On May 6 and May 7, the St. Louis Symphony and St. Louis Symphony Chorus performed Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Flos Campi, Alban Berg’s Altenberg Lieder (with special guest soprano Christine Brewer), and Gustav Holst’s The Planets. That’s Holst in the photo. I feel tenderly disposed toward him because I am also extremely myopic.
My notes begin on p. 26:
http://tinyurl.com/z6y4rt8
I had the good fortune of interviewing Shannon Wood, St. Louis Symphony Principal Timpani, for Playbill. We met in his percussion studio/rehearsal space, across the street from Powell Hall. We talked about Kraft’s Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra, No. 2, his mallet business sideline, and lots of other fascinating stuff.
You can read it here if you like:
http://tinyurl.com/zs6g9mq
On April 15 and April 16, the St. Louis Symphony performs the overture to Polyeucte, by Paul Dukas; Camille Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto; and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. (That’s Camille Saint-Saëns in the photograph.)
Here’s a link to my program notes, which start on p. 26:
Way back in mid-March, the St. Louis Symphony performed Hector Berlioz’s magnificent and underperformed dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette. I wrote about it here (my annotations begin on p. 26).
The painting, by the way, is by the English pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse, from 1898. It’s not as old as Berlioz’s musical work, but I think it captures the spirit.
On February 19 and 20, 2016, the St. Louis Symphony performs Hector Berlioz’s overture to Béatrice et Bénédict, selections from Jean Sibelius’s The Tempest (with passages from the Shakespeare play performed by members of St. Louis Shakespeare Festival), and John Adams’s dramatic symphony Scheherazade.2, with soloist Leila Josefowicz.
My program notes begin on p. 26.
On November 27, 28, and 29, the St. Louis Symphony performs Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1; Tan Dun’s concerto for contrabass, The Wolf, in its U.S. premiere; Rimsky-Korsakov’s concert suite from his opera The Snow Maiden; and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. My program notes begin on p. 26:
This weekend, October 23 and October 24, the St. Louis Symphony performs Beethoven’s “Egmont” overture, Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Nielsen’s “Sinfonia espansiva.” My program notes begin on p. 26. I wrote a much longer version that included a lengthy appreciation of Clara Schumann, without whom Robert Schumann might have sunk into an undeserved obscurity, but I think I will make that a separate post. (I knew I had officially wandered too far afield when I invoked Suze Rotolo.)
On October 9, 10, and 11, the St. Louis Symphony and St. Louis Symphony Chorus perform Beethoven’s Ninth (and final) Symphony, preceded by selections from Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal. I write about the two works here (my essay begins on p. 25):
I have been terribly remiss in updating my blog, but better late than never, I suppose. In these program notes for the St. Louis Symphony (this weekend! I know! I suck!), I wrote about the much-misunderstood Richard Strauss: specifically, his tone poems Don Quixote and Macbeth, as well as the final scene from his final opera, Capriccio. I have many more things to say about Richard Strauss than I could express in the allotted space, and I think I’m going to start adding “extra” content to my blog posts. Why not? But not right now because other deadlines are nigh.
Anyway, here is a link to this weekend’s fantastic concert. If you didn’t manage to score tickets, you can listen to the live radio broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio beginning at 8:00 Central Time TONIGHT (Saturday, 9/26). It will be streaming on the St. Louis Public Radio website if you don’t live within the broadcast region of FM 90.7.
Here are my program notes for the concert:
http://tinyurl.com/qbwkr3z
The St. Louis Symphony performs Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Glanert’s Frenesia (in its U.S. premiere!), and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (with pianist Emanuel Ax) on Saturday, April 25, and Sunday, April 26, 2015. My program notes start on p. 26.
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