Wednesday 20 April 2016

An Elegy, a Meditation, and a Panorama

My blogging is falling shamefully behind hand!  I hasten to make amends, or at least partial amends!

Nearly two weeks ago, I attended a Toronto Symphony concert which was stimulating in some different and surprising ways.  Just when you think there's nothing new to be said about the old warhorses of the central repertoire, along comes a performance which surprises you.  Couple that with another repertory staple and a modern work which is stimulating and maddening in equal measures and you have the makings of a memorable evening of music.  The guest conductor for the evening was Thomas Søndergård, making his Toronto Symphony debut appearance.

The programme opened with Perpetual Summer, composed in 2010 by Canadian composer Kati Agócs for the National Youth Orchestra.   This work takes its theme from the apocalyptic possibility of a world in which winter never occurs, and the hot regions become unbearably hot.  Agócs in a programme note discussed her use of thematic material from the Summer concerto of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. 

I have to say, right up front, that those thematic fragments never came to my ear as such, and I don't propose to waste anyone's time hunting for them.  The impact of the music was completely clear without any such reference points.  Agócs uses a large orchestra, including a really large percussion section.  Inevitably, the result is a huge volume of sound.  Some parts of the resulting work are strongly rhythmic, while in others the existence of any rhythm is undetectable unless one watches the conductor (a favourite bugbear of mine in modern works).  I also found the use of percussion very arbitrary.  For example, the hand-cranked siren was used just once, and not in any context that made the inclusion of this very distinctive sound seem either necessary or motivated.  When the rhythm did seize hold, the music definitely took off for a space.

While I could relate what I was hearing to the ideas outlined by the programme note, it was only possible by considerable intellectual effort.  On the whole, this was one piece that engaged me throughout, but didn't leave me with any great feeling that it deserved more frequent hearing.

It's a masterpiece of understatement to say that Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 stood as a huge contrast.  Here, the orchestra was joined by soloist Francesco Piemontesi, also a TSO debut artist.  I've heard this concerto played live more often than any other of Beethoven's five, and it has always been a favourite of mine.  But the performance I heard this night was like no other in my experience, either live or recorded.

While most interpreters seem to relate the music to its successor, the famous "Emperor" Concerto, the piece that most often swam into my mind was the lyrical Pastoral Symphony.  Throughout the large first movement, the emphasis on the singing, lyrical qualities of the music was unmistakable and unusual.  Larger dramatic moments were slightly muted in favour of a more melodious approach which repeatedly brought a smile to my face.

While the strange dialogue of the second movement was as dark as it must be, the finale again brought a lightweight, singing, even dancing approach to the main rondo theme.  It was hardly a central approach to the score, certainly not a definitive one, but for me it worked beautifully -- and both conductor and soloist had an equal hand in making it so.

After the intermission we had the Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39 by Sibelius.  I suppose I'd better come right out with it, and say that this is my least favourite of the composer's seven numbered symphonies.  In retrospect, I think he was further ahead in developing an assured and personal style with his Kullervo Symphony of  seven years earlier.  In this symphony, he seems to be largely imitating foreign models of symphonic style and structure, and the result is (for me) episodic, disjointed, and unconvincing.  While many commentators zero in on the Russian influence of Tchaikovsky and his contemporaries, I also detect clear hints of the style of Bruckner, whom Sibelius -- at the time -- regarded as one of the greatest of all composers.

Anyway, to the performance.  It struck me that the quieter passages were the highlights -- such moments as the long meandering clarinet solo that launches the work evoked a chilly Nordic atmosphere to perfection.  Louder passages sometimes lapsed into bombast, and the heavy brass really went to town -- with sometimes disruptive effect on the overall balance.  Of course, in Roy Thomson Hall, I'm never quite sure how much of this effect is due to my occupying a seat close to the side wall of the main floor.

The scherzo third movement was given a hard-driving, savage reading -- for me, the highlight of the performance.  The finale then took on an appropriately grandiose tone.  Plainly Søndergård had the measure of this score, knew his way around it, and directed a purposeful and integrated account -- as far as it's possible to achieve purpose and integration in this sometimes wayward work.

Why, of why, can't we hear more often from such works as the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies?

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