If it wasn't the very first Toronto Symphony concert I ever attended as a youngster, it was certainly one of the first. It would have been somewhere around 1968 or so that I sat down in the cheap seats in Massey Hall and heard for the first time Dvorak's Symphony # 8. Last night, I heard it live again -- for the first time in half a century. Talk about returning to your roots.
The concert, under guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard, featured a feast of Romantic music, all well known repertoire staples, and all played with immense passion and energy -- the only way to go with these masterpieces from the height of the Romantic era.
The programme opened with a Wagner selection, the one which Sir Donald Tovey once described as "the Prelude-and-Liebestod monstrosity." I have to agree. Just because you can attach the final ten minutes of Tristan und Isolde onto the end note of the opera's Vorspiel (prelude) doesn't mean you should. But musicians have been doing it for over a century and they're not likely to stop any time soon, so this rant will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears. In any case, I feel more deprived by having to listen to the Liebestod without having an Isolde on hand to sing those exquisite final pages.
Dausgaard and the orchestra played the music beautifully, capturing the swelling, orgasmic quality at the heart of Wagner's most radical inspiration.
The orchestra was then joined by violin soloist Vadim Gluzman for the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 by Tchaikovsky. This was a big-boned performance, the soloist playing throughout the work with a broad, bold tone that was entirely apt. But don't mistake "broad" and "bold" as pseudonyms for "raw" or "rough"! The violin sound remained sweet and clear at all times. Not only that, but the notes registered clearly throughout the work, even in the wildest acrobatics of the finale. An impressive performance.
The concert, under guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard, featured a feast of Romantic music, all well known repertoire staples, and all played with immense passion and energy -- the only way to go with these masterpieces from the height of the Romantic era.
The programme opened with a Wagner selection, the one which Sir Donald Tovey once described as "the Prelude-and-Liebestod monstrosity." I have to agree. Just because you can attach the final ten minutes of Tristan und Isolde onto the end note of the opera's Vorspiel (prelude) doesn't mean you should. But musicians have been doing it for over a century and they're not likely to stop any time soon, so this rant will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears. In any case, I feel more deprived by having to listen to the Liebestod without having an Isolde on hand to sing those exquisite final pages.
Dausgaard and the orchestra played the music beautifully, capturing the swelling, orgasmic quality at the heart of Wagner's most radical inspiration.
The orchestra was then joined by violin soloist Vadim Gluzman for the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 by Tchaikovsky. This was a big-boned performance, the soloist playing throughout the work with a broad, bold tone that was entirely apt. But don't mistake "broad" and "bold" as pseudonyms for "raw" or "rough"! The violin sound remained sweet and clear at all times. Not only that, but the notes registered clearly throughout the work, even in the wildest acrobatics of the finale. An impressive performance.
Dausgaard and the orchestra played with great fervour in the first movement, and with equally notable restraint in the slow movement. If the tempo of the finale was a touch too hell-for-leather for my liking, it was undeniably well played by everyone -- and the resulting standing ovation and five calls for the soloist were absolutely merited.
After the intermission, on to the Dvorak Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88. This symphony has always fascinated me for its unusual and innovative approach to structure and orchestration. The composer spoke of working out his ideas in new ways, but that's rather modest -- every movement of this symphony brings unique tactics to the presentation, development, and combination of its themes. And every movement has a startling interjection or interruption which seems to live outside the structure of the remainder of the movement. As well, Dvorak here came up with some intriguing, even quirky, tone colours by combining instruments in unexpected ways -- for instance, a high quiet line in the violins combined with a flute playing very low down in its register (only one of many examples).
Dausgaard led the orchestra in a performance which emphasized the huge dramatic contrasts found throughout this score. Dynamics were taken right to the wall in both loud and soft passages. Such moments as the tragic eruption in the slow movement or the sudden fast coda in the third movement registered as startling, indeed almost shocking, in a performance of this intensity.
More than any other work of Dvorak's, this symphony highlights the contributions of the woodwind players, and the TSO's wind sections covered themselves with glory from start to finish. I've never before noticed just how much this emphasis on the winds parallels Mahler's characteristic woodwind writing (Mahler's first symphony was finished the year before Dvorak 8).
Given the intensity heard elsewhere, the third movement (a graceful, light-footed waltz) here became a most necessary relaxation point before the buildup through the final movement. The unexpected fast coda in duple time took on a playful atmosphere which was truly beguiling.
The dramatic contrasts became larger still in the finale, a kind of theme-and-variations in two different tempi. The sudden leap from the slower tempo of the first variation to the fast second one shot off like fireworks and the weird chromatic flourishes from the horns came across both clearly and cleanly -- a tricky balancing issue at that point. The flute solo in the next variation was both aristocratic and acrobatic. Dausgaard then rolled full steam ahead through the last two bizarre tempo changes in the coda, and brought the symphony to a rousing conclusion.
Thomas Dausgaard first conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2004, and has been back as a guest conductor in virtually every season since then. His concerts have given me many wonderful musical memories (especially his Mahler Tenth and the Nielsen Third and Fifth Symphonies a few years back), and this fine performance certainly joins the list.
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