On our final day of the Festival for this year, we again went to three concerts, two of which had a decidedly lighter flavour than the previous day!
At noon the concert was entitled "Music for Fun". The opening piece best fit that description, a group of movements from a Serenata by Alfredo Casella -- light-hearted and vigorous, with quirky harmonies.
The performance of Chopin's Etude in A-Flat Major by 14-year-old Parry Sound pianist Gordon Mok was impressive indeed. Many young "clavier-tigers" can fire off the notes with machine-gun accuracy, and that is as far as they get. Mok already has the mark of a true musician, with a sense of the rubato appropriate for Chopin which comes as naturally as breathing. His tempo ebbs and flows with such subtlety that most listeners are probably unaware that it is happening, and that is a prime objective for any Chopin pianist. Watch for more from this gifted and insightful artist in the future!
There followed a Concert Piece in F Minor by Mendelssohn featuring the unusual and lovely sounds of the basset horn, a kind of alto clarinet. The fun here, of course, came with the inevitable but still funny joke about not being confused with a basset hound.
The final Piano Quartet in A Major by Joaquin Turina was not overly long, but certainly substantial -- a most effective marriage of the mainstream European chamber music tradition with the characteristic rhythms and harmonies of Spain. I certainly hope to hear this piece again.
The afternoon concert was a 60-minute program of "Baroque greatest hits", as selected by James Mason and Julie Baumgartel. As Mason admitted at the outset, the selection of such a list involves a heavy dose of personal opinion which is bound to omit someone's favourites, causing a degree of distress or upset as a result! However, this selection certainly hit many of the high water marks of Baroque music while making ample use of the musicians available on this occasion. For me, the star of the show was flautist Suzanne Shulman, equally impressive in the sustained legato of Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirit as in the hectic but finely articulated Badinerie from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2. For the rest, I certainly enjoyed the entire program apart from the inevitable dismay of not hearing such works as the Bach Suite or Handel's Water Music in their entirety.
The Friday night concert, aptly entitled Carnival Night, included a fair bit of letting-down-the-hair on the part of all performers. In a bel canto aria from La sonnambula by Bellini, Leslie Fagan had to put up with shenanigans from accompanist Guy Few, and her hearty laugh soon had the whole audience roaring as well. How she could sing after that, I do not know, but sing she did and most impressively in this classic instance of coloratura fireworks.
In the second half, Fagan returned as narrator for Animal Ditties by Anthony Plog, with Guy Few performing now on trumpet. With impeccable timing, Fagan nailed the hilarious pay-off lines in the verses, and slipped in a little verbal comment of her own (I suspect) in one number.
This was followed by the well-loved Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. Well-loved, that is, by all but the composer. He wrote it for private performance to entertain at a soiree of musicians, and absolutely detested the immense popularity his musical clowning achieved!
For the first time I can recall at the Festival of the Sound, the Carnival was given with the ridiculous verses by Ogden Nash recited before each number. These recitations were shared between Guy Few and Peter Tiefenbach, the latter especially impressive for his absolutely deadpan delivery of Nash's groaner puns.
Musically, Tiefenbach shared the critical two-piano duties with Robert Kortgaard, their playing firmly anchoring the whole performance. Violinists Jerzy Kaplanek and Jeremy Bell made a great game out of trying to outdo each other in the cries of the Wild Asses. Jim Campbell hammed up The Cuckoo in the Woods, listening and waiting with the fiercest concentration for each of the cuckoo's calls. Shulman's Aviary fluttered delicately with beautiful articulation. Tiefenbach and Kortgaard varied the tempo in each of the faux-Hanon exercise in Pianists, to great comic effect. Beverly Johnston, as ever, rendered the clacking of the bones in Fossils with terrific energy. Best of all was the lyrical, deeply felt Swan of cellist Katie Schlaikjer, lovingly applauded by the audience.
All in all, a great wrap-up day for our Festival times this summer.
Now, on to the Shaw Festival for three plays!
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