SPCO: Musician Appreciation Concert (March 1, 2025)

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra hosted its Seventh Annual Musician Appreciation Concert at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts. A quick chat with staff helped describe this unique event, where all proceeds for the evening go directly to the musicians of the Chamber Orchestra, a decidedly pro-worker stance. It’s also a great reminder of the rarity of the fact that the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra does not have a conductor, but is artist led. In a clever bit of whimsy, the printed program set the evening up as a musical dinner menu, starting with antipasti and working through the meal to the dolce.

The first piece was the overture to L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers), by Giaochino Rossini. Rossini is celebrated for his overtures, with The Barber of Seville being his most famous. The Chamber Orchestra drew the audience in right away as this piece starts with quiet plucking of the strings and an oboe solo (Cassie Pilgrim). It was fun to watch the Chamber Orchestra lean into the joyous crescendo and run through the paces of this light and airy number (the larger composition is a comedic opera).

Next up was Asante from Symphony No. 2 from Franz Schubert. It is mind blowing to me that Schubert created over 1500 works even though he died at the age of 31. Just a tremendous artistic output. A strings heavy start is followed by several wind instruments joining along. The joining of the lower strings was fun to visually watch, as they are on opposite sides of the stage, and that depth of tone was excellent. In fact, the whole number highlighted different aspects of the orchestra, as woodwinds took over from the lower strings in the next variation of the theme. A dramatic change of pace in the middle let the Chamber Orchestra be dramatic, and they nailed it.

The final number before intermission was Henryk Wieniawski’s Scherzo-tarantelle, composed in 1885. Wieniawski was a composer and accomplished violinist, who created a number of well-regarded violin pieces. And indeed, a number of orchestra members vacated their spaces, leaving only the strings to perform this piece. This featured viola player Lisa Sung and was a vibrant and complicated number. The stylistic runs highlighted Sung’s outstanding capabilities and the rest of the strings get their moments of support. Given the night’s focus on appreciating the musicians, this was an inspired choice and the audience burst into a standing ovation at its conclusion.

The longest piece of the evening was Symphony No. 34, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Written in 1779 in his last years in Salzburg, it has three movements, and is scored for oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, timpani and strings. It starts with a bang (I think the proper term is a “fanfare”), and is unmistakably Mozart. The Chamber Orchestra showed their ability to precisely control volume and pace through the opening movement. The overlapping but distinct themes from the strings and woodwinds was a pleasant back and forth. Musically, this seems to travel some similar roads, but it’s going places rather than repeating variations. The second movement starts slower and lighter (just strings) and the orchestra handled the change well. It neatly bounces along at an unhurried pace and was very soothing. The final movement regains the more sprightly tempo of the first movement and gave us a featured oboe. The last sections feel like a train coming into the station, punctuated by the woodwinds and timpani.

The final number was Hungarian Rondo composed by Zoltán Kodály in 1917. Kodály was a musical education as well as composer, whose very first principle is that “music is for everyone”. This number was inspired by Hungarian soldier’s music in WWI. Some enjoyable woodwinds accentuate the main melody. It takes a decidedly left turn into an Eastern European folk music feel at several pints, but always returns to that strong orchestral violin sound. In fact there’s a series of change in musical direction and was a great way to highlight the Chamber Orchestra and give the audience a toe tapper of a song to end on.