Chuck Lavazzi, KDHX, 25th November 2018
“It has been a few years since my wife and I have been to London, but I feel like we took another visit there Friday night (November 23) with that wonderfully evocative performance of Vaughan Williams’s “A London Symphony” by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of guest conductor Michael Francis…
Performances of “A London Symphony” usually run around 45 minutes, but Mr. Francis’s take on the piece was so well paced and compelling that it seemed to fly by. This was one of those performances during which I took almost no notes because I was so swept up in the experience. It was as though Vaughan Williams were speaking to us directly, without an intermediary…
The concert opened with an equally vivid reading of Elgar’s “In the South (Alassio),” a lavish, sweeping tone poem that is the composer’s love letter to Italy in general and in particular to the Italian Rivera town where he and his wife were vacationing in the winter of 1903-1904. The leaping opening theme, which Elgar described as “Joy of living (wine and macaroni),” bubbled with good cheer, the lumbering march inspired by “strife and wars” was suitably ominous…
Mr. Francis conducted with big, fluid gestures that mirrored the wide dramatic range of his interpretation. This was a bold and varied performance that perfectly captured the many moods of this colorful work.”
