Last week I took in a most unusual concert of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, a concert in which three of the four works were played without a conductor!
We've become so used to the institution of the conductor-led orchestra that it's sometimes hard for us to remember that this is basically a nineteenth-century invention. In previous periods, the orchestras were smaller, and could be quite readily directed by one of the players -- sometimes the first violinist, or the keyboard player on harpsichord, piano, or organ. This was the procedure followed in this stimulating programme.
The concert opened with a work entitled Steps to Ecstasy by Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich. It's a work for strings and a few winds, inspired by the music and the sculpture of the Baroque era. The sound textures of the piece were truly fascinating, and there was an ongoing energy to the music which ensured that time passed in a regulated, rhythmic fashion throughout. It was almost startling to hear a contemporary composer writing music which made such extensive use of Baroque style in its phrases and cadences. This is a piece I would definitely like to hear again. It was led by the orchestra's concertmaster, Benedicte Lauziere.
There then followed two piano concertos, both led from the keyboard by pianist Orion Weiss. First we had the A Major Concerto, K. 488, by Mozart. This concerto had two unusual features: first, it uses clarinets instead of oboes, and second, its slow movement is one of the very few times Mozart ever wrote in the key of F sharp minor.
This was a fine classically balanced reading, a feature undoubtedly determined by the fact of the conductor doubling as soloist. Romanticized excesses in tempo or dynamics would be far too hard to manage in such a situation. Tempi were well chosen to provide contrast without extremes, and the finale in particular was characterized by a light, playful tone quality.
After the intermission, we were given Bach's keyboard concerto in D major, BWV 1054, itself transcribed from the earlier E major concerto for violin, BWV 1042. Here I felt that the speeds got a little too fast, making the union of keyboard and orchestra a bit uneasy. This was particularly true in the finale, where blurring of the sound resulted as one instrument or another got a bit ahead of the beat or behind it. Perhaps more time needed to be given to this in rehearsal.
The concert concluded with Haydn's Symphony in E Flat Major, No. 103 ("With the Drum Roll"). Here the orchestra was at last conducted, by Assistant Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser. Right off the bat, I felt that the famous opening drum roll was far too prolonged. It's true that Haydn gives the drumroll a 3-beat adagio bar with a fermata (pause sign), but I felt that stretching it to three times the length of the subsequent bars or more was milking the gesture to excess -- and it became even more irritating when the drumroll recurred near the end of the first movement, and that hugely long hold brought the entire symphony to a momentary standstill.
After that overdone start, though, the performance as a whole was most rewarding -- sparkling with energy, woodwinds nicely balanced against the strings, solos highlighted without being over-emphasized, and the music always proceeding with a spring in its step. For me, that's the essential characteristic of Haydn's music, that sense of cheerfulness and life-enhancing energy. The vigorous finale came to vivid bouncing life under Bartholomew-Poyser. Taken as a whole, this was a fascinating and truly delightful concert.
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