The Toronto Symphony Orchestra opened their season four nights back with a one-night-only Gala starring Renee Fleming. Friday and Saturday, they gave their first concerts of the regular subscription series. The programme included four works, all of which set the strings swirling. In three of them the strings had leading roles to play.
The programme opened with Butterfly Wings and Tropical Storms by Canadian composer Randolph Peters. This work exemplified a recent trend in contemporary composition, a trend which sees many composers abandoning the structural (or de-structural) thinking of the 20th-century avant-garde in favour of such revolutionary qualities as melody, harmony, and rhythm.
This particular piece certainly proved that the possibilities of a more traditional musical language are by no means exhausted. It began with a duo-cadenza for flutes and these were eventually joined by other woodwinds, and then by the strings, producing a glowing shimmer of sound. Solemn chords sounding in the deep brasses lent a positively Sibelian tone as each chord was a clear and distinct triad, but not necessarily related to the one before it. These harmonic shifts eventually worked up to the storm of the title, which was even shorter than the storm in Sibelius' Tapiola but sounded like its first cousin all the same. A brief coda recalled the shimmers of the opening.
This particular piece certainly proved that the possibilities of a more traditional musical language are by no means exhausted. It began with a duo-cadenza for flutes and these were eventually joined by other woodwinds, and then by the strings, producing a glowing shimmer of sound. Solemn chords sounding in the deep brasses lent a positively Sibelian tone as each chord was a clear and distinct triad, but not necessarily related to the one before it. These harmonic shifts eventually worked up to the storm of the title, which was even shorter than the storm in Sibelius' Tapiola but sounded like its first cousin all the same. A brief coda recalled the shimmers of the opening.
Peters was present to receive the applause of the audience, and so gripping and rewarding was his work that he was called back for a second bow -- a relatively rare event with contemporary music!
The Sibelian resemblance was appropriate, because that composer's Violin Concerto followed next, with Norwegian violinist Henning Kragerrud as soloist. This piece needs little description, being a well-known repertoire staple. But I simply have to quote Sir Donald Tovey's delightful description of the final movement's main theme with its cross-rhythmic accompaniment: "evidently a polonaise for polar bears." Yes, I know there are no polar bears in Finland!
This concerto, like the composer's symphonies, tends towards a craggy, rough-hewn sound world. It has a lot to do with Sibelius' insistent use of diatonic harmonies without a firm tonal centre. In the case of the concerto, it also has a lot to do with the amount of fierce attack versus the relatively modest use of singing lyrical lines in the solo part.
What really struck me about this performance was the achievement of that kind of rugged sound in the first and third movements. No prettied-up niceties here. Kragerrud leaned hard on the bow and conductor Peter Oundjian called fierce entries from the orchestra. Fierce, but not necessarily loud. In spite of all the heavy-duty attack entries, the orchestra's sound was fully under control so that the soloists was always audible.
The first movement was taken faster than many performances, avoiding any sense of quiet meditation in the opening bars. While the music became a bit helter-skelter in one or two spots, it was for the most part both exciting and exacting in adhering to the score.
The slow movement, too, passed in a flowing tempo a shade faster than usual so that the music had no opportunity to lose momentum.
In the finale, that intriguing cross-rhythm between drums and low strings in the opening bars was, for once, clearly articulated so that either one could be easily singled out. The polonaise rhythm of the opening went with quite a swagger, as did the orchestra's fierce cross-rhythmic response in a courante rhythm later. The final coda, bringing together all the themes of the movement, wound up to an exhilarating conclusion.
For an encore, Kragerrud played something very unusual: one of his own compositions! Variation Suite is a duo for violin and cello, which he played with the TSO's principal cellist, Joseph Johnson, to loud audience acclaim. The theme sounds rather like a Norwegian folk tune in style, but the variations are another matter altogether. One very quick one is either full of added beats or else written in something like 11/8 time -- it flew by too quickly for me to count beats! Another is slow and lyrical, a third a kind of waltz. The whole imaginative work lasts about 5 minutes. It made me very eager to experience more of Kragerrud's composition output -- some of the online reviews he's received sound very intriguing indeed.
After the intermission, for me, a relative letdown -- although I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with the orchestra's performance! I've never been able to warm up to Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, and this week was no exception. It's a huge sprawling work (60 minutes) which, especially in the first and last movements, comes across to me as feeling like too little butter scraped over too much bread.
I can think of several possible reasons. Perhaps Rachminoff missed the stimulus of writing for the piano, his own instrument. Maybe he felt no affinity for the cut and thrust of symphonic argument, and was just writing a symphony because he felt he ought to. Perhaps he was padding up his work because he felt that with Mahler as an example, a symphony had to last an hour or more. Consider that the finished work is 50% longer in playing time than his largest piano concerto, the Third.
This concerto, like the composer's symphonies, tends towards a craggy, rough-hewn sound world. It has a lot to do with Sibelius' insistent use of diatonic harmonies without a firm tonal centre. In the case of the concerto, it also has a lot to do with the amount of fierce attack versus the relatively modest use of singing lyrical lines in the solo part.
What really struck me about this performance was the achievement of that kind of rugged sound in the first and third movements. No prettied-up niceties here. Kragerrud leaned hard on the bow and conductor Peter Oundjian called fierce entries from the orchestra. Fierce, but not necessarily loud. In spite of all the heavy-duty attack entries, the orchestra's sound was fully under control so that the soloists was always audible.
The first movement was taken faster than many performances, avoiding any sense of quiet meditation in the opening bars. While the music became a bit helter-skelter in one or two spots, it was for the most part both exciting and exacting in adhering to the score.
The slow movement, too, passed in a flowing tempo a shade faster than usual so that the music had no opportunity to lose momentum.
In the finale, that intriguing cross-rhythm between drums and low strings in the opening bars was, for once, clearly articulated so that either one could be easily singled out. The polonaise rhythm of the opening went with quite a swagger, as did the orchestra's fierce cross-rhythmic response in a courante rhythm later. The final coda, bringing together all the themes of the movement, wound up to an exhilarating conclusion.
For an encore, Kragerrud played something very unusual: one of his own compositions! Variation Suite is a duo for violin and cello, which he played with the TSO's principal cellist, Joseph Johnson, to loud audience acclaim. The theme sounds rather like a Norwegian folk tune in style, but the variations are another matter altogether. One very quick one is either full of added beats or else written in something like 11/8 time -- it flew by too quickly for me to count beats! Another is slow and lyrical, a third a kind of waltz. The whole imaginative work lasts about 5 minutes. It made me very eager to experience more of Kragerrud's composition output -- some of the online reviews he's received sound very intriguing indeed.
After the intermission, for me, a relative letdown -- although I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with the orchestra's performance! I've never been able to warm up to Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, and this week was no exception. It's a huge sprawling work (60 minutes) which, especially in the first and last movements, comes across to me as feeling like too little butter scraped over too much bread.
I can think of several possible reasons. Perhaps Rachminoff missed the stimulus of writing for the piano, his own instrument. Maybe he felt no affinity for the cut and thrust of symphonic argument, and was just writing a symphony because he felt he ought to. Perhaps he was padding up his work because he felt that with Mahler as an example, a symphony had to last an hour or more. Consider that the finished work is 50% longer in playing time than his largest piano concerto, the Third.
There is just one movement that gives signs of coherent structure, and that is the second-movement scherzo. The main scherzo theme brackets one of those lush, romantic melodies that were Rachmaninoff's great specialty. Then comes an alternate scherzo, just as fierce, as an alternative to a trio, followed by a repeat of the original scherzo-melody-scherzo complex. The themes are clear-cut as a bell, underscored by insistent galloping rhythms, and the whole movement is the only one that truly catches fire instead of sitting there smouldering but never really getting going.
Throughout the Rachmaninoff work, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra clearly had the measure of the music. Sounds were plushy or edgy, as required, and the beauty of the horn choir in particular was notable. Also notable was the rich sound of the strings, who have more work to do in this symphony than in many other repertoire staples, since they are responsible for presenting so many of the themes.
Oundjian's view of the work was precise and beautiful in many ways, with the soaring lyrical passages in particular flowing smoothly and not getting bogged down in schmaltz. And that powerful scherzo was as energetic and fiery a performance as anyone could ask. If I'm ever going to sit through this symphony again, I want it to sound like this.
But if it were up to me, I would just play the scherzo -- and then repeat it!
(The relative lack of structure is made all the more obvious by comparison with Mahler's enormous Third Symphony which is being played this week. Its first movement spans 35 whole minutes by itself, but in something very close to a clear and recognizable sonata-form structure with first and second theme groups, development, and recapitulation and coda fused into one. Quite plainly, Mahler had the symphonic tradition in his bloodstream, in a way that Rachmaninoff and many other Russian composers couldn't quite match.)
Throughout the Rachmaninoff work, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra clearly had the measure of the music. Sounds were plushy or edgy, as required, and the beauty of the horn choir in particular was notable. Also notable was the rich sound of the strings, who have more work to do in this symphony than in many other repertoire staples, since they are responsible for presenting so many of the themes.
Oundjian's view of the work was precise and beautiful in many ways, with the soaring lyrical passages in particular flowing smoothly and not getting bogged down in schmaltz. And that powerful scherzo was as energetic and fiery a performance as anyone could ask. If I'm ever going to sit through this symphony again, I want it to sound like this.
But if it were up to me, I would just play the scherzo -- and then repeat it!
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