Saturday night at the Festival of the Sound: it used to be the height of rarity for the Festival to do a concert with orchestra, but it's becoming a little more common. You can fit a chamber orchestra of 25 or so players onto the stage of the Stockey Centre without undue cramping!
This one started with Bach's D Minor Concerto for two violins, with Moshe Hammer and Yehonatan Berick as the two soloists. Both of them played magnificently at brisk speeds, with Hammer sounding a touch more romantic in his use of vibrato. In itself this is not a bad thing (to me), but when combined with an ensemble playing mostly without vibrato it can sound a bit odd -- but only a bit, this is not a big deal except to the Great Experts who have anointed and sainted Authentic Performance so that no other form is permissible. I have a word of advice for them, but I'm far too polite to put it in print!
Next up was the Festival Winds ensemble with the rarely-heard but beautiful Wind Serenade by Dvorak. This is one of the last, and surely one of the greatest, works composed specifically for the "harmonie", the German name for an ensemble of 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and double bass. To this basic group Dvorak added a 3rd horn, and a cello, giving a warmer sound to the overall group. And there were few things Dvorak loved more than writing glorious chordal passages for horns in 3 parts, so he obviously put the third horn in with that possibility in mind too! Since it was the Festival Winds, there's no real need to comment on the quality of the performance -- these gents have been playing together for so many years that everything they do meshes seamlessly and is played with great flair and musicality.
After the intermission, there came several presentations to retiring Executive Director Margie Boyd. The 25-piece orchestra then took over the stage, with Jamie Sommerville conducting, for the magical 40th Symphony (G Minor) of Mozart.
When Liszt proclaimed that any work of the orchestra could be completely reduced, in all its essentials except assorted tone colours of instruments, to the piano, Mendelssohn immediately set him straight by saying, "Well, if he can play the opening of Mozart's G Minor Symphony on the piano the way it sounds in the orchestra, then I'll believe him!" Mendelssohn was absolutely correct. The Symphony has a string-dominated opening that sounds at once nervous and quietly apprehensive, but on a piano the rapidly repeated pairs of notes would simply sound overwhelmingly angry.
Sommerville's entire performance was edgy without being tense, and fast without being rushed, and full of subtle nuances that rightly brought the entire audience to their feet at the close.
Sunday afternoon's concert was a musical party in honour of Margie Boyd. Like any good party, it was free (all the musicians donated their services in her honour) and like any good party it went on and on, with a great variety of music to be heard. I'm sorry I had to slide out at the second intermission to begin the long trek home to Woodstock -- I'm sure I missed some great stuff! But what I did hear was all terrific, from Denis Brott's Beethoven Cello Sonata to Russell Braun's Largo al factotum and on from there to Pirates of Penzance excerpts rewritten for the occasion and sung (?) by the inimitable Mary Lou Fallis and Peter McGillivray. Nor would it do to forget the lovable jazz meister duo of Gene di Novi and Dave Young. But there was so much more that I could never do justice to all of it.
All I can say is that if you love classical music and you've never been to the Festival of the Sound you are missing a real treat!
Next up: quick switch to theatre, I'm seeing 5 plays at the Shaw Festival in the next week, starting this afternoon!
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