This week's smashing St. Paul Chamber Orchestra program begins and ends with Franz Schubert. Conductor Roberto Abbado concludes his third season as an SPCO artistic partner with Schubert's most imposing public music, the C-Major Symphony of 1825-26, dubbed the "Great." ("Big" would be a better translation of the German grosse, which is meant to distinguish the piece from the more modest C-Major Symphony of 1817-18, but both adjectives apply.)
The hors d'oeuvre is the winsome "Rosamunde" Overture, rescued by the composer from a failed opera, "The Magic Harp."
Between Schubert and Schubert comes Leon Kirchner's absorbing Concerto for Violin, Cello, 10 Winds and Percussion (1960). The Brooklyn-born Kirchner -- also the author of a failed opera, based on Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King" -- turns 89 later this month. He belongs to a dwindling band: He's one of the surviving pupils of Arnold Schoenberg, who died in 1951. Dense yet lucid, Kirchner's work, like his teacher's, carries on an animated conversation with the musical past.
One could hardly wring more color from 16 players than Kirchner does in this two-movement concerto, which entwines energy with something close to ecstasy. Soloists Stephen Copes and Ronald Thomas, both superb, are especially persuasive in the piece's dream-like sequences. The whole ensemble seems plugged into the expressive core of Kirchner's post-tonal writing and, under Abbado's meticulous direction, takes the composer's constantly shifting meters in stride.
Friday's account of the "Great" was just that. Though understanding that this symphony is no less rhythm-driven than Beethoven's supercharged Seventh -- Schubert generates vast structures from minute rhythmic cells -- Abbado's priority is lyricism. This pays particular dividends in the second movement, which begins with a cheerless march, climaxes in sheer terror and then, after stunned silence, retreats to a kind of wounded song. It's as staggering as any music I know, and I've never heard it better played.
Abbado's reading is old-fashioned in the best sense: flexibly paced, exquisitely phrased. Although the work is traditionally the property of large orchestras, he makes a compelling case for performing it with SPCO-sized forces, which let the winds show their colors yet can still make plenty of noise. And when the conductor's baton went sailing into the orchestra, adding a bit of extra emphasis, the moment -- the very end of the first movement -- seemed perfectly chosen.
Larry Fuchsberg is a St. Paul writer.
