Symphony Preview: Stéphane's serenade and Brahms's lullaby

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

Stéphane Denève
Photo by Jessica Griffin

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When I first saw St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Music Director Designate Stéphane Denève conduct the orchestra back in the spring of 2003 I found him an impressive figure: tall and commanding without appearing overbearing, and with a bit of the late Leopold Stokowski's flair. Watching him conduct a program of Britten, Haydn, and Tchaikovsky, I noted his close communication with the musicians and how much they appeared to enjoy working with him.

"I don't know whether or not Stéphane Denève is being considered for the Music Director post at the SLSO," I wrote at the end of my critique. "If so and if this was an audition, I'd say he passed it with flying colors."

That looks a bit prescient now, albeit around 16 years late.

Mozart, as drawn by Doris Stock, 1789

This weekend (February 8-10), Mr. Denève is making his second appearance with the orchestra this season, with an evening of music by Mozart, Vaughan Williams, and Brahms. The concerts open with a performance of Mozart's 1787 Serenade No. 13 for strings, a.k.a. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," a work so well-known that most of the audience could probably hum it all the way through--and yet, as Mr. Denève notes in comments for the program, he has never conducted it before.

"I try to always serve the composer," he reflects. "With Mozart this goal is difficult, as the music is perfect in itself, so one always notices if the ego of the performer is in the way." Based on what I have seen of Mr. Denève's work to date, I think that is unlikely to be an issue. It will, in any case, be interesting to hear what amounts to his first public thoughts on this popular classic.

Up next will be a pair of purely lovely short works by Ralph Vaughan Williams: "The Lark Ascending" and the "Serenade to Music."

A romance for violin and orchestra, "The Lark Ascending" has its origins in 1914 while the composer was strolling along the seaside cliffs in Kent. It was not completed, however, until the composer returned from his service in the war disillusioned and with what would prove to be progressive hearing loss. By the time "The Lark Ascending" had its first performance in 1921, it had turned into a wistfully nostalgic look back at a bucolic way of life shattered forever by the winds of war.

Vaughan Williams in the army, 1915
rvwsociety.com

The piece takes its title from an 1881 poem of the same name by George Meredith that describes the characteristic way skylarks spiral up into the sky while singing. Meredith heard a kind of pantheist divinity in the lark's song that seems to have resonated with the composer, even though he was a devout Christian. Many have since heard a metaphor for the soul's climb to heaven in the way the work's lovely melody floats and, in the end, slowly fades into silence as it makes its final ascent.

The full poem is 122 lines long, but here are the lines Vaughan Williams chose to accompany the score:

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

The part of the lark this weekend will be played by SLSO Concertmaster David Halen.

Mr. Halen's violin is also the first thing heard in the next work, the "Serenade to Music" from 1938. Composed as a tribute to the noted British conductor Sir Henry Wood on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his first concert, the "Serenade" is scored for a small orchestra and a group of sixteen solo singers.

Why sixteen? Because the singers who performed the work at its premiere were noted British vocalists selected specifically by Vaughan Williams and Wood. In fact, the published score has the initials of each singer next to his or her lines. Recognizing the difficulty of coming up with sixteen soloists, the composer would later create arrangements for four soloists and/or choir, but this weekend we'll hear the original version with sixteen stellar vocalists from the SLSLO chorus.

The text of the work comes from Act V, Scene 1, of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." In the play, the lines belong to the eloping lovers Lorenzo and Jessica, as they sit on a grassy bank and reflect on the importance of music. "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!" cries Lorenzo. "Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears: soft stillness and night / Become the touches of sweet harmony." The sheer beauty of the work is supposed to have moved the composer Rachmaninoff to tears when he heard it at its 1938 premiere.

I first encountered the "Serenade to Music" as "filler" on a Columbia recording of Vaughan Williams's angry and despairing Symphony No. 4 by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. The performance had been recorded live at the opening of the orchestra's new home at Avery Fisher Hall in September, 1962. Coming after the final anguished chords of the symphony, the "Serenade" was like a breath of fresh air--a sudden flood of peace and beauty after a musical depiction of the horrors of war. This weekend, the "Serenade" will be played attacca, i.e., immediately following "The Lark Ascending," as though the lark had returned to earth to help pay tribute to "the touches of sweet harmony."

Brahms in 1853
en.wikipedia.org

Concluding this weekend's concerts will be a symphony with one of the sunniest final movements you will ever hear: the Brahms Symphony No. 2, written and first performed in 1877. Indeed, as James Keays writes in program notes for the Redland Symphony, the Second "is one of the most cheerful of Brahms' mature works, so much so that it is often called his 'Pastoral,' an obvious reference to Beethoven's symphony of the same name."

The comparison is an apt one since Brahms, like Beethoven, loved nature and often drew inspiration from it. "Throughout his life," writes Tim Munro in this weekend's program notes, "nature helped him return to equilibrium, an equilibrium lost in the bustle of the city. Raised in a hard-scrabble part of Hamburg, he took long walking trips with his family. Later, escaping Vienna meant he could breathe and be alone with his thoughts."

The escape that led to the Second Symphony was to the Austrian town of Pörtschach am Wörthersee. Brahms loved the place and rhapsodized that "the melodies flow so freely that one must be careful not to trample on them." He rented two small rooms for himself at the village that summer, and if his correspondence is an indication, he couldn't have been happier, as Philip Huscher writes in notes for the Chicago Symphony:

The rooms apparently were ideal for composition, even though the hallway was so narrow that Brahms's piano couldn't be moved up the stairs. "It is delightful here," Brahms wrote to Fritz Simrock, his publisher, soon after arriving, and the new symphony bears witness to his apparent delight. Later that summer, when Brahms's friend Theodore Billroth, an amateur musician, played through the score for the first time, he wrote to the composer at once: "It is all rippling streams, blue sky, sunshine, and cool green shadows. How beautiful it must be at Portschach."

Listening to the symphony again recently, I was struck by the sense of serenity, openness, and good humor in the piece. I was also struck, once again, by the similarity between the second theme of the first movement and Brahms's famous "Lullaby" ("Wiegenlied" in German) from 1868. Whether that was intentional or not is hard to say but, as Dick Strawser of the Harrisburg Symphony points out in a 2010 blog post, Brahms does report that the rooms where he was staying in Pörtschach am Wörthersee were near the summer home of Bertha and Arthur Faber, the couple for whom he wrote the "Wiegenlied" in the first place. Personally, I like to think that it was a genial nod to his friends and to the joy he felt in composing this cheerful work.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, along with SLSO Concertmaster David Halen, Friday at 10:30 am, Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, February 8-10. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Review: A mostly French St. Louis Symphony program highlights principal players

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson
What: Music of Bizet, Debussy, Elgar, and Ravel
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: May 1-3, 2015

[Find out more about the music with the SLSO program notes and my symphony preview.]

Allegra Lilly
harpcolumn.com

This is a big weekend for the Principal and Associate Principal players in the St. Louis Symphony (and even a couple of guests). The concerts begin with an orchestral suite from Bizet's massively popular 1875 opera "Carmen" and end with Ravel's even more massively popular "Bolero"—both works packed with solos for individual instruments.

In between are pieces that feature SLSO musicians not often seen in the solo spot: Principal Harp Allegra Lilly in Debussy's 1904 "Danses sacrée et profane" ("Sacred and Profane Dances") for harp and strings, and Principal Tuba Michael Sanders in Vaughan Williams' 1954 "Tuba Concerto in F minor."

For people like me who enjoy seeing members of the band step forward and strut their stuff, it's all very gratifying.

The "Carmen" selections consist of eleven of the twelve sections of the two suites that Bizet's friend and fellow composer Ernest Guiraud put together in the 1880s. Bizet never heard them—he died shortly after "Carmen" opened to tepid reviews and public apathy in 1875—but I think he would have appreciated the way his colleague reassigned the original vocal lines to a wide range of individual instruments. The trumpet, in particular, carries a lot of the weight, with prominent roles in the "Habañera," "Seguedille," "La Garde montante," and most notably, the famous (and often parodied) "Chanson du Toréador."

Mr. Robertson's rearrangement of the order of the selections made me hear this music in a very different way. Having the brisk march of "Les Toréadors" segue immediately into the ominous Act I "Prelude," for example, created a nice bit of dramatic contrast. Ditto putting the delicate "Intermezzo," with its lovely duet for harp and flute, in between the "Chanson du Toréador" and the lively "Danse bohème." His interpretation brought out all the drama and high spirits of the opera, ending with a "Danse bohème" that burned up the stage.

A few fluffs here and there not withstanding, the musicians with the solo spots performed brilliantly. Principal Trumpet Karin Bliznik had the most to do, of course, but there were also terrific moments from Principal Flute Mark Sparks, Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks, Associate Principal Bassoon Andy Gott along with fellow bassoonist Felicia Foland, Principal Piccolo Ann Choomack along with second piccolo Jennifer Nichtman (doubling on flute), harpist Megan Stout, and Concertmaster David Halen. Mr. Halen's solo in the "Nocturne" starts at the bottom of the violin's range, and brought a dark, silky tone to it.

As the second half of the concert began, Allegra Lilly made a strong impression before she even played a note, gliding onstage in a iridescent blue spaghetti strap gown that was as lovely and elegant as her playing—and that's saying something. Soloists sometimes get lost in the fog of Powell Hall's acoustics, especially for those of us in the Dress Circle, but Ms. Lilliy's harp came through rich and clear, its full-bodied sound assisted by a resonating platform and Debussy's intelligent orchestration, which never allows the string ensemble to overcome the soloist. She and Mr. Robertson gave the music a graceful and sensitive treatment that emphasized the shimmering, shifting colors of this music. I know Debussy disliked the term "impressionism," but for works like this it feels quelle apropos nevertheless.

Michael Sanders
stlsymphony.org

The Vaughan Williams tuba concerto was next, and you couldn't have asked for a more marked contrast from the Debussy. It's a consistently ingratiating and playful piece, with a strong English folk flavor. The composer wrote it with (and for) London Symphony Orchestra Principal Tuba Philip Catelinet—who must have been quite the virtuoso, judging from the difficulty of the solo part. The first and third movement cadenzas, in particular, exploit the instrument's full range, including those growling bottom notes.

Soloist Michael Sanders did very well by the piece Friday morning, dancing with ease through those cadenzas and the rapid passages that begin the final movement. He had an appealingly full, mellow sound at the upper end of his range (which is where most of the part lies), running into difficulty only in those growling bottom tones. As a former low brass guy myself (trombone, euphonium and, yes, Sousaphone) I sympathize.

The concert came to a slam-bang tang of a finish with Ravel’s ever-popular “Bolero.”

What can one say about "Bolero" that hasn't already been said a thousand times? Ravel himself apparently began to view it in somewhat the same way that Rachmaninoff came to view his equally popular “Prelude in C sharp minor”: as a career milestone that eventually became a millstone. At least Ravel wasn’t obliged to perform it everywhere he went. It is, in any case, music that never fails to entertain—and it certainly did on Friday morning.

The individual solos were impeccable, featuring most of the same players from the Bizet. Notable performances were also turned in by Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo and Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews, assisted by Associate Principal Diana Haskell on E-flat clarinet and Tzuying Huang on the rarely-heard bass clarinet. Guests Nathan Nabb and Jeffrey Collins on soprano and tenor sax, respectively, brought a bit of a jazzy feel to their solos, as did Principal Trombone Timothy Myers.

Performances of "Bolero" inevitably remind me of Garrison Keillor's joke that the worst pumpkin pie you'll ever eat isn't that much different from the best pumpkin pie you'll ever eat. It's hard to screw this music up as long as the orchestra's technique is solid. That said, there's no gainsaying that Mr. Robertson brought real visceral excitement to this old warhorse and sent us all home with smiles on our faces. And for that, we were all thankful.

This weekend's program repeats Friday and Saturday (May 1 and 2) at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. The Saturday evening concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio.

Next at Powell Hall: Mr. Robertson conducts the orchestra, chorus and an international roster of soloists in a complete concert performance of Verdi's beloved potboiler "Aida," including special lighting and video design by S. Katy Tucker. Performances are Thursday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., May 7, 9 and 10. Friday night, May 8, at 8 p.m. Mr. Robertson conducts the last of the Whitaker Foundation "Music You Know" programs, with popular classics by (among others) Copland, Elgar, Bizet, Liszt, Vaughan Williams, and Charles Ives. For information on all concerts: stlsymphony.org.

Symphony Preview: The (mostly) French connection with the St. Louis Symphony, May 1-3, 2015

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To close out the current season, the St. Louis Symphony has put together three blockbuster concerts of music sure to appeal to just about anyone who loves the classics. It starts this weekend as David Robertson conducts works by Bizet, Debussy, Vaughan Williams, and Ravel.

Georges Bizet in 1875
en.wikipedia.org

Opening the concerts will be eleven orchestral selections culled from the two suites Ernest Guiraud put together in the 1880s from his friend Georges Bizet's massively popular 1875 opera "Carmen." Poor Bizet died before he could hear them, alas—he passed at the age of 36 from a heart attack a few months after the opera opened to tepid reviews and public apathy. So he went to his grave not knowing that he had composed what would become one of the most popular operas ever written. Operabase statistics for the 2013/2014 season, in fact, show it as number 2 worldwide, surpassed only by Verdi's "La Traviata."

For this weekend's concerts, Mr. Robertson has taken the two suites, reshuffled them, and dropped the "Marche des Contrebandiers" ("March of the Smugglers") from Bizet's Act III. The new re-arranged suite looks like this:

1. Les Toréadors: "Procession of the Toreadors" from Act IV.
2. Prélude: Includes the "Fate" motif first heard from the brasses at the beginning of Act I.
3. Habañera: Carmen's famous Act I aria, "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" ("Love is a rebellious bird").
4. Seguedille: The Seguidilla from Act I, "Près des remparts de Séville" ("Near the ramparts of Seville"), in which Carmen invites the hapless Don Jose to run away with her to Lilas Pastia's Inn (a decision he will come to regret).
5. Les Dragons d’Alcala: the entr'acte between Bizet's Acts I and II, covering the scene change from the Act I cigarette factory to Pastia's Inn.
6. La Garde montante: Back to Act I, as Don Jose marches in with the soldiers, who are greeted and the imitated by a crowd of street urchins singing "Avec la garde montante, nous arrivons, nous voilà! / Sonne trompette éclatante!" ("With the mounting guard, we arrive; here we are! / Sound, dazzling trumpet!").
7. Aragonaise: The entr'acte between Bizet's Acts III and IV, giving the stage hands time to change the scene from the smuggler's mountain hideout to the bullring.
8. Nocturne: Back to Act III as Don Jose's loyal but naïve girlfriend Micaéla arrives at the smuggler's camp in a futile attempt to get him to return to the army. "Je dis, que rien ne m'épouvante," she sings ("I say, that nothing terrifies me"); "je dis, hélas, que je réponds de moi, / j'ai beau faire la vaillante / mais j'ai beau faire la vaillante / au fond du coeur, je meurs d'effroi!" (I say, alas, that I take care of myself, / But try as I might to be the brave "girl, / At the bottom of my heart, I'm dying of fright!")
9. Intermezzo: The entr'acte between Acts II and III, for the scene change from Pastia's Inn to the smuggler's camp.
10. Chanson du Toréador: The famous "Toréador song" from Act IV. 'Nuff said!
11. Danse bohème: From the top of Act II, as Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès dance for some army officers in Pastia's Inn; a certified rouser and an ideal Big Finish.

Debussy in 1908
en.wikipedia.org

Music from another famous Frenchman is next: Debussy's "Danses sacrée et profane" ("Sacred and Profane Dances") for harp and strings. The famed French instrument makers Pleyel and Wolff commissioned the piece in 1904 as part of a marketing effort for their latest invention, the chromatic harp. Unlike the conventional pedal harp, which was then (and still is) the concert standard, the chromatic harp had two sets of strings, one tuned to C major and the other tuned to F-sharp/G-flat pentatonic. Unlike a conventional harp, this allowed the player to produce all twelve of the notes in a chromatic scale.

The instrument was not a success. As Daniel Durchholz writes in his program notes, the instrument "turned out to be too cumbersome in a variety of ways. It was hard to tune and keep in tune, difficult to play, and simply not as resonant as a standard harp. Without much fanfare, it was quickly abandoned." Fortunately, the music was easily adapted to the conventional pedal harp and has proved enduringly popular.

Which makes it a bit surprising that the SLSO has only performed it twice—on October 10th and 21s, 1981, with Frances Tietov at the harp and Leonard Slatkin on the podium for both performances. That interpretation was, happily, preserved on by Telarc on a CD that also contains "La Mer" and "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune." It's still in print and definitely worth having. This time around the solo role goes to SLSO Principal Harp Allegra Lilly, whose work has graced the Powell Hall stage since 2013.

FYI, the word "profane," in this context, means "secular" or "sensual," to indicate that the second of the two dances is less serious than the first.

Michael Sanders
stlsymphony.org

After intermission, an instrument that rarely gets the solo spot will be front and center: the tuba. Specifically, it will be an F tuba (as opposed to the bigger and deeper B-flat tuba more commonly heard in orchestras) played by SLSO Principal Tuba Michael Sanders. He'll be playing the "Tuba Concerto in F minor" that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote in 1954 with (and for) London Symphony Orchestra Principal Tuba Philip Catelinet. Catelinet premiered the concerto at the LSO Golden Jubilee Concert in June of 1954, and while it has never been wildly popular—the only previous SLSO performance was in September of 1987—that's probably more a reflection of the dearth of great tuba players than any knock on the music itself. It's consistently ingratiating and playful with a strong English folk flavor. And it will be nice to see Mr. Sanders in front of the orchestra for a change.

The concerts close with one of the most popular orchestral works ever written and certainly the best-known thing Maurice Ravel ever wrote: "Bolero." 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.

Not mentioned for two whole paragraphs
officialboderek.com

"Inside a tavern in Spain," runs the scenario printed in that first program, "people dance beneath the brass lamp hung from the ceiling. [In response] to the cheers to join in, the female dancer has leapt onto the long table and her steps become more and more animated." In program notes for the New York Philharmonic, the late New York Times music critic Louis Biancolli goes into greater detail. "The men gathered in the public room of the inn eye the dancer fixedly. As her movements grow more animated, their excitement mounts. They beat out an obbligato with their hands and pound their heels. At the peak of the crescendo, where the key abruptly shifts from C major to E major, the sharpening tension snaps. Knives are drawn and there is a wild tavern brawl."

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

And you will notice I got through two entire paragraphs on "Bolero" without once mentioning Bo Derek.

The Essentials: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with harpist Allegra Lilly and tuba player Michael Sanders on Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., May1-3. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

The Mortal Storm

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson, with pianist Yefim Bronfman and violinist Erin Schreiber
What: Music of Brahms, Vaughan Williams, and Nielsen
When: September 12 and 13, 2014
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis

The late eighteenth century artistic movement known as sturm und drang (usually translated as "storm and stress") had already evolved into the pervading sensibility of the Romantic era by the time the earliest work on this weekend's St. Louis Symphony concerts—the "Piano Concerto No. 1" by Brahms—was written. But "storm and stress" of one sort or another lie at the heart of it and the other two pieces on the program.

David Robertson

In the case of the Brahms, the stress was personal. When the composer began work on the piece in 1854 his friend and mentor Robert Schumann was confined into an asylum following a suicide attempt and the 21-year-old composer had moved in with Schumann's wife Clara to help manage her household and seven children.

Schumann would die in the asylum two difficult years later, and it's hard not to think of the great stress and tragedy of that when you hear the powerfully dramatic opening of the concerto, with its portentous drum rolls, declamatory first theme, and melancholy second. Like the composer's second concerto, it's a big work—nearly 50 minutes long and structured more as a symphony with piano obbligato than a conventional concerto of the period. It demands much in the way of stamina and skill from the soloist.

Pianist Yefim Bronfman demonstrated that he had both when he performed the Brahms Second here back in 2012, and he did it again Friday night. He has the chops to deliver the big, pounding climaxes, especially in the final movement, but he was just as persuasive in the tender lyricism of the Adagio second movement, which Brahms described as a musical portrait of Clara Schumann.

I wouldn't say this concerto is my favorite Brahms. The first movement, in particular, tends to ramble and never fully realizes the dramatic potential of those opening minutes. Still, Mr. Robertson made a very good case for it, pulling every ounce of angst and drama from the score. The second movement was serenely beautiful and the main theme of the Rondo finale was more infused with the spirit of the dance than I have heard in some recordings. There were a couple of ragged moments in the horn section in the first movement but otherwise the orchestra performed at its usual high level.

The "storm and stress" that informs the two works in the second half of the program is more global than personal. Both Ralph Vaughan Williams's "The Lark Ascending" and Carl Nielsen's "Symphony No. 4" ("The Inextinguishable") were begun during the early years of World War I. They're radically different pieces, but the shadow of that great cataclysm hangs over both.

Inspired by a George Meredith poem that describes the characteristic way skylarks spiral up into the sky while singing, "The Lark Ascending" is a work of surpassing beauty for violin and orchestra. Begun in 1914 and completed in 1920, the work is a wistfully nostalgic look back at a bucolic way of life shattered forever by the winds of war. The final pages, in which the lovely main theme slowly fades into silence as it makes its final ascent, can surely melt the hardest heart.

Erin Schreiber

The last time I saw Assistant Concertmaster Erin Schreiber in the solo spot (November of 2011), she was rocking the house in Luciano Berio's absurdly difficult “Corale (on Sequenza VIII) for violin, two horns, and strings.” The Vaughan Williams, with its sustained lyricism and ethereal final section, requires an entirely different kind of virtuosity. I'm happy to report she delivered the goods, with a performance of transparent beauty. The balance between soloist and orchestra was also quite good, at least from where we sat in the first row of the dress circle. That's not always easy to accomplish in Powell Hall's acoustical environment, which tends to swallow up soloists.

Nielsen's "Symphony No. 4" confronts the horror of the war directly. Like G. B. Shaw, Nielsen believed in a kind of pantheistic "life force" that pervaded all of nature. It's that force that Nielsen saw as "inextinguishable," even in the face of war and death. As he wrote in his program notes for the piece, "music is life, and like it inextinguishable." That force is demonstrated most dramatically in the famous "timpani battle" in final movement, in which timpani players placed on opposite sides of the orchestra fire volleys of sound at each other, but that's just the most vivid example of what British music writer Hugh Ottoway describes as "an elemental opposition of forces" that pervades the whole symphony.

This is dynamic, propulsive music, and it got an appropriately kinetic performance from Mr. Robertson and the symphony, with some really fine playing by the musicians. Nielsen's orchestration gives each of the different sections of the band a chance to shine. Brasses dominate the first and last movements, woodwinds the dance-like second, strings the searing third and, of course, the timpanists get to mix it up in the finale. They were all on top of their game Friday night, but percussionists Tom Stubbs and Shannon Wood deserve a particular shout-out for their performances.

I'm a great fan of Nielsen's symphonies and feel they haven't gotten nearly the attention they deserve locally. I'd be happy to see them on the Powell Hall stage more often, especially when they're performed with this kind of skill and conviction.

This weekend's concerts mark multiple anniversaries for the SLSO. It's the orchestra's 135 season and the 10th under Mr. Robertson. It's also the 20th for Concertmaster David Halen and Chorus Director Amy Kaiser (whose work you'll hear next week in the score for "Pirates of the Caribbean"). Mr. Robertson led the entire audience in a celebratory champagne toast at intermission, and a splendid time was had by all.

Next at Powell Hall: it's a movie night as Richard Kaufman conducts the orchestra and chorus in Hans Zimmer's score for "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" while the film plays on the big screen. Showings are Friday and Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 2 p.m., September 18-21. For more information, visit the SLSO web site.

St. Louis Symphony Preview: Storm Clouds Rising

Brahms in 1853
en.wikipedia.org

Sturm und drang (usually translated as "storm and stress") was an early Romantic (late 18th century) movement in German literature and music that emphasized drama and conflict. Both Haydn and Mozart wrote symphonies that were seen as embodying the movement's approach. The music that opens the St. Louis Symphony's 135th season this weekend was all written well after the sturm und drang movement had passed, but it's chock full of high drama nevertheless.

To be fair, sturm und drang hadn't passed so much as simply evolved into the pervading sensibility of the Romantic era by the time the young (age 21) Johannes Brahms started work on his "Piano Concerto No. 1" in 1854. The concerto comes from a stormy time in Brahms's life. After attempting suicide by flinging himself into the Rhine, Robert Schumann, Brahms's mentor and friend, committed himself to an asylum. "As soon as he heard about Robert's suicide attempt," writes René Spencer Saller in her program notes, "Brahms rushed to the family's aid, living among them as man of the house. He and Clara became more than friends, if not quite lovers." With seven children and a household to manage, Clara no doubt appreciated the help.

Schumann would die in the asylum two difficult years later, and it's hard not to think of the great stress and tragedy of those events when you hear the powerfully dramatic opening of the concerto, with its portentous drum rolls, declamatory first theme, and melancholy second. "The Piano Concerto No. 1," wrote Larry Rothe in his program notes for a San Francisco Symphony performance, "was born in psycho-turmoil." The piano doesn't even enter until around four minutes in, and when it does it acts more as an equal partner with the orchestra than a flashy solo player. Given the length and scope of the piece (it runs around 45 minutes; longer in some classic recordings), it sometimes feels as much like a symphony with piano obbligato as a concerto; in fact, a symphony was what Brahms had originally intended it to be.

This wasn't what audiences at the time expected from a concerto, and although the initial performance (in Hanover on January 22, 1859, with Brahms at the keyboard) was well received, subsequent performances weren't. In Leipzig they hissed both the music and Brahms's efforts as soloist. A March 1859 performance with the Hamburg Philharmonic went well, but a return engagement of the revised and final version of the concerto did not. After five performances and only one favorable reception, Brahms set the work aside, and it would not come into its own for many years.

At the concert grand for this weekend's performances will be Yefim Bronfman, who made such a strong impression with the Brahms 2nd in November of 2012. I'm looking forward to hearing what he and Mr. Robertson will do with the equally challenging First.

Carl Nielsen in 1910
en.wikipedia.org

If the tragedy underlying the Brahms concerto was purely personal, the one behind the other big work on the program—Carl Nielsen's "Symphony No. 4" (subtitled "The Inextinguishable")—was far more universal. Written between 1914 and 1916, the fourth and the subsequent fifth symphony (from 1920) both bear the scars of The War to End All Wars. "Although Denmark was not drawn into the First World War," writes British musicologist and broadcaster Robert Layton in his notes for the 1988 Paavo Berglund/Royal Danish Orchestra recording, "the unremitting slaughter and senseless destruction haunted Nielsen's imagination. It was quite evident that the war presented the great divide in the affairs of mankind and that life could never be the same again. Nielsen's music assumed a new mantle; its harmonies are less rich, its textures denser and darker, and with the greater complexity of dissonance."

Nielsen's personal life was in disorder as well at the time—his infidelity was causing his marriage to unravel—but there's little doubt that (as Ms. Saller points out in her program notes), even as a citizen of neutral Denmark, he viewed the cataclysm engulfing most of Europe with horror. "It's as if the world is disintegrating," he wrote in an often-quoted letter to a friend. "National feeling, that until now was distinguished as something lofty and beautiful, has become a spiritual syphilis." Sadly, little seems to have changed in the intervening century.

Like the Brahms concerto, Nielsen's symphony jumps out at you from the first notes with a leaping, aggressive theme that quickly dissolves into sad descending figures in the flutes and the first statement of a theme that will eventually morph into a triumphant declaration by the end of the final movement. There's a headlong rush in the music of this symphony that reminds us of the fact that Nielsen, like G. B. Shaw, believed in a kind of pantheistic "life force" that pervaded all of nature. It's that force that Nielsen saw as "inextinguishable," even in the face of war and death. As he wrote in his program notes for the piece, "music is life, and like it inextinguishable."

That force is demonstrated most dramatically in the famous "tympani battle" in final movement, in which tympani players placed on opposite sides of the orchestra fire volleys of sound at each other. "It's as if we are answering each other," says timpanist Shannon Wood in the symphony program notes. "One timpani goes at it, then the other timpani goes at it. You can think of it like guitar duels in rock concerts. Maybe I'll toss my stick out to the audience at the end. Or I'll kick the drums Keith Moon style.”

Vaughan Williams in the army, 1915
rvwsociety.com

In between these two symphonic titans comes a little gem that also dates from the World War I era: Ralph Vaughan Williams's short (13 minutes) romance for violin and orchestra, "The Lark Ascending." Begun in 1914 while the composer was strolling along the seaside cliffs in Kent, it was not completed until the composer returned from his service in the war disillusioned and with what would prove to be progressive hearing loss. By the time "The Lark Ascending" had its first performance in 1921, it had turned into a wistfully nostalgic look back at a bucolic way of life shattered forever by the winds of war.

The piece takes its title from an 1881 poem of the same name by George Meredith that describes the characteristic way skylarks spiral up into the sky while singing. Meredith heard a kind of pantheist divinity in the lark's song that seems to have resonated with the composer, even though he was a devout Christian. Many have since heard a metaphor for the soul's climb to heaven in the way the work's lovely melody floats and, in the end, slowly fades into silence as it makes its final ascent. Indeed, when New York public radio station WNYC polled its listeners on the best classical piece to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, "The Lark Ascending" came in second, right after Barber's "Adagio for Strings."

The full poem is 122 lines long, but here are the lines Vaughan Williams chose to accompany the score:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

The part of the lark this weekend will be played by Assistant Concertmaster Erin Schreiber. This makes me happy. I'm always glad to see local artists get the spotlight.

The concerts will open with an arrangement of "The Star Spangled Banner" by long-time New York Symphony Orchestra conductor Walter Damrosch (he led the world premieres of Gershwin's "Concerto in F" and "An American in Paris"). With lyrics about "the rocket's red glare" and "bombs bursting in air" it is, I guess, an appropriate way to open a program in which strife is such a major subtextual element.

The essentials: David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and piano soloist Yefim Bronfman in Brahms's "Piano Concerto No. 1," violin soloist Erin Schreiber in Vaughan Williams's "The Lark Ascending," and Nielsen's "Symphony No. 4" Friday and Saturday, September 12 and 13, at 8 p.m. The concerts, which open the orchestra's 135th season, take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.