This week, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra has mounted a fascinating programme of works by five different American composers. The concerts are led by guest conductor Leonard Slatkin, one of the leading American conductors over the last few decades. Although Slatkin has appeared as guest conductor with the TSO on a number of occasions, this concert marks the first time I've managed to get to one of his performances.
The concert opened with a Canadian premiere: Cindy McTee's Double Play for Orchestra. Maestro Slatkin raised appreciative chuckles when he disclosed in his pre-concert speech that Cindy McTee is his wife, that he and his son are also composers, and that he tries to programme one work by each of them in turn on a weekly basis to keep the revenue stream flowing!
One of the more entertaining aspects of contemporary classical music is the fun of trying to imagine from the title what a particular piece might sound like or how it might be put together. McTee's title certainly intrigued me with the number of possibilities it raised in my mind. In the event it turned out to be a two-movement work lasting some 17 minutes, with the two movements linked together.
Normally, my great beef with contemporary music is the lack of any kind of rhythmic sense, any feeling of momentum or progression. In that case, you'd think that I would enjoy the highly upbeat second movement more than the slower, almost static first. But you'd be wrong. McTee's first movement, entitled The Unquestioned Answer, presents a modern riff on Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. Using the same searching melodic "question" which Ives posed on trumpet, McTee puts it through a kaleidoscopic array of variations on different instruments, while string chords appear, shift, and vanish like clouds and occasional threatening swells of thunderous brass tone swamp the scene. It's nothing if not gripping.
The second movement, Tempus Fugit ("Time Flies") builds up what seems an unstoppable momentum of jazzy cross-rhythms across the orchestra, with much use of percussion to punctuate the rhythmic drive. It's very engrossing for a few minutes, but outstays its welcome as the sameness begins to wear after a while. All the frequent shifts in rhythmic pattern were played with crisp precision.
One of the more entertaining aspects of contemporary classical music is the fun of trying to imagine from the title what a particular piece might sound like or how it might be put together. McTee's title certainly intrigued me with the number of possibilities it raised in my mind. In the event it turned out to be a two-movement work lasting some 17 minutes, with the two movements linked together.
Normally, my great beef with contemporary music is the lack of any kind of rhythmic sense, any feeling of momentum or progression. In that case, you'd think that I would enjoy the highly upbeat second movement more than the slower, almost static first. But you'd be wrong. McTee's first movement, entitled The Unquestioned Answer, presents a modern riff on Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. Using the same searching melodic "question" which Ives posed on trumpet, McTee puts it through a kaleidoscopic array of variations on different instruments, while string chords appear, shift, and vanish like clouds and occasional threatening swells of thunderous brass tone swamp the scene. It's nothing if not gripping.
The second movement, Tempus Fugit ("Time Flies") builds up what seems an unstoppable momentum of jazzy cross-rhythms across the orchestra, with much use of percussion to punctuate the rhythmic drive. It's very engrossing for a few minutes, but outstays its welcome as the sameness begins to wear after a while. All the frequent shifts in rhythmic pattern were played with crisp precision.
Next, pianist Jon Kimura Parker joined the orchestra and Maestro Slatkin for the Piano Concerto, Op. 38 by Samuel Barber. Barber is most famed for his Adagio for Strings, adapted from his early String Quartet. This concerto came later in his life, being first performed in 1962, and received its TSO premiere a year later -- both performances with pianist John Browning. This is the first time I've ever heard the work.
The concerto's bombastic first movement did nothing to change my impression that Barber had, by this point in his life, written himself out (he didn't think so). It's rather telling that, for a composer who became famous for his melodic gifts, he didn't manage to find a single clear melodic statement anywhere in the movement. There also didn't seem to be any clear connection between the soloist's material and the orchestral sections. The two remaining shorter movements were much more rewarding.
Jon Kimura Parker dispatched the fiendish arpeggios and glissandos of the solo part with great energy and flair in the first movement, and then mined a vein of poetry in the slow second movement with gentler playing and beautiful phrasing. The orchestra under Slatkin partnered him to lovely effect in that slow movement and then had themselves a fine old time with the high-energy 5/4 moto perpetuo of the finale.
The concerto's bombastic first movement did nothing to change my impression that Barber had, by this point in his life, written himself out (he didn't think so). It's rather telling that, for a composer who became famous for his melodic gifts, he didn't manage to find a single clear melodic statement anywhere in the movement. There also didn't seem to be any clear connection between the soloist's material and the orchestral sections. The two remaining shorter movements were much more rewarding.
Jon Kimura Parker dispatched the fiendish arpeggios and glissandos of the solo part with great energy and flair in the first movement, and then mined a vein of poetry in the slow second movement with gentler playing and beautiful phrasing. The orchestra under Slatkin partnered him to lovely effect in that slow movement and then had themselves a fine old time with the high-energy 5/4 moto perpetuo of the finale.
After the intermission, we heard three shorter works in contrasting styles. Bernstein's Overture to Candide featured on perhaps the very first Toronto Symphony concert I ever attended, as a Grade 8 student, and I remember how we studied the themes and listened to a recording in music class before the concert. It remains a brilliant, extrovert showpiece with several obstinately memorable ear worms among its rich budget of melodies. Slatkin's ebullient performance would have met with the approval of the young Bernstein when he wrote the piece (Lenny was notorious for getting slower in his tempi as he got older).
The next work, definitely more serious, was Corigliano's Elegy for Orchestra. This deeply-felt piece written in 1965 was dedicated to Samuel Barber, and well it might be for the example of Barber's famous Adagio is close at hand here, at least by inference. Corigliano's harmonic vocabulary is a good deal spicier than the austere sounds of the young Barber, but the emotional atmosphere remains common to both works. Maestro Slatkin led the orchestra in a thoughtful, concentrated reading of this miniature gem of orchestration, with the flutes in particular delighting with their pure, cool tone in the opening measures and throughout.
The final piece on the programme lent its title to the entire concert: Gershwin's An American in Paris. This symphonic poem, written in 1926-28, was described by Gershwin himself as a "rhapsodic ballet," and that description pointed the way to its eventual use in the classic 1951 film. But he also said on another occasion:
"It's a humorous piece, nothing solemn about it. It's not intended to draw tears. If it pleases symphony audiences as a light, jolly piece, a series of impressions musically expressed, it succeeds."
While the TSO and Slatkin were unquestionably jolly on this occasion, I'm not so sure about the "light" part of it. Slatkin let the brass section run a little too forcefully in some passages, so much so that the overall balance suffered. Also, a couple of the fast sections were too hectic for my liking, as speed took precedence over musicality. But Slatkin undeniably had the measure of the score, and handled all the surprising stops and tempo changes without leaving any loose ends. In sum, a performance that was much more than merely competent but somewhat less than ideal.
Overall, this was an uncommonly rewarding concert for a programme containing so many works that have rarely if ever been heard before by so many of the audience. Maestro Slatkin certainly achieved his stated intention of bringing to life a diverse and involving selection of the riches of twentieth-century American music. The concert repeats tonight, Nov. 23, at 8:00 pm at Roy Thomson Hall.
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