I always have fun drawing pictures of David Robertson

I always have fun drawing pictures of David Robertson.

It's part of the maestro gig, to have superexpressive hand gestures and body mojo. David has all that.

David was all about "stage right" with the superexpressive had gestures when conducting Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 Friday night at Powell.

I'll have to ask one of the musicians or David himself what it was about this score and the physical arrangement of the sections onstage that had the conductor conducting up a storm to the musicians to his left.

David also was styling high last night in his longtail black tux. He was a delight to watch all night long, but especially during Sibelius 5.

And I doubt anyone else on earth could have teased and tapped more intuition or ensemble interplay out of this orchestra playing this program of music than David Robertson did last night from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Speaking from the nosebleeds, where the seats were free for bloggers, the sound was sublime, and the crowd was agreeably quirky and engaged, I can report that the St. Louis audience loves this man and loves this band and knows how good we have it.

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This piece was produced for Eddie Silva and The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra Publications Department as part of its online media effort, "Blogger's Night II."

Notes and sketches to be continued, covering a conversation before the show with cello honcho Danny Lee. Also, SLSO plays the same program again 3 p.m. today, Sunday, March 29. Then on to Carnegie Hall (April 4).

Companion pieces:

SLSO Blogger's Night II: an adventure with friends

Maria chanted, Henry translated, Kaija scored, David directed, Karita sang, I assigned, Leyla drew

Composition for orchestra and psychedelic mushroom

The finale of Sibelius No. 5 is not to be missed. Our friends at YouTube bring us The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra getting it done for conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.