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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