Symphony Preview: Mix and match

Back in the days when I was still doing a weekly show at KDHX, I loved to put together different and often seemingly unrelated songs into sets designed to highlight the relationships among them.  St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Music Director Stéphane Denève often takes a similar approach to his programming, zooming in on connections that aren’t obvious at first glance. Or at first hearing, as the case may be.

[Preview the music with my Spotify playlist.]

Berlioz in 1832 Painting by Émile Signol

You’ll witness and exceptionally fine example of this in concerts that open the new SLSO season this weekend (Friday and Sunday, September 27 and 29). The first half opens with the “Marche hongroise” (“Hungarian March”) from Part I of  the 1846 opera/oratorio hybrid “La damnation de Faust” (“The Damnation of Faust”) by Hector Berlioz (1803–1869). In the context of the full work (performed so splendidly by the SLSO in 2023), the sound of the Hungarian army tramping off to war gives Faust the opportunity to compare the enthusiasm of the soldiers with his own indifference to worldly joys. “Et quel feu dans leurs yeux,” he muses. “Tout cœur frémit à leur chant de victoire ; Le mien seul reste froid, insensible à la gloire.” (“And what fire burns in their eyes! Every heart throbs to their song of victory; Only mine remains cold, insensitive to glory.”)

Played more often as an instrumental excerpt, as it will be this weekend, it’s a rousing piece that shows off the composer’s flair for colorful orchestration. It doesn’t sound particularly Hungarian, but it’s so much fun that it hardly matters. And Berlioz wasn’t really interested in cultural fidelity anyway.

Brahms c. 1872 Photographer unknown Public Domain

More authentically Hungarian are the 21 “Hungarian Dances” by Johannes Brahms. Based mostly on Hungarian folk tunes, the dances were originally composed for piano duet and published in four sets between 1869 and 1880. They were then orchestrated by various composers, including Brahms. This weekend we’ll hear the only ones orchestrated by the composer himself: No. 1 in G minor, No. 3 in F major, and No. 10 F major (E major in the original piano version).

As George S. Bozarth and Walter Frisch write in Grove Online, Brahms was first “exposed to the style hongrois, a blending of Hungarian musical gestures and gypsy performing style…when Hungarian political refugees on their way to the USA passed through Hamburg after the suppression of the revolutions of 1848.” Which makes the local premiere of the “Nomad Concerto” by Mason Bates a logical way to conclude the first half of the program.

Composed for and premiered in January 2024 by this weekend’s soloist, violinist Gil Shaham (brother-in-law of former SLSO Music Director David Robertson), this four-movement work, as the composer writes at his web site, “explores the mysterious and soulful music of the wanderer”:

Envisioned to showcase the legendary Old World sound of Gil Shaham, the concerto is informed by a diverse range of traveling cultures from Eastern Europe to the Middle East.  In the same way that nomadic musics have continually reimagined themselves, the many styles informing the concerto are swirled together into a unique soundworld.

The ”Nomad Concerto” is too new to be available on the usual streaming sources, including YouTube, so I’m unable to offer my own impressions of the work. That said, Peter Dobrin, reviewing the world premiere for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote that “Bates in this new piece once again proves a composer unusually commanding of atmosphere and emotion.” So you now know as much about it as I do.

This won’t be the first appearance of a Mason Bates work on an SLSO program, though. His 2015 “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” got its impressive local debut by the band under the baton of Leonard Slatkin in 2023. As I wrote back then “his is an eclectic and inventive voice that is very much welcome these days. I hope to see and hear more of his work here in the future.” It looks like I got my wish.

Mason Bates Photo: Ryan Schude, courtesy of the SLSO

After intermission it’s back to Berlioz with his splendiferous 1830 “Symphonie Fantastique.” I have always loved it to pieces, despite the rather unsavory story of its origins (tl;dr: it’s the result of the composer’s amatory pursuit of the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson in a manner that would get him a restraining order these days, if not an actual prosecution). Maestro Denève conducted a bang-up reading of this work in May 2019 so I admit to looking forward to his latest thoughts on the matter.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and violinist Gil Shaham in the St. Louis premiere of the “Nomad Concerto” by Mason Bates. The concert includes Berlioz’s “Hungarian Marche” from “The Damnation of Faust” and the “Symphonie Fantastique, as well as three “Hungarian Dances by Brahms. Performances are Friday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, September 25 and 27, at the Stifel Theatre downtown.

On Saturday, September 28, at 8 pm Mason Bates, in his alter ego of DJ Masonic, joins St. Louis DJ Alexis Tucci for “Symphonie Electronique.” Described as “a genre-defying electronic dance music party with SLSO musicians and the audience,” “Symphonie Electronique” takes place at The Hawthorn nightclub on Washington Avenue downtown.