Berglund leads SLSO in thrilling program with note of resisting fascism

Guest conductor Tabita Berglund led the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra through a spirited and plucky – figuratively and literally – concert this weekend at the refurbished and recently reopened Powell Hall.

Berglund and SLSO showed pluck (in the figurative sense of courage) by opening with a musical attack on Nazis and connecting that to here and now. Berglund explained that Harald Saeverud composed The Ballad of Revolt in 1943 after seeing Nazi barracks on Norway’s west coast. “We take it out whenever we see injustice being made, whenever something is not quite right,” Berglund introduced the piece. “I thought this would be a good time.” By classical music concert standards, that was like upending a piano to form a barricade.

In the SLSO premiere of this historic composition, which was first performed covertly in house concerts under Nazi occupation, Berglund wrung the most elemental sounds out of the musicians in this deeply talented orchestra. The double basses came in with such a guttural tone I heard new meaning in “scraping the bottom of the barrel.” That was a good thing, as it takes guts, fortitude in the bottoms of us, to stand up to injustice. The violas then joined the double basses, getting the most elemental sounds from the woods of their instruments.

The orchestra sucked up its guts, then rose up in revolt. The horns punctuated a surging all-strings attack, then were supported by a brash, all-brass rear flank. The orchestra finished all together in a slashing flourish, leaving no doubt that the good guys had won. As Berglund had acknowledged, one needs belief that the good guys will win at this present moment in these increasingly less United States.

For Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, which had not been heard live here in a dozen years almost to the day, Berglund and the orchestra were joined by soloist Augustin Hadelich, who had accepted a tough assignment. This is one long concerto, nearly half an hour, and Prokofiev treated the soloist as the most crucial member of the ensemble, called upon to play on most bars. A rapturous audience response showed that everyone shared my joy at Hadelich’s virtuosity over such a long and challenging journey. Seeing him perform a majestic 27-minute violin solo from memory left me feeling like I should work harder at getting better at something. 

Hadelich also showed the gift of the showman or the innate artist – maybe the same thing or both? – by staring, almost glaring, into the audience in those rare moments when Prokofiev gave him a break. It had the effect of drawing us deeper into him and his performance. Our rapturous ovation coaxed one encore out of him, “Por Una Cabeza” by Charles Gardel, arranged by the soloist himself, and Hadelich stopped at one encore out of modesty or exhaustion, though the crowd kept asking for more.

Berglund, the orchestra and the soloist got plucky, in a literal sense, performing the Prokofiev. Violin Concerto No. 2 has more plucks per note than any piece of music I have ever heard. The violas plucked through many episodes of the concerto, at times joined or responded to by the violins. Even the soloist got into the string-plucking act. At one point, Hadelich ripped notes out of his 1744-vintage violin by finger so fiercely that I wondered if Geoff Seitz might need to be called in for emergency fiddle repair. 

I also wondered if the Prokofiev had been programmed in a seasonal spirit. The composers who score horror films must have this concerto on speed dial. A certain screechy tremolo effect that I helplessly associate with horror cinema permeated the performance. It made me wonder what Alfred Hitchcock was filming in 1935, when this concerto was premiered in Madrid, but it was nothing with music anywhere near this interesting. That lie ahead in a future Prokofiev had imagined.

In the closing piece, Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D major, I could really hear how the guest conductor worked with and finessed the orchestra and maybe even the refurbished concert hall. The new Powell Hall has sounded more live than before the renovation, presenting new challenges in balancing the sound, particularly between sections. Given that SLSO has made no new acoustical changes to the hall since the season opened, Berglund and the band must have worked together to tame the monster of this thrillingly live room. However, the selections for this program had relatively little propulsive or bright-toned percussion, the elements that have somewhat overwhelmed the woodwinds (especially) in the first concerts in the new hall, so that could help explain it.

Symphony No. 2 is a long (more than 45 minutes) and wild ride of music. Sibelius and Berglund drew the orchestra to silence so many times I lost count, and where they went from silence kept changing in unpredictable ways. I began to feel awe for an orchestra that could go dead on the tracks, over and over again, only to nose-dive straight down or be jolted straight up into a flat-back vertical ascent to yet another perilous height. If designers of theme parks have not studied this symphony, then they should, and I would buy a ticket to that ride.

Conductors probably get too much or too little credit for how musicians perform under their direction. I grew up a Leonard Slatkin guy and have been a fan of every succeeding music director of SLSO, and of course love that Leonard is back in town too, but I thought Berglund brought a new crispness out of this orchestra on Saturday night. If a guest conductor wanted to program a show piece illustrating command of an enormous dynamic range – emotional, textural, melodic – and uncountable number of dead starts and stops, then Sibelius 2 would be your ticket to ride. 

The meticulous yet passionate performance of this complex and adventurous music had me bouncing in my seat and feeling an intense musical variant of patriotism. I thought of Norwegian anti-fascists premiering Prokofiev in house concerts under Nazi occupation. I knew what awaited us outside the concert house walls, but inside those walls, we were and are blessed with some of the greatest live music in the world.

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