Chamber music is basically house music – music played in private chambers as opposed to in a concert hall. The performance by St. Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians curated by Jelena Dirks, principal oboe, and Peter Henderson, principal keyboard, at the Sheldon Concert Hall on Thursday, April 24 was about as down-home as virtuosic classical musical will ever be.
Henderson played a melodic overdose of notes – until they stopped, dead. This was a program of music with breathtaking dead stops.
The most striking moment came near the end of the concert, when what Henderson called “the whole band” was onstage. He and Dirks were joined by the rest of a wind quintet: Jennifer Nitchman (flute), Scott Andrews (principal clarinet), Julia Paine (bassoon) and Tod Bowermaster (horn). They were busting through Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet (1932), which is a carnivalesque romp until it, suddenly, isn’t. While the band was still romping, in the pause before the third movement, Henderson suddenly starting talking to the audience. The audience already had broken the fourth wall by applauding after the first movement, but it was so shocking to hear a classical musician speak in the middle of the composition that I did not hear a word he said.
The gesture was intimate and familiar, something a musician might do while performing in private chambers, at home. That is what the SLSO’s Live at the Sheldon series, which concluded its second season with this concert, is all about.
In another strikingly precious moment, co-curator Dirks set aside her oboe – which she plays well enough to serve as principal with an endowed chair for one of the world’s greatest orchestras – and joined Henderson at the keyboard for a set of piano four hands, the quintessential house music. When do you ever see piano four hands played by two symphony musicians on a concert stage? When one of them is moonlighting (expertly) on a second instrument?
Dirks said that she and Henderson approached the juicy assignment of curating this concert together “like kids in a candy store,” and a childlike, at times antic, joy possessed Henderson, in particular, throughout the concert. He is one of the orchestra’s more expressive players, but he is usually hidden behind the piano, which is shrouded by other sections of musicians. At the Sheldon, at home, we could follow along as he reacted to all of the music’s changes and the continually sparkling performances of the musicians he and Dirk hand-picked to play with them.
Play can be serious business. Though they curated a program of light and uplifting music (thankfully, given the chaotic tenor of our time), they assigned themselves some challenges. Without a word of introduction, Dirks opened the program, alone, performing one of Gilles Silvestrini’s Six Etudes for Oboe. I went into that performance being aware of something called math rock. I have now heard math oboe.
Henderson got his virtuosic turn out of the way playing solo on the second piece, Jeux d’eau (1901) by Maurice Ravel. It sounded like he was playing with additional fingers, even additional hands. Yet, like Dirks’ math oboe, his virtuosity did not come at the expense of melody. Henderson played a melodic overdose of notes – until they stopped, dead. This was a program of music with breathtaking dead stops.
Interestingly, they programmed a trio – Florent Schmitt’s Sonatine en trio for Flute, Clarinet and Piano (1935) – that did not include a part for Dirks on oboe. Following the first half of the program, which featured solos and duets, this piece sounded like the Platonic form of a trio: this is what it sounds like when three people play music together at the same time. Andrews played clarinet – physically – in ways that mirrored how Nitchman played flute physically. There was an odd effect of two birds facing each other in flight as they played this joyous music.
One of the many joys of the Live at the Sheldon series is that these concerts feature the world premiere of a student composition through a collaboration with the Mizzou New Music Initiative. This concert featured the world premiere of waves on the shore for piano and wind quintet by Yoell Tewolde, so youthful he looked quite literally like a kid at a candy store as this sextet delivered a subtle, supple, dexterous and resonant premiere of his musical reflections on ocean waves he glimpsed in Eritrea.
This kid wrote tasty parts for all six players. Andrews leaned in on clarinet like he was having fun playing fresh material. Julia Paine on bassoon was a revelation. Andrews co-curated the very first Live at the Sheldon concert with principal bassoon Andrew Cuneo, who – because of his talent, not any bombast – tends to suck all the air out of the bassoon section. I will be looking and listening for Paine from now on.
Co-curator Dirks paid this embryonic composer the highest compliment one could hope for from the principal chair at a world-class symphony: “If you write another one with oboe, let me know!”