This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 29 2012 - It is a magnificent paradox: If ever one could receive absolutely, definitely, no-question-about-it, his or her money's worth from a ticket that cost nothing at all, Tuesday evening's free concert at Powell Symphony Hall was it.
Just for signing up, the audience began to file in when the doors opened at 4:30 p.m., and by 5:30 when the concert began, most every seat in the hall was filled. Those who were seated -- and some who stood -- were treated to almost three hours of music and merriment. The occasion was the kickoff for a European festival tour by the orchestra, to begin next week in London. The orchestra's generosity was repaid with bravos and often rapturous applause.
The repertory represented the diversity and sophistication of musical fare St. Louis audiences have become accustomed to in the seven years the orchestra has been directed by conductor David Robertson. Even the challenge of Arnold Schoenberg's deeply emotional and dramatic "Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16," composed in 1909, received polite but generous applause. "Five Pieces" was composed during a period of anguish in Schoenberg's life, and the orchestra's sensitivity to the music made that suffering audible.
Altogether, the lengthy concert provided the audience a more-than-generous sampling of music to be heard in the four concert venues in Europe -- works by Johannes Brahms, Jean Sibelius, Elliott Carter, George Gershwin and Schoenberg. On top of the advertised musical fare, Robertson and the orchestra stayed on for two encores, the rollicking overture to "Candide," by Leonard Bernstein and "Morgenstemning," (Morning Mood) the familiar prelude to Act IV of the Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg.
On Tuesday (Sept. 4), Robertson will meet the orchestra again, this time on the platform of the Royal Albert Hall in London. Once again he will summon forth the passionate and exulting magic of Johannes Brahms’s “Tragic Overture,” which began the program the St. Louis audience heard. With the wave of his baton, the magic begins again as the the orchestra plays in London the first notes of what everyone hopes will be a triumphant return to Europe. This is turf St. Louis lay claim to with some regularity in the past, only to be sidetracked for 14 years by budget pressures and a full court press toward financial sustainability.
Although all major orchestras in the U.S. face uncertainties, some worse than others, the St. Louis situation was particularly perilous, coming close to bankruptcy in the early 2000s. The problem was resolved with great effort on the part of orchestra management, board aggressiveness, creative and abundant philanthropy, local support as well as contributions of time and treasure by subscribers and orchestra members themselves.
The first concert of the orchestra’s four-city tour will be played in London, with others coming presto, one following the other, in Berlin, Lucerne and Paris. The London locale -- the Royal Albert Hall -- is one of the most celebrated music halls in all the world, a great bass-drum-shaped edifice that reminds you all at once of the Colosseum and the Pantheon in Rome and a rather rich bedomed wedding cake. Its 6,000 seats are sold out.
The Albert Hall is just over 140 years old. It was completed in 1871 and is a memorial to Queen Victoria’s adored husband-consort, Prince Albert, whose vision it was to create a music hall for the edification of the British people. His death in 1861 at 42 catapulted the queen into mourning that would last her long life long, and she never ceased memorializing him one way or another.
The Royal Albert Hall keeps the Prince Consort’s memory in front not only of the British but also of the world, by virtue of its association with the BBC, the British Broadcast Corporation. The hall is home to the Proms – formally called the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC – one of the most celebrated and fascinating music festivals anywhere.
The St. Louis Orchestra’s London appearance forms a Prom, and places an iridescent feather in the orchestra’s cap. But, all things considered, it may be a toss-up as to whom is the luckier, the Proms or the Symphony. As veteran double bass player Donald Martin said recently, “We are, after all, the St. Louis Symphony. We are good, and we like to show the world just how good we are.”
After the fits and starts of four years of planning, motion forward begins Saturday when the orchestra and company will fly to London then receive two days off to acclimate itself to the change in time, to stretch, to practice and to prepare itself for the sprint to come.
The Proms is an eight-week festival of daily concerts. The Proms' publicity proclaims it “the world’s largest and most democratic music festival” and it may well be. Impresario Robert Newman conceived and initiated the Proms in 1895. His idea was to democratize classical music, to bring it to a much larger and entirely more diverse audience that the usual, the audience characterized (or caricatured) as rich, elitist and class conscious. He engaged Sir Henry Joseph Wood to conduct them and in time the series became entirely associated with Wood, who was on the podium for half a century.
There are Proms concerts at the Albert Hall as well as in other places every day for eight weeks. Audience members, called Prommers, are free to eat, drink, and to stroll around, although smoking is now verboten.
The St. Louis Proms concert is at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 4 (1:30 p.m. CDT), and will be broadcast live by the BBC. (You can hear it live, on line at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/). Besides the “Tragic Overture” the program is Ludwig von Beethoven’s “Violin Concerto,” with violin virtuoso Christian Tetzlaff; the Schoenberg “Five Pieces" and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.”
On this tour, St. Louis dances with four extraordinary partners. Besides the Proms, the other partners are:
Musikfest Berlin. The Berliner Festspiele was organized in 1951 in what was then West Berlin to celebrate and to bring together a variety of cultural events: music, theater, dance and literature. The Symphony’s concert is to be at the Berliner Philharmonie.
Luzerner Fest – Arturo Toscanini conducted the first Lucerne Festival concert, played in gardens facing Wagner’s villa at Tribschen on Aug. 25, 1938. Hitler was in the process of assaulting Europe. Switzerland, however, remained neutral and free. The orchestra will play at Lucerne’s architecturally extraordinary KKL Concert Hall, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel.
La Salle Pleyel, Paris -- The tour’s finale is to be in one of the most important concert halls in Paris, the Salle Pleyel. It was named for the French piano manufacturer, which invested heavily in its construction. Shortly after completion in 1927 it was destroyed by a catastrophic fire. The rebuilt hall reopened in 1935 and was substantially renovated in the early 2000s. Its resident ensembles are L’Orchestre de Paris and the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra.
There are basically two separate programs to be performed in the four cities, with some minor variations: “Call it two and a half programs,” Symphony CEO Fred Bronstein said. The music is a braid of classics, new music and lively old favorites such as “An American in Paris.” Bronstein said the programs will show off the orchestra’s virtuosity nicely. All the music on the tour bill has been played here in the last couple of years.
Touring, most everyone agrees, is the best way to show new and far distant audiences just how good you are.
“Because of the advances in technology in the last 150 years,” music director Robertson said, “recordings have come to serve as momentos of performances – a replacement for the experience itself. But for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the experience is not in a recording, but in the hall itself.”
Robertson said knowing music from a recording is comparable to knowing a painting from a reproduction of it, then having the experience of going to a gallery and seeing the real thing, and being stunned at the differences between the genuine experience and the reproduction of it.
“All sorts of people have never had the experience of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,” Robertson said. “They’ve not heard the amazing quality of it.” The experience of the St. Louis orchestra dwells mostly in St. Louis, although New York audiences have had steady doses, as have some audiences in California, “where people want us to come back,” Robertson said.
“We want that from European audiences.”