Here I am in front of an old German poster at the wonderful City Museum, in St. Louis.
This weekend (November 11 through November 13), Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin returns to the St. Louis Symphony for a program featuring Barber, Copland, Gershwin, and a recent, deeply personal original composition about his late parents. My program notes begin on p. 33 this time (I didn’t write the Youth Orchestra notes that precede them).
Arnold Schoenberg, self-portrait
“Mysteries conceal a truth, but direct curiosity to unveil it.”—Arnold Schoenberg, “Brahms the Progressive”
I wrote about the “Brahms Reimagined” program for the St. Louis Symphony concerts of October 28 and 29, with special guest pianist Jeremy Denk, who performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. Also on the program are Liszt’s Prometheus and Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’s Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 25.
Beethoven bust in Tower Grove Park. Photographed by me.
I wrote about Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (along with Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte overture and Benjamin’s Viola, Viola) for the St. Louis Symphony concerts of September 24 and 25, with special guest Yefim Bronfman. (My notes begin on p. 31.)
I had far more material than I was able to publish, given the word constraints, so I’m also including some supplementary content in the form of a PDF, which I hope turns out OK. If it does, I will probably start posting my notes for Dallas Symphony, which aren’t archived on the symphony website for some reason.
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
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 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
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