ms. Silverstein noted that the title translates roughly as “seduction” and that all of the movements have titles suggesting flirtation of some sort.  She and Mr. Valli gave it a fittingly seductive performance, in which their friendly interaction and Ms. Silverstein’s expressive face were major enhancements to their flawless playing.

Italian Passages V: Ash Wednesday

 

[The fifth in an irregular series of commentaries on Minnesota Public Radio’s  Italian Passages classical music-themed cruise and tour of Italy, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the network's daily live concert program, Performance Today and led by PT host Fred Child.]

And now for something completely different: some lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

King of Swamp Castle: “When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England.”

Venice’s Teatro La Fenice (“The Phoenix”) opera house is built on an island rather than a swamp, but it did burn down three times (most recently in 1996).  It was rebuilt each time—the current La Fenice opened in 2004—hence its fanciful name.  It’s an opera house that has repeatedly risen from the ashes.

The real fame of La Fenice, however, comes not from its status as a survivor of incendiary disaster so much as from its importance as a source of significant operatic premieres.  Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Rossini all presented major works for the first time at La Fenice.  And while Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the opera we saw at La Fenice on our third full day in Venice (Wednesday, May 31st), didn’t have its premiere there, it certainly got a splendid production that night.  

But first, a few words about the opera house itself.  With its red and gold décor, ornately painted ceiling,  and its multiple ranks of box seats, La Fenice is (as you can see from the picture at the top of this article) something of the Platonic ideal of an Italian opera house. From our seats towards the back of the second rank of boxes, it was easy to imagine that we were back in the 19th century, eagerly awaiting a performance of the new comic opera version of Beaumarchais’ famous play about the antics of Figaro by the hot young composer Rossini. “They say it was all the rage when it opened in Rome,” you could imagine someone murmuring, “and that he wrote the whole thing in three weeks! Imagine that!”

The illusion was enhanced by the fact that this was a fairly traditional production—fast-paced, silly, acted with great conviction and sung brilliantly.  More importantly, it was a completely theatrical production in the very best sense of the term.  Every role was fully realized, from the leads right down to the smallest cameo parts.  

The production was originally created for La Fenice back in 2002 by director Bepi Morassi, who states in his program note that  Barbiere “should be a fresco of pure theatre made up of the bravura of the individual actors bringing the work to life, and equally taking meaning from it.” He sees theatrical values as no less important than musical ones, and so  created a Barbiere that succeeded on every possible level.  Even the many bits of slapstick were beautifully choreographed to create a kind of comedic ballet.

In short, it was a real hoot.  Baritone Julian Kim’s cheerfully crafty Figaro, tenor Giorgio Misseri’s self-dramatizing Almaviva, mezzo Chiara Amarù’s formidable Rosina, and baritone Omar Montanari’s hilariously pompous Bartolo led a flawless cast.  As Don Basilio, Carlo Lepore dominated the stage in his “gossip” aria and soprano Giovanna Donadini made the cameo role of the governess Berta a small comic gem.  Bass-baritone William Corrò completed this fine ensemble as Fiorello.

Conductor Alessandro di Marchi led the orchestra in a spirited and impressively precise reading of Rossini’s score. His tempi were sometimes breathtakingly fast, but his cast handled event the most rapid-fire patter with ease.  The chorus sang with clarity and precision and the entire production was a joy to behold. With Rossini’s tunes still ringing in our ears, we walked quickly back to our ship on time for a 10:30 p.m. departure for our next port of call.

Italian Passages IV: Seasonal Perspectives

[The fourth in an irregular series of commentaries on Minnesota Public Radio’s  Italian Passages classical music-themed cruise and tour of Italy, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the network's daily live concert program, Performance Today and led by PT host Fred Child.]

Anyone who thinks that spontaneity has no place in classical music would certainly have been disabused of that notion by the lively performance of Vivaldi's Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) that capped our second full day in Venice.

The private concert at the Chiesa San Vidal featured the Venice-based Baroque ensemble Interpreti Veneziani (who were presenting a series of public Vivaldi concerts in the same venue) with the solo violin part performed by our tour's resident violinist, former Performance Today Young Artist in Residence Anthea Kreston. A highly regarded performer who also happens to be a very entertaining and insightful music blogger, Ms. Kreston had done some advanced preparation for the concert by learning the specific version of the solo part used by Interpreti Veneziani (including the specific bowing). But because of our tour schedule she had only 47 minutes of actual rehearsal time with her fellow musicians on the day of the concert.

That meant that there was plenty of give and take between her and the seven members of Interpreti during the performance, which included some modest but perfectly chosen ornamentation (the improvised elaboration of the solo line that is an essential part of Baroque performance practice) by Ms. Kreston. The lines of communication were so well established that someone who was unaware of the evening's background would probably have assumed that Ms. Kreston was a regular member of the group.

It was all quite impressive and great fun as well when matched with Fred Child's readings of the four sonnets that describe the scenes portrayed in Vivaldi's music. The poems are attributed to Vivaldi (although their actual authorship is uncertain) and are often presented in rather dated and stodgy translations in the English-speaking world. Mr. Child reworked them into something more conversational and witty and delivered them in the approachable, friendly style that will be familiar to Performance Today listeners.

It was, in a way, his own form of Baroque ornamentation.

Ms. Kreston's performance was revealed as all the more impressive the next day on the return bus trip from a tour of Palladian architecture in Vicenza, as she discussed in more detail that kinds of adjustments that a performer accustomed to modern performance practices is obliged to make when playing with an ensemble of Baroque specialists using reproductions of period instruments. Tuning, bowing, and other fundamental aspects of violin playing are very different—as are the bows themselves. I was somewhat in awe of the fact that she managed to absorb all of that and deliver a very idiomatic reading on such short notice.

"Brava," as the say at the opera.

Speaking of Mr. Palladio: the highlight of the Vicenza tour for me was a visit to the Teatro Olimpico. Designed in deliberate imitation of ancient Roman amphitheater (albeit with walls and a ceiling), the Olimpico boasts a stage on which is installed the original trompe de l'oeil set designed by Palladio in 1588 (and pictured above). The central street is a triumph of false perspective and such a convincing optical illusion that even after seeing how shallow the space is that houses it really is, it still seems to go on forever.

Unlike our trip, which seems to be flying by far too quickly.

Italian Passages II: Veni, Verdi, Violini

 

[The second in an irregular series of commentaries on Minnesota Public Radio’s  Italian Passages classical music-themed cruise and tour of Italy, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the network's daily live concert program, Performance Today and led by PT host Fred Child.]

The commune of Busseto in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy, appears to have two principal exports: tomatoes and the noted composer Giuseppe Verdi.  Since this tour focuses on music rather than agriculture, it was the latter that provided one of our two principal activities on the road from Milan to Venice.

Unloading from our buses in the village of Roncale, we got a brief tour of the church where Verdi was the resident organist (at the ripe old age of eight) and an even more brief look at the outside of the home where he was born, followed by a private concert of Italian opera arias (wth the emphasis, of course, on Verdi) at Teatro  Verdi by soprano Renata Campanella and pianist M. Fabrizio Cassi.

One of my fellow cruisers asked me at dinner the following night what I thought of the recital and what, as a critic, I look for in an operatic performance.  I replied that what I looked for what essentially what we got from Ms. Campanella: a singer/actor with a solid, well-placed voice of uniform strength throughout its range and the ability to fully inhabit a character and convey the emotions behind an aria believably, without exaggeration.

I found Ms. Campanella to be a totally compelling singer and actress, always entirely “in the moment” from before the first note was struck until she broke character to accept our applause.  Whether she was swooning with love in “Tacea la notte placida” from Il Trovatore or contemplating the cruelty of fate in “Pace, pace mio Dio”  from La Forza del Destino, she was always completely credible and musically impeccable.  Add in the jewel-like perfection of the tiny (100-seat) theatre, and the result was a unique experience I won’t soon forget.

The theatre has an interesting history of its own.  Constructed inside a former palazzo that now houses local government offices, it was named after Verdi over his strenuous objections.  He much preferred the town’s older existing opera house and regarded the construction of the new one as a waste of money.  As a result, he refused to set foot in the theatre that bears his name.

Another unforgettable experience was the classically northern Italian lunch we were served afterwards next door at the restaurant I Due Foscari. The late Luciano Pavarotti was an old friend of the family and the restaurant was his personal favorite.  The creamy risotto and baked chicken were reminiscent of my Italian grandmother’s cooking and the locally-made sparkling wines were a perfect complement.

Then it was back to the bus for a short drive to the Violin Museum in Cremona, where we were treated to yet another fine concert, this time by Aurelia Macovei on an authentic 1727 Stradivarius violin. The recital was brief, but provided and excellent showcase for both Ms. Macovei’s skill and the robust sound of her instrument.  

For me, the highlight was a transcription of Asturias (Leyenda) by Albeniz,  Originally composed for piano, this dramatic piece is often heard in a guitar transcription. The violin arrangement is an ingenious piece of work—every bit as flashy as both the piano and guitar versions but exploiting the violin’s capabilities so effectively that someone encountering it for the first time could be forgiven for thinking it was written for that instrument in the first place.

The intimate performance space at the museum (pictured above) is a thing of both visual and auditory beauty all by itself, with comfortable seats and auburn wood everywhere, curved in homage to the instrument to which the museum is dedicated, and excellent acoustics.

The tour of the museum that followed was informative but when it began to feel rather like a pitch by the Cremona Chamber of Commerce, I made a discreet exit to wait for the rest of our group at the museum entrance.  I was rewarded by the sight of a group of mummers and dancers in Renaissance costume.  The later gave those of us hanging around the shaded courtyard in front of the museum a delightful demonstration of period social dancing, accompanied by recorded music.  You never know when serendipity is going to make itself felt.

And then it was time to board the bus for Venice.  Of which, more anon.

 

Italian Passages I: Andiamo!

The Last Supper in situ

[The first in an irregular series of commentaries on Minnesota Public Radio's Italian Passages classical music-themed cruise and tour of Italy, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the network's daily live concert program, Performance Today and led by PT host Fred Child.]

Italian Passages began in Milan with an impressive high-end dinner last night at our hotel, the Rosa Grand , followed the next day by a whirlwind tour of Il Duomo, the famed Gothic cathedral, followed in turn by a backstage tour of La Scala (including a quick trek through the museum), a viewing of The Last Supper, and a bus tour of some of the city's notable neighborhoods.

We had seen the Duomo before, so for us the highlights of the day were a quick glimpse of a rehearsal of the Franco Zeffirelli production of La Boheme at La Scala (which uses a remarkable two-level set) and the Da Vinci masterpiece. We've all seen pictures of it, but viewing the work in its original setting—a modest monastery—emphasized the revolutionary nature of Da Vinci's painting. For its time, it is startlingly realistic and filled with the kind of details that are lacking in the works of his contemporaries. You can see the reflections of the robes of the disciples in the metal plates, for example, or catch a glimpse of dinnerware through a glass bottle.

Back at the hotel, we were treated to Prosecco and then a brief but highly varied and entertaining recital by Roberto Plano, who was born in Italy but now teaches in Boston. Fred Child prefaced the concert by praising the wide range of Mr. Plano's performance style, and the program that followed fully validated that praise. Opening with a delicate Mozartian Andante by Andrea Luchesi—a once-famous contemporary Mozart who has now become a historical footnote—Mr. Plano the moved on to the Olympian drama of the opening "Invocation" from Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, shifting musical gears with the ease of a seasoned Grand Prix driver. Next was a limpid Respighi Notturno (from his Six Pieces for Piano from 1904), followed by Black Earth by the Turkish composer/pianist Fazil Say, in which the pianist imitates the sound of a Turkish lute by damping individual strings with his fingers.

The concert concluded with a virtuoso run through Ginastera's Suite de Danzas Criollas and a wildly jazzy selection from Friedrich Gulda's Play Piano Play. For me, though, one of the high points was Mr. Plano's demonstration of his ingenious technical solution to the problem of producing a piano transcription of Tárrega's moving Recuerdos de La Alhambra. The guitar original calls for the performer to repeatedly strike a single string with the ring, middle, and index fingers (a tecnique known as tremolo), producing an ethereal combination of pizzicato and legato. Mr. Plano's arrangement has the pianist repeatedly striking the same key the first time through and then, on the repeat, rapidly alternating notes an octave apart using the thumb and little finger (also known as tremolo). You can see a video demonstration on the Performance Today Facebook page.

After which it was off to bed because the next day promised to be (and was) eventful. But that's another story.