Review: Why do we love David Robertson? Let us count the ways.

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

David Robertson

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

This past weekend's St. Louis Symphony concerts (January 27-29) were the last regular subscription series programs before Maestro David Robertson and the orchestra leave for a tour of Spain in February. If what I heard Friday night is any indication, they'll do so (to quote Mr. Wordsworth) "trailing clouds of glory."

The evening was classic Robertson in every respect, beginning with the order structure of the evening: two audience favorites surrounding a new work getting its American premiere, thereby guaranteeing that the audience would at least give the new piece a chance.

It was smart programming, because the work in question—Rolf Wallin's 2011 Fisher King for trumpet and orchestra—doesn't have a lot of immediate appeal. In a program note on his publisher's web site Wallin, a trumpet player himself, notes that the work deals in part with "the love/hate instrument of my childhood and youth" and is "about visiting some dark places."

I found the piece suffused with an underlying sense of anxiety, with horror movie-style gliding passages in the strings and a challenging solo part with lots of nervous trills and aggressively rapid passages calling for plenty of double-tonguing and nimble fingers. There are even sections in which the score indicates a range of notes and it's left up to the soloist to decide which ones to actually play. It's fascinating stuff, especially for a former brass player like yours truly, but if the conversations I overheard in the lobby during intermission were any indication, it was not particularly well received by the audience, who apparently found it a bit monotonous.

But what a remarkable performance it got from the orchestra and soloist Håkan Hardenberger! Working with two different trumpets (a standard instrument for most of the concerto and a piccolo trumpet for the brief coda), Mr. Hardenberger navigated this difficult score with ease and authority. His tone, in the rare moments when his instrument was unmuted, was clean and clear. For the most part, though, we heard it filtered through a variety of mutes, reflecting the composer's desire to counteract the instrument's extroverted musical personality.

The two familiar works bracketing Fisher King were the 1945 suite from Aaron Copland's 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92. Both were performed with that mix of attention to orchestral detail and keen understanding of musical architecture that we have come to expect from Mr. Robertson over the years.

Håkan Hardenberger
Photo: Ben Ealovega

The Copland was classic Robertson, with enthusiastic yet precise podium choreography and pristine playing by the orchestra and impeccable solos from the principals. From the serene opening pages to the big treatment of "Simple Gifts" to the quiet finale, this was a performance that will represent the orchestra well when it's presented in Madrid next month.

It was the Beethoven that really brought down the house, though. Conducting without a score, Mr. Robertson brought this familiar music to new life, finding novel approaches to the piece without in any way imposing on it. Playing the Allegretto second movement attacca (without pause) after the first, for example, shed new light on both movements--and provoked spontaneous applause both Friday and Saturday night. Crescendos were beautifully shaped and tempo choices were relaxed enough to make every detail clear but still brisk enough to keep Beethoven's momentum going.

This was, in short, exactly the sort of thing that made Mr. Robertson so welcome when he joined the SLSO as music director in 2003, and it's why I will be sorry to see him go in 2019. His work with the orchestra reminds me in many ways of the good old days of Leonard Slatkin, and that's saying something.

The concerts conclude with an unscheduled encore, which is presumably going to Spain with the orchestra as well: the "Ritual Fire Dance" from de Falla's ballet El amor brujo. That got a rousing round of applause as well.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra leaves the first week in February for its 2017 Spain Tour with dates in València, Madrid, and Oviedo. Regular concerts resume February 24 and 25 as Sir Andrew Davis conducts the orchestra and chorus in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast along with Elgar's Falstaff and the overture to Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor.

Preview: Music of renewal and decay at the St. Louis Symphony

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This weekend (January 27-29, 2017) brings us the last of the regular St. Louis Symphony season concerts before the orchestra departs for its tour of Spain next month (the subscription season resumes at the end of February). The orchestra is saying "¡Hasta luego!" with concerts featuring a couple of familiar favorites and one piece that's getting its American premiere.

Aaron Copland, 1962

The concerts open with one of the favorites, the 1945 suite from Aaron Copland's 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring. Dating from a time in Copland's career when he was trying to write in a more popular and accessible style, the score for Appalachian Spring is direct and uncomplicated in its appeal. Which is only fitting, since the ballet scenario devised by legendary choreographer Martha Graham is equally straightforward, telling the simple story of a young couple in rural Pennsylvania starting their life together and building their home with the help of their neighbors and the local preacher.

Although the ballet was originally scored for a small ensemble of 13 players, it's Copland's later suite for full orchestra that has become the most familiar. It was last heard here in a 2010 performance that was accompanied by projected images from a children's book: Jan Greenberg's Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring.

Ballet for Martha was, in fact, the original working title for Appalachian Spring. The ballet didn't get its official title until shortly before the premiere, when Ms. Graham suggested Appalachian Spring based on lines from the Hart Crane poem "The Dance":

O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge; Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends And northward reaches in that violet wedge Of Adirondacks!

So the "spring" is more a reference to the aquatic feature than to the season, although since the poem overall is about the coming of spring it would probably be fair to say that it's a reference to both.

The classic Beethoven

The other selection from the classical "top of the pops" is Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92, last heard here in an exhilarating performance by last weekend's guest conductor, Andrey Boreyko, in 2014. First performed at a December 8, 1813, charity concert to benefit widows and orphans of soldiers killed in the Battle of Hanau-which marked the beginning of the end of Napoleon's dreams of empire-the work was greeted with wild acclaim by audiences and critics alike. The second movement Allegretto, in particular, "enchanted connoisseur and layman," according to a contemporary review in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Welsh musicologist David Wyn Morris has called the symphony "the continuous cumulative celebration of joy."

Perhaps the most famous and most enthusiastic review, though, came from Richard Wagner. It's so effusive it's worth quoting at length:

All tumult, all yearning and storming of the heart, become here the blissful insolence of joy, which carries us away with bacchanalian power through the roomy space of nature, through all the streams and seas of life, shouting in glad self-consciousness as we sound throughout the universe the daring strains of this human sphere-dance. The Symphony is the Apotheosis of the Dance itself: it is Dance in its highest aspect, the loftiest deed of bodily motion, incorporated into an ideal mold of tone.

They just don't write pull quotes like that anymore.

The big news this weekend, though, is the first American performance of Fisher King for Trumpet and Orchestra, written in 2011 by Norwegian composer and trumpet player Rolf Wallin. The title refers to the Arthurian legend of a wounded monarch, the last in a long line of kings charged with keeping the Holy Grail, whose injuries make it impossible for him to move on his own power. In despair, he spends all his time fishing while his kingdom falls in to ruin, and only magic worked by a true king can cure him.

Rolf Wallin
Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

In the first known version of the story-Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, the Story of the Grail from the late 12th century-the cure is worked by the knight Perceval, who would later become the model for Wagner's Parsifal. Mr. Wallin doesn't specify which version of the story he was thinking of, but in a program note on his publisher's web site he's very frank about the source of his concerto's inspiration:

In many ways, since we're dealing with the love/hate instrument of my childhood and youth, this trumpet concerto was bound to be become almost autobiographical. It is about visiting some dark places. Low places. The place inhabited by the mythical wounded Fisher King, his country degenerating into a Wasteland, a place we all have been at least once in our life. But it is even more about the hope of transforming that Wasteland into brightness and abundant, flowing energy.

Fisher King is laid out as one continuous movement running a little under a half hour, but it's divided up into three sections that roughly correspond to the traditional fast-slow-fast pattern of the classical concerto. You can read an excellent detailed description of the work in Paul Schiavo's SLSO program notes, but I'd also recommend listening to the recording this weekend's soloist, Håkan Hardenberger, made for Naxos with the Bergen Philharmonic under John Storgårds. The label has thoughtfully made it available on YouTube.

. There's an underlying sense of anxiety in this piece, with lots of thorny passages for both the soloist and the orchestra. There are moments of real beauty in the slower central section and passages of great drama elsewhere, capped with a rather abrupt ending. In the end, I found that I rather liked this somewhat enigmatic music; your mileage may vary.

The essentials: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and trumpet soloist Håkan Hardenberger on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., January 27-29. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

St. Louis classical calendar for the week of January 23, 2017

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Opera Theatre of St. Louis presents Opera Tastings on Wednesday and Thursday, January 25 and 26, at 7:00 p.m. "Get the perfect introduction to opera with this unique culinary concert experience! Delight all of your senses as music from across the history of opera is paired with wine and locally-sourced continental cuisine crafted specially by Chef Ryan Luke to complement the flavors of the music. Featuring Katherine Jolly, soprano, Jennifer Panara, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Blue, Tenor, Robert Mellon, baritone, and Lachlan Glen, pianist and emcee Robert McNichols Jr." The event takes place at Moulin, 2017 Chouteau. For more information, experienceopera.org.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis presents Opera Tastings on Friday, January 27, at 7:00 p.m. "Get the perfect introduction to opera with this unique culinary concert experience! Delight all of your senses as music from across the history of opera is paired with beer and new American-style comfort food by General Manager Eric Sohn to complement the flavors of the music. Featuring Katherine Jolly, soprano, Jennifer Panara, mezzo-soprano, Joshua Blue, Tenor, Robert Mellon, baritone, and Lachlan Glen, pianist and emcee Robert McNichols Jr." The event takes place at Quintessential Dining and Nightlife, 149 N. Main Street in Historic St. Charles. For more information, experienceopera.org.

Duo Noire

The St. Louis Classical Guitar Society presents a Great Artist Guitar Series concert with Duo Noire on Saturday, January 28, at 8 p.m. "Duo Noire: Recent graduates of the Yale School of Music, Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallett return for a fourth time, serving again as role models for thousands of students in our underserved St. Louis City and North County neighborhoods, with school visits January 25-26-27. St. Louis favorites, they return with music of Bach, Joplin, and a world premiere from Clarice Assad!" The performance takes at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Road. For more information: guitarstlouis.net.

David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and trumpet soloist Håkan Hardenberger on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., January 27-29. "Beethoven's Seventh Symphony has long been adored for its hypnotic pulsing, triumphant fury and its pioneering use of rhythm. Be spellbound by the mesmerizing work alongside Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite, a work capturing the vast open spaces and pioneer spirit of our country." The concert also includes the local premiere of Fisher King (Trumpet Concerto) by contemporary Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin. The concert takes place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The Washington University Department of Music presents a concert by the Duchesne Trio on Sunday, January 29, at 7:30 p.m. The program consists of the Violin Sonata no. 1 in a minor by Maurice Ravel, the Cello Sonata in a minor by César Franck (arranged by Jules Delsart), and the Piano Trio in G major by Claude Debussy. The performance takes place in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall at the 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity in University City. For more information, music.wustl.edu.