The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra opened its return to the renovated Powell Hall with three fanfares and two commissioned world premieres. If that sounds like making a lot of noise, then you should have heard it inside the concert hall. After two seasons of shows at the Touhill Performing Arts Center and the Stifel Theatre, it was startling to be reminded what a loud room this is (and the renovation may have made it more so). And these fanfares, dominated by brass and percussion, were loud pieces. This was live, loud music.
The first commissioned world premiere was the last of the three fanfares: Fanfare for Universal Hope by James Lee III (born in 1975), a go-to composer for musical director Stéphane Denève (and one of the most accomplished contemporary Black composers). Judging by the premiere performance, percussionists have the most to hope for in this universe, as this four-minute blast is a dream for musicians who hit things rhythmically with sticks. A gong, in particular, played in resonant counterpoint to the strings as the orchestra drove to the conclusion, at which point Lee joined Denève and the band onstage to celebrate the premiere and its occasion.
The first sounds that rang publicly in the new space was Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland (1900-1990). It’s like Copland said, “Hold the strings and winds,” writing only for percussion (big bass drum, gong, timpani) and enough brass players to field a football offense plus a kicker and punter. There were enough brass players (15) to field a football defense, too, but nobody was playing defense: this was big, brash, molar-crunching music on the attack.
In between the two, the orchestra played Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1 by Joan Tower (born in 1938). Neither as bombastic as Copland nor as idiosyncratic as Lee, Tower’s piece (also for only percussion and brass) slipped somewhat between the cracks of the fanfare medley. I found myself looking around and noticing things like Denève was more tightly barbered than usual. He did not have enough mane to have his locks go rogue in the air as he whipped his baton.
The second commissioned world premiere was House of Tomorrow by Kevin Puts (born in 1972 in a little river city called St. Louis). This was a choral piece (written for Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano) that enabled the St. Louis Symphony Chorus (directed by Erin Freeman) to share in the reopening festivities. After the fireworks of the fanfares, it was good to hear silky strings and plaintive woodwinds, now audible, fill the concert hall. Being able to hear the entire orchestra playing all together as an ensemble served as a second opening of the concert and season.
House of Tomorrow is a medley of five songs with a book adapted by the composer from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). The language, projected above the stage, was so powerful it shaped my experience of the music. “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,” the chorus sang, “the more joy you can contain.” I thought that, given the sorrow and terror and dread of America in 2025, our capacity for joy must really be expanding. I was struck that the most peaceful and pastoral piece, “Of Work,” was the work song. Redeeming sorrow and ennobling work – these felt like good messages to send out into a damaged world in much need of repair.
The concert closed with A Hero’s Life, an epic tone poem in six movements by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). This performance was a feast of textured, articulated, responsive and resonant ensemble musicianship. Strauss nurtured ensemble playing by writing so many tasty features for so many instruments. The orchestra pulsed with Strauss’ love for individual instruments and his generosity toward musicians. The players danced in their seats and with their instruments. Denève flourished an entire 180-degree arc in cueing all the features.
One musician, however, stood out, though she stayed seated: Erin Schreiber, assistant concertmaster, took the violin solos, which at times were so clustered it was difficult to understand why she was not standing in a soloist’s spotlight. I would be hard-pressed to name an emotion she and Strauss did not wring from those four strings. Denève was so transported at one point he sawed his baton like her fiddle bow – the conductor, in essence, played air violin. One musical surprise, to me, was the screechy, edgy, upper-register playing I associate with more experimental contemporary music. The creative noise-makers of today are playing in Strauss’ giant shadow.
A Hero’s Life, in its concept, has martial metaphors, and as such the concert hall rang with yet more fanfares, more slashing brass and booming percussion. I swear I heard machine guns. When I thought that must be an anachronism, I looked it up and it is not. The first machine gun, the Maxim gun, was invented in 1884, and Strauss conducted the premiere of this piece in 1899. Given all the sorrow and pain repeating firearms continue to inflict, the Maxim gun is nothing to celebrate, like the reopening of a great concert hall, though I admired the keen musicianship that created these effects.
As the orchestra struck the last note, from the mostly quiet crowd a cell phone sounded its mindless ring tone, and the conductor had to hold the band from concluding the performance until the electronics were silenced. In welcoming a capacity crowd back into Powell Hall, Denève had said it was “our house.” One concert-goer took him a little too literally.
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