Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Stéphane Denève leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in Vienna, Austria, March 23.
Chris Tantillo likes to get lost sometimes. Clad in a hoodie at a cafe table in Vienna's Intercontinental Hotel on Friday morning, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra violist is describing some of the things that set easily navigable Missouri apart from the Austrian capital, where the SLSO began its European tour the previous evening.
"It's a little more confusing to get around. Thank God for Google maps, which helps a lot," he muses. "But, that being said, there's also something to be said for just walking and just not really worrying about where you're going and just looking around and … just taking it all in. Instead of just going straight [to your destination], you pass by the basilica dome, or you see the beautiful fountain in the square, or just walk down a little cobblestone, hundreds-of-years-old road."
Tantillo is pleased after performing a program by three composers who left their homes for long stretches abroad: Grieg, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov, the latter two of whom spent significant time in the United States in the 20th century.
Opening with Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges suite Thursday evening, the orchestra, under the baton of music director Stéphane Denève, kicked off its Vienna performance with a piece that could come off as emotionally flat with some groups, transforming it for the better. Contrasts in both dynamics and tempi were clear and buoyant, even in the very back row of seats on the top balcony at the Wien Konzerthaus. It was obvious that Denève loved this condensed suite, having conducted the full opera in the Netherlands.
After a slightly lengthy setup period—possibly a rare logistical hiccup in an otherwise smooth-so-far touring process—the orchestra backed soloist Víkingur Ólafsson in the Grieg piano concerto. In an interview with St. Louis Magazine earlier in the week, Denève had noted that Ólafsson took a somewhat nontraditional, "Lisztian" approach to the piece, and while that wasn't always immediately apparent in the hall, it was definitely audible in the first movement's rumbling, virtuosic cadenza. The group kept up with Ólafsson's at-times-liberal rubato admirably.
Photo courtesy of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performed two encores with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in Vienna.
Finally, the concert's program closed with Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, which, while perhaps somewhat less rehearsed than the other two works—Denève described as it being "a little bit more repertoire"—still constituted an incredible performance. Tantillo says the Rachmaninov may be his favorite of the three pieces.
"It's so massive; it's such a big sound world, and I don't think I had ever experienced anything quite like it before [when I first played it in high school]," he said of the composition, which includes ensemble piano, solo saxophone, and contrabassoon. "Also, the viola parts are pretty juicy in that one too, so it's gratifying to play."
With the exceptions of a few extremely rare moments—a woodwind squeak here, a slightly-less-supported quiet passage in the brass at the end of a long phrase—the playing was of an enormously high caliber, fitting for the United States' second-oldest orchestra. The audience responded accordingly, with audible shouting and extended applause prompting three encores: Piano pieces by Kaldalóns and Rameau, and an orchestral piece by Bizet.
The orchestra will play the same program in its other European stops over the next week.
That the hall was nearly full—the official report was 1,500 seats sold out of 1,800—was indicative of a respectful interest by audience members in the Austrian capital, especially for an orchestra that quick lobby interviews showed most had never heard before. Orchestras in Cleveland, Chicago, Boston and New York were more likely American touchstones for the crowd, based on informal polling, though both St. Louis and Pittsburgh made one-off appearances in the tally.
Still, the empty seats spoke perhaps of a lack of full recovery in audience numbers after COVID-19 in a city that is arguably the world capital of orchestral performance, where Denève says citizens' identities "are very intertwined with classical music."
For some, pianist Ólafsson—who also has engagements this season with, among others, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and philharmonic orchestras in Czechia, New York, London and Berlin—was the main draw.
"I saw him seven years ago," said Austrian audience member Monika Reitsmaier when asked about Ólafsson. Does she consider herself a fan of his? "Ein Fan?" A small wink, or maybe just my imagination. "Ja."
Tour Timeline
March 16 – Concert at Powell Hall with Stéphane Denève and Víkingur Ólafsson, cargo trunks packed post-concert
March 17 – SLSO cargo departs for Vienna via Chicago and Luxembourg
March 21 – Orchestra departs St. Louis for Vienna, Austria, via Chicago
March 23 – Concert in Vienna, Austria (Vienna Konzerthaus)
March 24 – Potential school visits and networking event with U.S. Embassy and guests
March 26 – Concert in Brussels, Belgium (BOZAR, finale of the Klara Festival)
March 27 – Concert in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (Muziekgebouw Eindhoven)
March 28 – Concert in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Concertgebouw)
March 30 – Concert in Madrid, Spain (Auditorio Nacional de Musica)
March 31 – Orchestra returns to St. Louis via Atlanta
