All right, I admit I am way behind the times (2 weeks) with this post but if I don't get it done now I am in real trouble -- because I am going to 4 more events in the next 4 nights!
It's not often that you get two symphonies in a single concert, and when you do it usually means that one of them is by Haydn or Mozart and so is relatively short.
Strictly speaking, the last mainstage concert at the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony didn't include two symphonies -- or did it? There is a small group of concerti written in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which are, for all practical purposes, symphonies incorporating substantial solo parts. These works can be described in this way because the orchestra and soloist(s) are equal partners, and both participate fully in the presentation and development of the thematic material. Thus, these symphonic concerti stand at the opposite pole to the showy "virtuoso" concerto (much more common in the later 1800s) in which the orchestra must constantly come to a dead halt or at least play very quietly while the soloist endlessly shows off his or her technical wizardry . Assemble a list of the symphonic concerti, and it will certainly include several of Mozart's later piano concerti, the last two piano concerti and the violin concerto by Beethoven, the four concerti by Brahms, but not very much else.
One of the last of these symphonic concerto works was the Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104 by Dvorak, and this was the culminating work of the recent concert. But it was preceded on the programme by the shorter but no less intense Symphony No. 3 in F Minor Op. 90 by Brahms. So there you have the two symphonies. More on them in a moment.
This concert, like most of the K-W Symphony's mainstage events, opened with a contemporary work by a Canadian composer. This intense dedication to presenting and nurturing the music of our time as part of their central programming is one of the KWSO's most admirable initiatives. In this case, the work presented was evening ablution by Riho Esko Maimets, a Canadian composer now residing in Estonia. The performance I attended was the work's world premiere.
It was inspired by a passage in Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, but Maimets in his notes commented on the existence of ritual ablution or cleansing in most of the world's major religions, and on its central relationship to meditation or inward examination/contemplation. The music, then, is not surprisingly very quiet for the most part and suitable to such a mindset. What impressed me about this piece was the subtlety of the shifts from moment to moment in orchestration and in mood. Instead of the abrupt juxtapositions used by many contemporary composers, Maimets causes his sound world to evolve and change gradually. There is also an underlying luminescence to the sound that, combined with the harmonic choices, suggests what Debussy might have sounded like if he had lived half a century or so longer. In any case, the music has a genuinely hypnotic quality that suits the theme outlined by the composer with his choice of title. Very involving.
Under Music Director Edwin Outwater, the orchestra gave a very central performance of the Brahms symphony. Clarity and precision were noteworthy. This in itself led me to listen to the work with refreshed ears, somewhat like viewing a painting which has been cleaned after centuries of neglect. Outwater's reading certainly pointed up the ways in which this symphony broke new ground, a fact which is easy to forget when you read the textbooks that proclaim Brahms a traditionalist. In particular, I was forcibly reminded that neither this work nor the First contains a true scherzo. Instead you get a kind of intermezzo, loosely related in style to some of Brahms's piano music going under the same title. It's neither precisely slow nor fast, but does involve some interesting playing about with the main thematic material. Nor does this symphony have a true slow movement, for the third movement -- although mournful -- is in a triple-time, like a stately dance. And finally, the ending eschews traditional climactic imagery and substitutes instead a slower, quieter revisiting of the main themes of the symphony in what could fairly be called an epilogue.
In all of this, Outwater and the orchestra provided reliable guidance. This score repeatedly throws the horns into prominence, and the horn section's chording was secure, rich, and warm. Also notable was the playing of the winds in their many foot-foremost melodic sections. All in all, a rewarding performance.
After the intermission, on to the Dvorak concerto which was indeed the longest work on the programme. Anyone who sets out to play this work is bound to come face to face with the shadow of Mstislav Rostropovich who, through many years and a still-classic recording, identified himself with this work in a way few musicians have ever succeeded in doing with any piece (the one other example that springs to mind is another cello concerto, Elgar's, with Jacqueline du Pre as soloist). Inevitably, then, every cellist who plays this concerto has to be aware of that long shadow stretching forth, and of the way that so many listeners will compare his or her playing of the work to Rostropovich.
Cellist Johannes Moser presented a very big-boned reading of the concerto. With aggressive attacks in many entries, he raised the dramatic stakes higher than is often done. Nothing wrong with that at all; it's wrong to play Dvorak as if he were all lyrical melody and genteel harmony, and this concerto certainly doesn't lack for moments of high drama.
The first movement, in a fine partnership between Moser and Outwater, laid claim to being as fully symphonic as any symphony's first movement. The musicians achieved great power with the dramatic build-up to the recapitulation, and the orchestra's surprising but triumphant entry with the second subject created a climactic thrill. The second movement moved easily back and forth between intense and lyrical moments, and was bound into a convincing whole. The finale opened with an ominous treatment of the pizzicato march and then launched into a high-energy traversal of the various sections in what is, in all but name, a large-scale rondo. As in several of his late works, Dvorak lapsed into a quiet, almost improvisatory recall of his main themes, a kind of nostalgic backwards look, before ending the piece grandly -- and the orchestra and cellist captured both the nostalgia and the grandeur. The cheers for both soloist and orchestra at the end were well merited.
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