In Final Act, St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony Ponder Verdi’s Requiem

Timothy Mangan
21 hours ago
4 min read

REVIEW: The departing music director, avoiding goodbyes, sticks to the music Thursday, in the first of his farewell concerts.

Carl St.Clair conducts the Pacific Symphony during his weekend of final performances as the music director. Photo courtesy of Pacific Symphony/Doug Gifford

It was apparently according to Carl St.Clair’s wishes that no big fuss was made on Thursday night at Segerstrom Concert Hall.

There were no proclamations. There were no fancy speeches, gifts given, flowers bestowed. Nothing in the program booklet. At concert time, he walked out onstage to warm applause (but he usually gets warm applause), turned to the assembled forces of Verdi’s Requiem, and conducted for 90 minutes. Then he took his bows and left, without saying a word.

Thursday was the first of his last four main-season concerts (the other three are this weekend) as music director of the Pacific Symphony. The Symphony that Carl built. After 35 years.

Let the music speak for itself, he said (or we imagined he said).

Thursday also happened to be his 73rd birthday.

St.Clair has never been a man who liked a fuss. He has put up with it sometimes, but this time he got his way.

St.Clair leads the full orchestra along with the Pacific Chorale. Photo courtesy of Pacific Symphony/Doug Gifford

A Requiem as the capper to 35 years might seem to be an odd choice. I’m leaving, so here’s a funeral Mass to mark the occasion. But Verdi’s Requiem makes good sense, in its way. It’s big, bold and very, very dramatic. It’s also beautiful. It requires a musical assemblage of a couple hundred musicians, and St.Clair has always excelled at corralling large musical assemblages.

Verdi composed his Requiem in honor of the great Italian novelist and patriot Alessandro Manzoni, much admired by the composer and all Italians. It is far from a celebratory work, however. Solemn is about as cheerful as it gets. Elsewhere, there is fear, hellfire and cries for mercy. The work was at one time criticized for its theatricality, but there is no lack of sincerity in it and the theatricality has made it popular from the start.

St.Clair’s reading was a careful one. Also, slow. Toscanini got through this work in under 80 minutes. St.Clair took 90 on the nose. I felt, at times, that some of the slower passages needed a little more pace, more animation, but St.Clair appeared to be after a certain stillness and quietude in the music, and mostly got it.

He let loose in the outbursts of course, in the Dies Irae (trumpets in the balconies and not one, but two bass drums) and the Libera Me, and there was no mistaking it. The sound was made. In the fugal sections he instilled nimbleness and pointed articulation, and they gamboled along nicely.

PHOTO 1: Trumpters in the balconies. PHOTO 2: Soloists, from left, Raquel González, soprano, Daryl Freedman, mezzo-soprano, Won Whi Choi, tenor, and Zaikuan Song, bass. Photos courtesy of Pacific Symphony/Doug Gifford

The Pacific Chorale roared uproariously, but also offered softer pleasures, and in a cappella passages sounded like silk. The solo quartet — soprano Raquel González, mezzo-soprano Daryl Freedman, tenor Won Whi Choi, bass Zaikuan Song — was placed on a platform behind the orchestra and ~~were~~ easily heard throughout. Their voices pleased, though sometimes the Italianate idiom eluded them. González sounded beautiful in the Libera Me.

The Pacific Symphony took on all tasks asked with equanimity and poise. An easy polish was there and instrumental balances were good. The strings sounded especially well.

“Thank you Carl for 35 amazing years!” the supertitles read after the performance, but again the bon voyage was only implicit.

The Requiem will be repeated Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday afternoon. The matinee performance will include commentary by St.Clair.

St.Clair’s contract runs through July 1. After that, his title will be Conductor Laureate, and he won’t be going far. He’ll conduct at least one concert (at the Great Park) with the orchestra this summer, and four programs (with multiple performances) next season in Segerstrom.

A final word. As a young stringer at the Los Angeles Times, I reviewed St.Clair’s first concert with the Pacific Symphony, his tryout, in January 1990. Since then, I have most likely reviewed him more than any other critic in the world. Last night was full circle. Through it all, thumbs up or thumbs down, Carl has been nothing but friendly, collegial and even supportive in our personal interactions, and I want to thank him for it. Now, no more fuss.