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.
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.
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