World-premiere work by Meredith Monk is the centerpiece of the most unique concert of SLSO's season

The most unique Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra concert of the season was celebrated Saturday night by a small and appreciative house at Powell Symphony Hall in midtown St. Louis.

The key work of the evening—a world premiere composition—didn’t have a title until the afternoon of the night it was performed. Its perfect name was announced from the podium by music director and conductor David Robertson.

With voices used as instruments interwoven with the traditional instruments of a chamber orchestra, it is appropriate that the composer decided to call her work: “Weave for Two Voices, Chamber Orchestra and Chorus.”

“I wrote it on a piece of paper and gave it to David this afternoon,” composer Meredith Monk said immediately after the concert. “I struggled with the name.”

The work, however, contains no struggle. It is organic. At once meditative, then playful, then meditative again, “Weave” is a feast for the soul, the ears and the eyes. Monk uses voices to make musical sounds. They don’t sing words. While not mimicking instruments, she shows the world that voices are indeed instruments of their own kind.

The result is spiritually moving.

Baritone Theo Bleckmann and mezzo-soprano Katie Geissinger were the two key singers who sometimes sounded like sweet birds, which gave the piece a gripping sensuality, too. Adding to the joy were members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Unlike many choral and orchestral works, this one had no star. Like each stitch in a woven afghan, every note from every musician mattered equally. This piece by Monk was a collective unlike any piece you’ll ever hear.

“Weave” earned a standing ovation from the audience, which also warmly accepted two other pieces by the 67-year-old New Yorker, who performed in the first work (“Panda Chant II”) with her Vocal Ensemble, took a solo bow after “Weave,” and received another standing ovation from her station in the hall’s Dress Circle following the stunning, otherworldly performance of “Night.”

The bookends of this exceptional concert were by Stravinsky at the beginning, Bartok at the end.

Igor Stravinsky’s “Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD Annum” is an homage to the great madrigal composer Carlo Gesualdo.

In 1960, Stravinsky decided to mark the 400th anniversary of the Italian composer’s birth by taking some of his madrigals, removing the words and adding the modernist touch. The result is a songfest without words. It was just the right setup for the works of Monk.

Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” was, at the ripe young age of 74, the oldest work on the program. It illustrated Bartok’s genius.

Written before stereo, the composition called for half of the string sections to be on one side of the stage and half on the other side. In the middle were the piano and the celesta.

The result was as close to stereophonic sound as you can get without the appropriate electronic device. Brilliant.

Robertson is one of the great Bartok interpreters. Each season you’ll find at least one work by Hungary’s greatest composer on the SLSO’s schedule.

And while Bela Bartok wasn’t always appreciated in his own time in his own country, Robertson is making sure that this master composer gets his just deserts in our town.