When I booked my ticket for last night's concert, I completely missed the fact that this was Toronto Symphony Chamber Players night.
Four times a year, a selection of first-desk players from the orchestra give a chamber music concert before the main orchestra concert. Admission is free to ticket holders of the main event.
My first reaction was that chamber music in the cavernous interior of Roy Thomson Hall is a contradiction in terms! But I decided to give it a whirl anyway because of the work being performed. And I was glad I did, because it worked better than I expected. The conductor's podium was replaced with a portable folding screen, and the players sat ranged in front of that -- and facing away from the regular audience seats, towards the back of the stage. The limited audience for the chamber concert were seated in the choir loft above the rear of the stage.
The concert was introduced by Sir Andrew Davis himself, since he helped to develop the idea of these free concerts when the orchestra moved into Roy Thomson Hall in 1982. He mentioned that this same piece was performed during that first season of chamber concerts, and that one of the players from that event was also playing tonight: cellist David Hetherington. Jonathan Crow then told us that this was Hetherington's last hurrah as a member of the Toronto Symphony, after a career spanning forty-five years.
Hetherington was the last remaining member of the orchestra which I first saw on the stage of Massey Hall back when I was in high school. I guess I must be getting old.
The six players from the string section gave us Tchaikovsky's string sextet, Souvenir de Florence. This is a really marvellous piece which remains sadly unknown to many who love Tchaikovsky's music. It offers a wonderful combination of Tchaikovsky's best qualities -- melodious, energetic, lyrical and introspective by turns. The composer claimed that he found it very difficult to write but you'd never know to hear the music. Indeed, and unusually for Tchaikovsky, much of the music is dominated by the major keys, and so radiates a sunny, upbeat atmosphere for much of its 35-minute length. Even when the key is minor, there's a positive energy about the music that belies the composer's melancholic disposition. But don't let the title deceive you -- there's nothing, apart from the sunshine, which is particularly Italianate in this music. Tchaikovsky gave it that title simply because he sketched out one of the main themes during a trip to Italy. Indeed, the last three movements all dip into the world of Russian folk music in their varied ways.
The first movement opens at full speed with an exhilarating crunch of the bows into the strings. This opening seemed a bit weak, but that was just my ears adjusting to the scale of tone in this particular venue. In any case, this entire first movement definitely sounds better to me when played in the arrangement for a full string orchestra -- this music seems to demand that weight of tone. On this occasion, the energy was unquestionably there, right from the get-go, and the six players created the balance, the sense of listening and responding, which is so essential to chamber music (this is the reason why chamber music is often called "a conversation between friends"). Apart from a couple of moments when I felt that the rubato became excessive, the first movement rolled along with unending momentum, and the acceleration to the breathless conclusion was perfectly judged, executed with total unanimity, and perhaps lacking only the last degree of ferocious power.
The second movement's lyrical, singing melody was played with a sweetness of tone that created the maximum contrast to the power just heard. The strange little interlude with its waves of tremolando scales rose up from near silence in each wave and faded back beautifully to the edge of silence again, until the song was resumed with notable gentleness.
The third movement, plainly inspired by Russian folk music, opened easily but built to an edge of drama as the music grew in complexity. Notable here was the precision of the ostinato 5-note accompanying figures in the fortissimo passages later in the movement.
The finale, again folk-inspired, involves a great deal of repetition of the opening melodic figure, but it's so ingeniously varied with multiple accompanying ideas that it never outstays its welcome. The ensemble created the desired feeling of shouts of joy and triumph at the crowning second theme, and the whole movement rolled along to its final emphatic chords with the right kind of energy and joie de vivre.
A great start to a great evening of music!
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