It doesn’t get much better than this.
As one who’s attended St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts for decades, it’s my judgment that it’s evolved into one of America’s great orchestras. And I’m not sure that they’ve ever played with such an arresting combination of expert musicianship and emotional expressiveness as when artistic partner Gábor Takács-Nagy is conducting.
Considering that his annual visits are for the closing concerts of the orchestra’s seasons (at least the last three), you could say that each SPCO season surges to a climactic conclusion.
Such was the case at Friday’s midday concert at St. Paul’s Ordway Concert Hall. The program could be presented as exhibit A for what’s so great about the SPCO, an ensemble that consistently offers top-shelf performances of varied repertoire, in this case a couple of U.S. premieres of new works, two early 20th-century pieces of disparate sound and spirit, and, finally, a Mozart symphony that summoned up that composer’s genius as eloquently as any interpretation I’ve heard.
Mind you, the SPCO is also outstanding with music of the baroque era (check them out when artistic partner Richard Egarr is in town), but this weekend’s program serves as feast enough for the ears and soul. And the orchestra’s musicians exude such palpable excitement and enthusiasm under Takács-Nagy’s leadership that you can feel it all the way in the back of the balcony.
These concerts feature two new pieces by Geoffrey Gordon, a composer who divides his time between the U.S. and England, but was present for these premieres. His “Gotham News” is inspired by a Willem de Kooning painting and it captured the restless character of that abstract expressionist’s art. It’s a work for strings of dark intensity, full of aggressive bowing, high cries and such haunting effects as making the instruments sound like the howling wheels of a subway train.
Acting as an oasis of wistful calm and sweet sadness was Maurice Ravel’s lovely “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” which was given a simply lovely interpretation, buoyed by the heavenly harp of Sarah Grudem and Matthew Wilson’s transporting French horn solos.
Then it was back to sounds of tumultuous intensity with Takács-Nagy’s orchestration of his fellow Hungarian Béla Bartók’s First String Quartet. The SPCO permeated the work with urgency, and Takács-Nagy proved a magnetic presence, encouraging forceful attacks by punching the air like a jabbing boxer. Expanding an intimate quartet to a work for 21 string players multiplied Bartók’s emotional intensity at least fivefold, resulting in a performance both exhilarating and draining.
