March 2011 Archives

I doubt that it was planned this way, but the evening rehearsal of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring begins at such a time that musicians and staff who may be taking in the St. Louis ritual of Opening Day at Busch Stadium--unless there are extra innings--can cheer the Cardinals and be back in time for Frodo.

 An early-bird view before the stadium fills and the men with the birds on the bat take the field.

Fellowship of the Ring rehearsals began Tuesday afternoon, and in my wanderings around the Hall I was amazed by the amount of big sound coming out of the auditorium--and fascinating big sound at that, with crazy free-bowing moments and wicked atonalities matched by Wagner-like furies.

From our perch in the Saturday night broadcast booth (mild-mannered lunchroom during the week, but on Saturday nights...) the St. Louis Public Radio team has one monitor giving a view of the conductor from upstage, and the other giving an audience view of the orchestra. With the camera trained on Nic McGegan, we watched his Fred Astaire--or perhaps Gene Kelly--routine. He danced to the music, with the orchestra as his partner. (Ginger Rogers or Leslie Caron? Hmmmm. I'd vote for Rita Hayworth.) At one point he stood still, one leg bent in a kind of Chaplin pose, and with one hand resting on the guard rail he maintained the beat with the other and enjoyed the show. The next time "ebullient" is listed in a dictionary, the publisher should illustrate the meaning with a picture of Nic conducting.

Chris Maue has returned with his second panel from Bloggers' Night, which gets to the matter of insecurity that bedevils audience members or potential audience members. Click. In truth, a lot of folk in the audience may be hearing a "great" work for the first time--and some of those are faking, acting as if they are connoisseurs. And then some have heard many Beethoven Four Piano Concertos over the years. It doesn't matter, of course, if you're a novice or an aficionado. Everyone is experiencing a different concert, with varying pleasures and displeasures. One is not less valid than the other (although I won't deny that one may be more interesting than the other--but that is not altogether related to experience). It's remarkable that in a land of democracy we have such trouble accepting that. Everybody should read some Walt Whitman before a concert, I think.

The St. Louis Symphony was not set up on a barge on the Mississippi on Wednesday afternoon, but it played Handel's Water Music nonetheless. Guest conductor Nic McGegan was gracious enough to allow me on stage to shoot this week's video blog. I stood next to horn players Thomas Jöstlein and Greg Roosa, so the upstage balance is a bit off.

Patrick weighs in on Bloggers' Night and gives us a B+. Read Patrick's Music Reviews. Jen tells us of her travails and discovers the healing power of music, or more accurately, the healing powers of Ligeti and Strauss. Read St. Louis Symphony 1/2.

Chris Maue's random acts of comics return to Bloggers' Night. Liszt's Mephisto Waltz had an obvious effect, as you will find by clicking here. 

The St. Louis Symphony is stricken by the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Richard Ashburner. Richard served as manager of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus for more than 20 years. He also worked closely with the Education and Community Partnerships Program, using his expertise in professional development to help musicians create effective classroom presentations in schools throughout the region.

Chris King is the first one in from Bloggers' Night, delivering a short story worthy of Raymond Chandler--a rainy night in the Strauss-accented city... Click.

Although I will add that the brilliant Ligeti-Strauss linkage was all Kalmar's. Earlier in the week he'd told me he'd done it before.

We'll be hosting our sixth Bloggers' Night this Saturday. About 10 local bloggers and their guests will experience the Zarathustra program, and then they'll blog about it and send me their posts. You'll see the links popping up here as soon as I get them.

In this week's video blog I catch the "Sunrise" in Strauss, and bass trombone player discusses the brassy virtues of the whole of Zarathustra. It's much more than a Stanley Kubrick clip.

A brass player said to me this morning: "It's great to come in here and know we're going to blow the paint off the walls."

The Link Up Concert has become an annual rite of spring at Powell Hall, even when it's not feeling very spring-like on a cold Ides of March day.

The St. Louis Symphony introduces a new item to the pastry table this week, Powell Hall Red Velvet Cake.

I encountered an upbeat group of musicians as I went on stage for this week's video blog. I hardly heard a discouraging word. All the buzz was about the ecstatic reception of the Carnegie audience.

I was pleased to see the big truck parked by the stage door and the crew unloading it when I arrived at Powell Tuesday morning.

I reached Concertmaster David Halen on a rainy Monday morning in Springfield, Massachusetts. He said it seemed as though it had been raining for 36 hours straight. "There's still a lot of snow on the ground here. I'm thinking pilgrims, 1620.

I reached Adam Crane on Bus C, near Bridgeport, Connecticut, traveling in the pouring rain Sunday morning. "People are either on their iPhones or asleep," Adam described the morning-after Carnegie landscape. "Danny Lee's reading a finance book."

Violinist Dana Edson Myers was having a very relaxing morning in her hotel room when I reached her Saturday, post-Tilles Center concert, pre-Carnegie concert. She knows Long Island's Tilles Center from performing there numerous times with Leonard Slatkin, and with Hans Vonk as well, so it has served as a kind of Carnegie warmup for the St. Louis Symphony for a long time.

St. Louis Symphony Associate Principal Oboe Barbara Orland reports cold weather in New York City. "I had to buy a pair of gloves."

What do three cellists from St. Louis do on their first morning in Manhattan? Melissa Brooks, Danny Lee and Adam Crane (Adam played cello before moving on to PR master) visited Christophe Landon's shop. Hmmm, I think I'll try that Montagnana over there. Or how about the Goffriller over here? But if the Adès' cello part is any indication, Melissa and Danny are getting in just a little bit of practice time as well.

I arrived at Powell Hall Thursday morning to see the last music cases being packed onto the climate controlled 16-wheeler. Next stop New York. Last stop Amherst.

David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony engaged in some morning Doctor Atomic Symphony business. The orchestra is performing at three venues this weekend: Friday at the Tilles Center on Long Island, Saturday at Carnegie Hall on Manhattan Island, and Sunday at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (my landlocked graduate school alma mater, although not far from the Connecticut River).

More on the separation between inside and outside at the concert hall: Part of what becomes the underlying tension within a concert is the intense concentration brought to bear on a Tchaikovsky symphony, and the contrast with the random, chaotic shout of the street. It's something like the walls in those amazing portraits by Vermeer. The interior contains such a stillness as the woman pours from a pitcher, but what is the world beyond that wall? An empire is fraying.