Saturday, November 1, 2025
Powell Hall at the Jack C. Taylor Music Center, North Grand Boulevard, St Louis, Missouri
Start-times and time-differences lost me the first half of this St. Louis Symphony concert – Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – but I arrived in time, following Detroit, for Rachmaninov Two, if only just, helped by Szeps-Znaider playing an encore (I imagine, otherwise it was a long first half) and Gerstein not playing one. Stéphane Denève’s conducting of Rachmaninov Two was impressive and idiomatic, as was the response of the SLS in music that is part of its DNA, especially during Leonard Slatkin’s directorship, concertmaster David Halen a constant from then to the present, and since then, we were informed, it was Slatkin who conducted the most-recent SLS account of it, in 2017 (and also earlier this year in Tokyo, below). Denève and SLS traversed the brooding and spacious opening to the summit-arriving ultimate coda with flair and affinity, embracing a first-movement exposition (not repeated) of integrity, a pulsating development, and an exciting end, thankfully played as writ, lower strings alone. The middle movements were particular highlights: a scintillating Scherzo, and a soulful slow movement, big-hearted, introduced by a lovely clarinet solo. I’m glad I was able to stay awake!
Concert played again this afternoon at 3 o’clock.