Gabriel Fauré, Ladykiller
This weekend (March 6 and 7) the St. Louis Symphony performs Fauré’s Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, Wagner’s “Brünnhilde’s Immolation” from Götterdämmerung (Christine Brewer, soprano); and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3.
My program notes are here:
It has been a terribly long time since I have updated my blog. I have been writing a lot of program notes–mostly for the Dallas Symphony, and more on that in a future post–but I haven’t been blogging, and I apologize to the half-dozen or so of you that follow my lame ass.
My lameness aside, I am very, very excited about this weekend’s upcoming performance by the St. Louis Symphony. As most of you know, two of the pieces on this program, Three Equali for Four Trombones and the Mass in C, are very rarely performed. The St. Louis Symphony, in fact, hasn’t ever performed either of them. (The other piece, Symphony No. 8, is performed far more often but still not as often as many of his other symphonies: the even-number curse, perhaps.)
Without further ado, here is a link to my notes on the program. I’m also including a link to a profile on St. Louis Symphony Chorus Director Amy Kaiser, which I also wrote. Ms. Kaiser is celebrating her twentieth-anniversary season with the symphony this year, and we are all very grateful to her for making the Chorus one of the best in the country.
The St. Louis Symphony performs this all-Beethoven program on January 23 and January 24:
Click to access sls-jan15-insert2-4-final.pdf
An interview with Amy Kaiser, St. Louis Symphony Chorus Director:
http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/8850.html
On October 4 and October 5, 2014, the St. Louis Symphony performs Four Serious Songs, by Johannes Brahms, with linking preludes and a postlude by the 21st-century composer Detlev Glanert, who also arranged the songs for orchestra. After the intermission, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus joins the orchestra for Brahms’s sublime A German Requiem. Markus Stenz conducts, and the soprano Carolyn Sampson and the bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi are the soloists. The program is here:
Click to access sls-oct14-insert1-4-final.pdf
(My notes begin on p. 26.)
On September 12 and 13, 2014, the St. Louis Symphony performs Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable.”
My program notes are here if you would like to read them:
http://tinyurl.com/mhyqr76
The last St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra concert of the season takes place on Sunday, June 1, at 3:00 p.m. On the program: Adam Schoenberg’s “Up”; selections from Copland’s orchestral suite Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo; Mahler’s “Adagietto” (from his Symphony Number 5), and Respighi’s Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome). My program notes are here:
Tickets are free (with a $1 service charge). You can order them online at http://www.stlsymphony.org or buy them at the Powell Hall box office.
Arnold Schönberg: Blaues Selbstportrait, 1910 (source: Wikipedia Commons)
On March 28 and 29, the St. Louis Symphony performs Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, and Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Here is a link to the program (my essays start on p. 26).
The St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra will be performing Wagner’s Rienzi overture, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The concert takes place on March 23, 2014, at 3:00, in Powell Hall.
My program notes are here:
The St. Louis Symphony performs Mendelssohn’s “The Fair Melusina” overture, Brahms’s Double Concerto, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”) on February 7, 8, and 9. I wrote about the program here:
Beethoven bust in Tower Grove Park. Photographed by me.
On January 10 and 11, the St. Louis Symphony will perform Stephanie Berg’s concert overture “Ravish and Mayhem,” Nielsen’s brilliant and bristly Violin Concerto, and Beethoven’s ubiquitous Seventh. Here are my program notes for the concert, beginning on p. 26.
My program notes for “Joshua Bell Returns,” St. Louis Symphony, November 29, November 30, and December 1 (Smetana, Sibelius, Dvorák, Rautavaara). I have a very good feeling that this concert will be extraordinary.
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