It was an impressive evening of music from the Romantic era for orchestra.
My lifelong love affair with the music of the Romantic composers really began with Brahms, so this week's concert at the Toronto Symphony brought a welcome chance to re-hear the master's Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90. It's been many years since I last heard a live performance of this work, partly because the orchestral music of Brahms has been somewhat declining in popularity. That fact was attested by the sizable number of vacant seats in Roy Thomson Hall on Friday night.
My lifelong love affair with the music of the Romantic composers really began with Brahms, so this week's concert at the Toronto Symphony brought a welcome chance to re-hear the master's Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90. It's been many years since I last heard a live performance of this work, partly because the orchestral music of Brahms has been somewhat declining in popularity. That fact was attested by the sizable number of vacant seats in Roy Thomson Hall on Friday night.
This is unfortunate, because the performance exemplified the positive changes that have come in the interpretation of Brahms during my lifetime. When I first heard this symphony as a youngster, the norm was a thick, plushy carpet of string sound which cocooned and sometimes covered the wind and brass parts. The orchestras of my youth tended to play everything -- whether Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms -- with the same sizable body of players.
But the authentic performance movement of the last 40-some years has spread to the Romantic era, no longer confined to the Baroque and Classical periods. Research has taught the musical world a great deal about the style of playing that Brahms would have been imagined and expected as he was composing the work.
So this performance fielded a moderate-sized string body, and the strings employed more restraint in vibrato than was the case five decades ago. This has striking results in the balance for many sections of the symphony. Louder passages are now more dominated by the tone of the horn section, while quieter counterpoints in the woodwinds can be heard and appreciated today in a way that was formerly hard to achieve. It's much closer to the kind of sound Brahms would have heard at the symphony's premiere in Vienna.
Guest conductor Donald Runnicles is an acknowledged master of the Romantic repertoire. He led the orchestra in a performance of considerable dash and fire in the first and last movements, with smoothly flowing tempi marking the two intermezzo movements in the middle of the work. Highlights for me were the quiet central episode of the second movement, with its pairs of notes sounding quietly in the most unexpected harmonic corners, and the parallel quiet, deep announcement at the beginning of the finale of a kind of chorale built up from those paired notes. Runnicles gave both of those key passages an unmistakable air of anticipation and mystery. Then, when the chorale returned full force with a whirlwind of string sound rolling around it, he summoned the brasses to give it their all -- with spectacular, even hair-raising, results.
No less fine was the quiet, meditative ending of the whole symphony, where the maestro cast a warm, autumnal glow across the final pages of the work.
The all-important horn parts, both melodic and chordal, were all played with equal measures of stylistic finesse and security of tone, and the woodwind sections covered themselves with glory in their numerous exposed passages.
It's not often that a concert begins with the longest work on the programme, but in this case it made sense to open with the Brahms. The second half was devoted to two works from one of the last of the great Romantic composers, Richard Strauss.
First up was a real delight and rarity, the Concerto in D Major for Oboe and Small Orchestra. This was composed in the summer of 1945, and is yet another of the glorious products of the composer's late years. The lyricism of Strauss found a particularly beguiling expression in this sunny, genial work, where this or that turn of phrase conjures associations with such other beauties as Daphne or the Four Last Songs.
The solo part of this concerto is deceptively easy and natural-sounding. In actuality, the endless strings of notes place stringent demands on the oboe player (circular breathing is essential!). The orchestral ensemble consists of pairs of flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, a cor anglais, and the strings. This smaller ensemble is well-paired with the light-toned solo instrument. The resulting work requires immense skill from the soloist and a deft, light hand from the conductor.
TSO Principal Oboe Sarah Jeffrey not only met the technical demands of the score, but conveyed exactly the air of light-hearted joy which makes this work such a delight. Donald Runnicles shaped the accompaniment perceptively, with only one brief passage in which the orchestra momentarily swallowed the oboe tone -- and that's a built-in hazard of the particular passage. Otherwise, the balance was impeccable and the sense of a back-and-forth dialogue between soloist and orchestra worked like a charm.
The concert then concluded with one of the more successful of Strauss' tone poems, Tod und Verklärung ("Death and Transfiguration"). This is a much earlier work than the concerto, premiered in 1890 when the composer was 26 years old, but it tackles a weighty theme that many might expect to appeal to a more mature artist.
Symphonic poems or tone poems were a particular musical invention of the Romantic era, and the idea of a musical work illustrating a literary, thematic, or philosophical programme held an obvious appeal for many composers of that time. Overall, though, the form led to mixed, uneven results. In some cases, the programme was so abstruse that both music and programme could only be understood if you had thoroughly read the literary source. A good example of that problem is found in another Strauss work, Also Sprach Zarathustra, which will be performed later in the season.
Tod und Verklärung, however, has a clear and straightforward kind of narrative line guiding it, and the form is the familiar darkness-to-light journey found in so many Romantic works, from Beethoven's Fifth through Brahms' First and right up to Mahler's First, Second, and Fifth Symphonies. In this particular programme, the culmination of the journey brings not only light but the fulfilment of a lifelong quest.
Maestro Runnicles achieved fine balance among the varying sections of the large orchestra, carefully highlighting not only the principal melodies but some of the counter-subjects which often get lost in the overall big sound. The subtleties of the quieter passages were equally notable. The faster, stormy music of suffering was played at an apt tempo which allowed all the notes to register clearly while still maintaining the necessary weight and momentum -- a "sweet spot" which can be difficult to nail exactly.
Highest praise must be given to the long slow final section, the actual "Transfiguration" itself. Here, the "Transfiguration Theme" which has been heard several times in its first phrase, finally continues its life into the balancing second phrase, and the power of that moment of completion was totally palpable. Even better was the slight slowing of the already slow tempo for the final pages, in which the rising Transfiguration theme is heard twice more, with two different harmonizations, neither of which has been heard before. Runnicles highlighted those two final thoughts with care, giving them just the slightest emphasis to draw them out and point them up -- a gently subtle touch in a piece often criticized for being bombastic and noisy.
With a unique and rewarding programme of three contrasted works, Maestro Runnicles gave us an intriguing and diverse portrait of a musical era which thrived on the work of the large symphony orchestra as we know it today.
The solo part of this concerto is deceptively easy and natural-sounding. In actuality, the endless strings of notes place stringent demands on the oboe player (circular breathing is essential!). The orchestral ensemble consists of pairs of flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, a cor anglais, and the strings. This smaller ensemble is well-paired with the light-toned solo instrument. The resulting work requires immense skill from the soloist and a deft, light hand from the conductor.
TSO Principal Oboe Sarah Jeffrey not only met the technical demands of the score, but conveyed exactly the air of light-hearted joy which makes this work such a delight. Donald Runnicles shaped the accompaniment perceptively, with only one brief passage in which the orchestra momentarily swallowed the oboe tone -- and that's a built-in hazard of the particular passage. Otherwise, the balance was impeccable and the sense of a back-and-forth dialogue between soloist and orchestra worked like a charm.
The concert then concluded with one of the more successful of Strauss' tone poems, Tod und Verklärung ("Death and Transfiguration"). This is a much earlier work than the concerto, premiered in 1890 when the composer was 26 years old, but it tackles a weighty theme that many might expect to appeal to a more mature artist.
Symphonic poems or tone poems were a particular musical invention of the Romantic era, and the idea of a musical work illustrating a literary, thematic, or philosophical programme held an obvious appeal for many composers of that time. Overall, though, the form led to mixed, uneven results. In some cases, the programme was so abstruse that both music and programme could only be understood if you had thoroughly read the literary source. A good example of that problem is found in another Strauss work, Also Sprach Zarathustra, which will be performed later in the season.
Tod und Verklärung, however, has a clear and straightforward kind of narrative line guiding it, and the form is the familiar darkness-to-light journey found in so many Romantic works, from Beethoven's Fifth through Brahms' First and right up to Mahler's First, Second, and Fifth Symphonies. In this particular programme, the culmination of the journey brings not only light but the fulfilment of a lifelong quest.
Maestro Runnicles achieved fine balance among the varying sections of the large orchestra, carefully highlighting not only the principal melodies but some of the counter-subjects which often get lost in the overall big sound. The subtleties of the quieter passages were equally notable. The faster, stormy music of suffering was played at an apt tempo which allowed all the notes to register clearly while still maintaining the necessary weight and momentum -- a "sweet spot" which can be difficult to nail exactly.
Highest praise must be given to the long slow final section, the actual "Transfiguration" itself. Here, the "Transfiguration Theme" which has been heard several times in its first phrase, finally continues its life into the balancing second phrase, and the power of that moment of completion was totally palpable. Even better was the slight slowing of the already slow tempo for the final pages, in which the rising Transfiguration theme is heard twice more, with two different harmonizations, neither of which has been heard before. Runnicles highlighted those two final thoughts with care, giving them just the slightest emphasis to draw them out and point them up -- a gently subtle touch in a piece often criticized for being bombastic and noisy.
With a unique and rewarding programme of three contrasted works, Maestro Runnicles gave us an intriguing and diverse portrait of a musical era which thrived on the work of the large symphony orchestra as we know it today.
