Symphony Preview: Three faces of Sergei

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

This weekend (February 15-17) St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Music Director Designate Stéphane Denève concludes his first 2019 appearance with the orchestra with an all-Prokofiev concert series that highlights the many moods of the 20th century Russian master. There will be regular season concerts on Friday and Saturday and a special abbreviated Family Series Concert Sunday afternoon.

Prokofiev in New York, 1918
Photo by Bain News Service

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The regular series concerts will open with a suite assembled by Mr. Denève from the score for Prokofiev's 1945 ballet "Cinderella." It's music that finds the composer in a playful and romantic mood--remarkable, given that it was begun in the depths of World War II and that the composer's wife had just left him.

SLSO program annotator Tim Munro says that Prokofiev "escaped into a fairy tale" by writing the score for this faithful adaptation of Perrault's classic. But Mr. Denève, in his own remarks in the program, points out that Prokofiev was "like Mozart, a man who reveals the child he continued to be. He has a sense of enchantment, a way of building music as if it were made of simple cubes." So perhaps it didn't necessarily take external stress to move him in that direction.

The score for "Cinderella" is, in any case, about as much fun as you can legally have in public. The thirteen numbers Mr. Denève has selected don't include many of the more whimsical and comic moments--although he has included "The Shawl Dance" in which Cinderella's two awful stepsisters fight absurdly over a scarf. His suite also contains some of my favorite bits, such as the romantic "Grand Waltz" in which Cinderella and the Prince fall in love, and "Midnight," in which the clock ticks away in the percussion section and each toll of the fateful midnight bell is met with increasingly ominous growls in the low brass and piano.

The "Cinderella" suite is the only thing on the Family Series concert, but the Friday and Saturday night concerts follow it up with the Piano Concerto No. 2. Unlike the "Cinderella" suite, the concerto is dark, sardonic, and aggressive. Which seems only fair, as its genesis involved both death--literal as well as musical--and resurrection.

The literal death was that of the composer's close friend, the pianist Maximilian Schmidt, just a few months before the concerto's first performance. As Alexander Carpenter writes at allmusic.com, "Schmidt committed suicide in 1913, and left a note to Prokofiev that read, in part, 'I am reporting the latest news to you. I have shot myself. Don't grieve overmuch. The reasons were not important.'" The musical death was that of the original score for the concerto, which was lost in a fire in Prokofiev's St. Petersburg apartment shortly after the work's premiere.

The resurrection took place in 1923, when Prokofiev completely re-wrote the concerto from memory. By then, however, his approach to composition and orchestration had changed significantly and he had written another concerto (his Third, in C major). "I have so completely rewritten the Second Concerto," he wrote to a friend "that it might be considered the Fourth."

The concerto is, in any case, a testament to Prokofiev's skill at the keyboard. It's a wildly difficult piece, with four movements in which the tempo never falls below Allegro and a stunningly challenging first movement cadenza that, at around five minutes, takes up almost as much time as the rest of the movement. "A decade ago," wrote David Nice in a review of a new recording of the concerto for BBC Music Magazine, "I'd have bet you there were only a dozen pianists in the world who could play Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto properly. [Martha] Argerich wouldn't touch it, [Evgeny] Kissin delayed learning it, and even Prokofiev as virtuoso had got into a terrible mess trying to perform it with [Ernest] Ansermet and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the 1930s, when it had gone out of his fingers."

I'm reminded by Balakirev's infamous "Islamey," a work so formidable that, in the end, even the composer couldn't play it. We should expect no such problems this weekend, though, as the soloist will be the justifiably celebrated Russian-born Yefim Bronfman, whose prodigious technique should be more than up to the task. He gave us a first-rate Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in 2016, for example, and a Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in 2011 that practically danced across the stage.

He also recorded a pretty impressive "Islamey" back in 1998.

Teutonic knights take over Pskov in
Alexander Nevsky

Closing the concerts will be the 1939 cantata "Alexander Nevsky." Based on the score Prokofiev wrote for Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film of the same name, the work placed the composer, who had just returned to Russia to live, at the top of the People's Composer list and therefore at the bottom of the Bourgeois Formalists Headed for a Gulag list. "When you arrive in the U.S.S.R. from abroad," Prokofiev wrote at the time, "you feel something completely different. Here, dramatic works are needed, and there is no doubt what subject they should address: the subject must be heroic and constructive (it must be creative, not destructive). This is what our era demands." (Cited in "Red Zone: Sergey Prokofiev and the Soviet Union," a Playbill article by Eddie Silva).

If you have ever seen the film, you will undoubtedly remember its vivid images of the ominous, armored Teutonic Knights, which have always struck me as evocative of Nazi Germany's massive Panzer tank divisions. Relations between Russia and Germany were, to put it mildly, strained at the time, so both the film's anti-German message and anti-clerical sentiment played well with Communist officialdom. The great thing about both the film and Prokofiev's music, though, is the way they reached beyond simple agitprop to create real art. It's a thrilling and captivating score.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have performed "Alexander Nevsky" numerous times, both alone and as part of a showing of the film. They even recorded it in 1979 under Leonard Slatkin (when the chorus was directed by Thomas Peck), with Claudine Carlson as the mezzo-soprano soloist. The recording is still available in SACD format and worth having in your collection.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, along with pianist Yefim Bronfman and mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick (a change from the originally scheduled Clémentine Margaine), Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, February 15 and 16. The all-Prokofiev program consists of a suite from the ballet "Cinderella," the Piano Concerto No. 2, and the cantata "Alexander Nevsky." Mr. Denève also conducts the orchestra in the "Cinderella" suite in a Family Concert on Sunday at 3 pm, February 17. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Ludwig van Beethoven, technology pioneer

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A vast chronological gulf separates three of the pieces on this St. Louis Symphony program this Saturday and Sunday (September 24 and 25, 2016) from the fourth. The works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven on the program all date from the final decade of the 18th century while the music that opens the second half of the concert—George Benjamin's Viola, Viola—is from the final decade of the 20th.

Drawing of Mozart by Doris Stock, 1789

And yet, they all, somehow, get lumped under the category of "classical music." SLSO program annotator René Spencer Saller rightly decries the term as an "annoying lower-case catch-all term for the sort of thing that symphony orchestras do" but then goes on to remind us that Mr. Benjamin "might have been born 133 years after Beethoven's death, but he was still shaped by him. We all were. We all are.” So maybe the "classical" label isn't entirely bogus.

The concerts open, appropriately, with an overture-specifically, the one Mozart wrote for Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute"). Written towards the end of the composer's sadly brief life (Mozart had only a few months to live when it premiered in September of 1791), Die Zauberflöte was intended not for an audience of nobles at court but rather for ordinary folks at a suburban theater that was closer in ambience to a tavern. A singspiel with spoken dialog instead of recitatives and a text in German instead of the fashionable Italian, the work is the fantastic and somewhat incoherent tale of romance, magic, and the triumph of love and reason over superstition.

Mozart was a Master Mason in the "Zur Neugekrönten Hoffnung" ("New Crowned Hope") lodge in Vienna, so both the overture and the opera are filled with Masonic musical references, including frequent uses of the number three in various combinations. You hear it immediately in the three solemn chords that open the overture, which quickly shifts gears to a sprightly and ingeniously constructed Allegro. "Mozart treats us to right away to fugue, transformation, delightful instrumental playfulness and an invigorating sense that something special is in store", writes Jeff Counts in program notes for the Utah Symphony. "This is the hopeful music of a man with plans for the future, not the last rites of someone who felt time slipping and assumed he had said enough. From this perspective, the Overture to The Magic Flute may well be the most rewarding six minutes in music."

Beethoven in 1803
Painted by Christian Horneman

Up next is Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, a work which shows the composer in a role for which he is not, in my experience, always given enough credit: that of an "early adopter" of technology.

The technology in question is that of the piano. At the time Beethoven was writing the C minor concerto (around 1800, although he had ideas for it a few years earlier), major technological advances were being made in the design and construction of the instrument. It was becoming bigger and heavier, the sound was getting more robust, and the range of notes wider. When Beethoven began composing in the 1780s, the piano (then called the fortepiano) was basically an amped-up harpsichord with strings that were struck instead of plucked and a range of around four or five octaves. By the time he died in 1827, the piano had evolved into something closely resembling the contemporary concert grand, with a range of nearly eight octaves and the ability to produce the kind of thunderous climaxes that composers like Fanz Liszt loved so much.

A major player in this technological revolution was the English firm of John Broadwood and Sons. As part of their marketing campaign, they sent their new pianos to Haydn and Beethoven, with the result that Beethoven made use of the expanded range of notes for his new concerto. “As originally composed,” writes Ms. Saller, “his Third Concerto requires the soloist to play a high G, which is believed to be the earliest instance of that particular note in the piano repertory. In 1804, after trying out a new expanded keyboard design, Beethoven extended the range to include the C that sits over the fifth ledger line above the treble staff. Even though going higher and higher meant that his concerto could be played only on new, state-of-the-art pianos, Beethoven wanted his concerto to reflect these technological advancements.”

George Benjamin

Beethoven's technological innovations will be played this weekend by Yefim Bronfman, a celebrated performer whose "volcanic pianism" so impressed me when he performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 five years ago. He has the chops to deliver the big dramatic moments along with the musical sensitivity required for the Largo second movement, with its improvisatory feel.

The second half of the concert opens with a local premiere: Viola, Viola. Written in 1997 by English composer George Benjamin (b. 1960), this intimate little piece for two violas is the product of a composer who, like Beethoven, continually revises and reworks his pieces until he's sure they're just right. Over the course of its ten minutes, the instruments converse, argue, and finally combine so seamlessly that it can be hard to tell them apart. Appropriately for such an intimate piece, the soloists will be the wife-and-husband team of Beth Guterman Chu (Principal Viola) and Jonathan Chu (Assistant Principal Viola).

The concerts end with the Haydn's Symphony No. 102 in B-flat major. It was part of a dozen symphonies (the last ones he wrote, in fact) Haydn composed for a pair of trips to London in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Those trips were highly successful, both in terms of critical reception and income. No. 102 was written for the second sojourn, by which time Haydn had a pretty good idea of what his audiences wanted.

Haydn in 1791
Painted by Thomas Hardy

Those audiences were no longer what they were a few decades earlier. Concerts were now public events for the masses, not private affairs for the nobility. Attendees were increasingly educated and middle class. And, as Trinity College's Tom Service writes in his analysis of the 102nd symphony for The Guardian, Haydn knew that this audience "understood and appreciated his invention, his games of expectation and surprise, his effortless manipulation of genre, affect, and expressivity. And he knew he could push them and himself even further when he came back, when his celebrity and status were even greater than before. That means these symphonies are, in effect, palimpsests of listening, pieces composed with their effectiveness for a musically literate audience in mind."

And so we get a symphony that's filled with surprises, invention, and the composer's trademark wit. "Haydn's 102nd, just like all of his London symphonies," writes Mr. Service, "consecrates a moment in symphonic history when this composer and his listeners were in excellent, mutually appreciative accord, a bond that's renewed every time this symphony is played or listened to today."

You can renew that bond this weekend at Powell Hall on Saturday at 8 p.m. or Sunday at 3 p.m. The Saturday concert will also be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio, but as always I recommend hearing it live.

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.

St. Louis classical calendar for the week of September 8, 2014

Chuck Lavazzi

The Chamber Project St. Louis presents Passion, featuring works by Bach, Beethoven, Kenji Bunch and Kevin Puts on Tuesday, September 11, at 7:30 p.m. “Exploring the passion that makes the heart sing and that keeps us going through thick and thin, this program features works by Bach, Bunch, Puts, and Beethoven for violin, cello, clarinet and marimba.” 88.1 KDHX senior performing arts critic Chuck Lavazzi will be the narrator for Bunch's "Sonnet 128." The performance takes place at The Chapel Venue, 6238 Alexander Drive. For more information: www.chamberprojectstl.org

The St. Louis Symphony, conducted by David Robertson, presents a free concert at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 9, on Art Hill in Forest Park celebrating the orchestra's 135th anniversary season. "The evening performance features classical favorites and highlights from the 2014-15 season capped off with a fireworks spectacular at the base of Art Hill. Pack a picnic, grab a blanket and invite your family and friends to one of St. Louis' favorite musical events of the year!" For more information: stlsymphony.org.

yefimbronfman.com

David Robertson conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist Yefim Bronfman in Brahms' "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. "David Robertson opens the season welcoming back Yefim Bronfman for Brahms' dramatic Piano Concerto No. 1. Composed during World War I, you'll hear "battle" between two sets of timpani in Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, featuring new Principal Timpanist Shannon Wood. In his notes for the symphony, Nielsen refers to 'that which is inextinguishable' as 'the elemental will to live.' This production features video and lighting elements by S. Katy Tucker, a renowned artist known for her design work at Carnegie Hall, the San Francisco Opera, Sydney Symphony and more." 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.

Thumbscrew

The New Music Circle presents the trio Thumbscrew on Friday, September 12, at 7:30 p.m. "Under the title Thumbscrew, three foremost voices of NYC's new jazz scene have come together to explore the crossroads of improvisation and composition. Comprised of Mary Halvorson (guitar), Michael Formanek (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Thumbscrew functions as a vehicle to navigate both the modal complexities of jazz composition as well as the challenges of collective spontaneity. Thumbscrew's sound originates from the interconnecting bonds its members have forged, playing in many and various formats over the years, such as composer/cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum's large groups as well as Anthony Braxton's experimental/compositional ensembles. Their 2014 self-titled release on Cunieform Records was described as “exploring open, undulating grooves through a frequent tightening and loosening of their interplay along serpentine lines” by Dusted Magazine." The performance takes place at Joe's Café, 6014 Kingsbury. For more information: newmusiccircle.org

The Tavern of Fine Arts presents a classical open stage night on Monday, September 8, from 7:30 – 9 PM. “Come by yourself or bring your quartet. Sight read through a Beethoven quartet or use this as an opportunity to put the finishing touches on that Hindemith Viola Sonata you have been working on. All ages and skill levels are welcome. We have a 6' grand piano and an accompanist.” The Tavern of Fine Arts is at 313 Belt in the Debaliviere Place neighborhood. For more information: tavern-of-fine-arts.blogspot.com.

The Tavern of Fine Arts presents Timothy Jansen, piano, in a concert of sonatas by Beethoven, Prokofiev, and Liszt on Saturday, September 13, at 8 p.m. The Tavern of Fine Arts is at 313 Belt in the Debaliviere Place neighborhood. For more information: tavern-of-fine-arts.blogspot.com.

Third Baptist Church presents an organ concert by Jeff White, Minister of Music at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, on Friday, September 12, at 12:30 PM as part of its free Friday Pipes series. "Join us on Fridays at Third Baptist Church for Friday Pipes, the free organ recital series celebrating the restoration of the church's 72-rank Kilgen/Möller pipe organ. Each week a different performer will be presenting a program of classical, church, and theatre organ music in the beautiful sanctuary of Third Baptist. This season's performers come from across the USA, and even from around the world. Free parking is available in the church lots on Washington Avenue." Third Baptist Church is at 620 N Grand. For more information: www.third-baptist.org

Electric shocks

Who: Pianist Yefim Bronfman and The St. Louis Symphony conducted by John Storgårds
What: Music of Bach/Webern, Schumann, and Brahms
Where: Powell Symphony Hall
When: November 2 and 3, 2012

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Yefim Bronfman at Carnegie Hall
Photo by Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

There are few things I love more than hearing a familiar work from the standard concert repertoire—one I’ve heard dozens of times in the past—performed in a way that makes it sound fresh and new. That, for me, is great music making. And that’s what I heard from John Storgårds and the St. Louis Symphony in their dramatic and electrifying reading of Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. From the majestic introduction to the fiery finale, this was a Schumann Fourth that just crackled with energy and theatricality.

The Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic, Mr. Storgårds is a big man with an expansive but precise style at the podium. This does not, however, appear to be the self-conscious theatricality of (say) a Stokowski but rather the result of a passionate commitment to and intense concentration on this music itself.

This serves him well in both of the other works on this weekend’s program, the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 and Webern’s typically kaleidoscopic orchestration of the great six-part fugue (the Ricercata) from Bach’s Musical Offering.

There’s an interesting story behind that fugue. Bach wrote it on, essentially, a dare from Frederick the Great of Prussia. At a meeting in 1747, the king presented Bach with a long and highly chromatic theme (supposedly his own, although he may have lifted it from Handel) and challenged him to use it as the subject for a three-voice fugue. A skilled improviser, Bach did so on the spot, at which point the king, in what might have been an attempt to teach this wise guy a lesson, upped the ante to a six-voice fugue. Two months later Bach replied with his Musical Offering—two ricercars, ten canons, and (for good measure) a sonata all based on that theme. Game, set, and match.

The king’s reaction has been lost to posterity.

Anton Webern’s orchestration from nearly two centuries later raised the ante even further by making this mid-18th century piece sound entirely new. An advocate of Klangfarbenmelodie—the practice of breaking a melodic line up and distributing it to individual instruments a few notes at a time—Webern shattered and re-assigned the individual voices in ways that sound the way a kaleidoscope looks.

The result can be disorienting but makes for fascinating listening. The rapid shifts in instrumental color are nearly hallucinatory at times and must pose a stiff challenge to the players. There’s no place to hide here; every note must be perfect and every entrance precise. Friday night’s performance was stunning in its precision and a credit to all concerned.

Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 poses substantial difficulties of its own, at least for the soloist. A pianist of no mean skill, Brahms wrote the piece for himself, and even he acknowledged its technical difficulty when he referred to it (somewhat jokingly) as “the long terror”. It’s not the sort of piece a pianist takes on lightly.

If you’re a regular listener to Public Radio International’s Symphonycast, you know that Yefim Bronfman unquestionably has the chops for this music. His performance with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic (still available as a podcast for a limited time at the Symphonycast web site is nothing if not impressive. His performance Friday night was no less spectacular. He handled the most demanding passages with ease, but the reading of the concerto overall felt less compelling than I had hoped. The excitement of the Schumann wasn’t there for me, although the Andante third movement was truly lovely.

I don’t want to make too much of that, though. This is, after all, a matter of taste and it might sound entirely different to you. The orchestral playing was, without a doubt, of its usual high caliber, with an especially beautiful cello and oboe duet from Daniel Lee and Peter Bowman in the third movement. And there’s no question that Mr. Bronfman fully deserved his standing ovation.

The next regular season concert combines Mozart’s Requiem with Schoenberg’s Freude auf Erden (Peace on Earth) and Haydn’s D major Cello concerto. Jun Märkl conducts with Daniel Lee as the soloist in the Haydn. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3, November 9th through 11th. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

From Russia, con fuoco

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with Yefim Bronfman, piano
What: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: April 15 through 17, 2011

I’m not big on standing ovations as a rule, but this Friday found me on my feet at the end of both halves of the program – first for a lively Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with volcanic pianism from Yefim Bronfman and then for a powerful Shostakovich Symphony No. 10.

The Tchaikovsky is, of course, an enduring chestnut that always gets a warm response. The lively melodies (some appropriated from Ukrainian folk sources) and flashy piano part never fail to appeal. What distinguished this performance for me, though, was the way in which conductor David Robertson and pianist Yefim Bronfman brought out the dance elements that, while clearly present, are not always recognized in the concert hall. The famous first theme, in particular, sounded more like a waltz than usual. The strong rhythmic pulse carried right through the lilting second movement and into the third, winding up with a spectacular finale that was emphatically “con fuoco”.

Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, by contrast, isn’t easy to love. An often somber and deeply felt reflection on grim oppression of the Stalin years, the 10th is, even by Shostakovich standards, a work of extremes. Moments of crystalline delicacy alternate with vast outpourings of orchestral sound. Deceptively simple-sounding melodic material is spun out in increasingly complex ways, especially during the long and sometimes harrowing first movement. It’s a piece that demands and deserves the kind of intense concentration that audiences are not, sadly, always ready to grant in our current era of mass distraction.

Mr. Robertson and the orchestra were more than up to the challenges of this highly personal testament to the endurance of the human spirit. Although scored for a large orchestra, the 10th is nevertheless filled with long solo and small ensemble passages. The winds, in particular (especially the double reed contingent), are given many opportunities to shine, and on Friday night they unquestionably did. This is a symphony that requires the musicians to be not only skilled ensemble players but solid soloists as well. The members of the SLSO clearly meet both requirements with ease.

A great performance always makes me want to go back and listen to the work again. It’s a testimony to the quality of Friday’s reading of the 10th that I went back the next day to listen to my CD of the Leonard Slatkin/SLSO performance from 1987. The band sounded pretty terrific back then as well.

Next up on the symphony schedule are a pair of lesser-known works by well-known composers: Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto and Scriabin’s Second Symphony April 28 and 29, 2011. Ward Stare will conduct with Stephen Hough at the piano. For more information, you can call 314-534-1700, visit slso.org, or follow @slso on Twitter.