A Week to Remember

Okay, Week One of the Festival of the Sound for this year is now history, and I'm exhausted!  Going to three concerts a day for several days in a row is exhilarating but also tiring -- and somewhere along the line, someone gave me a nasty cold which took out much of the remaining zip and go.

But never mind.  It was a spectacular week from start to finish.  Altogether we got three Beethoven sonatas and two major chamber works from pianist Martin Roscoe, and I am just as baffled as before about why an artist of this calibre has never appeared in Canada before!  That said, I hope he comes back soon and often.  His Waldstein and Tempest sonatas fully lived up to the previously reported Pathetique, and if the Dvorak Piano Quintet # 2 was somewhat heavier and more emphatic than the Brahms Piano Quartet already described, that lies as much with the high-energy playing of the Afiara Quartet as with the pianist! 

Another fascinating concert featured harpist Lori Gemmell and storyteller Tom Allen in two works inspired by Greek myth.  Allen's humourous recitations set the scene beautifully.  Gemmell's playing was lovely and lyrical when traditional harp style was expected, in Marjan Mozetich's Songs of Nymphs.  When it came to Murray Schafer's The Crown of Ariadne, she turned into a one-woman band (literally) as she used multiple unconventional ways of getting sound out of her harp as well as a half dozen added percussion instruments.  This score gives a new meaning to the word "virtuoso"!

Another evening brought a rare performance of Sibelius' late quartet, Voces intimae.  I confess I found this one a bit of a tough nut to crack at first hearing, but I'm sure it will repay repeated listening. 

I think one of my major highlights of the week came Friday afternoon, when Luba Dubinsky and the Cecilia Quartet gave a powerful performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet.  The dark shadows in this piece were unmistakable, but so was the raucous irony of the middle scherzo movement.  Dubinsky has played this piece for half a century, and even performed it once for Shostakovich himself, so I'd say the authenticity of the playing could be taken for granted.

It's too bad I won't be back at the Festival till the closing weekend.  Some day maybe I'll manage to take in the whole thing (or at least get close to it).