Beethoven’s “Pastoral” finds a path home with the SLSO

By Eric Dundon

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s October 30–31 program, Reflections of Home, moved from the spirituals of George Walker to the childhood memories in Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, then into Beethoven’s countryside in Symphony No. 6, the “Pastoral.” Music Director Stéphane Denève conducted the performances at Powell Hall at the Jack C. Taylor Music Center and soprano and St. Louis native Julia Bullock made her SLSO debut in Barber’s work.

Walker’s Folksongs for Orchestra brought four African American spirituals into the concert hall, tracing a range of feeling from hope and comfort to sorrow and joy. Barber’s setting of James Agee’s writing turns toward an intimate summer evening, its rocking rhythms and orchestral colors evoking a child’s memories of family and home.

Photo by Jon Gitchoff

After intermission, Beethoven’s five-movement symphony unfolded like a journey: arriving in the countryside, pausing beside a brook, joining a country dance and weathering a storm before reaching a grateful, sunlit close. A review of the Saturday performance praised Denève’s lively opening, the second movement’s gentle flow and the radiant strings in the finale. The music lingered for several seconds before applause began.

Eric Dundon is the SLSO’s Public Relations Director.