Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall with Christian Zacharias

My chamber orchestra weekend was rounded out this afternoon with the Orchestra of St. Luke's concert at Carnegie Hall, led by pianist-conductor Christian Zacharias in a program of C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven, B.A. Zimmermann, and Schumann.   I thought this would be a great occasion for some comparison between two of NYC's leading chamber orchestras, but it is like comparing apples and oranges.  St. Luke's is a slightly undersized symphony orchestra.   They had 10 first violins on stage, and other strings in proportion, including 4 double basses, while Orpheus had only 6 firsts, size proportional down to 2 double basses.  In light of the repertory being played, Orpheus was also much lighter on the winds, with no trombones or tuba and but a pair of horns to St. Luke's 5 in the Schumann symphony.

I was also interested to note the overlap in personnel.  Sighting some familiar faces in the band, I compared personnel lists when I got home and found that five St. Luke's musicians on stage this afternoon were also on stage last night with Orpheus.  (I had sent an email to Orpheus E.D. Graham Parker, an acquaintance from my synagogue, asking about some Orpheus players listed in the program whose bios were missing from the Orpheus website, and was told they were "guest artists."  So I guess five members of St. Luke's were guest artists of Orpheus yesterday....)  There is a pool of very talented freelance classical musicians in New York, and they show up in the various orchestras at the around town, playing in the theater district, for the dance companies, for City Opera and the other various orchestras that don't have full employment seasons like the Met Orchestra or the NY Philharmonic.  So it's not a surprise that there is this overlap.

But the overlap doesn't take away from the distinctiveness of these two ensembles.  Size makes a difference.  It also makes a difference that Orpheus works without a conductor.  St. Luke's does not appear to have a musical director-conductor at present, but they have guest conductors at each of their concerts. Zacharias, who led the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 from the keyboard, stood before the orchestra to conduct the remainder of the program this afternoon.

They began with an early symphony by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.  It is rare for us to hear a C.P.E.  Bach symphony played in an orchestral concert in New York, but it should not be.  This talented son of J.S. Bach wrote some very interesting orchestral music.  I used to think ill of him, based on scant acquaintance, but I began to listen more systematically as I was acquiring the volumes of the new critical edition scores being published by the Packard Institute.  Now I think he deserves to get much more exposure.  The Symphony in Eb Major, Wq 179, is typical of his early production: a bustling first movement, a lyrical interlude for the second movement that tends to wander a bit, and a brief dance-like finale.  The orchestra played with gusto and without a harpsichord continuo (which can be heard in most C.P.E. Bach symphony recordings but was not missed here).  More, more, more....

Zacharias gave a smooth, mainstream reading of the Beethoven, and the orchestra played well for him.  Despite the size of the orchestra, there was a feeling of intimate interchange between pianist and orchestra and no lack of coordination.

After intermission, St. Luke's seemed to imitage the Orpheus programming by beginning with a piece for winds without the string section.  Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Rheinische Kirmestanze for 13 Winds sounded to me like Julius Fucik on modernist stereoids.  That is, it felt like circus music with wrong notes and ironic gestures.  The wind players of St. Luke's were very attentive, but I thought a mite humorless.  This is clearly intended to be some sort of 'put-on,' and they looked as if they were not 'in' on the joke.

Finally, Schumann's Rhenish Symphony, for which this ensemble was exactly the right size.  As in the Beethoven, I thought this was a very mainstream reading, no exaggerations of tempo or phrasing, just solid middle-of-the-road Schuman.

One could ask whether it makes sense to give a concert of good, solid, middle-of-the-road Beethoven and Schumann these days.  These pieces have been played to death, and at the same time neither Orpheus nor St. Luke's played anything by living composers this weekend.  It's been several decades since Stravinsky or Zimmermann walked the earth.  I don't begrudge the performance of any good music, and obviously these pieces should be heard from time to time, but I wish we had more contemporary pieces mixed in.  (To be fair, Orpheus has played some commissioned pieces over the past few years.)  I want to encourage them to mix more contemporary music into their schedules.  By all means, include at least one standard repertory piece on a program, but also aim to have something by a living composer....  Audiences in Beethoven's time would not stand for a concert made up entirely of the works of composers long dead, so why should we?  And how will the repertory be refreshed if contemporary works are not played?  Of course many of them will turn out to be duds, but the only way to find out and to discover the "keepers" is to play the stuff!!!