St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Concert Rebroadcasts
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Concert Rebroadcasts
Bernstein and Robertson
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Steven Mackey Turn the Key
David Robertson Light forming, a Piano Concerto (First SLSO performances)
Intermission interviews with:
David Robertson, conductor
Orli Shaham, piano
Sarah Kirkland Snider Something for the Dark (First SLSO performances)
Leonard Bernstein “The Age of Anxiety,” Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
David Robertson “…A Joyful Noise…” (First SLSO performances)
Live from Powell Hall at the Jack C. Taylor Music Center, this is the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Tonight, guest conductor and former SLSO music director David Robertson will lead the orchestra in Stephen Mackey's Turn the Key. The concert continues with Robertson's own composition, Light Forming, a piano concerto featuring pianist Orley Shahom. After intermission, the concert will continue with Sarah Kirkland Snyder's Something for the Dark and Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety, Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, featuring Orley Shaham, and will conclude with Robertson's A Joyful Noise. Good evening. I'm Rod Milam and welcome to another live broadcast of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's 2025-26 season on St. Louis Public Radio and simulcast on Classic 1073. You can listen to us online, see a copy of tonight's program notes, and much more at stlpr.org slash symphony. Now, during our intermission, we'll talk with David Robertson and Orley Shahom. Joining us right now in the broadcast booth is our commentator, Lauren Eldridge Stewart. Good evening, Lauren.
SPEAKER_03Good evening, Rod.
SPEAKER_00Lauren, I understand that the first work on tonight's program has been described as an acoustic exploration, right?
SPEAKER_03Right. Steve and Mackey composed Turn the Key for the concert that opened the night concert hall in Miami, where the New World Symphony plays. It was specially designed to highlight the capacity of a brand new venue. Mackey wrote that it has a variety of densities: small moments for solo harp and solo violin, big arrivals for the whole orchestra, clangorous percussion, silky passages for string orchestra, plucky staccato passages, brassy wind band music, intricate rhythmic interplay, dense counterpoint, and various combinations of the above. It is fitting then that the SLSO is performing it again during this first year back in Paul Hall. The first SLSO performances were in October of 2010. It also features a unique rhythm in 7-8 meter. The composer is here tonight, and I suspect that he'll share a bit more about the creation of this rhythm, but I'll elaborate a bit on what it is not. Spanish speakers and Cuban music aficionados may recognize that the key of the title Turn the Key could be translated as clave. The rhythmic pattern known as clave is pretty important across a lot of music in the African diaspora, from song and salsa to reggaeton. Mackie has noted that the rhythmic pattern he has worked through the entire composition is not that, but that the similarity in title seems appropriate, since Turn the Key does spring from a fundamental rhythm and develops by turning this rhythm around to mean different things. Mackey has collaborated extensively with tonight's conductor, former SLSO music director David Robertson. In 2008, he premiered Mackie's Beautiful Passing and performed Time Release. In 2011, he premiered Stumble to Grace. And in 2017, he conducted The Mosign's Pool.
SPEAKER_00You can see a copy of tonight's program notes at stlpr.org slash symphony. You're listening to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra live from Powell Hall on St. Louis Public Radio and online at stlpr.org.
SPEAKER_03Tonight's guest conductor, David Robertson, is a familiar figure to much of our audience, having served as SLSO music director from 2005 until 2018. He occupies the most prominent podiums in orchestral and new music and opera. He's a champion of contemporary composers and an ingenious programmer. In addition to a transformative 13-year tenure with the SLSO, he has served in numerous leadership positions, including chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, with Orchestre Nacional de Lyon, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and as protege of Pierre Boulez with Ensemble and Ticarde Temperin. He appears with the world's great orchestras such as those of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Cleveland, the World Concert Cabal Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and Leipzig Govand House Orchestra. Since his 1996 Metropolitan Opera debut, he has conducted a breathtaking range of Met projects, including the 2019 production premiere of Porgy and Bess, winning the Grammy for Best Opera Recording. In 2022, he made his Rome opera debut. This season, he also returns to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, HR Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, and the Orchestras of Dallas, Leipzig, and Vancouver, and will conduct in Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. David Robertson is the Juilliard School's Director of Conducting Studies, Distinguished Visiting Faculty, and serves on the Tianjin Juilliard Advisory Council. He concludes his three-year term this season as the inaugural Utah Symphony and Opera's creative partner. He is a Chevalier Lord des Arts et de l'Et of France.
SPEAKER_00Stephen Mackey was born in 1956 in Frankfurt, Germany, and today resides in Princeton, New Jersey. The first performance of his piece was October 6, 2006. Michael Tilson Thomas was conducting the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. The first and most recent SLSO performances were October 8th and 10th of 2010, conducted by Gilbert Varga, and the instrumentation tonight, three flutes, doubling alto flute and piccolo, three oboes, one doubling English horn, three clarinets, doubling E-flat clarinet, and bass clarinet, three bassoons, contra bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, and more. But now we have the entrance of the former SLSO music director. And we are looking forward to his return to the stage tonight, David Robertson. We are going to have the performance of Stephen Mackey's Turn the Key Next on St. Louis Public Radio. This is the St. Louis Center for the Orchestra.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Good evening. It's like you're trying to get me to tear up before we've done anything. We are very blessed this evening because we have several living composers with us. And seeing a living composer in the wild is kind of like going to a national park and going, look, it's a moose. But I'd I'd like to bring out tonight's elf, which is Stephen Mackey.
SPEAKER_02First, you should know, it's not a secret, but some of you may not know, that the composer of the first piece on the second half, Sarah Kirkland Snyder, is married to me. So, how about that? So that's even that's like a unicorn, a married couple composers on the same program. That is a rare sighting indeed. In our courtship 20 plus years ago, I used to like to make her laugh by doing a silly dance. Anybody here familiar with the Seinfeld show? Do you remember the dance that Elaine Bennis would do with with kind of all elbows and knees? I I won't do it for you. Uh might fall off the stage at this point. But um my dance sort of had the basic rhythm of ta-ta, ta, ta-ta. For those of you mathematically inclined, it's a seven-eight rhythm, which is guarantees a certain gangly quality. Uh around that time, I was commissioned to uh write a piece to open a new concert hall. And we're sort of in that situation here. This is a new, new and improved concert hall we're we're in to in this evening. And I'm gonna I'm gonna need both hands for this. So when people are checking out a concert hall, acousticians, they usually walk in and they you can hear the echo. And you can hear the transients and the different kinds of reverberation. Uh so I sort of thought, yeah, let's let's start with that. And then in my fantasy, the rhythm of my dancing for Sarah uh uh routine started to started to come into play. So now you should join along because I want you to get this rhythm into your body.
SPEAKER_00The single symphony orchestra was led by David Robertson.
SPEAKER_03And guest conductor David Robertson has invited the entire orchestra to rise and give thunderous applause. And he has also gesturing and sort of applauding up our composer for this first one, Stephen Mackey, who amounted the stage, and they've both embraced. Now Mackey is taking the hand of concerning master David Halen and also associate concept master Aaron Schriver. And Robertson is turning around one more time, gesturing towards the ensemble. Now they're exiting the stage.
SPEAKER_00Next up is David Robertson's Light Forming, a piano concerto that's featuring pianist Orle Shaham. Lauren, listeners who remember David Robertson as the SLSO music director from 2005 to 2018 might be surprised to learn that he's also a composer.
SPEAKER_03That is true. What they may not realize is that David studied composition as well as conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, but put composition on the back burner when he got his first music director position. What should not be a surprise is that David and Orley Shahim are married. Not only that, but they met in the green room of Powell Hall in January 1999 when she played a Chopin piano concerto with the SLSO. In March 2020, just as the pandemic hit, Orley asked David to write the concerto for her, and they secured a commission from the Orlando Philharmonic. The title of the concerto, Light Forming, is a play on the Hebrew version of Orley's first name. Is a three continuous movement in a typical fast, low, fast format. The first movement, when we talk about the sound of the walk, translates as the uncertain music of their voices. In David's words, the sounds people make when talking have always been fascinating to me. The musical sensation of listening to a language one doesn't speak, during subtly volatile speech sounds, gradually gives way to a focus on meaning as we become conversant in the language. It remains for poets and composers to make us once again aware of the music with its spoken words. I have always loved the line in Prose Sodom and Gamora, where he speaks of the uncertain music of their voices. Similarly, the poems of Stefan Mallamet often flicker between the sound and sense of a phrase, an inherently musical approach. My first movement takes its inspiration from the poem in his prose piece, Le Decoration Foran, and presents the piano as able to pull meaning from the spoken inflections of the side. The second movement is titled Amphora del Quare or Amphora of the Heart. It was inspired by a visit to Peton's market in the museum of the Imperial Floor in Rome. There was a Roman for clay vessels that were used to transport liquid around the Mediterranean. It takes two hands to grasp the two handles on an amphora, which led to the two-fifth of piano chords that formed the basis of the movement. And the concerto closes with rounding to joy, which is a play on the word rondo, the form of the movement. David describes how it was difficult to get past the feeling of foreboding during the pandemic, but he came to the realization that a great source of followers is the wonder and delight music can bring.
SPEAKER_00That was David Robertson's light forming of the piano concerto featuring pianist Orly Shaham. The single symphony orchestra was led by David Robertson.
SPEAKER_03And amid the enthusiastic applause, David Robertson and Orly Shahom have embraced, and now Roberts is a part of the town and take and is down. He's now turned invited to orchestra to round and is also taking it down. And already I definitely see the numbers of the audience down there. And hand in hand they are all taken down. Once again, I guess all those and just conduct our exit in the stage.
Interviews with David Robertson and Orli Shaham
SPEAKER_00A reminder, you can follow along at home with your own program notes. All you have to do is go to stlpr.org slash symphony. During the intermission, we'll have a chance to speak with David Robertson and Orley Shahan. I'm Rod Milam, and you're listening to a live broadcast of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra here on St. Louis Public Radio. Live from Powell Hall at the Jack C. Taylor Music Center, this is the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. My name's Rod Milam. Along with me is Lauren Eldrich Stewart. After rehearsal on Thursday, I had a chance to speak with David Robertson and Orley Shaham. And after hearing how both are pleased with the Powell Hall renovation, I got a chance to ask him how he chose to concentrate on conducting when he studied both conducting and composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
SPEAKER_01You know, I have two older boys from a previous marriage, and they arrived uh almost simultaneously with me taking over the group in Paris from Pierre Boulet's The Ensemble Contemporain. And with all of the scores I suddenly needed to learn and two small children to take care of, the composition went on the back burner. And then with Orley, she had this fantastic series, Orly Shahum's Bach Yard, where she introduced like three to six year olds and up to music in an active way. And of course, because Bach was so much part of this, at the ends of the pieces she would always use the same third movement of the Brandenburg third concerto. But sometimes it would be with string quartet and piano, and sometimes it would be with Woodwin Quintet and Piano. Panto Neon and uh and viberphone, which was the weirdest. And so I was in-house arranger. And it was through that that she said, you know, you enjoy this, you should really do more of it. And from that came the idea to have me write a piano concerto for her.
SPEAKER_04He actually wrote a piano quintet for me from my chamber series with a Pacific Symphony, which we premiered in, I guess it was twenty sixteen or so. Something like that. And it was so wonderful. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, this voice. And I knew he had written, but I had never really gotten to hear anything. And right around that same time, an old trombone quartet that he wrote years and years ago resurfaced, and suddenly these trombonists wanted to play it and record it. And so it was, you know, the universe was sending signs in every direction. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00And how did that concerto become the first piece of the night light forming?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Well, Orley had spoken to a colleague of ours, Eric Jacobson, and sung the praises of my ability as a musical scrivener. And so then we went back and looked at the emails, and right the day that everything shut down in COVID was, I guess, when the email came through. Yes, we'll commission it here for Orlando. And so, you know, who knew what was going to happen? But I started putting all the ideas together.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Ross Powell And the the title has something to do with my name in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00Okay, we'll explain.
SPEAKER_04So or or leans light, and Lee means mine or my my light or light for me. And if you slightly mispronounce light for me, it becomes light.
SPEAKER_01Forming. Ah. And so the full title is light forming, a piano concerto. And so there's this idea of how the light forms this type of thing. And I just love this sense of the light that Orley has brought to my life since we first met over a Chopin piano concerto. Should I say over a hot Chopin piano concerto of number one in Powell Hall back in 19 January of 1915?
SPEAKER_04Maybe 20 feet from where we're recording this right now. But in a different incarnation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so that was the sort of sense of that. And then the three movements have different connections. One is I've always loved a line in one of Proust's books where he talks about people talking in another room, and he describes it as the unstable music of their voices. And that sort of sense of how a voice is already musical, even when it's talking, sort of brought me to a poem of Stefan Mallarmé, where he introduces this wonderful figure in a prose work, and she's up on the stage and everyone is admiring her beauty. And I thought, what better analogy for Orly coming out and playing with all this beauty and everyone admiring her? And so the poet Mallarme makes up this sonnet. So I used that sonnet actually as the kind of musical material, the inflections you might have if you were speaking it to create melodies in the first movement. And then the second movement is after being in Rome and seeing all the ancient things, is very much the idea of the carrying music from one period to another, right? The amphoras were the clay vessels that they carried wine and olive oil around the Mediterranean on ships. And you need two hands to carry them. You can't carry them with one, they're too heavy. And I thought about, you know, how a pianist is sort of gripping the piano with two hands. And then the last movement, rounding to joy, is both a rondo, so there's a play on words there as well. But it's also the fact that during COVID it was sometimes very hard to find joy. And Orley brought a lot of joy to me. And so this rounding back into joy was something that that felt appropriate.
SPEAKER_00So the pandemic was certainly all-encompassing to everybody who experienced it. And you mentioned all those other things that inspired the composition of that piece, which took place during the first lockdowns. And did you actually go to Italy? Because Italy got hit particularly hard.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And when we went, it was like touch and go. The whole family went for Christmas. I was doing an the premiere of Katya Cabanova in Rome, the first time they'd done it at the Rome Opera. And we were like the day before we were going on the flight, we didn't know if if it was all still gonna happen. I think it was it was a crazy time.
SPEAKER_00Did either one of you find either inspiration or a depression of musical performances or thought or just an effect on the musical experience that you had during the pandemic?
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think so many things. Of course, the depression, of course the going back to basics. You know, we had a completely different experience of COVID, David and I, because I have an instrument I can play, and he didn't have an orchestra he could conduct until orchestras started coming back together, and that took some time. You know, for me I went back to formative things. I worked on atudes, I thought about sound, and I remember quite vividly, around the end of May 2020, I was preparing something for a gala with a friend of mine, Shai Wasner, the wonderful pianist. Of course, we couldn't be in the same space. We were doing Brahms Hungarian dances, and he recorded his part, and then I played his part and played my part on top of that, and I lost it because I realized that the thing I missed more than anything else was being able to make music with other people, being able to play chamber music. And so that in many ways shifted my entire focus, I think, you know, whether it's chamber music with an orchestra or chamber music in in smaller groups, shifted my whole way of thinking about music, about the gratitude I have being on stage, being able to work with others, you know, so much. And maybe this is also a natural part of aging and maturing, whatever that means. But, you know, I I don't care about the things that used to be so important. I'll give you an example of a very tangible thing that came out of it. One thing that I realized I missed desperately was playing with my brother Gil. That chamber music is something that we just adore doing. And at the same time, because of COVID, I suddenly had time to explore composers that I normally wouldn't have had time to explore. I discovered this beautiful Indian American composer, Rina Esmael, and I just loved her music. Uh, and I commissioned her to write a double concerto for me and Gil to play together. And, you know, the way the musical world works, we literally just premiered it last week, finally. And it's this beautiful thing, and it's so special, and it would never have existed for so many reasons pre-COVID, you know, because that time, that space that we all had to think about, what's truly important, what's really meaningful. And I think those of us who are artists really sat and said, I hope people don't forget this. Yeah. And let's be honest, most of us have most of the time, right? But if we can keep coming back to those things that we realized at that moment were were the essence. So being on this stage, I don't know how you felt, but being on this stage with these people who we love so much and and feel so warm about, um, it really doesn't get any better than this.
SPEAKER_00And David, you didn't have your usual instrument, if you will, as an output during lockdown. So how did it affect you and what you did?
SPEAKER_01You know, it was interesting because it does make you think a lot more about what it is that you want to do when you're up on the podium, right? The good thing was it was it was completely leveling. It didn't matter how famous a conductor you were, nobody was working. And that gave one time to do things, and so part of that you can hear in the composition, but a large part of it was thinking about well, wait a minute, what are the aspects of career that are important? And teach the graduate level conducting course at Juilliard, which I started right after leaving St. Louis. And so that gave me a whole lot of insight into how to help a younger conductor look at what's important in being a conductor as you make your way through the profession. And that I think was a really helpful byproduct of having to stop. One meets time as it comes to greet us, as Shakespeare said in uh one of his plays. And so came and greeted us that way. And so one had to say, ah, right, okay, come in. Here's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_00So you're both teachers. You both work at Juilliard. Why is teaching attractive to both of you?
SPEAKER_04You become so much better at what you do the minute you try explaining it to somebody else, right? Uh it's it's instant. I actually I love that we're both teaching at the moment because we talk about it all the time. We talk about our students and what they need, and we we learn from each other, even though David's students are studying conducting, which is so different than the physicality of playing piano. The psychological aspects of what we're we're trying to teach are so similar.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, the students are so inspiring and wonderful and enthusiastic and filled with that love and passion that that they should be filled with. Part of our job is to make sure they can maintain that for a lifetime career.
SPEAKER_01David, what do you think? It's very humbling because the thing is so large, and I'm very fortunate in that my class is never more than four people. And so I actually make the course according to who comes in every year. Because the personalities of the conductors are completely different. And the last thing I want to do is change that. So my job is to sort of help them become who they are. And that's a voyage of discovery that is so inspiring to watch when you can see somebody becoming a more pure version of them. To go back to Malrame, he wrote a tombou, a sort of a poem on the death of Edgar Allan Poe, and uh French is tel qu'on lui mène enfin l'éternité le change, which translates as changed by eternity into his true self. And that idea that that that is an eternal goal, right? That it's an always becoming, is something that I think is really wonderful for a student to realize that that there's not one sort of goal-oriented, there isn't a telos where you arrive here and there you there you are. It's this constant becoming and transmutation of yourself into gold, almost in an alchemical sense.
SPEAKER_04Well, and it's the thing that you and I talk about all the time, which is that in many ways our job is to help the students get out of their own way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's something that absolutely then translates into yourself as you're preparing something.
SPEAKER_00Indeed. Indeed. So, David, how have you been able to do that with at least one of your students that you've had for their entire life, one of your twin sons, and you had the chance to actually conduct a work that Alex, one of your twins with the Vancouver Symphony. What was that like, and what's it been like having that student for his entire life?
SPEAKER_01These guys are so incredibly talented. Nathan plays violin at a really high level, but then about four years ago he said, I want to learn the bassoon. And so now he's a bassoon major at Juilliard. I mean, we didn't pull any strings. This was just incredible. They only brought in two, and he was one, right? So here's this kid who can do these things. And Alex is, you know, here's something since he was a little kid, and just the physicality of the piano he understands, and the days when Alex used to ask me, Dad, what's the lowest note on a bass drumboon? Are long, long gone. It's going the other way now. It's now the other way. Alex, how do you write this in the Sibelius software program? Oh, well, here's how I do it, right? And that part is fantastic. And of course, they live in the age of the internet where everything is available, and the only limit is your curiosity. And I haven't found the limits of their curiosity yet. So they will suddenly start talking about stuff that where I go, oh gee, I guess I I should probably listen to that, you know. That aside from just the memes that we understand.
SPEAKER_04But you know, this whole next generation thing is so special and so beautiful. David and I were looking at the roster of the orchestra, you know, who's still playing, who's, you know, who's new, and suddenly we see Alejandro Valdepena, the new associate principal violist here, and we've been playing with his father for decades. Yeah. And so this very personal connection, we I thought he was still 10 years old.
SPEAKER_00And he's not 10 years old anymore.
SPEAKER_04Sounds amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know exactly. David, in our final question, looking back with your tenure with the SLSO, what are you most proud about?
SPEAKER_01That's a bigger question than I think I could answer, because there's so many things I'm proud about. You know, I think the orchestra when I came to them was in a a real sort of the bottom of a trough, which is normal in the life of an orchestra, but This one was particularly grim with Hans Fonk having to leave because of illness, and then financial problems where there were artists who were canceling on the orchestra because they said, well, you know, why should I hold this date? The orchestra isn't going to exist. And so bringing them back from that with the help of so many people in the community, you know, the tailors were essential. And, you know, Virginia Weldon, the board chair when I came on, her resolve was that of hardened steel. She was not going to let the institution falter. And it went on and, you know, had so many successful performances in Carnegie Hall, and then in recordings winning the Grammy, and then European tours, and they became practically the favorite orchestra of the West Coast in California because we went so often. So there were all of these things, and it was really this vision that I think is important for a music director to realize that the personal trajectory of every artist in the orchestra is part of your brief. And so to help them do that, whether it's with individual projects they have, or things at the Pulitzer Foundation, or it's the ability to play in the season in solo fashion, or it's the ability to go and share their music with people in other parts of the world. This is really the thing, and that we did so many of those wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00David Robertson, Orley Shaham, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you so much. That was tonight's guest conductor and former SLSO music director David Robertson, along with featured soloist Orley Shaham in conversation recorded after dress rehearsal on Thursday. Our concert tonight continues with Sarah Kirkland Snyder's Something for the Dark. And Lauren, the next work on tonight's program is a Detroit story, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03It is. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra commissioned Sarah Kirkland Snyder to write Something for the Dark in 2014. Additionally, the title of the piece comes from a poem titled For Fran by Detroit's own U.S. poet laureate, Philip Levine. And for Fran, Snyder perceived the endurance that serves as the theme of this work. Out of whatever we have been, we will make something for the dark. These two lines express the resilience that Snyder had in mind when she set out to compose a work about Detroit, but also the ambivalence and uncertainty that she encountered along the way. In her own program notes, she writes, After a brief hint of passing doubt, Something for the Dark opens with a bold, heroic statement of hope and fortitude in the horns and trombones. I think of this music as the optimism of a very young person. Initially, I envisioned this motif journeying through a bit of challenge and adversity to arrive at an even stronger, bolder version of itself. Growth, triumph, and happy ending. But that wasn't what happened. Early into its search for glory, the motif finds itself humble beyond recognition. A delicate, childlike tune in the flute, harp, and celesta arises in its stead. This new version of hope is then put through a series of challenges that roil and churn it like the sea tossing a small boat, testing it, weathering it, even taunting it with memories of its early hubristic naivete. Eventually, the music finds its way to solid ground. And though its countenance is now darkened, its heroism a distant memory, it finds a kind of clear-eyed serenity and maybe even the kind of hope that endures.
SPEAKER_00A reminder, you can follow along at home with your own program notes by going to stlpr.org slash symphony. You're listening to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra live from Powell Hall on St. Louis Public Radio and online at stlpr.org. Well, the orchestra has tuned, and we're waiting for the entrance of our guest conductor and former music director of the SLSO. Here he comes right now, and he's about to leave the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Sarah Kirkland Snyder's Something for the Dark. You're listening to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Here on the St. Louis Public Radio.
SPEAKER_03Associate Consumer Aaron Schreiber and is taking a bow. She is also applauding the orchestra for their performance of her work. Hand in hand with David Robertson, they are taking vows, and she is now leaving the stage and re entering the audience.
SPEAKER_00Our concert continues with Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety, Symphony number two for piano and orchestra, featuring pianist Orley Shaham. Lauren, this is the second work on tonight's program that is inspired by poetry.
SPEAKER_03It is. Just as Sarah Kirkland Snyder took a poem by Philip Levine as inspiration, Leonard Bernstein took the title and premise of The Age of Anxiety from the poem of the same name by W. H. Auden. Now, Auden's poem is considerably longer, and the form of Bernstein's work follows Auden's plot. There are two major parts divided into three sections each. In the prologue, three men and one woman meet in a bar in New York, likely in the mid-1940s. There's a general sense of loneliness and the titular anxiety. Listen here for the clarinets to convey those emotions. Next, in the seven ages, the characters begin to interact and debate the meaning of life in the form of thematic variations. This transitions to the next section, the seven stages, where these variations intensify. In the dirge, we have a change of location. The characters leave the bar headed to the woman's apartment to continue the party there. However, in the mask, this party has some trouble getting off the ground. Each character is trying to shake off their unease, but they all fail. Listen here for the first entrance of the pianino, which is a type of upright piano played by Peter Henderson offstage. Finally, in the epilogue, a theme which starts in the trumpet moves through the orchestra to symbolize some type of resolution, or at least a movement forward. Throughout, you may hear rhythms and sonorities that are reminiscent of jazz. This is by design, as Bernstein was writing in the 40s and later revised the work in the 60s, in both periods with an ear toward that genre. There is some debate regarding whether this work is a concerto as it features a solo pianist, or a symphony as it's titled by Bernstein. The composer was initially encouraged by a friend to try a tone poem about Auden's work. Bernstein, however, regarded it as a symphony, albeit an unconventional one. He wrote, I had not planned a meaningful work, at least not in the sense of a piece whose meaning relied on details of programmatic implication. I was merely writing a symphony inspired by a poem and following the general form of that poem. Yet when each section was finished, I discovered, upon rereading, detail after detail of programmatic relation to the poem. Details that had written themselves wholly unplanned and unconscious. If the charge of theatricality and a symphonic work is a valid one, I am willing to plead guilty.
SPEAKER_00I have a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium, is really theater music in some way.org. You can see a copy of tonight's program notes and a complete listing of SLSO broadcasts by going to our website, stlpr.org slash symphony.
SPEAKER_03You will have the opportunity to hear Orlie Shaham in a concert of chamber music tomorrow afternoon at 3 in Powell Hall. She'll be joined by Associate Concertmaster Aaron Schreiber, violist Shannon Williams, Associate Principal Cellist Melissa Brooks, Principal Double Bassist Eric Harris, Principal Clarinettist Scott Andrews, and Trumpeter George Gode, and a program including Mozart's Trio for Piano, Viola, and Clarinet in Eve Flat Major, Kegel Stott, Abner Dorman's Sextet, and Schubert's Trout Quintet. You can find more information at slso.org. Our final work on tonight's program, David Robertson's A Joyful Noise, will follow immediately after The Age of Anxiety. It takes its title from Psalm 100, Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord, and was composed for the Australian Youth Orchestra's 2025 European Tour. Robertson deliberately made its instrumentation flexible so it could be played in venues of different sizes. So this weekend's performances are the first with the full instrumentation. Listen particularly for the fancy Marimba work by principal percussionist Will James toward the end of the work. Now, a few words about our guest soloist. A consummate musician recognized for her grace, subtlety, and brilliance, pianist Orly Shaham is held by critics on four continents. She's performed with major orchestras worldwide and has appeared in recital from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. She has been artistic director of Pacific Symphony's chamber series Cafe Ludwig since 2007, and from 2022 to 24 was artist in residence at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA. In addition to this week's concert in St. Louis, season highlights include performing. Performances of light forming with the Nashville Company, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto at the Classical Tahoe Festival, and the premier performances of Rena Ismail's Concerto for Violin and Piano, commissioned with her brother, Violinist Gil Sahan. In February, she released American Tapestry, an album of chamber music with members of the Pacific Company, including works by Margaret Brouwer, Abner Dorman, Rena Ismail, and Viet Quang. Her 2024 recording of the complete Mozart sonatus received accolades worldwide, and her discography also includes an acclaimed solo album, Bronze Inspired, and John Adams of Grand Pianola music with pianist Mark Andre Hammer.
Leonard Bernstein's "The Age of Anxiety," Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra
SPEAKER_00Now for our next work, Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety Symphony number two for piano and orchestra featuring pianist Rolly Shah. You're listening to the single symphony orchestra on single radio. You just heard Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety Symphony number two for piano and orchestra featuring pianist for the Chaha. The Stipless Symphony Orchestra was led by David Robertson.
SPEAKER_03And David Robertson has a cynic on the podium and voice the cellar. And she is taking dials on the piano. And it's just going to everyone in the dollar. You want to get a setting from the podium sticking to Hyper Clock Smaster Data Killing. And a 60 Cal Semester Master and Fireball. And now here's Tahoe. Both of them are checking down and now X and State.
SPEAKER_00We're expecting David Robertson to address the audience to introduce our firework for the evening. His own composition entitled A Joyful Noise. But before that, we have a re-enter.
SPEAKER_03And now David's hands are the orthospest. Also, the Question Expanded. And now it's a Hannah Robertson, once again, taking a bow and exiting the stage.
SPEAKER_01Technically, that's the end of the program. But I've been here in St. Louis long enough to know that there are some people where the last chord means quick get to the car as fast as possible. And that always makes the people who are still applauding feel bad. Why are they leaving? So I thought I would, you know, give you some walkout music. So just so you know if your significant other really wants to leave now. You heard the whole program. This is just an extra, right? Kind of like the cheese they give you at the end of the meal. But I did want to say that probably I have had more joy on this stage with these musicians. And whenever we've traveled around than anywhere else, they are just amazing. Thank you for your support.
SPEAKER_00We just heard David Robertson's A Joyful Noise. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra was conducted by David Robertson.
SPEAKER_03Robertson has invited everyone to rise. The audience is already on their feet. And now as he takes the hand of Consertmaster David Haley and Associate Concertmaster Aaron Shriver, he prepares to leave the stage and embraces Shahom at the very edge of the stage and exits. Now he's re-entered. And is being applauded not only by the audience, but also by members, by all the members of the orchestra. He's invited them to rise once more. And it truly appears that he's savoring this special moment, this special moment of reunion and return.
SPEAKER_00Return to St. Louis and for the first time on this brand new stage in this redesigned hall, as he mentioned before in his pre-concert conversation. You're listening to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra live from Powell Hall on St. Louis Public Radio, simulcast on Classic 1073 and online at stlpr.org, a reminder that Orly Shaham will perform a chamber music concert with six SLSO musicians tomorrow afternoon at 3 at Powell Hall. More information is available at slso.org. Tonight we heard the following works: David Robertson's A Joyful Noise, Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety Symphony No. 2, featuring pianist Orley Shahom. Before that, we heard Sarah Kirkland Snyder's Something for the Dark, David Robertson's Light Foring, a piano concerto featuring pianist Orley Shahom, and we began the evening with Stephen Mackey's Turn the Key.
SPEAKER_03You're invited to join St. Louis Public Radio for the next live broadcast of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra next Saturday, March 14th, when guest conductor Anna Sukovsky Vigon will lead the orchestra in Grigina Bosevic's Orvature, Album Bericks Violin Concerto featuring violinist Leela Josefowitz and Nikolai Remsky Korsakov's Shaherazad. That's the next live broadcast of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Saturday, March 14th at 7.30 p.m. on St. Louis Public Radio.
SPEAKER_00We invite you to share your thoughts about our live broadcasts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra season. You can find us online at stlpr.org and on social media. Just search for and like the St. Louis Public Radio Facebook page. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra broadcast is produced by Mary Edwards with audio engineered by Kyle Pike. Additional assistance is provided by David Robertson, Paul Schiavo, Yvonne Frindle, Greg Monteneau, Eric Dundan, Maggie Bailey, Rachel Madison, Sam Swain, Gino Belasi, Madeline Patercala, and Alex Rice. Also, a special thank you goes to all the musicians of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Local 2197, live broadcasts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, our production of St. Louis Public Radio.
SPEAKER_03I am Lauren O. Stewart.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Rod Mylam. Please join us again next week.