Symphony Review: Hanzhi Wang takes the accordion to new levels in world premiere concerto

This past Saturday, January 11^th, Opera Theatre’s Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari led the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) in a program consisting of “The School for Scandal Overture,” Op. 5, by Samuel Barber (1910–1981); the Symphony No. 9, Op. 95, “From the New World” by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904); and the world premiere of the Accordion Concerto by contemporary American composer Nina Shekhar (b. 1995). As a powerful argument for the value of diversity, musical and otherwise, it was hard to beat.

[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]

Daniela Candillari Photo courtesy of the SLSO

Written when Barber was still a student at the Curtis Institute in 1931, the “Overture” was intended not as a curtain raiser for a production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1777 comedy but rather as a stand-alone musical picture of the play’s themes. That made it an exemplary match for someone with Candillari’s extensive theatrical background. And, in fact, her reading strongly accented the emotional contrasts in Barber’s score, which ranges from the playful to the lushly romantic.

The strings and winds gave just the right pointillist punch to the spikey theme that surely represents the gossipy Sir Benjamin Backbite, while Cally Banham’s English horn warmly introduced the theme that reminds me of the May/December romance between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle. The Touhill’s concert hall doesn’t have a curtain, but this was nevertheless an excellent curtain raiser.

Shekhar’s concerto was up next. As Candillari told us from the podium Saturday night, this remarkable piece was the genesis of the entire program in that it’s the work of a young American composer (like Barber) that is strongly influenced by the music of a different culture (Bohemia, in Dvořák’s case). For Shekhar, a first-generation Indian American, that influence is the tradition of the musical form of the raga and the harmonium, a hand-pumped reed organ that is often used in Indian music. “I have always loved the accordion’s reedy timbre,” writes the composer, “particularly because it reminded me of the harmonium.”

Hanzhi Wang Photo: Matt Dine

Given that Dvořák also wrote for the European harmonium (in his “Bagatelles,” Op. 47), that closes the circle.

The concerto opens with the unearthly sound of a wine glass stroked by wet fingers (the vérillon, the basis for Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica), backed up by bowed vibraphone. We hear the descending three-note motif (A-G-F) that will become the basis of the first half. This quickly becomes embedded in a musical mist reminiscent of Charles Ives’s “The Housatonic at Stockbridge.” Finally the accordion enters with elaborate riffs on the basic motif and everything slowly climbs one of several big orchestral summits before subsiding and finally going tacet to make way for a virtuoso cadenza for the accordion.

The music then shifts into a more anxious mood with a repeated motoric motif in the strings. The accordion picks it up, at which point it begins to sound not unlike the “train” sound so popular with blues harmonica players (not surprising, since both the accordion and harmonica produce their sound in essentially the same way). There’s another massive orchestral build that includes a variety of instrumental techniques (string harmonics, glissandi, tone clusters, etc.) once regarded as unconventional but that now seem to be part of every composer’s toolbox. It all fades away except for a sweet little duet for the accordion and viola (nicely done by Beth Guterman Chu), after which the concerto ends with accordion trills that slowly dwindle to silence.

Like many newer works for full, post-Wagner orchestra (80 players, more or less), the concerto makes major technical demands of the orchestra and conductor. Hats off to Candillari and the band for pulling this off with such assurance. The big climaxes still sounded, at least from my seat in the first floor boxes, like a Phil Spector “wall of sound” on steroids, so I can just imagine what a challenge it would be to both play and listen carefully in the orchestra.

A laurel wreath is also due soloist (and co-commissioner) Hanzhi Wang. Playing a high-end Pigini button accordion, she dazzled in the rapid solo passages and positively crooned in the more intimate moments. She and Shekhar worked closely on the development of the concerto so it’s perhaps not surprising that it fits her like a custom-tailored suit, but even so this was a stunning performance.

Nina Shekhar and Daniela Caldilari

As to the concerto itself, I’ll admit to initially finding it fascinating and even, in the more meditative first half, mesmerizing. The technical skill involved in creating the work was impressive, but it somewhat wore out its welcome for me before its 23 minutes (or thereabouts) were up. I would expect to see this making the rounds of many of the major orchestras for a while, but I’m not so sure of its long-term survival.

Like the Barber overture, Dvořák’s “New World” is a work of marked dramatic contrasts and here, again, I think Candillari’s operatic experience came in handy. Her change of emphasis for each appearance of the first movement’s lyrical second theme made it a kind of musical punctuation mark that added clarity to the symphonic structure. The Largo second movement, with its familiar English horn solo (nicely done by Cally Banham), had a strong sense of melancholic longing. The Allegro con fuoco finale was especially commanding, with a wide emotional range and fine playing all around.

The SLSO has a pretty solid history with the Dvořák Ninth in recent years, with world class performances by Stephanie Childress in 2022 and former Music Director David Robertson in 2014 and 2017. Candillari kept that tradition alive Saturday night.

Next at the SLSO: Music Director Stéphane Denève conducts an all-Ravel program Friday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm, January 17 and 19. Kirill Gerstein is the soloist in the Concerto in G and the Concerto for the Left Hand. The orchestra opens the program with the “Mother Goose Suite” and concludes with the ever-popular “Bolero.” Performances take place at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The Friday concert will be recorded for rebroadcast on Saturday, January 18, on St. Louis Public Radio and Classical 107.3.