Loving the Symphony 


A visit to Powell Hall in Saint Louis in December. 

Today, we were treated to a marvelous ear feast by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Stephen and I bought a six-concert season ticket set. We've been putting more emphasis on opera and theatre in past years, but I wanted to get back to Powell Hall. Back in the seventies, I used to buy the Saturday night 24 concert subscription. I sat in the very back row in the upper balcony with Gilbert. Now THAT'S commitment, but when all your friends are either at the symphony or the bar, and you don't smoke, it makes it kind of mandatory.

Anyway, back to the present. The concert hall itself is a real treat. The seats are red plush trimmed in black. Elaborately ornamented columns and walls are cream colored and gilt with gold. Small-shaded candlestick lights set a muted mood. The vast curve of the dress circle floats over the main floor. And during the holiday season, we are treated to festoons and wreaths of pine and white lights—five festoons across the back wall of the main stage, to be specific. I've always been a balcony boy, but when Steve and I got together, we moved down to the main floor for various reasons. (I like to sit in the back row at church, too.)

When I got our seats at the last moment this season there were few choices left. I ended up buying two seats to the left in row C—very CLOSE. I stood there at the ticket counter laboriously debating the choices, and the helpful young man who seemed to be empathizing with my distress said, "Well, I'm really not supposed to do this, but . . I'll show you the seats." And then he came out of the booth, unlocked the entry door, and led me down to the front of the concert hall. I sat in the seats and saw that this was a very unusual perspective indeed. Little did I realize that when the performers are in their seats, your main view is of the three right arms of the frontmost violinists. But there was an unexpected advantage to this seating, which brings me to today's concert.

The visiting conductor was Miguel Harth-Bedoya, here seen at a recent concert in Fort Worth, where he is the Musical Director. Guest conducting is an equally compelling calling for this man, with concerts across the USA, Europe, and in Australia. Miguel is a dramatic but strangely calm presence on the concert stage. Everything about him draws the music from his orchestra. His hands are small, with long, expressive fingers, and in complex rhythmic sections of the music, they often are used separately to direct aspects of the music. Except in the most passionate parts of compositions, when he and the musicians seem to become one seething and swelling instrument, his face radiates warmth, and his smiles seem to say, "Well, we did that well, and here we go for more."

The program was engaging, beginning with Strauss' revolutionary tone poem, Don Juan. This was followed by Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto in C minor. After a break which included complementary Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee (flaking up the red carpeted stairway), we heard the unusual La noche de los Mayas by Revueltas. The theme of the concert was works which broke with tradition, and this selection carried us from 1889, back to 1803, and then forward to 1939. I had the Beethoven selection virtually memorized, was familar with the Strauss, and was new to the Revuletas.

From our seats low on the right side, we had a perfect view past the concert master, David Halen, the guest pianist, young Jonathan Biss, and towards the conductor. Jonathan, too, is a highly regarded pianist. It is a truly astonishing experience to see the performance of a pianist who has so mastered his craft and absorbed his compositions. He tosses off demanding passages with such aplomb, that the dramatic final gesture of raising his hands overhead seems to be required. In fact, it was just Jonathan Biss, exhibiting this Beethoven masterpiece with the same intensity that the master himself may have managed. Of course, the Third Concerto is filled with dramatic keyboard-length ascending and descending chromatic and diatonic passages. Sometimes the passages are in thirds or are arpeggios, and trills and other ornaments abound.

A concerto is a duet between the orchestra and the solo performer. This conductor and this solo performer were a joy to watch. Harth-Bedoya's masterful control of the orchestra stood side-by-side with his empathic interaction with the pianist there on his left, below him. And Biss seemed to greatfully release Beethoven's musical triumph into the encircling arms of this welcoming orchestral presence.

And a baby cried at a crucial point, what can I tell you? But at least no cell phones went off this time, and it's too early in the season for the pneumatic distress of the largely senior audience.

I'm sure I'll be forgiven for resisting comment on Strauss' Don Juan, but I must say a few words about the composition of Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940). The man died in poverty at the age of 40, and never achieved recognition for his music in his lifetime. His musical palette contains none of the finely-tuned scales or elaborate ornaments of Beethoven, but the music is engaging, nontheless. If this description interests you, you can purchase the CD Revueltas: Orchestral Music with Enrique Barrios on iTunes. It contains not only La Noche de los Mayas but also the suite La Coronela. Stunning music.

La Noche de los Mayas is a 36 minute suite composed of four sections; four Nights: of the Mayas, of Revelry (jaranas), of the Yucatán, and the truly spell-binding Noche de encantamiento. In English we have the words "enchanted" and the word "bewitched." The Spanish 'encantamiento' can mean either. This music was originally a film score, and is intended to evoke aspects of the history of conquest, culture, and landscape of the Yucatán. The heavy first section seemed to me to depict the hopeless and merciless subjugation of the native peoples by the Spanish. The lighter second and third sections expressed an integration of the romance of the orchestral string section, on the one hand, with percussion (including xylophone), winds and horns used to represent the more popular musical themes of the culture. We pass directly from the land and music of the Yucatán into a wild, surreal landscape of the fourth section of the music. Dramatic interweaving drum rhythms and bold brass integrate with the rest of the orchestra to produce what the program notes call "violent, primitive energy."

I'm glad to be back in the saddle at Powell Hall, and to have a new, closer angle on things. And after two concerts, I'm still waiting for my first concert conducted by the new Music Director, David Robertson 

Posted: Fri - December 2, 2005 at 01:54 PM          

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