Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony 2017-2018 # 3: The Greatest

Once again, I am running nearly two weeks behind, but better late than never -- here it is.

The last mainstage concert of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra featured a stimulating mixture of rarely-heard and central repertoire works, in a programme that spanned three centuries of orchestral writing and even more of the art of composition generally.

That extensive span was due above all to the opening work on the programme, Three Studies from Couperin by Thomas Adès, composed in 2006. Adès has expressed his admiration for the music of the greatest of France's Baroque composers, and in this work took three preludes by Couperin and orchestrated them. But that's using the term loosely. The original melodic and harmonic material was broken up into fragments, and the fragments re-assigned to a kaleidoscopic variety of positions among the various players -- a small double orchestra of strings plus seven brass and woodwind players and a percussionist.

This was a fascinating work, the more so because one must strain every faculty to pick out the successive melodic and harmonic notes in the shifting, predominantly quiet textures. The orchestra gave it a poised performance marked by great clarity under guest conductor Case Scaglione.

The orchestra was then joined by concertmaster Bénédicte Lauzière as soloist in the Violin Concerto, Op. 14 by Samuel Barber. From the opening shared chord, the partnership of soloist and conductor parallelled and captured the relationship of violin and orchestra in the music. After savouring all the lyrical beauties of the first two movements (including Jim Mason's ravishing oboe solo in the andante), soloist and conductor then took us on a hell-for-leather ride in the frantic moto perpetuo of the finale -- without Lauzière ever losing the necessary crisp execution for even a second.

After the intermission, the concert reached its summit with the monumental C Major Symphony of Franz Schubert -- the one subtitled simply The Great. As conductor Scaglione humorously pointed out in his introductory comments, this symphony is either # 7, # 8, or # 9 depending which numbering system you follow! But the greatness of this music is never in doubt for a second, and neither was the quality of the performance.

Right up front, I want to commend the playing of the horn and trombone sections, which do so much to give this symphony its special colour -- not least because of the many completely exposed passages they have to play. Close behind them would have to come the wind sections. The more often I hear this symphony, the more I realize that the handling of the winds in this score --- separated out as a group from the orchestral body in many key passages -- absolutely prefigures the later practice of Gustav Mahler.

The tricky tempo shift from the slow introduction to the main allegro in the first movement was cleanly negotiated without the loss of a second. Throughout this movement, Scaglione gave the music ample room to breathe and flex as it needs to if it isn't to become a four-square and dull affair.

The wintry march of the second movement remained sprightly even when dark, never drooping into mere heaviness. The contrasting lyrical theme sang in the most authentic Schubertian manner. The shocking silence at the climax of the movement was succeeded by a full-length pause before the music resumed -- no cheating on the score on that point -- although I would have welcomed a more tentative , exploratory feeling to the notes as the music resumed.

The scherzo romped along from first to last very robustly, while the trio section captured nicely the accordion-like flavour of the writing.

In the finale, the essential characteristic is sheer momentum. Unlike the Barber concerto, this isn't a product of frantic speed but rather of unstoppable energy embodied in two main figures: the theme which contains four repeated notes in each of its phrases, and the endless somersault accompanying figures in the strings which go on and on throughout most of the movement (and it is not a short one). In this performance, the energy of the four-note theme was undeniable but the execution of the string figures began to get muddy. It's not surprising. At the end of a full-length concert, the poor violins -- already thoroughly worked out -- have to count and keep track of what seem like hundreds of identical frantic 4-note figures that just keep going and going like the Eveready bunny.

But that's a minor quibble in the big scheme of things. Scaglione and the orchestra together gave this massive symphony a reading of power and nobility, with plenty of energy and excitement to boot.

Echo Chamber Toronto # 1: A Stunning Synthesis of Music and Dance

Chamber music has often been described as "a conversation between friends" -- a conversation conducted in musical pitches and tones. Dance, too, is an innately interactive art form, with the interaction arising from the dynamics of movement. What, then, becomes possible if you fuse these two different yet similarly conversational art forms together?

That is exactly the concept which Toronto-based violinist Aaron Schwebel has set out to explore with his new performance series, "Echo Chamber." The idea arose out of his interactions with the dancers in his role as concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada's house orchestra. After the first Echo Chamber performance on Friday night, it's plain that this new series is going to be a fascinating artistic adventure, for performers and audiences alike.

Conflict of Interest Alert:    Choreographer/dancer Robert Stephen is my nephew.

For this first performance, Schwebel approached Robert Stephen, First Soloist with the National Ballet and a choreographer whose dance creations have always intertwined very closely with the music he has chosen. Stephen choreographed the entire programme, and danced with fellow First Soloist Jenna Savella. The musical works, all for solo violin, were performed by Schwebel.

The National Ballet has often presented works which call for one or more musicians to be on stage, but they have usually been relegated to the corners, or the back, to give maximum space for the dancers.

This performance, entitled "Origin," took a totally different approach, integrating musician and dancers closely together in their use of space, and in their actions and reactions towards and around each other. The result was a stunning synthesis of music and movement where the boundary lines between the two weren't simply blurred but utterly erased.

The continuous 40-minute performance began simply, with Schwebel (in the wings) playing the Preludio from Bach's Partita No. 3 in E Major, while Stephen moved slowly around the stage, stretching and extending one moment, and crouching or sitting the next to touch the floor, all done as if testing the limits and possibilities of the space.

Schwebel appeared on the stage as the Preludio came to its end, and moved immediately into the Sonata No. 2 by Eugène Ysaÿe. The movements of this sonata were interspersed with excerpts from Signs, Games and Messages by György Kurtág. Stephen's choreography in the Sonata became much more sweeping and dramatic, while still clearly responding to the ebb and flow of the music. At the same time, he frequently moved around behind Schwebel, as well as reaching in to pluck finished pages of music off the music stand. 

The more cryptic and jagged idiom of the Kurtág pieces found dancer and violinist interacting in a more comical manner -- sudden darting figures in the music were the signal for equally sudden movements by each into the other's space.

After a brief pause, Kaija Saariaho's Nocture brought an appropriately dreamy blue-silver lighting plot as Jenna Savella appeared, making her own discovery of the space and its possibilities.

The programme then concluded with the monumental Chaconne in D Minor from Bach's second Partita for solo violin. For this work, Savella and Stephen took the stage together, creating a hauntingly lyrical pas de deux in which certain passages and movements were regularly repeated, even as the same notes recur regularly in Bach's perfectly structured music. Meanwhile, Schwebel was moving slowly around the stage as he continued playing throughout the entire fifteen-minute span of the work, now stepping forward, now backing and turning away, even dropping slowly to his knees at one point for a couple of the variations before rising to his feet and moving on.

Put that all together, and the result was a complex interaction of fast and slow motions woven by dancers and violinist around each other, and all in the closest response to the music. It was a breathtaking technical tour de force, a powerful creation of heart-tugging beauty by the three performers. Here, above all, we saw and heard the fulfilment of Aaron Schwebel's vision for what the integration of dance and chamber music could become.

I look forward eagerly to the next Echo Chamber performance!

Opera Tailored to Measure

In the field of opera, I have very decided likes and dislikes -- and among my most decided dislikes are some of the great warhorses of the past, particularly from the Italian repertoire.  I tend to approach opera with some caution, and usually confine myself to works that I already know and love.

Why, then, did I overcome my normal distance to attend this one?  It was because I did something else I normally don't do -- I read a couple of reviews from other writers, and decided that this was a piece that would repay my efforts.

It most certainly did.

The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring is a new work, co-produced by Canadian Stage, Tapestry Opera, and Vancouver Opera.  But I have to qualify that right away.  It's a new work in its current form.  In fact, this project has evolved over many years through a number of different theatrical versions before arriving at its present operatic state.

In the programme notes, there are a couple of mentions of the blurring of the boundary lines between opera and musical theatre.  I was most aware of that blurring in terms of the staging, highly stylized, farcically overplayed at times, with mime and clown elements harking back to the commedia dell'arte style.  In the music, the parts that came closest to musical theatre were librettist/director Morris Panych's wittily rhyming text and James Rolfe's adoption of a musical style not far from the patter-song world of Gilbert and Sullivan.

But this is only a patter-song comic opera in part.  Other areas included some seriously challenging operatic ensemble and solo pieces that would drive many theatrical singers to distraction with their strange combinations of totally different melodic materials crossing each other's path.  The music, then -- key element in any opera -- is sophisticated and modern, but in a very melodic and approachable vocabulary.  Orchestration is intriguing, and word-setting felicitous.  Although a Surtitle screen was included, it was scarcely necessary given the nature of the music and the clarity of diction from all the cast.

The plot, derived from an absurd short story by Nikolai Gogol, tells a story of Akakiy Akakiyevich Basmatchin, a government clerk who is a nothing and a nobody until he buys a beautiful new overcoat.  When the coat is subsequently stolen, he goes mad and winds up in an asylum.  After his death, his ghost haunts the streets, stealing overcoats from various people.

Baritone Geoffrey Sirett created an intriguing portrait of a nobody, with his perennially gaunt face and worried expression -- not to mention his skill at ignoring all the people who perennially ignored him.  His drunk scene in the second act was unusual too, more of a stylized drunk than a realistic one, which fitted better with the overall stylization of the piece.  Vocally, his performance was excellent, particularly in his slow recitals of lists of numbers to be added up.

Mezzo-soprano Andrea Ludwig did fine work as Akakiy's landlady, veering wildly across the entire spectrum of possibilities from 1920s flapper girl vamp to concerned mother substitute.  I loved her seductive voice in the earlier scenes, just as much as I loved her multiple different ways to bring in and offer Akakiy a bowl of cabbage soup.

Baritone Peter McGillivray was bureaucratic pomposity to the life as the Head of the Department where Akakiy works, a dominating presence both physically and vocally from the raised gangway across the rear of the stage.

He then appeared again as Petrovich, the drunken tailor, and created a totally different character, wild in his eccentricity and physically ludicrous in his manner of taking snuff (totally abetted by a specific motif in the orchestra each time).  As for his voice, it could almost as easily have been a different singer in each role, so wide was the variety he brought to his tone colour and production.

Erica Iris Huang, Magali Simard-Galdes, and Caitlin Wood sang with delightful blend and clear, soaring lines as the Mad Chorus.  Huang also presented a totally different appearance and presence as Petrovich's hard-headed, efficient wife.

And who could forget the fantastic mime work of the two movement performers, Colin Heath and Courtenay Stevens?

Ken MacDonald's set simply but clearly set the time-frame of the story.  The wall of dark-wood frames with old-style domestic stained glass in them proved equally effective as a backdrop to an office and as a streetcar.  The upper walkway, and the portable stairway wheeled in to connect at centre stage, also were well-used for many key moments.  Portable scenery elements were moved on and offstage quickly and smoothly and were well-chosen to highlight the essentials without added cluttering the stage picture.

Morris Panych's stage direction was always clear as a bell in intention, and supported the singers in the right degree without becoming either overbearing or over-obvious.

The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring is a fun show, musically rewarding, theatrically entertaining, and marked with fine performances right across the cast.  The show continues at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto until April 14.

Toronto Symphony 2017-2018 # 5: Slightly Off the Boil

Last week's Thursday afternoon symphony programme looked unusually enticing on paper, but proved in the event to be a bit less than the overwhelming experience it could and should have been.

The programme consisted of two major works: the Piano Concerto No.2 by Brahms, and the Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninoff.

Soloist for the Brahms (a last-minute replacement) was Inon Barnatan, and the guest conductor was Stéphane Denève.

The concert opened with the Brahms.  Soloist and conductor treated us to a reading with more contrasts and gradations of light and shade than one sometimes hears.  The result was that the most dramatic passages, such as the climactic moments of the first movement and the rousing ending of the scherzo struck home with all the more force.

The epic first movement in particular benefited from this more subtle treatment, giving the audience a journey of wider emotional scope than usual.  

Judging by the conversations at the intermission, many audience members were upset that the conductor did not give the horn soloist a bow at the end, and rightly so -- I can't recall ever hearing the opening horn solo and its recurrences played with such warmth and creamy smoothness of legato.

Joseph Johnson's cello solo in the third movement was both lyrical and heart-warming.

Barnatan gave an excellent account of the huge piano part throughout this truly symphonic concerto, standing forth when it was time to do so and withdrawing discreetly into the ensemble when the composer wrote the part in that manner.  No virtuosity for virtuosity's sake here, and all the more effective for that. 

That's not to say that there were no fireworks, and his big wind-up at the end of the scherzo was strong, purposeful, and hard-edged in the right way.

I especially enjoyed his performance of the finale.  With some pianists, this can come across as an also-ran or afterthought, but Barnatan plainly relished the lighter, sunnier mood and made it clear with the beaming smiles he shot at the orchestra, conductor, and audience.

After the intermission, in the Symphonic Dances, we hit the disappointing part of the programme.  For whatever interpretive reason (which I cannot guess), Denève chose droopingly slow tempi for the first two movements of this work.  The opening dance is ponderous enough with its endless descending triad figures, and there's no need to make it more so by taking it at such a slow speed.  The second movement waltz was even slower, and pretty much laid it down and died as a result.  The waltz tempo is clearly written into the music, complete with the classic ump-pa-pa rhythmic figures throughout.  If you set a sensible, swirling waltz tempo as your benchmark then you can take the short slow-downs and hold-ups requested by the composer without losing momentum.  Denève's waltz never even got going, and there was no momentum to lose as a result.

By the time we reached the final movement, the game was already lost.  The final movement shot off the mark at a much more central speed, and the raucous concluding pages hit the mark, but the performance earned no more than respectful applause, and not even overly much of that.

I've heard the orchestra play Symphonic Dances several times before, and always with so much fire and passion that they yanked the audience clear out of their seats at the close.  I couldn't help wondering how the players must have felt, being forced to drag and droop their way through music that rightly needs to lift and fly and spit fireworks!