The great wrap-up for the 2018 Festival was once again supplied by the National Academy Orchestra from Hamilton ON, under the direction of Boris Brott. As with the National Youth Orchestra which we heard back at the beginning of the Festival, this is a training institute with extensive classes and seminars geared to preparing for careers as orchestral musicians. Unlike the National Youth Orchestra, the auditioned participants in the National Academy have already graduated with degrees, and are entering the professional music world.
The concert consisted of four works: a suite from West Side Story (in tribute to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein), four selections from the film Star Wars by John Williams, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with John Novacek as piano soloist, and the famous Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, in the classic orchestration by Maurice Ravel. It's actually the second complete set of Pictures at this year's Festival, since Stewart Goodyear performed the original piano text last week during my absence.
Rant For the Day: And that's where I'm going to start, with this masterpiece which is in danger of becoming overworked to the point of being mere cliché. I hope not, because the Pictures really are a masterly collection of miniature tone poems -- whether in the original version for solo piano or in the Ravel orchestration. They just get performed so damned often these days that I am finally becoming heartily sick and tired of the things. If orchestras must go on performing the work, maybe they could give us all a change of scene by using one of the several other orchestrations which have been made -- just for a bit of variety. Just a bit? Please??? Rant over.
No complaints from me for the rest of the programme, though -- even if we did hear a West Side Story collection just last night! The Gershwin Rhapsody is a firm favourite of mine, which -- in sharp contrast to the Mussorgsky -- I have never before heard played live in a large orchestra ensemble.
Okay, on to the performances.
The orchestra hit the ground running with a vigorous performance of the suite from West Side Story, a medley of the kind in which each section comes to an end on a suspension or transitional chord to lead into the next. Even with the all-too-short nature of some of the snippets, Brott and the orchestra characterized each melody firmly before moving on.
The four selections from Star Wars were an unplanned late addition to the programme. These pieces went to the opposite extreme, taking short pieces of film score and redeveloping them for far too long. But again, the playing was firm and clear. The brass and winds dominated the texture appropriately in the Imperial March while the strings delivered sweeping legato in Leia's Theme.
A short pause while the stage was re-set in the scariest configuration I've ever seen -- with the beautiful grand piano poised a bare 10 centimetres from the front edge and the drop into Row AA of the audience seating. "Please, let the stage crew set the brakes to extra firm," was what I was thinking, after having seen the extraordinary vigour of John Novacek's playing throughout the week.
The Rhapsody in Blue began with a gorgeous rendition of the famous clarinet slide and just went from strength to strength. Novacek delivered a rousing, even rowdy, performance of the solo part with stunning accuracy, and the orchestra matched him for sheer energy and crisp attack. The work was beautifully shaped by Brott, and the buildup to the final chords was as powerful as anyone could ask.
After the intermission, the Pictures at an Exhibition really gave the orchestra's members a chance to shine in solo bits, as Ravel's masterly orchestration includes many unusual and effective instrumentation choices.
As Boris Brott's National Academy always includes a conductor among the young musicians, this young conductor (name not given in the programme) took the podium to conduct the opening four sections of the score -- and did so very effectively. He also brought an interesting detail of conducting style to my attention. The unnamed young conductor led the orchestra with the conventional orchestral manner of placing the strong first beat of a bar at the top end of a rising sweep of the baton. The vast majority of orchestral conductors use this style. Boris Brott, however, does not. Throughout the concert, he began each bar with a downward sweep, leading the orchestra with the conventional 3-beat and 4-beat patterns more often used by public school teachers and choral directors.
(Yes, I know that the strong beat is called a "downbeat" and yes, it's confusing as hell when orchestral conductors deliver the "downbeat" by swinging the baton up, but that's what they do!)
The opening Promenade set the scene at a brisk but not unreasonable speed. The lurching broken rhythms of Gnomus remained sharp and clean. The pulsing rhythm underlying The Old Castle was played more gently than usual, reinforcing the note of pathos in the solo saxophone melody. Bydlo featured a tuba solo with a warm, almost furry sound, appropriately representing the oxen drawing the huge wagon. Chattering woodwinds were a delight in the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle brought a crisp, precise rendering of the muted trumpet line. Lugubrious low brasses mourned deeply in the Catacombs. The bassoon solo at the still centre of The Hut on Chicken's Claws created an appropriately creepy feeling for the gloomy forest home of the witch Baba Yaga.
The suite concluded with a mighty upwards rush into the Great Gate of Kiev, and here the dynamic gradations were finely controlled by Brott so that the music still had somewhere to grow right up to the final overwhelming pages (it is, by the way, extremely difficult to achieve that gradation in the original piano score).
The Festival, then, wrapped up with a spectacular performance of a resplendent orchestral work, and it made a worthy conclusion to three and a half weeks of wonderful music.
* * * * * * * * * *
My Top Ten
Out of all of the dozens of concerts I attended, I've picked these ten performances as my top ten memorable moments of the Festival. Why? Because each one had something special about it. Because each one pushed my buttons in some unique way. Because I can and I want to. Because... oh, well -- just because!
# 10: The complete and intriguing traversal of all 6 solo cello suites by Bach, spread across three days with two suites each from Cameron Crozman, Rachel Mercer, and Rolf Gjelsten.
# 9: The excellent "teaser" performance of the first movement (only) of Schubert's Grand Duo Sonata by the Bergmann Duo. ("Please, sir, I want some more.")
# 8: A fascinating selection of six Schubert lieder chosen for their evocative use of the pianissimo, sung by Leslie Fagan and accompanied by Leopoldo Erice.
# 7: Polished and beautifully-sung performances of two Bach Lutheran Masses and one motet by the Elora Singers under the direction of Mark Vuorinen.
# 6: The stunning presentation of two Chopin piano concertos, in chamber versions, with Charles Richard-Hamelin as the poetic yet still dynamic soloist.
# 5: The National Youth Orchestra under conductor Johnathan Darlington in a thoughtful and truly moving rare live traversal of A Pastoral Symphony by Vaughan Williams.
# 4: The vivid contrasts between powerful energy and serene stillness in the Schubert String Quintet with the Tiberius Quartet and Bryan Cheng.
# 3: The dramatic intensity and power, in word and music, of the opening night commission, Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow.
# 2: The spacious, subtle, and ultimately gripping performance of the Brahms Clarinet Trio with Jim Campbell and the Cheng²Duo.
And my top pick for most memorable, most exciting, most "it" performance of the 2018 Festival:
(drumroll, please!)
# 1: The earth-shaking, rousing, folk-dance-gone-gigantic performance of Dvorak's Piano Quintet No. 2 by John Novacek and the Tiberius Quartet.
I'm already anticipating the next great Festival season, the 40th anniversary, in 2020!
The concert consisted of four works: a suite from West Side Story (in tribute to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein), four selections from the film Star Wars by John Williams, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with John Novacek as piano soloist, and the famous Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, in the classic orchestration by Maurice Ravel. It's actually the second complete set of Pictures at this year's Festival, since Stewart Goodyear performed the original piano text last week during my absence.
Rant For the Day: And that's where I'm going to start, with this masterpiece which is in danger of becoming overworked to the point of being mere cliché. I hope not, because the Pictures really are a masterly collection of miniature tone poems -- whether in the original version for solo piano or in the Ravel orchestration. They just get performed so damned often these days that I am finally becoming heartily sick and tired of the things. If orchestras must go on performing the work, maybe they could give us all a change of scene by using one of the several other orchestrations which have been made -- just for a bit of variety. Just a bit? Please??? Rant over.
No complaints from me for the rest of the programme, though -- even if we did hear a West Side Story collection just last night! The Gershwin Rhapsody is a firm favourite of mine, which -- in sharp contrast to the Mussorgsky -- I have never before heard played live in a large orchestra ensemble.
Okay, on to the performances.
The orchestra hit the ground running with a vigorous performance of the suite from West Side Story, a medley of the kind in which each section comes to an end on a suspension or transitional chord to lead into the next. Even with the all-too-short nature of some of the snippets, Brott and the orchestra characterized each melody firmly before moving on.
The four selections from Star Wars were an unplanned late addition to the programme. These pieces went to the opposite extreme, taking short pieces of film score and redeveloping them for far too long. But again, the playing was firm and clear. The brass and winds dominated the texture appropriately in the Imperial March while the strings delivered sweeping legato in Leia's Theme.
A short pause while the stage was re-set in the scariest configuration I've ever seen -- with the beautiful grand piano poised a bare 10 centimetres from the front edge and the drop into Row AA of the audience seating. "Please, let the stage crew set the brakes to extra firm," was what I was thinking, after having seen the extraordinary vigour of John Novacek's playing throughout the week.
The Rhapsody in Blue began with a gorgeous rendition of the famous clarinet slide and just went from strength to strength. Novacek delivered a rousing, even rowdy, performance of the solo part with stunning accuracy, and the orchestra matched him for sheer energy and crisp attack. The work was beautifully shaped by Brott, and the buildup to the final chords was as powerful as anyone could ask.
After the intermission, the Pictures at an Exhibition really gave the orchestra's members a chance to shine in solo bits, as Ravel's masterly orchestration includes many unusual and effective instrumentation choices.
As Boris Brott's National Academy always includes a conductor among the young musicians, this young conductor (name not given in the programme) took the podium to conduct the opening four sections of the score -- and did so very effectively. He also brought an interesting detail of conducting style to my attention. The unnamed young conductor led the orchestra with the conventional orchestral manner of placing the strong first beat of a bar at the top end of a rising sweep of the baton. The vast majority of orchestral conductors use this style. Boris Brott, however, does not. Throughout the concert, he began each bar with a downward sweep, leading the orchestra with the conventional 3-beat and 4-beat patterns more often used by public school teachers and choral directors.
(Yes, I know that the strong beat is called a "downbeat" and yes, it's confusing as hell when orchestral conductors deliver the "downbeat" by swinging the baton up, but that's what they do!)
The opening Promenade set the scene at a brisk but not unreasonable speed. The lurching broken rhythms of Gnomus remained sharp and clean. The pulsing rhythm underlying The Old Castle was played more gently than usual, reinforcing the note of pathos in the solo saxophone melody. Bydlo featured a tuba solo with a warm, almost furry sound, appropriately representing the oxen drawing the huge wagon. Chattering woodwinds were a delight in the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle brought a crisp, precise rendering of the muted trumpet line. Lugubrious low brasses mourned deeply in the Catacombs. The bassoon solo at the still centre of The Hut on Chicken's Claws created an appropriately creepy feeling for the gloomy forest home of the witch Baba Yaga.
The suite concluded with a mighty upwards rush into the Great Gate of Kiev, and here the dynamic gradations were finely controlled by Brott so that the music still had somewhere to grow right up to the final overwhelming pages (it is, by the way, extremely difficult to achieve that gradation in the original piano score).
The Festival, then, wrapped up with a spectacular performance of a resplendent orchestral work, and it made a worthy conclusion to three and a half weeks of wonderful music.
* * * * * * * * * *
My Top Ten
Out of all of the dozens of concerts I attended, I've picked these ten performances as my top ten memorable moments of the Festival. Why? Because each one had something special about it. Because each one pushed my buttons in some unique way. Because I can and I want to. Because... oh, well -- just because!
# 10: The complete and intriguing traversal of all 6 solo cello suites by Bach, spread across three days with two suites each from Cameron Crozman, Rachel Mercer, and Rolf Gjelsten.
# 9: The excellent "teaser" performance of the first movement (only) of Schubert's Grand Duo Sonata by the Bergmann Duo. ("Please, sir, I want some more.")
# 8: A fascinating selection of six Schubert lieder chosen for their evocative use of the pianissimo, sung by Leslie Fagan and accompanied by Leopoldo Erice.
# 7: Polished and beautifully-sung performances of two Bach Lutheran Masses and one motet by the Elora Singers under the direction of Mark Vuorinen.
# 6: The stunning presentation of two Chopin piano concertos, in chamber versions, with Charles Richard-Hamelin as the poetic yet still dynamic soloist.
# 5: The National Youth Orchestra under conductor Johnathan Darlington in a thoughtful and truly moving rare live traversal of A Pastoral Symphony by Vaughan Williams.
# 4: The vivid contrasts between powerful energy and serene stillness in the Schubert String Quintet with the Tiberius Quartet and Bryan Cheng.
# 3: The dramatic intensity and power, in word and music, of the opening night commission, Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow.
# 2: The spacious, subtle, and ultimately gripping performance of the Brahms Clarinet Trio with Jim Campbell and the Cheng²Duo.
And my top pick for most memorable, most exciting, most "it" performance of the 2018 Festival:
(drumroll, please!)
# 1: The earth-shaking, rousing, folk-dance-gone-gigantic performance of Dvorak's Piano Quintet No. 2 by John Novacek and the Tiberius Quartet.
I'm already anticipating the next great Festival season, the 40th anniversary, in 2020!
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