Alpine and Seasonal Splendors from the Pacific Symphony

Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony perform Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony with
visuals by Tobias Melle.

REVIEW

Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa

DAVID J BROWN

A set of Italian Baroque string concerti and a gargantuan Late Romantic symphonic poem hardly seem the likeliest of program bedfellows but, as noted by Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St. Clair (right) in some introductory remarks before this, the orchestra’s first concert of 2025, what Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni Op. 8, Nos. 1-4 and Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64, TrV 233, have in common is that both are concerned with time passing, its effects, and its significance.

Maestro St. Clair’s comments were particularly heartfelt because this occasion had a special element of memorialization: the evening was dedicated in honor of one of the Pacific Symphony’s most generous benefactors, the late Ellie Gordon. And, in view of the tragic wildfires being battled north of Los Angeles, St. Clair also extended the symbolic healing power of music to the countless numbers affected by them, and their heroic first responders.

Mike and Ellie Gordon.

One of Ellie Gordon’s enduring legacies to the orchestra had been her commitment more than 20 years ago with her husband Mike to underwrite in perpetuity the concertmaster’s chair, and appropriately Carl St. Clair then ceded the Segerstrom Hall platform to the chair’s present incumbent, Dennis Kim, to lead members of the string sections (six each of 1st and 2nd violins, four violas, two cellos and one double bass, together with harpsichord continuo) in The Four Seasons. 

Having all the upper string players standing, instead of being seated as normal, and spaced well apart—with the 1st and 2nd violins divided left and right—gave not only transparency but also an air of improvisatory urgency to the performance, and as Kim and his companions swung into the opening Allegro of Spring (Concerto in E major, Op. 8, No. 1, RV 269 “La Primavera”) it was immediately clear that this was going to be a thoroughly collaborative account, with Kim playing and responding to his colleagues as a first amongst equals, rather than any sense of a star soloist backed by an orchestra.

Engraving of Antonio Vivaldi from the
1725 publication of his 12 Op. 8 concerti,
which begins with The Four Seasons.

Vivaldi’s superscription over that Allegro opening—Giunt’ è la primavera (Spring is here)— leaves no room for ambiguity, and throughout all 12 movements of the four concertos there’s barely a page where he doesn’t tell you exactly what he is depicting. True, you might have trouble guessing some without a textual prompt—e. g. “the barking dog” at the beginning of the central Largo of Spring—but here viola section Principal Meredith Crawford’s attack at Vivaldi’s instruction Si deve suonare sempre molto forte e strappato (You must always play very loud and tight) left no doubt that sooner or later the dog was going to wake the "sleeping goatherd" pictured in Kim’s gently drooping solo violin line.

From well back in such a large hall it was perhaps inevitable that little could be heard of the harpsichord continuo. However, Hye-Young Kim and her instrument—a strikingly lime-green painted modern one copying the casing of one 18th century original in Edinburgh and the soundboard of another in Paris—did have their moment in the sun in the Adagio second movement of Autumn (Concerto in F major, Op. 8, No. 3, RV 2939 “L 'Autunno”), providing delicate arpeggiated accompaniment to the “dozing drunkards” represented by the upper strings.

To my ears, this vigorous, sensitive account of Vivaldi’s Seasons was just about ideally poised between the slightly careful interpretations sometimes encountered in decades past and the exaggerated pivoting between manic aggression and near-catatonia that some modern groups impose on this very familiar music—in order, perhaps, for it to sound “challenging” and shake listeners out of their comfort zone. Vivaldi certainly doesn’t need that, and the Segerstrom Hall audience, comfort zone or not, obviously loved what they heard.

Vivaldi’s detailed program clearly lends itself to visual accompaniment, and the German photographer Tobias Melle has indeed applied his great talent for selecting appropriate imagery to The Four Seasons. On this occasion, however, the big screen above the platform was filled only with the usual well-directed simulcast of the players, with Melle’s special treatment being reserved for the Alpine Symphony after the interval.

Richard Strauss in 1912, while 
working on the Alpine Symphony.

This last of Richard Strauss’s tone-poems, completed in 1915, used rather to be disparaged against some of its predecessors, and appeared relatively rarely in concert programs compared to Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and even Also Sprach Zarathustra—once that had been catapulted into general awareness by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now, however, the Alpine seems almost to have become a repertoire staple, and quite rightly, given its plethora of memorable themes, sumptuous sound-world, and overall design as grandly simple as its detailed layout is elaborate.

Some of the labels for Strauss’s 22-section program tend to conjure images of lederhosen-clad, feather-hatted Bavarians with walking sticks earnestly striding up to the summit through the various landmarks and stages that he delineates, and then battling the mists and thunderstorm on the way down, but apart from one scene (cowbells, cows, and herdsman) Melle’s photography is all of unpeopled visions of nature, beginning with the full moon hovering over pre-dawn Nacht.

With the scale of his subjects ranging from bedewed strands of spiderweb to distant rocky peaks, as well as the careful choice of slow dissolves and occasional lightening or darkening of particular shots, plus hardly any use of panning until the sweeping vista with which he illustrates consummately section 13 Auf dem Gipfel (On the Summit), Melle’s selection so perfectly blended with the music that one soon became unaware of them as two separate entities but simply reveled in the marvelous fusion of sound and vision.

As a performance per se, Maestro St. Clair and his great orchestra delivered an experience that would be hard for any others, however illustrious, to exceed or even match. Taken literally, Strauss’s score specifies some 125 players; while his quadruple woodwinds are surpassed in number by several of Mahler’s symphonies, the brass complement exceeds any of the latter’s demands, totaling a budget-busting 34 players. But of these, 12 horns and pairs each of trumpets and trombones only play briefly offstage during section 3 Der Anstieg (The Ascent), signaling a distant hunting party. Some discreet nipping off of the platform and then afterwards back on by some players ensured that this passage distantly resounded as required, and with definite gains in economy.

The program listed the Alpine Symphony’s approximate duration as 47 minutes—a trifle on the quick side, as most performances come in at some 50 minutes. St. Clair’s took no less than 57 minutes, not due to any sluggish treatment of the fast music, but because of his lovingly applied rubati, particularly in the four sections leading up to No. 19, Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg (Thunderstorm and Tempest, Descent). That this nowhere seemed perilously overdrawn was due to the sheer sustained beauty and eloquence of the playing.

Throughout, indeed, the Pacific Symphony covered themselves in glory, from the soft, rich darkness of low woodwind and multi-divided strings in the opening Nacht, to the numerous solo winds that Strauss uses to illustrate local passing beauties of his scenes, to the massed grandeur of the eight (onstage) horns crowning the summit, to the percussion onslaught complete with thunder sheet and wind machine in the Sturm, to the organ—hitherto employed to add even more weight and tone color to the biggest climaxes, but coming into its own in noble solitude at the opening of No. 21 Ausklang (Quiet settles / Epilogue).

Carl St. Clair & Tobias Melle.

When, beneath the solitary glow of Melle’s full moon signifying the return of night, Maestro St Clair drew the final cadence down to its ppp conclusion, the dark sonorities enriched by the tenor tubas with which four of the horn players alternated, the surprise was that this tremendous performance was not greeted by the expected wholehearted ovation, with too many of the audience heading immediately for the exits. 

Awed by the grandeur of nature? Out of their comfort zone? Who knows? Certainly it deserved to be cheered to the rafters, and it was heartening to see many members of the orchestra applauding their 35-years’-standing Music Director, with whom they cannot have had many grander or more successful collaborations. 

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Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, Thursday January 9, 2025, 8 p.m.

Images: The performance: Doug Gifford; Carl St. Clair, Mike and Ellie Gordon: Pacific Symphony; Vivaldi: Wikimedia Commons; Richard Strauss: www.richardstrauss.at.

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Morlot Helms Seattle Opera’s First "Les Troyens"

Ludovic Morlot.

INTERVIEW: Ludovic Morlot

Seattle Opera

ERICA MINER

Following his triumph in Seattle Opera’s celebrated Samson and Delilah in Concert in 2023, Seattle Symphony Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot will helm an unprecedented operatic event in January 2025: the SO premiere of Les Troyens in Concert, a rarely performed abridged version of Hector Berlioz’s epic masterpiece, Les Troyens à Carthage. The SO adaptation, Part 2 of Berlioz’s monumental opera, Les Troyens, the pinnacle of the composer’s life work, begins with the arrival of the great warrior Aeneas at Carthage and ends with the tragic immolation of Queen Dido.

Morlot, who originates from a region close to Berlioz’s birthplace in France, has been recognized for his distinguished interpretations of the composer’s music, both as music director of the Seattle Symphony and in his acclaimed 2018 Seattle Opera debut, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict. The high-powered cast in Les Troyens in Concert includes two operatic superstars: mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, who sang Delilah in 2023’s Samson and Delilah in Concert, as Queen Dido; and formidable tenor and former Seattle Opera Young Artist participant Russell Thomas, as Aeneas.

ERICA MINER: Welcome back as always, Maestro! This is an especially exhilarating and unprecedented occasion for all of us: Les Troyens for the first time at Seattle Opera.

LUDOVIC MORLOT: Thank you! I’m always happy to talk about Berlioz!

Berlioz in 1863: photo by Pierre Petit.

EM: After your huge success with Samson and Delilah, we are thrilled to see you helm another French masterpiece. It must be a defining moment for you.

LM: It doesn’t come often that you have this opportunity. It’s so special that it’s an orchestra (Seattle Symphony) I know so well, in music we have explored together. Though I haven’t conducted Troyens with them, we have done Damnation of Faust, Roméo et Juliette, L’enfance du Christ. It’s only natural to do this piece for the first time with an orchestra that I’ve built a relationship with and with this music. We recorded the Requiem, and some of the early cantatas from the Prix de Rome and Les nuits d’été. It’s a vocabulary I’ve always been fond of. I always felt Berlioz was a composer I wanted to champion. Not only his music but his personality, his life. 

I’ve been reading as much of his writings as his music. His Mémoires, of course, over and over again, but also all those Journals des débats, the Grotesques de la musique, evenings with the orchestra. It’s easy now to say, but I don’t think music would have moved so fast after Beethoven if it weren’t for people like Liszt, Schumann, and Berlioz, who was really, if not a revolutionary, at least someone who was pushing boundaries. I feel close to this voice for sure. To be able to study this opera for some time now has been a gift, really.

EM: As it was a gift for me to play it when I was at the Met. All six hours.

Poster for the premiere of Les Troyens at the
Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, on 4 November 1863.

LM: Yes! But I think it works well to split it in halves like this. Les Troyens à Carthage somehow is its own thing. We’re adding the Prologue, which Berlioz suggested to add if you were to perform Part 2 only.* We made a few cuts, because I think without the stage some of the ballet is a little redundant. Of course, always thinking about economy, trying to cut some of the numbers, and characters that would only appear for one number. 

But generally speaking if you read about the premiere in 1863, and even the subsequent performances, he was forced to cut so much. It’s only recently that the full thing has been able to come to life. He even had to cut the storm [Laughs] in the second performance! I think I read that it took them 55 minutes to change the scenery after the storm, so he decided the next night not to have it in the opera. I think Berlioz would not have been shocked to see that opera houses today have to do a bit of cutting as well.

EM: Having only played the epic in its entirety at the Met, I’m really curious to hear more about how you went about abridging the piece.

LM: It’s two different operas in a way: La Prise de Troie and Troyens à Carthage. The big Cassandra first half with the big Dido second half feels to me that Les Troyens can be defined as two very different pieces. It’s based as you know on the Aeneid but two very specific books: two and four of Virgil with references all the time to all the other books. It’s Shakespearean in nature as well. The big love duet is actually words from The Merchant of Venice. Berlioz was constantly aware of those very big authors like Virgil and Shakespeare and so fond of them that he was rereading them constantly. He almost references them without really thinking about it. It was also interesting for me to explore all the cantatas he wrote for the Prix de Rome. He applied for it four or five times. Pieces like La Mort d’Orphée or Herminie or Cléopâtre of course. It’s incredible because Death of Cléopâtre is exactly the same music you find thirty-some years later as Didon’s death. Énée’s big aria is already in Mort d’Orphée twenty-some years earlier. 

Troyens is the accomplishment of a whole life for Berlioz, not only dramatically but also musically. You can see he’s maybe not consciously completely reusing that material from earlier, but it’s there. Like Herminie was the sketch for the Symphonie Fantastique. It’s very clear. There are moments when I find there is a bit of an idée fixe running through Troyens as well. So we really are talking about a Wagnerian kind of figure, or Debussy, where everything is connected from the first note he wrote as a young boy in his village of La Côte Saint-André to that piece he didn’t even get to see performed in its entirety in his lifetime.

EM: That’s a shame but not surprising, given the scope of it. But his ties to Shakespeare were hugely significant. He himself wrote of combining his love of Virgil with “a great opera, designed on Shakespearean lines,” which I believe he accomplished in Les Troyens.

LM: Absolutely. All the way. Also his love for ancient literature, Greek and Roman heroes, is something that comes from having explored this as a young man. Having to write on a very specific topic for the Prix de Rome. I’m completely convinced of that. Also coming from his education, his father of course, but they were reading Virgil around the dinner table [Laughs]. And he fell in love with the actress, Harriet Smithson, who was the Shakespearean actress of the time and became his wife for a brief period. His whole life was swimming in that aesthetic.

J'Nai Bridges.

EM: Let’s go back to your Troyens performances. Have you started working with J’Nai Bridges and Russell Thomas in the fiendishly difficult leading roles of Dido and Aeneas?

LM: Not yet. We start on Sunday (Jan. 12). J’Nai of course was my Delilah not too long ago in the Saint-Saëns Samson. Russell Thomas I haven’t worked with, but he’s the perfect voice for a character like Énée. I worked with Panthée (Andrew Potter) in the Saint-Saëns production. Seattle Opera is always faithful to that family of singers and brings out the best from everybody in their casting. I think it will be very interesting to have J’Nai and Russell in their debuts of those two big roles.

EM: I heard Russell sing Roberto Devereux in San Francisco and was struck not just by the beauty of his voice but also the power and sensitivity combined with it.

Russell Thomas.

LM: I look forward to it. There’s a bit of staging happening, but it’s also one of those operas where the chorus is so important. That is something else in Berlioz that is so unusual. In Verdi, the chorus tells you the story. Here the chorus is showing the emotion. The chorus participation in this opera is as intense as the quasi-oratorio of Samson et Dalila. It’s very unique in that sense.

We’ll have rather small forces in this music, but I would say better to do it that way than not do it at all. Of course I wish we could be giving Berlioz what he asked for: a 300-piece chorus, six to eight harps, etc., and all the Bandas, which will be integrated into the brass parts in the orchestra onstage because we couldn’t possibly hire all those extra brass musicians (offstage).

EM: Will any of the ballet music be included?

LM: Yes, a bit: the Danse des Esclaves, in the abridged version without repeats, but that’s about it. Most of these would make no sense at all without the context of the ballet onstage. Some ends of numbers have been abridged. They actually were lengthened by Berlioz to allow more time for the scene change. As we don’t really require this, we came up with an abridged version. Most of the other music, les laboureurs, all those kinds of ballets, it doesn’t make sense if you don’t have dancers onstage. It will not take anything away from the genius of Berlioz.

EM: If you’re going to include one ballet, Esclaves is the one.

LM: Absolutely. Hopefully it could be an inspiration for Seattle Opera—any opera house, for that matter—to have the ambition to stage this opera at some point. It would be an introduction to the audience in Seattle also because it’s not music they would have had the chance to experience locally.

EM: Hopefully someday. Meanwhile, I have no doubt your Troyens à Carthage will be magnificent.

LM: I hope we have enough time. This is not such straightforward music to put together. Time is the enemy for us, always.

EM: But I have faith you will make the most of it, and I thank you for providing us with an insider view of this rare concert version of Les Troyens.

LM: It’s a pleasure.

EM: I wish you toi, toi, for what I’m sure will be a splendid success.

LM: Thank you. 

---ooo---

Les Troyens in Concert will be performed on January 17 and 19 at McCaw Hall, Seattle.

*(“For this production a prologue was composed by Berlioz in June 1863 to summarize the action before…” —The Hector Berlioz website)

Image credits: Ludovic Morlot: Lisa Marie Mazzucco; Berlioz and Les Troyens poster: Wikimedia Commons; J'Nai Bridges: Todd Rosenberg; Russell Thomas: Fay Fox.

Classical Interludes Goes "HIP"

Pianist Steven Vanhauwaert, violinist Andrew McIntosh, and cellist Eva Lymenstull play Schumann, Schubert, and Mendelssohn on period instruments in First Lutheran Church and School, Torrance.

REVIEW

Steven Vanhauwaert and friends, Classical Interludes, First Lutheran Church, Torrance

BARBARA GLAZER, Guest Reviewer

Classical Crossroads’ Saturday afternoon “Classical Interludes” series—which from this season has replaced the previous "First Fridays at First!~fff"—was a rare pleasure even by the exalted standards normally achieved by this organization and its chosen artists.

On this occasion, though the early Romantic repertoire may have been relatively familiar, it was given the historically informed performance (HIP) treatment. The piano was a modern copy (right) of an 1836 Viennese Conrad Graf fortepiano, built by Paul McNulty in Divišov, Czech Republic, and generously loaned by Dr. Charles Metz, while the violin and cello were equipped with gut strings—Editor.

Barbara Glazer, local Rancho Palos Verdes resident but global concert attendee and lifelong classical music student, writes: "This concert started 2025 atop Mount Everest—in every respect: three consummate musicians (Steven Vanhauwaert, piano; Andrew McIntosh, violin; Eva Lymenstull, cello) playing an excellently chosen (and interconnected) program on gorgeous period instruments for historically informed performance of works by Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, and Felix Mendelssohn.

"I very much appreciated the informative and articulate discussion by the musicians of their period instruments—so different in sound and color from modern ones which cannot replicate what the composers intended and what their audiences heard, as compared with what we are accustomed to hearing on modern instruments. If you listen to the same program on modern instruments—YouTube is filled with examples—you can hear the qualitative difference from what this music would have sounded like in the early to mid-19th century.

"My exposure to such performances began at the Schönbrunn Palace (right) in Vienna, so many, many years ago; after that, upon maturity, I signed up for baroque and later period ensembles wherever I lived. (There are many such fine groups in our LA area, including those in which today’s string instrumentalists play).

"As I listened to this magnificent concert, I recalled a quotation from Beethoven, in a letter he wrote in response to a student on how they should practice: 'Continue, do not just practice art, but also penetrate into its inner being; it deserves it. For only art and science elevate man to the level of divinity…' Only then can one be faithful to the music, and become a companion in its creation. That is what I heard throughout the concert—the purity of the music, and it was an electrifying experience."

Robert Schumann in 1844.

The year 1842 saw Schumann focused more on chamber music than in any other, before or after. Intensive study of the string quartet medium resulted in three completed by July, and his Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet followed in a comparable late autumn creative burst. In December he turned to yet a fourth chamber genre, the piano trio, but though he completed the work that month, he set it aside. Only in 1850 did it re-emerge, not as a numbered Piano Trio but as four Phantasiestücke, Op. 88. The concert opened with the second of these, entitled Humoresque.

"The (folk) theme from the opening Romance (not played) is repeated in the Humoresque in a more lively manner, so that this is really connected to the first piece as a linked pair. But the Humoresque has a circular pattern with the opening march returning at the end, interrupted by a coda which allows the march to fade away. It's a brilliant device and the performance had absolutely appropriate fantasy touches."

Next came Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. Post. 148, D. 897 “Notturno.”

Franz Schubert, 1827.

"This has been thought by some to be a rejected slow movement of the Piano Trio No. 1, but it is a sublime stand-alone piece…. too often neglected. It's in the ABABA form. The main thematic material shares common characteristics with some of Schubert's other melodic ideas, including the first movements of the C major String Quintet and the Unfinished Symphony.

"The Notturno was used in the background for the BBC serialization of Henry James Portrait of a Lady, as well as in some episodes of the American TV series "Hannibal". The performance was dazzling—those piano trills of the opening theme as appearing for the third time were one of the incredible highlights of an exquisite performance throughout by the trio."

The main work was Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. I in D minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29, composed in 1839.

Felix Mendelssohn, 1837.

"Again, we see the influence of Schumann, as in the Schubert. Mendelssohn is said to have taken the advice of the pianist/composer Ferdinand Hiller and completely revised the work’s piano part, making it more romantic, more Schumannesque. The various key transitions in the first movement are stunning—so too those triplet arpeggios on the piano.

"The Andante second movement references several of his songs without words in the use of melody in the right hand and the accompaniment divided between the hands, and most beautiful is the violin's repeat of the main theme with the counterpoint played on the cello. The Scherzo third movement is actually a sonata form, with the rhythmic motif of the main theme played throughout to great effect. The Finale, the most revised movement, gives the piano a 'work out,' so to speak, with close chords to arpeggios and chromatic octaves. And Steven does masterfully!

"This is a concert for which I am most grateful to have the video on Vimeo—to re-visit, and to be enthralled again and again. Prepared by Classical Crossroads’ tech wizard Jim Eninger, it’s one of their best video recordings yet, truly brilliant in making one feel in the presence of the performers. Kudos all around, and what a debut for Classical Crossroad's 2025 season! Thank you, and a standing ovation to those on stage, and behind the camera."

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Classical Interludes, First Lutheran Church and School, Torrance, Saturday, January 4, 2025, 3:00 p.m.

Images: The performers: Classical Crossroads Inc; Fortepiano: Paul McNulty; Schönbrunn Palace, Schubert, Mendelssohn: Wikimedia Commons; Schumann: www.schumann-portal.de.

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Seattle’s Northwest Boychoir Inspires a Musical Nativity

Northwest Boychoir, Vocalpoint! Seattle, and Northwest Sinfonia, conducted by Jacob Winkler.

REVIEW

A Festival of Lessons and Carols, Benaroya Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER

Singing Christmas Carols en masse at holiday time is always an edifying experience. Heightened by the telling of the Nativity told through readings and biblical lessons, the occasion becomes especially engaging.

On December 23 at Benaroya Hall, an enthusiastic audience witnessed the 80-member combined chorus of the Northwest Boychoir and their associated group, Vocalpoint! Seattle, present the story of the Nativity told through readings, choral settings, and audience participation. Listening to fresh young voices interpret yuletide favorites in a magnificent concert setting enhanced by colorful lighting and projections was a special treat.

Jacob Winkler.

Patterned after the Christmas Eve observance at King’s College in Cambridge, England, the Festival of Lessons and Carols is a valued Seattle Symphony tradition and seasonal favorite. The evening was akin to a traditional pre-Christmas feast of Dickensian proportions. Perennial favorites known over the ages, some of which were arranged by conductor Jacob Winkler, shared the program with less familiar and more contemporary but equally enjoyable melodies, all of which the audience embraced with great zeal. Interspersed between the carols were the Lessons, which presented an opportunity to contemplate the meaning of the season.

Members of Northwest Boychoir.

The Northwest Boychoir, with its high level of musical education and vocal performance, provides the local community with a unique choral resource for gifted young singers. The group’s musical sophistication, rich tonal quality, and dedication to perfection have established their reputation as one of the premier children’s choirs in the US. The combined level of singing with Vocalpoint! Seattle, a group of exceptional young adults who bring together the best in ensemble vocal performance, created the perfect blend for a musical celebration.

Winkler, who grew up singing in the Northwest Boychoir and Vocalpoint! Seattle, was the ideal conductor for the evening’s program. Having earned a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Washington, he became Associate Music Director of the Northwest Choirs in 2009. In his lively and sensitive helming of both traditional and less familiar fare, he showed an exceptional mastery of conducting choral ensembles and a deep love for the participating groups. His gestures were expressive and magnanimous, emphasizing the subtleties of each phrase: a delight to watch.

Members of Northwest Sinfonia.

Winkler also brought out the best aspects of the accompanying Northwest Sinfonia and Chorale. The Northwest Sinfonia has established itself as one of the recording industry’s top symphonic orchestras, with a very long list of feature film, classical, video game, and TV recordings. Not surprisingly, these two groups provided impressive collaborative playing and singing to create a homogeneous total ensemble.

The program was chosen to elicit an enthusiastic audience response. Recognizable names such as David Willcocks (“Unto Us Is Born a Son”), John Rutter (“Come Leave Your Sheep”), and Felix Mendelssohn (“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”) shared the stage with the lilting West Indian spiritual “The Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy” and Pietro Yon’s Italian delight, “Gesù Bambino.” A standout was “This Little Babe” of Benjamin Britten, from his magnificent A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28. The piece, a huge challenge technically, rhythmically, and interpretively, was performed with panache: an impressive accomplishment for the youthful ensemble, for which the audience showed an immense appreciation.

Reading a Lesson.

The Nine Lessons, interspersed at perfect intervals with the music to illustrate the timeless story, drew from both Testaments, including Genesis, Isaiah, Micah, St. Luke, St. Matthew and St. John. Always inspiring, the appeal of these familiar recitations was enhanced by the winning narrations of young choir members, starting with the youngest and progressing to the older ones. Each lesson was spoken with great care and impeccable diction, heightening the effect on the listener.

For the most familiar carols, the lighting in the hall was augmented, allowing the audience to read the words in the program and sing along with the choirs and orchestra. The collective energy added a special touch to the evening’s enjoyment. As a finale, the much beloved Adolphe Adam favorite, "O Holy Night," filled the hall on a fervent note, spurring the audience to go forth and enjoy their holidays in the best way possible: with music in their hearts and minds.

---ooo---

Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, Seattle, WA 98101, Monday, December 23, 

7.30 p.m. 

Images: Jacob Winkler: Courtesy nwchoirs.org; Performance photos: Jon Pendleton.

My Very Musical Trip to Greece

Victor Stanislavsky (piano), Pinchas Zukerman (violin), Tosca Opdam (violin), Ori Kam (viola),
and Gabriel Schwabe (cello) perform Schumann’s Piano Quintet on the final night of the
2024 Syros International Music Festival.

TODD MASON

As the great American novelist Henry Miller (1891-1980) once said: “It takes a lifetime to discover Greece, but it only takes an instant to fall in love with her.”

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to be invited to be composer-in-residence for the 2024 Syros International Music Festival on the Greek island of Syros, not the largest but the most populous of the Cyclades archipelago off the east coast of the mainland. Syros (pronounced “SEE-rohws”) itself lies around 110 miles southeast of Athens, and I have to say that I instantly fell in love with it—and then the music sealed the deal.

This was only the second year for this festival, curated by Tosca Opdam and Asi Matathias (both of whom are virtuoso violin soloists, she Dutch and he Israeli, and also happen to be married to each other), and they’ve done a marvelous job of programming and recruiting top artists, among them this year Pinchas Zukerman and his wife, the noted cellist Amanda Forsyth. Zukerman says of the Syros festival: “Well, you know, it's not that far from Tel Aviv and the feeling is very similar. The ocean is almost the same. The people are very friendly, the audience is wonderful, the hall is very nice, and the music is of course very good. So it feels very much like home.”

A unique setting

As one arrives in Syros, usually by ferry (above) from Athens (that is, if you miss the infrequent small plane, as I did!), you feel instantly transported to another time, maybe even another world. The rich history goes back thousands of years—the first settlers on the island were probably the Phoenicians, arriving around 2300 B.C. Today, in its biggest (but still little) town, Ermoupoli, one is immediately confronted with narrow, curved streets paved with ancient cobblestones, colorful shops and restaurants and, way up at the top of the hill, the magnificent Church of Saint Nicholas.

And then you notice the cats. I learned that Greek culture here embraces cats as the free spirits they are, content to slowly wander the streets with seeming indifference to the people and scooters and tiny cars moving about. Then as you walk up the town’s gentle slopes, past the little cafes and charming hotels, you quickly get to a curiosity of the best kind, a scaled-down replica of the famous La Scala Opera House in Milan, built to the original designs of the Italian architect Pietro Sampò.

Known as the Apollon Theater (front entrance above), and seating just 350 compared with over 2000 in the original, this opened in 1864 and offers the ideal setting for this new festival. As the famous violinist Isaac Stern once remarked, “Music must be an event.” He meant that merely playing great classical music isn’t enough. You must create the feeling of a special occasion for each performance. At this festival, the combination of the superb musicians, the island, and this wonderful opera house with its excellent acoustics, made for five nights of concerts that certainly rose to the level of special events. 

Musical fireworks

The opening night (above) featured musical stars Tosca Opdam, Asi Matathias, Pinchas Zukerman (violins), Ori Kam (viola), and Amanda Forsyth (cello). The latter three played Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat major for string trio, K. 563, and then Pinchas took the first viola part in Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111. What a start! Each of these musicians is a superb soloist, but they all are also consummate chamber music collaborators. The power of the Mozart was immediately apparent and it grew through the first five movements to the Allegro finale, which was nothing less than spectacular. The standing ovation audience included not only locals but also visitors from all over the world.

The opening night performance of Brahms' String Quintet No. 2.

From the start, Pinchas Zukerman set the tone for some of the most intimate and captivating musical conversations I’ve heard. My own view is that Mozart is too often approached as a holy relic that one must never “interpret” but studiously re-create in a hopefully perfect and symmetrical manner. What I loved about this performance was that all three players were not afraid individually to bring deep emotionalism and modern power to this masterpiece, an approach enhanced further by each little nuance perfectly answered by the others. This was Mozart as if in 3-D. One felt immersed, inside the music. I think Mozart would have been thrilled (if perhaps not Salieri!).

A new commission

The reason I was there was because Tosca, who so brilliantly recorded my Violin Concerto in 2022, asked me if I would accept a commission to write a new piece as well as be composer-in-residence for the festival. I was delighted to say yes, not only because I’d never been to Greece but also because I knew that this would be a superb group of musicians. 

Modern statue of Pheidippedes
on the Marathon road.

At the time, I was deep into writing my String Quartet No. 4, soon also to become Le Monde for string orchestra (which was just recorded in Budapest, right after the festival), so I had limited time. But as I knew there would be a superb pianist present, I chose a piece for solo piano. It was inspired by the Greek legend of the long-distance courier, Pheidippides, who is said to have run from Marathon to Athens with the good news of the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 B.C.

Premiered by the Israeli pianist Victor Stanislavsky, this work begins by imagining Pheidippides’ frantic thoughts as he desperately runs the 25-plus miles. He then enters a dream-like state and his life starts to flash before his eyes with thoughts of his childhood, family, loved ones, and the glory of Greece. When he finally reaches the Acropolis, he reawakens to the present and races up the hill to proclaim to the Senate “Hail, we are the winners!” thus saving Athenians from their worst fears, and then collapses with his last word, “Joy!”

Composer congratulates performer after premiere.

I can say that, as a composer, a premiere is not always what one imagines! Sometimes, there just isn’t enough time to rehearse. More often, the music needs to be adjusted, and that’s where the best collaborators offer ideas the composer didn’t necessarily even think of. What impressed me about working with Victor, via emails and phone, was how quickly he understood this piece and how beautifully he interpreted it—a new work which isn’t for the faint of heart (you can listen to the end of it here).

The frantic opening is very fast with large and quick atonal leaps all over the keyboard—both hands flying around trying to catch certain notes, suggesting the feeling of being in a frantic state, right on the edge of control. The middle section—the dream—calms down and inhabits more of a chromatic tonal world, but with many dense inner voices and varying moods. At this wonderful premiere, Victor added some expressive dimensions of his own, which were very much welcomed by the composer!

Five nights of Festival music

My premiere was on the second night. This was titled “Folk Spirit” and showcased works inspired by folk music and folk stories. This included the Dvořák Terzetto in C major, Op. 74 for two violins and viola, Robert Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style Op. 102 for cello and piano, and the Poulenc Clarinet Sonata FP 184 (which has noticeable similarities to his more well-known Flute Sonata).

Finally, we had a stunning and challenging masterpiece, Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello Op. 7, played brilliantly by Pinchas and Amanda (left). As its drama and complexity progressed, one could feel an almost trance-like state envelop the hall. This work for just two instruments at times almost feels like a string quartet or more. Afterward, I asked Pinchas if it’s a difficult piece and he said “Yes!”

"Clarinet Magic" viewed from above.

The third night highighted “The Magic of the Clarinet,” and featured the artistry of the renowned Croatian clarinetist Marija Pavlovic. The evening began with Sibelius’s charming early Piano Trio in C major, “Lovisa” (1888), which was arranged here for clarinet, cello, and piano. Together with Marija Pavlovic, the other performers were Gabriel Schwabe, cellist, and Nino Gvetadze, piano.

Following the Sibelius we had the Brahms Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114, and the concert concluded with Mozart’s timeless Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581. Pavlovic’s beautiful tone reverberated throughout the hall and her subtle phrasing was deftly matched by the others.

Fourth came “Transfigured Night,” featuring the Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes Op. 34 for clarinet, string quartet, and piano, Schubert’s late Fantasia in F minor, D. 940 for piano four hands, and closing with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, in the version intriguingly arranged for piano trio from the string sextet original by composer Eduard Steuermann. 

The last night “Gala Concert,” which was sold out, featured just two works, but both of them epics of the chamber music repertoire. These were the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 and Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major Op. 44, and were rewarded with a prolonged standing ovation.

Masterclasses and more...

An important additional part of this festival are the masterclasses. There was a small number of very accomplished students, carefully selected from around the world, ages five to 15, who came to Syros to have the chance to play a few famous excerpts from the standard repertoire and have experienced pros like Pinchas, Asi and Tosca give them not only many technical tips but also practical advice, such as how to bring out certain passages with a real orchestra and how to add emotional dimensions even to difficult sections.

Tosca, Ari, and Pinchas giving some technical tips.

Pinchas also kept the students interested and amused with some wonderful anecdotes about performing, handed down from some famous musical luminaries of the 20th century. Of great value, again, was that the older students got career guidance and music business coaching, filling in that often enormous gap between academic life and the real world. The students also were given the hall for a concert of their own.

Asi Matathias pointed out: “A music festival today cannot only be concerts. It has to go hand in hand with education. We have these students selected from a greater pool of applicants from around Europe, and we have a very active outreach program which started even before the festival concerts. We are trying to evoke emotions and plant the seeds of music because that has to start from a very early age.” 

The festival also works with local visual artists to showcase their work for visitors during the day at several venues near the Apollon Theater. And you can even go on a guided tour of the rich history and geology of the island. This young festival has already become part of the small island’s fabric, and it is adding more events as it grows—this year, including some talks. At a small cafe, I discussed telling a story in music and the creative process (hint: don’t wait for “inspiration”!) (right).

Ambitious plans

The local co-founder and executive director of the festival, Alex Pikiakos, said at the opening night that, currently, Greece does not have a major classical music festival and that he’d like to correct that oversight. He envisions Syros becoming one of Europe’s destinations for great classical music as its festival grows, and if this year’s performances at the historic Apollon Theater on that endlessly charming island offered any clue, I think this could very well happen.

So, big congrats to the Syros International Music Festival artistic directors, Tosca Opdam and Asi Matathias (above). They have achieved the start of something that feels like it will only blossom from here on. They have created not just a great festival for classical music, in a place you’ll instantly fall in love with, but a festival where each night is a very special musical event!

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Note to Angelenos: 

You won’t have to wait to go to Greece next fall to hear Tosca and Asi, because they will both be in our Mason Concerts series on March 29 in West LA, along with Cécilia Tsan, Yumi Oshima, and Tim Durkovic!

Images: Festival photos: Todd Mason and Ari Matathias; Pheidippedes: courtesy run2.australia.

Barber, Tchaikovsky and Brahms at the Pacific Symphony

Violinist Vadim Guzman and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra under the baton of visiting conductor Valentina Peleggi perform Brahms’ Violin Concerto.

REVIEW

Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa

DAVID J BROWN

Valentina Peleggi.

The first half of the November concert in the Pacific Symphony’s 2024-2025 season, enjoyed as usual in the glorious acoustic of the Segerstrom Concert Hall, and played under the baton of the Italian guest conductor Valentina Peleggi, projected enough passion and drama to more than satisfy any audience, and judging by the enthusiastic response, Signora Peleggi’s unhackneyed repertoire choices were fully vindicated.

These were two fairly infrequently performed works which are however amongst their composers’ most inspired and powerful creations, and if the more wildly approving response came at the end of Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini: Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, Op. 32, TH 46, that was surely down both to his familiar idiom and to a conclusion that’s torrentially overwhelming even for this most heart-on-sleeve of composers.

For me, though, the gem of the concert was the opener, the First Symphony (in one movement), Op. 9, written by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), when he was still only 26. Barber himself described it as “a synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony” and as such it has often been compared with the proto-single movement symphony, Sibelius’s Seventh. But rather than mirroring the latter’s Olympian calm, this work erupts from the starting-gate—here as incisively as one would wish and powerfully propulsive in the hands of the PacSO and Signora Peleggi—into a swirling cauldron of sound.

Undated portrait of Samuel Barber in the leisure
room of the American Academy in Rome.

Showing himself immediately a virtuoso master of the orchestra, Barber in his “first movement” lays out the symphony’s three main themes, which will be developed and recapitulated in its course. But though these are mainly carried by the strings, this happens within a rapidly changing welter of other orchestral activity, and here the balances seemed sometimes a little awry, with key lines momentarily obscured amidst the dramatic onrush.

The “first movement” crashes to a halt in the biggest orchestral explosion yet, and after a timpani diminuendo over two measures, the symphony’s Allegro molto “scherzo” begins with a fugato in the upper strings—in this performance articulated with as much pointful clarity as the previous section seethed with power—that gathers tension and heft until it blows itself out in a hammering ostinato from the full forces. A brief return to the fugato figure, now on bassoon and clarinets, dies away to a long pause before the Andante tranquillo.

This begins with what is essentially a metamorphosis of the second theme of the “first movement,” but such is Barber’s genius that it contrives to sound quite new-minted, and overwhelmingly affecting when played with such long-drawn eloquence as it was by the PacSO’s principal oboist, Jessica Pearlman. As with the previous sections, this “slow movement” grows in textural complexity and harmonic tension until it cadences seismically into the "finale," a passacaglia over a repeated slow-moving theme in cellos and basses that proceeds to a conclusion which would seem extravagantly overblown in its rhetoric were it not justified by the intensity and cumulative sense of something vitally important being uttered that permeate the whole work.

For my money, Samuel Barber’s First is one of the greatest American symphonies of the 20th century, as emotionally engaging as it is ingeniously tight-knit, and fully the equal of any by any contemporary, amongst whom Bernstein and Copland are only the most celebrated. It was a rare joy to hear a live performance of it—doubly so when played and conducted with such skill and commitment as it was by the Pacific Symphony under Signora Peleggi.

Though equally dramatic and affecting, in some ways Francesca da Rimini, which Tchaikovsky completed in November 1876, presents an opposite interpretative challenge. Whereas Barber’s symphony is a complex, kaleidoscopic, and rapidly evolving structure, whose many elements have somehow to be both kept in balance and fully brought out for its performance to be successful, Francesca is essentially a very large-scale ABA form, the three parts of which contain much repetition that needs to be carefully shaped and handled lest the work begin to seem interminable.

Tchaikovsky in 1877, shortly after
 completing Francesca da Rimini.

In his Inferno, Dante records that Francesca and her lover Paolo were condemned for their adulterous liaison to be eternally tormented in the violent winds of the second circle of Hell, and Tchaikovsky conjures this with sustained vehemence. He begins his depiction of the 13th century Italian noblewoman's plight with an evocation of Hell’s portal, here rendered the more awe-inspiringly ominous by the Pacific Symphony's very large tam-tam, on which the last of four strokes ushered in the first main section of the work, Allegro vivo. 

With her sweeping gestures, generously inviting and inclusive rather than pointedly directing, Signora Peleggi drew playing that had all the panache and vigor that the music needed, controlling the pace and dynamics so as to keep Tchaikovsky’s swirling and overlapping motivic patterns airborne. After some 50 pages of score, the tumult finally subsides, giving way to an idyllic recall, Andante cantabile non troppo, of the lovers’ happiness when alive.

As long as many a full-scale symphonic slow movement, this second main section of the work is as full-bloodedly romantic as anything in the composer’s output, and here again Signora Peleggi and the PacSO excelled in giving it all the richness it needs, from the solo clarinet statement of the first main theme (principal Robert Walker matching in eloquence his oboist colleague in the Barber), through successive ecstatic climaxes, to the eventual return of the hellish winds, swirling the shades of the lovers away forever.

Though this final part, Allegro vivo once again, is a truncated repeat of music already very familiar, the performance maintained pressure and momentum, never flagging through to the cataclysmic end, with timpani, cymbals, bass drum and tam-tam (just to nitpick, switching to a smaller instrument here might have given more incisive crashes) punching home eternal damnation. That ovation sure was deserved…

After the interval, to contrast with all that histrionic fervor, came the poised richness of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, with the Ukrainian-born Israeli Vadim Guzman as soloist. The fact that Brahms completed it only a year after Francesca was written underlines what a broad church in terms of expressive range in music is high Romanticism (and not without its internal dissent—Tchaikovsky wrote to his patron Nadezhda von Meck: “Brahms’ concerto appealed to me as little as everything else he has written. Lots of preparations as it were for something, lots of hints that something is going to appear very soon and enchant you, but nothing does come out of it all, except for boredom.”)

Brahms in 1876.

Of course nearly a century-and-a-half of near-universal acclaim for Brahms’ Violin Concerto from academics, audiences, and musicians alike has rendered Tchaikovsky’s opinion a quaint reminder of how even the greatest can have blind spots, and certainly for this listener there wasn’t a boring moment in this relatively fleet (just on 38 minutes) account—cleanly articulated, boldly shaped, subtly detailed—from Maestro Guzman and the Pacific Symphony under Signora Peleggi’s ever-supple direction.

Interestingly, she reduced the string strength by one desk in each section from the full muster deployed in the Barber and Tchaikovsky, and with what looked a quite tight grouping of the players on the platform, this seemed to give more prominence than usual to the manifold beauty and resourcefulness of Brahms’ woodwind writing: at the very start the bassoons and horns seemed more strongly present than usual.

Front and center to the success of this performance, however, was Vadim Guzman, whose virtuosity was so seemingly effortless as to never draw attention to itself, making the solo role first amongst equals with the orchestra but also giving many key passages their necessary prominence. His articulation of the third main theme which Brahms with signal genius introduces at the very end of the first movement exposition, for example, had an ineluctable and throat-catching beauty. 

After an account of the long first movement that felt far less protracted than usual, the woodwind choir introduced the Adagio’s main theme with unforced poise and balance, perfectly preparing the ground for Guzman’s entry, as unshowy and eloquent as ever. Perhaps there wasn’t quite enough ma non troppo to temper the rondo finale’s Allegro giocoso, so that some of its dancing joyousness was sacrificed on the altar of sheer excitement, but it certainly was exciting, and the Segerstrom audience responded accordingly.

Even after this there was an encore, and for once not a piece of solo fireworks designed to show off a soloist's astonishing dexterity, but a limpid account of the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Act Two of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, for which Maestro Guzman was joined by the Pacific Symphony strings in beatifically hushed form.

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Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Thursday November 13, 2024, 8 p.m.

Images: The performance: Doug Gifford; Samuel Barber: www.samuelbarber.fr; Tchaikovsky and Brahms: Wikimedia Commons.

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