The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra goals for the top, the soul and the center in its latest concert, with three pieces of music that grapple with big questions, interrogate the spirits and channel great feeling. The orchestra performed this system at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church on Thursday evening before heading to the Ordway Hall. With a mesmerizing solo by principal cellist Julie Albers, intriguing explorations of dissonance, recorded music and dialectic melodies, the music creates a moody, thoughtful evening.
The orchestra begins with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 22, often called “The Philosopher” Symphony. Its first movement was written as a dialogue between two French horns and two English horns, an instrument from the oboe family that had recently been invented when Haydn wrote the piece.
Principal oboe player Cassie Pilgrim, in her opening remarks, said the music was meant to be a conversation between the angels (the English horns) and mortals (French horns). “Haydn himself said it was like a conversation between God and an unrepentant sinner,” she said.
The melody is underscored by a series of pulsing broken chords, and the sound of a harpsichord adds a stately flourish. Ponderous and searching, the primary movement lays solution to the faster-paced Presto movements, with a flirtatious Menuetto (a French dance form) in between. Throughout, Pilgrim and fellow oboist Sarrah Bushara, together with horn players Matthew Wilson and Michael Petruconis, imbue the piece with a dynamic energy.
For the second piece, the SPCO performs “Magnum Ignotum,” (The Great Unknown). Written by Giya Kancheli, a composer born within the Soviet Republic of Georgia who moved to Germany after which Belgium after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the work incorporates Georgian folk music recordings in its reflection of awe.
A solo chant opens the work, and the recorded singer is soon joined by bassoon and clarinet. Kancheli plays with dissonance within the music, yet a melancholy sweetness prevails throughout. Ten wind instruments and a double bass make up the orchestration, with bassist Zachary Cohen mimicking the sound of upper string instruments at times, as he plays on the very fringe of the fingerboard.
Other recordings of vocal folk music are interspersed within the brooding piece stuffed with aching pauses, startling trills and echoes. It’s eerie, discordant music in quest of the wild places beyond the reach of our understanding. It concludes with the mysterious sound of faraway bells.
Albers, who joined the school of the distinguished Recent England Conservatory in Boston earlier this 12 months, had her powers on full display as she took on Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, in a brand new arrangement for chamber orchestra by Iain Farrington. Albers’ wealthy vibrato and expressive bowing made the music sing, and in the fast sections, her agile fingers moved through the notes with effortless grace.
The music has luxurious legato sections and boisterous cadenzas, plus intriguing pizzicato. Albers digs into the strings, almost shredding them like a heavy metal guitar at times.
A flop when it first premiered in 1919 because of lack of rehearsal time, Elgar’s Cello Concerto eventually became a beloved cello solo, partially because in capable hands, it’s a tour de force for the cellist. That’s what happens within the case of this performance.
In case you go
Who: The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
What: Julie Albers plays Elgar’s Cello Concerto
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12
Where: The Ordway, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
Tickets: $16-$68
Accessibility: Elevators access all floors of Concert Hall, accessibility seating for all mobility devices (request when buying tickets); service animals welcome (inform ticket representative); listening units and enormous print available upon request. One single occupancy, accessible restroom within the Music Theater lobby. Ordway.org/accessibility-services.
Capsule: Julie Albers soars on this concert filled with dissonance, meditation and feeling.