On Saturday night I attended an uncommon Toronto performance given by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. This special concert event was sponsored and promoted as part of the Toronto Symphony's programming for the season.
The VSO is touring across Canada to commemorate the retirement of their Music Director, British conductor Bramwell Tovey, after a tenure of the position for 18 years. The tour also serves to draw attention to the orchestra's impending 100th anniversary season.
I've only seen Bramwell Tovey at work once before, but it was a memorable occasion indeed: a rare (for Canada) live performance of Britten's War Requiem about (I think) 15 years ago. That is a particularly challenging and complex work, and his performance not only got the technical aspects of a modern masterpiece right but also captured in full the remarkable spirit of the words and music.
Tovey is a composer of distinction as well as a noted conductor, so it was entirely appropriate that this special commemorative tour programme then moved on to one of his own compositions, a song cycle entitled Ancestral Voices. Tovey wished to write a work about the impact of the European occupation of Canada on the First Nations peoples, as his own contribution to the process of reconciliation. He was also determined to avoid any possibility of cultural appropriation or mockery. In composing Ancestral Voices he relied on advice and input from the singer for whom he was writing the work, Marion Newman. He also chose to use his normal Euro-classical musical language and set texts by authors of European ancestry, ranging from the early 1800s to the present day.
Newman's role in the creation and performance of the work is critical, due to her fine mezzo-soprano voice, but even more to her Kwagiutl/Stó:lō/English/Irish/Scottish ancestry. She does much work as an advisor to arts organizations wishing to take an active and ongoing role in reconciliation.
The cycle opens with a Keats poem, In Arcady, expressing an idyllic vision of the land. The second is an excerpt from a longer poem by naturalist Charles Mair, The Last Bison. In both of these songs, the orchestra plays short introductions and interludes, then discreetly accompanies the lyrical melodic lines of the singer.
The third song, Dear Sir, brings a dramatic shift. A savage orchestral scherzo gives way to the declamatory utterance of key words and phrases taken from an anonymous bureaucrat's letter about the role to be played by the residential schools. The words hammer home remorselessly -- "separate, isolate, educate, assimilate, dominate, assimilate, assimilate" -- before the scherzo resumes.
Bring Light to the Truth combines words from statements by two contemporary Canadian Prime Ministers, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau, with text from a United Nations statement, in a heartfelt plea to recognize the great harm done, ending with an ironic reprise of the final line from the Keats poem: "In Arcady, what men or gods are these?"
The final element of this intensely moving performance was Newman's addition of a healing lullaby composed by her, in the traditions of the Kwagiutl/Stó:lō nations, and ending with the slow beat of the traditional drum dwindling away to silence.
The remainder of the concert comprised two repertoire staples. The orchestra was joined by renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes for the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 by Brahms, a work which certainly requires no introduction from me.
Tovey led the orchestra in a truly central interpretation, choosing sensible tempi and maintaining the musical flow at all times. Balance between orchestra and soloist was exemplary. Throughout there was a clear feeling of a living, breathing performance, firmly anchored but not in the least mechanical or metronomic.
Ehnes gave a five-star account of the solo part, maintaining clarity and sweetness of tone throughout all of the writing on the lower strings and -- particularly notable -- across all the numerous double stops. His account of the original Joachim cadenza (the one most often heard) brought very quiet, inward reflective playing of the sort that turns the entire gathering into a single, intently listening unity of people.
Newman's role in the creation and performance of the work is critical, due to her fine mezzo-soprano voice, but even more to her Kwagiutl/Stó:lō/English/Irish/Scottish ancestry. She does much work as an advisor to arts organizations wishing to take an active and ongoing role in reconciliation.
The cycle opens with a Keats poem, In Arcady, expressing an idyllic vision of the land. The second is an excerpt from a longer poem by naturalist Charles Mair, The Last Bison. In both of these songs, the orchestra plays short introductions and interludes, then discreetly accompanies the lyrical melodic lines of the singer.
The third song, Dear Sir, brings a dramatic shift. A savage orchestral scherzo gives way to the declamatory utterance of key words and phrases taken from an anonymous bureaucrat's letter about the role to be played by the residential schools. The words hammer home remorselessly -- "separate, isolate, educate, assimilate, dominate, assimilate, assimilate" -- before the scherzo resumes.
Bring Light to the Truth combines words from statements by two contemporary Canadian Prime Ministers, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau, with text from a United Nations statement, in a heartfelt plea to recognize the great harm done, ending with an ironic reprise of the final line from the Keats poem: "In Arcady, what men or gods are these?"
The final element of this intensely moving performance was Newman's addition of a healing lullaby composed by her, in the traditions of the Kwagiutl/Stó:lō nations, and ending with the slow beat of the traditional drum dwindling away to silence.
The remainder of the concert comprised two repertoire staples. The orchestra was joined by renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes for the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 by Brahms, a work which certainly requires no introduction from me.
Tovey led the orchestra in a truly central interpretation, choosing sensible tempi and maintaining the musical flow at all times. Balance between orchestra and soloist was exemplary. Throughout there was a clear feeling of a living, breathing performance, firmly anchored but not in the least mechanical or metronomic.
Ehnes gave a five-star account of the solo part, maintaining clarity and sweetness of tone throughout all of the writing on the lower strings and -- particularly notable -- across all the numerous double stops. His account of the original Joachim cadenza (the one most often heard) brought very quiet, inward reflective playing of the sort that turns the entire gathering into a single, intently listening unity of people.
After the intermission, we heard the famous Variations on an Original Theme "Enigma", Op. 36 by Elgar, the work which first brought Elgar's name before the musical world beyond Britain's shores -- and which probably remains the Elgar work most often performed outside of the British Isles. The title refers to a double conundrum. The variations on an original theme (itself called "Enigma") are titled with initials or nicknames, and are musical portraits of various people known to the composer. This half of the enigma has long since been unravelled and the portraits identified. One of the women portrayed, Dora Penny ("Dorabella"), actually wrote a memoir of her friendship with Elgar which she called Memories of a Variation!
The second enigma has been much trickier. Elgar dropped many hints at the nature of this puzzle, indicating that there is a larger theme which goes along with or is somehow related to the original melody on which he based his variations. Particularly puzzling was his comment that Dora Penny, of all people, should have guessed the answer. Many candidates have been proposed as solutions. None has found general acceptance and, since Elgar took the secret with him to his grave, that is as it should be. So we'll just leave it at that, and go on to consider the actual performance.
While these Variations demand a wide range of tempo and dynamics, I felt that Tovey's performance occasionally slowed too much in some movements. As a result, the music at times began to drag and droop in a few spots. No problem at the other end of the scale -- none of the faster sections were taken at such a swift pace as to hinder musical clarity.
While these Variations demand a wide range of tempo and dynamics, I felt that Tovey's performance occasionally slowed too much in some movements. As a result, the music at times began to drag and droop in a few spots. No problem at the other end of the scale -- none of the faster sections were taken at such a swift pace as to hinder musical clarity.
No such criticism can be attached to the splendid playing of the orchestra. Enigma is a masterpiece by one of the great masters of Romantic orchestration, and is peppered with all kinds of intriguing orchestral effects. Such moments as the woodwind embroideries in C.A.E, the emphatic door slam of W.M.B., the genteel conversation of Ysobel with its delicate final comment on solo viola, the boisterous energy of Troyte, the slight hesitation or stutter in Dorabella, or the barking bulldog of G.R.S. -- all sprang to vivid life in the hands of these skilled players.
Centring the work, of course, is the splendid nobility of Nimrod. This movement portrays a late-night conversation about music, although it has come to be much associated with times of pageantry and mourning. Elgar never achieved greater heights in this central aspect of his musical language, and both Tovey and his players took us all the way to the summit with an ideal combination of passion, power, and restraint.
In the concluding variation E.D.U. (a self-portrait), Tovey included the ad lib organ part to splendid effect, the great concert organ of Roy Thomson Hall underpinning and reinforcing the already grand sound of the orchestra at full throttle, and building up to a thrilling conclusion to the work and the evening.
Or was it? This concert included a positive embarrassment of riches in the way of encores. James Ehnes played, after the Brahms concerto, a meltingly beautiful Andante from the A Minor Sonata for solo violin by Bach. Then the orchestra, far less commonly for Toronto, encored after the Elgar with two of Brahms' Hungarian Dances in orchestral arrangements.
From the sombre, haunting songs of Ancestral Voices to the ebullience of Brahms dances, definitely a concert to remember -- and the capacity audience certainly seemed to agree.
Centring the work, of course, is the splendid nobility of Nimrod. This movement portrays a late-night conversation about music, although it has come to be much associated with times of pageantry and mourning. Elgar never achieved greater heights in this central aspect of his musical language, and both Tovey and his players took us all the way to the summit with an ideal combination of passion, power, and restraint.
In the concluding variation E.D.U. (a self-portrait), Tovey included the ad lib organ part to splendid effect, the great concert organ of Roy Thomson Hall underpinning and reinforcing the already grand sound of the orchestra at full throttle, and building up to a thrilling conclusion to the work and the evening.
Or was it? This concert included a positive embarrassment of riches in the way of encores. James Ehnes played, after the Brahms concerto, a meltingly beautiful Andante from the A Minor Sonata for solo violin by Bach. Then the orchestra, far less commonly for Toronto, encored after the Elgar with two of Brahms' Hungarian Dances in orchestral arrangements.
From the sombre, haunting songs of Ancestral Voices to the ebullience of Brahms dances, definitely a concert to remember -- and the capacity audience certainly seemed to agree.
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