The TMC Spreads Christmas Joy

This week's virtual Festival of Carols concert from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir triumphantly overcame all obstacles to continue a much-loved Toronto tradition in a year of challenges.

Mounting this programme was especially challenging for the TMC because the Choir had planned and hoped to do an in-person live concert, and was forced by degrees to toss all its plans overboard and re-imagine the entire enterprise for a virtual audience.

With Toronto currently under the most extreme conditions of lockdown, the Choir had to dispense with any thought of live performance on screen and instead adopt a sequence of fascinating visual makeshifts to provide a key element of the entire experience.

The first makeshift became evident in the very first number, Hannah Kendall's Nativity, written in 2006.  In this work for 3-voice SSA choir and 3 solo voices, the singers were distributed widely across the gardens of Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, in a broad arc around conductor Simon Rivard.  The  resonant acoustic surrounding the voices, and lack of any background traffic noise, made it obvious that the music had been previously recorded indoors (in St. Anne's Anglican Church).  The credits at the end confirmed that the singers in the park weren't actually singing as the video was made.  

This unique outdoor re-creation of musical performance was made for several of the numbers during the concert.  The visuals of a cold winter's night, with illuminated Christmas trees in the background and singers warmly wrapped in coats, mitts, scarves, and the like, added atmosphere to a work which already had plenty of atmosphere to share.  

Sadly, Kendall's music in this work belongs to the category of choral music which has little but atmosphere to offer.  The slow-moving, multiple layers of sound were undoubtedly evocative and beautiful but it was challenging to try to discern any of the text.  For much of the piece, the voices could as easily have been vocalizing on open vowels.

In another league altogether was Richard Allain's haunting arrangement -- although I would call it a recomposition -- of the medieval Coventry Carol.  As beautiful as the carol is, its ongoing association with Christmas celebrations has always puzzled me since the ancient melody is a lament for the deaths of the children of Bethlehem, slaughtered at the word of the tyrannical Herod the Great.

Allain's inspiration here was the incorporation of a steady undulation between two notes a minor second apart, which runs as an ostinato throughout the entire three verses of the carol.  For me it evoked the tragic weeping of the women, and heightened the emotional impact of the text by a quantum factor.  The choir's intense performance in this gem sent chills down my spine.

The third main work was a premiere, A Hymn on the Nativity by Alastair Boyd.  This was the winner of the 2020 TMC Choral Composition Competition.  Boyd's music, predominantly chordal in texture, fused a traditional musical language with enough intriguing harmonies to keep the audience on their toes in following the music -- an imaginative new creation indeed.

From this point on, the concert moved to more traditional Christmas fare.  And after all, what would Christmas with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir be without a dose of Handel's Messiah?  The thrilling virtual performance used here was made by the choir and musicians as part of the recent online Messiah/Complex, a nationwide, multilingual performance masterminded by Against the Grain Theatre.

(As a footnote, I've mentioned previously that I sang with the Choir for one season, in 1977-78.  We had only one orchestral rehearsal on Messiah with the Toronto Symphony that year due to our protracted radio taping of a Murray Schafer work for the CBC.  On the day of that only rehearsal, I came down with a filthy cold -- and thereby became one of the few members of the TMC in the last 88 years, perhaps the only member, to complete my tenure in the Choir without ever cracking my Messiah score.)

This is a good spot to mention the choice the Choir made to have each number in this Christmas programme introduced on screen by a different member of the choir, giving us a bit of background from each one on their place in the choir and what it has meant to them.  In between two of the traditional carols, a member whose family roots lie in the Philippines spoke of her Christmas traditions, and was accompanied by an instrumental arrangement of Payapang Daigdig by Felipe Padilla de Leon.  It was an intriguing and lovely nod towards the multi-cultural richness of Toronto and of Canada.  So also was the visual depiction of people of multiple races and nationalities from all parts of Canada during the Hallelujah Chorus.

Excerpts from the Choir's 2019 Festival of Carols, filmed in Yorkminster Park Church, included Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, Away in a Manger with an intriguing reset of the first verse for choir only, and The First Nowell.  All of these carols had been sing-along numbers in 2019, and this year's online audience were encouraged to stand up and have a go as well!

The climax of the evening came for me at the end.  The final carol of the evening was O Come All Ye Faithful, and was sung in Sir David Willcocks' magnificent arrangement in which each of the four verses is harmonized and accompanied differently, building to the spectacular closing bars of the fourth verse.

Organist Matthew Larkin joined in virtually, on the magnificent organ of the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica in Ottawa, first playing a gripping symphonic introduction, and then accompanying the choir.  In the final verse, Larkin added more stops, line by line, until he was calling on the full resources of the instrument, including the thunderous pedals, to underscore the final phrases from the choir.  The thrilling combination of the voices with such a splendid organ brought tears to my eyes.

Like the previous online concerts from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, this wonderful Festival of Carols lasts less than an hour and is worth every second of the time.  It's available free of charge on the Choir's website:

Festival of Carols

For those interested in checking out the full performance of Messiah/Complex, you can register for a free ticket at this link, and the ticket remains valid to view the performance as many times as you wish between now and January 7, 2021.  

Messiah/Complex 

Festival of the Sound 2020: Beethoven Live!

Once again, I have leaped at the chance to take in an actual live concert, under appropriate social distancing requirements, of course.  It's only the second chance I've had since the pandemic began.

As with virtually all live arts presenters, the Festival of the Sound found itself with its entire 2020 summer season cancelled due to Covid-19.  Like many of the others, the Festival decided to at least partially rescue the season -- and the planned anniversary tribute to Beethoven -- with an online concert series during the fall.

Much of the content of these online concerts has consisted of previously-recorded video performances, but last week the Festival brought together a group of artists and a small live audience in the Charles W. Stockey Centre to film a live performance for future video streaming.  Need I add that I was thrilled to be able to secure a ticket?

For our better protection, we were asked to remain at our seats for the entire performance.  This meant taking several minutes between pieces to watch the stage be reset, and to view the careful work of rearranging the microphones which were picking up the music for the video recording.

The concert opened with Beethoven's very first published string quartet -- Op. 18, # 3 in D Major.  Conventionally identified as "Quartet # 3" in the list because of the opus number, it was actually composed the year before its two stablemates in the Op. 18 publication.  

This work was treated to a spirited performance by the Rolston String Quartet -- a performance which never forgot that this was the voice of the student of Haydn.  While the work mainly inhabits the same Classical realm as Haydn's later compositions, there are foreshadowings of the mature Beethoven in a few of the unexpected harmonic turns.  The Rolstons brought equal measures of energy and charm to this early work, producing ravishing lyrical sounds in all four movements.

Next up was an even earlier work, the Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11.  Beethoven was here taking full advantage of the relative novelty of this instrument, although the score specified that a violin could be used instead, which would make it a conventional piano trio.  That's enough to make the cataloguists dizzy as they try to decide whether to include this equivocal work in the numbered list of piano trios or not.  More confusingly still, a bassoon may occasionally be used as a substitute for the cello.

This early three-movement work was played with ample energy by the same trio I heard performing it in Europe last fall -- clarinetist James Campbell, cellist Roman Borys, and pianist Jamie Parker.  While there was much to admire in their interpretation of all three movements, it was the variations of the finale that give each player the most distinctive and memorable moments. 

After a rather longer reset pause (which many of us used to good advantage to stand and stretch), the concert concluded with the first of the late string quartets, the Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127.  With this four-movement work, we had reached what could fairly be called the realm of the "symphonic" quartet, certainly as regards the playing time.  And to think that Beethoven originally planned two additional movements!  

The Penderecki Quartet gave a luminous reading of this work, with the centre of gravity placed right where it needs to be -- in the long, second, slow movement.  The opening section was played at a nicely judged tempo which flowed smoothly without ever ignoring the score's direction of adagio ma non troppo.  In the later third variation, headed adagio -- molto espressivo, the quartet certainly captured the expressive quality which the composer requested.  More striking still was the mysterious quality of the sound in the sotto voce fifth variation.

The other three movements grouped around this one also came in clear, well-thought-out readings which truly captured the almost exploratory sense of these later works.  More than once, I thought of how far some aspects of this quartet reached forward into the Romantic era of music which was just dawning as Beethoven's life drew to a close.

The performances of the Clarinet Trio, Op. 11 and the String Quartet, Op. 127 will be streamed in an online concert on Tuesday, December 15 at 7:15pm.  Tickets for this online event can be purchased at the Festival of the Sound's website.

The Challenge of Remembrance

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir has stirred the pot to thought-provoking effect in a remarkable Remembrance Day online concert entitled Notinikew (Going to War) – a Program of Remembrance.

This programme, guest-curated by Winnipeg-based indigenous composer Andrew Balfour, swept away Remembrance Day's more conventional expressions of heroism and sacrifice, and forced the audience to confront difficult truths that cut uncomfortably close to home.

In this respect, the concert followed the path blazed 58 years ago by Benjamin Britten's stunning War Requiem, a work which was "hostile to received notions of patriotism," as Eric Roseberry so tellingly wrote in a 1991 programme note.

Through immersion in Balfour's powerful compositions, and in the equally powerful poetry and commentaries of Elder Dr. Duke Redbird, the audience were brought face to face with the experiences of war as lived by indigenous soldiers and their communities.

While the army was eager to embrace the sharp-shooting skills of some of Canada's most skilled and experienced hunters, the country was certainly less eager to extend equal respect to them once the fighting had ended.  This duality of experience was searingly articulated through poetry, speech, and music.

The concert opened with Duke Redbird's poem,  A Dish With One Spoon, telling the indigenous perspective of how the land, its beauty, its riches, its waterways, is to be shared by all and with all.

Balfour's choral piece Ambe, a song of welcome, built appropriately on the feeling expressed by the poem, in a video of a 2019 live concert performance by the Mendelssohn Choir under conductor David Fallis.  This lively piece, almost in the character of a scherzo, showed off the agility of the choir in handling darting cross-rhythms.

The heart of the concert came next with four video excerpts from Balfour's choral drama, Notinikew.  This overtly anti-war work, premiered in 2019, takes us far beyond the factual boundaries of historic conflicts, becoming a drama of all indigenous warriors in all wars at all times -- with its central soldier figure becoming Everyman.

The first movement, Calling All Okicitawak (Warriors), and the last two, were taken from a public performance last year in Winnipeg by the Camerata Nova and their artistic director, Balfour, who appeared as the soldier-everyman figure, singing with heart-rending passion.

The rhythmically and harmonically intricate Anthem For a Doomed Youth, which came next, took up a poem by Wilfred Owen also used by Britten in the War Requiem, although here it was treated very differently -- the words divided up and chanted in overlapping phrases by the choristers.  The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir displayed again their mettle in a gripping virtual performance of a technically challenging piece.

The third movement, I went to war, returned us to the Winnipeg performance.

Between the movements, Balfour held brief dialogues with Elder Dr. Duke Redbird, seeking his view on the relation of the indigenous people to these conflicts that were rooted in centuries of European history.  It was after I went to war that Redbird turned overtly to the issue of the residential schools, raising the very valid question: was this the "freedom" that the indigenous soldiers had given their lives to establish?

That question,  hanging in the air, lent additional poignancy and point to the remainder of the concert, beginning with the fourth excerpt from Notinikew, which was entitled Kookum (Grandmother) -- Help me.  Here, the Winnipeg Boys Choir took a key role, the purity and clarity of children's voices linking the plea for help to the residential school survivors and the survivors of wars alike. 

Redbird's recitation of his poem, Stolen Child, reinforced the total disconnect between the aspiration of the majority population to protect "freedom" and the simultaneous denial of freedom to the families of soldiers who fought for that cause.

At this point, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir returned with a virtual performance, How They So Softly Rest by Healey Willan, and a live concert taping of In paradisum by Fauré, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.  The Fauré was accompanied by visuals of reflections on the meaning of Remembrance Day from members of the choir.  These two works, sharing a meditative air, thus became a pair of reminders of a belief in ultimate goodness and unity of all humanity.  

Both were performed with the beautiful legato and security of harmony for which this choir is renowned.

The programme then ended with a short, powerful video collage created by Brian Solomon, accompanied again by Balfour's Anthem For a Doomed Youth.  The images Solomon assembled together were both startling and disturbing, reminding the viewer forcefully of the way that wartime devastation of land, plant life, animal life, and innocent human life too, are all too easily lumped together and waved aside to focus on the bigger question of military "victory."

This remarkable Remembrance Day virtual concert was by turns disturbing, exciting, dramatic, meditative, saddening, and uplifting -- quite an emotional journey for a 1-hour event.

When it comes to creating virtual events designed for online viewing, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and its gifted members and leaders have become the absolute masters! 

The Viola Revolution

Jokes about violas and viola players are legion in the musical world, as much so as jokes about altos, and for the same reasons -- perennially buried in the middle of the harmony under a wave of violins or sopranos, and frequently consigned to the third of the chord.  Rarely does a viola get a chance to shine as a leading or solo instrument.

But now comes a startling new recording, Mobili, from Georgina Isabel Rossi (viola) and Silvie Cheng (piano) which is guaranteed to make you sit up and listen with newly attentive ears.

It's not just the relative rarity of a recital CD featuring the viola at front and centre, but also the rarity (to North American ears) of the programme -- an anthology of music by 20th century and 21st century composers mainly from Chile.

None of these composers have previously come to my attention, nor -- I suspect -- to the attention of most music lovers outside of their Chilean homeland.  Apart from one piece, all the works on this album are receiving their debut recorded performances.  And that is -- on both counts -- definitely a situation due for redress.

The album opens with two works by Rafael Díaz (b. 1962).  The first, ¿Habrá alguien en sus manos sostenga este caer? ("Will there be someone whose hands can sustain this falling?"), composed in 2009, is a visionary, almost otherworldly rhapsody for solo amplified viola.  That quasi-extra-terrestrial atmosphere belies the traditional prayer music of the Pewenche aboriginal peoples of the Andes, which (together with birdsong figures) lies at the root of this intriguing composition.

The second work from Díaz, equally remarkable, is Al fondo de mi lejanía se asoma tu casa ("In the Depths of My Distance Your House Emerges"), written in 2013, which evokes a remote Chilean landscape through which the composer walked to school as a child.  The music captures the haunting, impersonal air of the vast open spaces, and the piano now joins the viola in gentle trills which again evoke birdsong.

Next up is an early Fantasía, op. 15 (1962) for viola and piano by Carlos Botto Vallarino (1923-2004).  Botto's music was influenced by the European modernism of the mid-twentieth century, in particular the work of Luigi Dallapiccola, with whom he studied.  In this work, the slower sections often conceal the harmonic disjunction between viola and piano by resorting to different registers which place the sounds of the two instruments on different planes.  The faster passages emphasize the jagged contours of the viola part against quiet but firm piano chords.

Federico Heinlein (1912-1999) contributes a Dúo, Op. 15, for viola and piano, written in 1985.  The title page of the work refers to Dylan Thomas with the quotation, "Do not go gentle."  This music evinces nothing of rage against the dying of the light, but there is disquiet in plenty with the strange twists and turns of harmony, combining quiet dynamics with the most vigorous harmonic disruption.  The work ends with an incomplete phrase like a quizzical question mark.

With the Tololo of David Cortés (written in 2011), we arrive in perhaps my least-favourite corner of contemporary composition -- the neighbourhood where a composer must produce detailed, even pedantic programme notes, to make clear what he or she was doing and how it ought to be received and appreciated by the listener.  I have long believed that the more a creative artist must explain in words what is being done, the less successful the created piece is in its own terms.  This, for me, is a principle which applies equally whether we speak of music, of dance, of theatre, or of the visual arts.  Call me old-fashioned, and perhaps I am, but I regard copious programme notes as -- at best -- a crutch.

The work which Cortés (b. 1985) has produced here consists of numerous piquant gestures, lacking a firm structural basis to hold them together.  The composer himself, by the way, has referred to his musical elements as "gestural."  The sounds are intriguing, to be sure, but here was the one place where I felt that the composer had worn out his welcome before the composition ended.

The anchor work of the entire programme, Mobili, Op. 63 by Juan Orrego-Salas (1919-2019), was composed in 1967.  It's an 18-minute suite of four movements, which bear the evocative titles Flessibile, Discontinuo, Ricorrente, and Perpetuo.  Flessibile often uses the viola and piano independently, with each instrument taking its turn to present the material.  Discontinuo presents a kind of scherzo with piano and viola darting hither and yon, with occasional tart explosions from one or the other highlighting the essentially quiet textures.  Ricorrente presents a slow, meditative, even ponderous duet for the two instruments which suggest an examination of issues larger than mere worldly concerns.  The final Perpetuo, as its title indicates, is a fast-moving stream of continuous melody, with numerous lightning-fast shifts of metre adding considerable rhythmic complexity.  The movement, and the suite, end on three emphatic chords.

The album ends with a bonus track which is something of a cuckoo in the nest: an arrangement of El Sampredrino (1968) by Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000).  In contrast with the rest of the music, this is a setting of a lyrical melody.  Guastavino was renowned above all as a composer of songs, and his output fuses nineteenth-centuy romanticism with a strong Latin-American sensibility.  This song exemplifies his style.

Throughout this hour-long recital, violist Rossi and pianist Cheng present the most intriguing and sensitive textures, especially in repertoire which is predominantly quiet rather than loud and emphatic.  Rossi plays with clear, unforced tone across the entire dynamic and tonal range of her instrument, creating fascinating variety of sound in a programme which might -- in other hands -- end up being too much of the same thing.  Cheng creates a diverse, subtly varied array of sounds and textures on the piano, again avoiding any suspicion of routine.  

This partnership of artists serves the music very well indeed, drawing us into the different sound worlds of these diverse composers and presenting a fascinating cross-section of contemporary compositon in Chile.  While it's challenging listening, this album is also rewarding and has many moments that will well repay the listener's attention.

The album, catalogue # fcr268,  is available online from New Focus Recordings.

A Stirring Voice Has Left Us: In Memoriam Erin Wall

 It's truly difficult for me to imagine a world where I won't ever hear the singing of Erin Wall in another concert, a world where I will never again have the thrill of anticipation of settling into my seat, knowing I was about to hear that splendid voice.

It's something of a truism among singers that a star soprano is born every minute.  After over half a century of concerts and opera performances, I can easily become jaded about sopranos, and about the legendary egos and antics of some prima donnas.  But every so often, out of the mass of showy, flashy high notes, there emerges a singer who compels you to sit up and pay close attention by the very versatility of her voice, and by the depth and passion of her involvement in her art.  

Canadian/American soprano Erin Wall was in another league altogether.  She was a singer who was also an artist and a musician -- and that's not by any means a universal condition.

It's a great sorrow to me that I never heard her in a live operatic performance.  Most of the obituaries I've seen have focused on her impact in the operatic world.  In particular, I experienced a real pang of jealousy upon hearing that she had earned a specific reputation for her interpretation of the title role in Richard Strauss' Daphne, an opera which I dearly love but have only ever heard performed live once.  For me, though, it was as a concert singer that I knew and esteemed her artistry.

Even after she had well and truly "arrived" in the international operatic world, she continued to appear on a regular basis on stage with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and -- I'm sure -- with other major Canadian orchestras as well.

In these concert roles, she demonstrated the extraordinary versatility of her voice, which combined qualities often considered mutually exclusive -- true pianissimos in which the texts remained clearly audible, lyrical beauty and caressing tone in quieter passages, and gleaming, trumpet-like purity in higher, louder music.  In all of this, the most noteworthy aspect of Erin Wall's artistry for me was her precise judgement of the amount of vibrato that was "just right" -- and I never, ever heard her overshoot the mark.

Erin Wall's purity of tone and clarity of line in Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem was special.

In Part One of Mahler's gigantic Symphony No. 8, her high B-flats and Cs rode clearly and securely over the entire ensemble of 400 performers, without a hint of strain in the tone.  She then blessed her gentler role in the second part with a lyrical beauty of line that, appropriately, brought the world of lieder very near.

At the opposite pole, in the short soprano role of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection"), Wall accomplished to masterly perfection the challenging effect of having her voice be slowly "discovered" as it emerged from the mass of choral sopranos, without the exact moment when she began to sing being audible.

More than any of her other Toronto appearances, I treasure my memories of her in A Sea Symphony, the first symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams.  It's a work not nearly as well known as it ought to be on this side of the Atlantic, but Wall sang it as one to the manner born.  This role called for all facets of her artistry to be employed at various points.  She nailed down the security and power of "Flaunt out, O Sea" as memorably as she floated the luminous tone of her final pianissimo "Behold, the sea itself" at the end of the first movement.  In the finale, her duet passages with Russell Braun were memorable for the way she exactly captured both the sense and the style of the soul "caroling free," in the evocative words of Whitman's text -- and Erin Wall's voice did indeed carol freely in those pages of the score.  At the symphony's final grand climax, her voice again sounded over all the other performers, gleaming, trumpet-like, clear and effortless, in her last invocation to "sail forth."

Last year, her final performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Andrew Davis were captured in concert for release on the Chandos Records label.  The album is a spectacular, plaudit-winning complete concert performance of the opera Thäis by Massenet.  Sadly, I missed those concerts but this recording will hold an honoured place in my collection.

Although her career was cut short at the tragically premature age of 44, Erin Wall's distinguished achievements will be remembered.  As an artist of uncommon versatility, her singing was a great gift to the world of music, both in opera and in concert.

 

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir sings glorious Songs of Thanksgiving

On Saturday night, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir premiered what is undoubtedly the most intricate virtual concert I've yet seen.

Over a 50-minute span, the Choir presented music ranging from Bach to the present day, and across a geographic span that extended from Canada to Liverpool, and from Leipzig to the south of India.

Even more striking, this performance incorporated both visual art creation and dance alongside music -- and dance in a style that cannot have been familiar to many in the online audience.

The technical complexity of the virtual programme was impressive indeed.  The professional core group of the choir, with pianist Gergely Szokolay, were filmed on the stage of the Trinity-St. Paul's Centre on Bloor Street West in Toronto.  The instrumental ensemble, drawn from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, along with organist Matthew Larkin, were filmed on a separate occasion on the same stage.  In both cases, all required social distancing guidelines were followed.  

Other members of the choir filmed themselves, singing at home, and one number was filmed by the father and daughter team of Trichy and Suba Sankaran together in their home.  The Odissi dancer, Supriya Nayak, was filmed in part in the balcony of Trinity-St. Paul's, with the choristers behind her, and in part on a dark box-of-blacks stage lit only by lights trained on her.

Visual artist Jennylynd James was captured by a time-lapse video camera as she worked on her painting, 

This diverse mass of video streams was mixed and assembled on screen with impressive aplomb.  I can only imagine the dozens -- hundreds -- of hours of work required after recording to assemble the entire programme.

Kannamma -- A Concert of Thanksgiving was planned by guest curator Suba Sankaran.  The concert opened and closed with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest of all choral composers in the European classical tradition.  The two excerpts were drawn from his celebratory church cantata Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29.  Both movements were set in D major, with an orchestra requiring trumpets and drums, a never-failing sign of celebration in the music of Bach.  

The programme opened with the chorus, Sei Lob' und Preis' mit Ehren. The concluding work of the concert, the chorus Wir danken dir, Gott, is the slightly different original version of the music later adapted by the composer as the Gratias of the B Minor Mass -- to a text which, appropriately, expresses the same feelings of thanksgiving, but in Latin.  Even under these virtual conditions, and with a small ensemble of instruments, the performances aptly captured the monumental character of these magnificent choruses while sacrificing nothing in contrapuntal clarity.

Bach also appeared in the second number, but this was a Bach that immediately brought the famous Swingle Singers to mind.  The professional core group of the choir launched into an exuberant, jazzy, upbeat take on the famous melody Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, composed -- not just "arranged" as modestly stated in the programme -- by Suba Sankaran.  Sankaran created her own words to go to this well-loved musical theme, What Does Gratitude Inspire?

This was followed by another, and truly moving, musical adaptation.  In 1831, Gottlob Benedict Bierey  composed a solemnly luminous, deeply felt setting of the Kyrie from the Ordinary of the Mass, set in conjunction to another of classical music's greatest hits, the opening Adagio movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for piano.  The long, sustained phrases and notes of this music drew a response from the choristers that began in reflective mode and rose to a climatic peak of near-anguish before subsiding into silence.  The stylistic resemblance to some of Mozart's later choral music, particularly that master's stand-alone Kyrie in D Minor, was unmistakable -- and not particularly surprising, given the date of composition.

This was followed by the Beatles' Because, arranged by Suba Sankaran, a song whose beginnings took the famous Moonlight Sonata as a point of departure.  It's during this number, sung by the professional core group, that the video image of the singers is overlain periodically by the fascinating time-lapse video of Jennylynd James at work on her painting, which is itself inspired by the song.

The next number on the concert featured a display of messages of thanksgiving from a number of the choristers, set to the song Gracias a la vida, by Violeta Parra.  This simple melody was sung as a vocalise, I believe by Suba Sankaran (not specified in the programme), with guitarist Dylan Bell.

A highlight of this concert for many would be found in the next group of three numbers, all drawing in some degree on the traditions of South Indian Carnatic music.  Purvi Tillana, by T. S. Bhagavatar, brought together Trichy Sankaran on the double-ended hand drum called mrdangam, and Suba Sankaran contributing a hand rhythm while singing the Sanskrit text, rooted in Indian musical syllabics.  This piece had a fast triple-beat basis, and within that framework the drummer and singer brought forth the most intriguing complexities of rhythmic sophistication.

Next came Suba Sankaran's original composition, Kannamma, set to a text that is an English translation and adaptation of the love poem, Kannamma, by Tamil poet Bharathiar.  In this work, Sankaran combines the compositional techniques of the classical ragas with jazz influences, setting her English text to striking effect.  This fascinating piece displayed the versatility of the singers in spades, especially in the abrupt jazzy syncopations.

The real impact of Kannamma came from the incorporation of the fluid, graceful, incredibly detailed and expressive dancing of Supriya Nayak.  Her work was fascinating not least because of the way that every angle of a finger, turn of a wrist, bend of an elbow, or tilt of the head was plainly infused with very specific meaning -- while, at the same time, her whole performance flowed smoothly and limpidly from start to finish.  The videographer, Ed Hanley, has incorporated some masterly multi-camera effects so that the dancer's fluid movements are shown from multiple angles simultaneously.

Dylan Bell's Dona nobis pacem brought even more intriguing fruit of world music fusion, as classical Indian musical practice combined with Renaissance polyphony spiced up with jazz harmonies, all brought to life by the unaccompanied choir.

That piece proved to be the perfect bridge to return us to Bach and the majestic chorus, Wir danken dir, Gott.  Not the least of the reflective resonances is the way that this timeless music, when adapted to its later home in the B Minor Mass, set not only the Gratias agimus tibi but also, at the very conclusion of that monumental work, the same text used by Bell -- Dona nobis pacem.

Whether in the larger virtual group, or with the smaller onstage professional core group, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir excelled in a broad range of musical styles and traditions throughout the programme.  Not the least exciting for me was the rock-solid coordination of the Bierey Kyrie, where the gentle rubato of pianist Szokolay made it abundantly clear that the at-home singers were working with the pianist's and conductor's video recordings, since they could not possibly be resorting to a click track to stay in synchronisation. 

The small ensemble of orchestral players were also first-rate, as one expects, in the opening and closing Bach selections.

The truly adventurous nature of this virtual concert becomes abundantly clear when you realize that no less than four of the selections were utterly dependant on the visuals to make their full effect.  These included the flowing time lapse of Jennylynd James at work on her painting in Because, the greeting cards of thanksgiving shown during Gracias a la vida, the eye-catching drum and hand percussion of Purvi tillana, and most of all the striking Odissi dancing of Supriya Nayak in Kannamma.  Even if an effort were to be made to incorporate such elements into a hall or church concert, they would remain much more distant to the audience and have far less impact.

Plainly, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is going "all in" to create concerts designed for online virtual presentation, rather than simply trying to film and present traditional concerts on line.  I give them full marks for having the courage to leap into these unknown waters of technical wizardry and the fusion of hybrid art forms into a single presentation.

On the technical side, it's too bad that many watchers, including myself, experienced frequent problems with the live stream seizing up during the opening three numbers.  The comment section of the livestream page quickly filled up with complaints, and I must have refreshed the page about 25 to 30 times before the reception finally settled down.  I suppose this is a side effect of the live stream taking place at the traditional concert-going hour, when internet systems everywhere are being taxed by people streaming TV shows, videos, movies, and more.

But there was an unfortunate consequence.  At the beginning, there were some 250 viewers watching the event.  By the time I was finally able to stop refreshing the page, and checked the number again, it was down to 54 and remained in that area for the remainder of the programme.  If any of the other 200-odd disappointed viewers are reading this, I can assure you that I had no trouble at all streaming the entire programme the following night, from start to finish.

Even allowing for that very annoying technical hitch, Kannamma: A Concert of Thanksgiving was both a fascinating evening of multi-discplinary arts in fusion with splendid choral music, and a striking artistic venture showing great imagination and breadth of vision.

At the conclusion of the performance, conductor Simon Rivard announced a Remembrance Day concert for November 11, with this programme to be curated by noted Cree composer Andrew Balfour.  This certainly sounds like another engrossing artistic journey in the making.

If you missed the live stream performance of Kannamma, or would like to watch it again, you can continue to access it at the following link:

Kannamma -- A Concert of Thanksgiving

The programme, with notes and sung texts for the performance, can be found here:

Kannamma -- Programme 

 

 

Return to the Concert Hall: The Cheng²Duo

On Tuesday evening, I did something I haven't done since February: I walked into a concert hall and sat down in my seat to hear a live concert of classical music.

The venue, itself unusual, was the Salle Bourgie, a part of the Montreal Musée des Beaux Arts.  It's located in the sanctuary of the Erskine and American United Church on Sherbrooke Street, right beside the main building of the museum.  This Romanesque stone church with its beautiful Tiffany windows is a National Historic Site of Canada, and now forms part of the museum's collections.

The use of this lovely space for concerts is, of course, subject to social distancing guidelines.  Every second row of seats has been removed, and in the remaining rows seats are sold with two vacant seats on either side.  So I had a single seat to myself, my nearest neighbour in the third seat to my left, and an aisle on my right.  Masks had to be worn until the recorded announcement which began the performance.

In this unique setting, the Cheng²Duo presented a short recital of French music of the twentieth century, as a tie-in to the special exhibition of the post-Impressionist French artist Signac and his contemporaries which is on display right now (I visited the exhibition on Wednesday, and it was impressive).

The evening opened with an incisive performance of Debussy's Cello Sonata in D Minor, composed in 1915, just a few years before the composer's death.  This late music is in many ways worlds apart from the Debussy of the well-known orchestral frescoes like La mer, Iberia, or the three Nocturnes.  For listeners, it's a demanding piece, requiring full attention to every detail as the music unfolds.  Despite one or two moments where the piano momentarily overpowered the cello (a particular hazard of this width of hall, I think), the music remained clear throughout, with much fine detail from both players.

Nadia Boulanger became renowned as the greatest teacher of composition in the twentieth century, but herself retired from active composition at an early date to devote herself to teaching.  Her Three Pieces of 1914 remain as one of the few works she did complete.  The first movement, Modéré, came across like a chamber evocation of a cloudy day.  Both this movement and the second Sans vitesse et à l'aise, drew out something like a sigh or deep breath across the audience as the final notes died away.  By contrast, the third piece seemed almost raucous as the Chengs played it, a necessary contrast to be sure, but still with a strongly-civilized pedigree.  These delightful works were all played with sensitivity and poetic feeling.

Even more so, then, the 1897 Violin Sonata (posthumous) of Ravel, here transcribed for cello by Bryan Cheng -- and very successfully too.  For those who missed the sensuous earlier Debussy, here was music which often called him to mind -- and that's ironic to say the least, because the student Ravel who composed this sonata would later go on to mine his own vein of mordant irony, developing his own personal musical language in a totally distinctive and unique vein.  Cellist Bryan Cheng shaped the long melodic lines into musical poetry of a high order.

Speaking of distinctive musical styles, Francis Poulenc was a composer with a completely unique voice and approach to composition.  His music covers a wide emotional compass, but only a few bars of almost anything he ever wrote will bring you face to face with one of his signature mannerisms.  His 1948 Cello Sonata is no exception.  Indeed, the first time I heard the Cheng²Duo perform this work, I made a little mental bet with myself about how soon I would hear the distinctive voice of the composer.  It's no more than 5 or 6 bars in.

The second, slow movement (Cavatine) is the odd one out in this work, since it's the only one of the four movements that isn't notably invaded by the rakish boulevardier aspect of Poulenc's style.  It provides a lovely lyrical contrast to its surroundings for this reason, and the evocative melodies came out from both players with simple beauty and poise.  

In the other three movements, although the music certainly exists as an equal partnership, it's through the quirky harmonies in Silvie Cheng's piano part that most of the humour emerges -- music busily pushing the audience's buttons, in fact.  Plainly, Silvie Cheng was relishing the innate fun and satire built into the music.  Like a good joke teller at a dinner, she knows just how much extra emphasis to give to the punch lines.  When the Cheng²Duo play this piece, it's impossible to repress a smile and I don't advise trying.  I'm sure Poulenc would be pleased that the Chengs treated his work to such a witty performance.

The recital ended with a small bonus, returning to Debussy for a transcription of his song Beau soir -- as Silvie Cheng said, a perfect little description of the 75 minutes we had just spent together.

Ludwig and Beyond Part 1: Beethoven Meets a Stunning World Premiere

 On Saturday night, the Cheng²Duo launched the world premiere of their "Ludwig and Beyond" project in honour of the Beethoven Anniversary year -- in front of a small but appreciative live audience and a very much larger and also appreciative online audience.

The premiere had originally been planned for Europe, in June, and was of course cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Thanks to the Ottawa Chamberfest, which has launched its first online "season" to make up for the lost summer festival, the Chengs had an opportunity to perform Part 1 of their unique programme right in their home town of Ottawa.

The uniqueness of this project lies in the Duo's conception of commissioning several contemporary composers to create new works inspired by or connected in some way with one of the five Beethoven Cello Sonatas, and then present the Beethoven works with the contemporary ones all together at the same time.

The three composers commissioned are Paul Wiancko, Samy Moussa, and Dinuk Wijeratne.  

In last night's performance we heard the world premiere of Wiancko's stunning Sonata No. 1: Shifting Baselines, alongside the Beethoven Sonata No. 4 which Wiancko took as his point of departure -- and with the rest of the programme filled up with the Beethoven Sonatas No. 1 & 5.

Contemporary classical music can be a mixed bag.  Reactions can range all the way from the mental garbage can, through, "Well, that was interesting," to "I  want to hear that again -- I'm sure there's more to it than meets the ear at first hearing."

Very much rarer is the excitement of "I need to hear this piece again -- now!"  And that was very much my reaction to Wiancko's Sonata.

This is a striking example of a work conceived on a broad scale, 23 minutes long, with more than ample musical interest and thought to sustain that length of time.  The work unfolds in a series of interconnected sections, each one displaying its own unique sound world -- ten sections was my count.  

The Sonata began with an introduction of pizzicato notes on the cello, evoking the idea of a plucked jazz bass.  Soon the piano joined in, doubling the cello and adding a few selected notes in the higher register.  What captured my interest right at the outset was the presence of a clear rhythmic element in the music, distinct tempo and frequent shifts of metre combining to keep musicians and audience alike on their toes.

The great strength of Wiancko's work is the continuing presence of a clear rhythmic sense through every subsequent section -- whether fast or slow, simple two-step or more complex cross-rhythms, every page of this Sonata has something to say on the rhythmic level.  I take the time to emphasize this point because so much contemporary music consists of sound effects totally lacking in any kind of rhythmic life at all.

Not that melodic or harmonic interest is lacking in Wiancko's music -- far from it!  Different sections of the Sonata ranged from solemn chordal harmonies to fiercely discordant dance-band sounds, from gentle wisps of melody reminiscent of Debussy to cello melodic figures cutting directly across the patterns of the piano.  A furious scherzando came closest to evoking the musical world of Beethoven.  

The penultimate section returned clearly to C major, the key of the Beethoven Sonata No. 4, with slow scale passages rolling quietly up and down on the cello, beginning on different degrees of the octave but remaining firmly grounded at all times in the home key.  This merged into a shortened recapitulation of the opening pages which brought the work to a subdued conclusion -- a classical touch indeed.

As for the three Beethoven Sonatas, the music is too well known to require comment.  Performances by the Chengs covered the fullest range of style, from the quasi-Mozartean world of the early Sonata # 1 to the more rarefied atmospheres of the late Op. 102, containing Sonatas No. 4 & 5.  Entirely appropriate was the scaled-down tone of the first sonata.  More striking was their subtlety in some passages of the later pair where other interpreters may find more blood and thunder appropriate.  The key here was the adoption of a taut, crisp articulation by both players which prevented overly-romantic lushness and kept all the strands of the musical argument clearly in view -- especially valuable in the fugal finale of No. 5.

And who could resist the piquant playfulness which equally characterized that fugue?  Certainly, I had a smile on my face -- and I'd like to think Beethoven did too.

The second programme of this remarkable Beethoven project, with two more world premieres, will be live-streamed on Dec. 19, 2020.  Details are available from the Ottawa Chamberfest.

Classical Music Concert Videos No. 4: Extraordinary Chopin

This video captures a rare and special event: a solo stage performance of the Chopin Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58 by the legendary Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich.  This performance was recorded in the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg on June 25, 2020, with no audience but the camera operators.

Argerich burst upon the musical world in the 1960s with stunning impact as a young wunderkind.  After a hectic time as a touring virtuoso, she considered abandoning the world of music, but instead withdrew for a period from live solo performances.  These solo appearances have remained rare in the years since, as she has preferred to devote herself to concerto performances, chamber music, and mentoring younger artists.

Argerich has said that she feels tremendously alone when on stage in solo performance.  All the more remarkable, then, that she should take the stage again, in an empty hall, no less, to present this stunning performance of one of the summits of the Romantic piano literature.  What a splendid gift from this extraordinary artist to the musicians and music lovers of the world at a time when traditional live performance had become impossible.

And what an extraordinary performance!  Argerich has always been renowned for her musical insights as much as for her almost preternatural technical mastery.  To these she has added a level of depth, maturity, understanding, even sensitivity, which can come to fruition only as the product of an entire lifetime lived in music. 

Right from the opening bars of the first movement, we're aware of the juxtaposition, in lightning-fast shifts, of power and authority alongside fantasy and delicacy.  The arrival of the second main theme is marked by lyrical phrasing and rubato of distinction.  Cascading roulades unfold with ease and a gentle flow that might elude lesser hands.  In the stormier passages of the development, there's no shortage of power.  The tempo transitions into and out of passages featuring the second subject are handled with subtlety and finesse.

The second movement scherzo opens with the most lightweight, fleeting, fairylike textures, growing to a more powerful (but not overblown) rendition of the final bars before the slower, more meditative central trio.

The slower theme of the third movement unfolds with a truly lyrical, indeed vocal sense of phrasing, highlighting the resemblance to a sung melody.  Most remarkable is the completely integrated feel of the rubato, as natural as breathing itself and lacking any sense of being an interpretive nuance consciously added on.  The closing bars, slowing down and growing quieter ever so slightly, had me holding my breath as if in a live concert, fearful of breaking the spell.  I've never heard this movement given such a vivid life of its own, and it led me to do something I don't often do -- to replay it after I reached the end of the sonata.

The tarantella-like finale is taken by Argerich at a reasonable tempo, allowing the busyness of the score to carry the impression of supersonic speed while every stage of the musical argument still emerges clearly.  Unlike many interpreters, she holds back her big guns at first, and thus opens up the door to changing her style and emphasis on each recurrence of the dramatic main theme.  The movement builds up in the most organic way to the theme's last and grandest occurrence, and the torrents of cascading sound then carry the sonata inevitably to its conclusion.

This magisterial performance was supposed to remain available on Medici TV until the end of October, but appears to have already been removed from that platform.  Pity.  But there is a copy posted on YouTube, and the sound is good although the picture is slightly out of sync -- distracting in the passages where the camera focuses on the keyboard.  It's worth that annoyance to hear this sonata played with such distinction!

 

Martha Argerich Chopin Sonata No. 3 Op. 58 

Classical Music Concert Videos No. 3: Yes, THAT Bach Piece

It's an inescapable reality.  Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music divides neatly into two groups:

[1]  The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565

[2]  All the other 300-odd organ works.

Let's face it, that one single piece is everywhere.  Mention "Bach" and "organ" in the same breath, and you know exactly which piece is going to spring to mind -- to audiences' minds with anticipation, to organists' minds with scarcely-concealed dread.  That single piece is to organists what Messiah is to choirs, what Nutcracker is to ballet companies, what Traviata and Carmen are to opera houses, and what anything by Beethoven is to symphony orchestras.  With the same piece always in demand, in season and out, it would hardly be surprising if organists shuddered at being asked to perform it yet again.  Like the other artists I mentioned above, they really have no choice.  It's the ultimate drawing card, the great crowd pleaser, the piece that puts bums on seats like nothing else ever written for the instrument, and woe betide the organist who leaves it out of a concert programme or recording.

In passing, I will briefly refer to a small group of musicologists who have cast doubt on the authenticity of this work, partly because no copy of it in Bach's hand exists.  On the other hand (pun intended), the vast majority of musical scholars, including the editors of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, the catalogue of the composer's complete works, have not included any notation of doubts about the attribution of the work to the master.  And we'll just leave the matter there.

So recorded and video performances of it are a dime a dozen, and there's really an interpretation for every musical taste, from the most strictly authentic to the most flamboyantly romantic.  The video concert which has drawn my eye here comes down firmly in the flamboyant camp.  Xaver Varnus is a Hungarian-born organist who now holds citizenship in Canada.  In his birth homeland, he's a major celebrity, not least because of his love of making music intelligible to mass audiences.  This earns him scorn from some musicians, but there's no denying that he knows his stuff, musically speaking.  And this video proves it.

It's the venue, though, and the filmmaker's use of it, that makes this video especially striking.  This Toccata and Fugue was committed to video at a live 2013 recital in the Berliner Dom, the massive neo-Renaissance evangelical "collegiate church" and royal burial crypt in the German capital.  The current church was built in 1894-1905, and in the hands of video director Mate Vargha it becomes one of the key elements of the video, the ornate decor and vast space of the interior being captured to full effect -- even a couple of exterior shots are included. 

Befitting both the Dom's size and its status for the German Empire, it was equipped with the largest organ in Germany at the time, 113 stops divided over 4 manuals and pedalboard, built by Wilhelm Sauer.  It's said that it remains the largest late-Romantic organ in the world which has survived in its original condition.  There is ample evidence in this video of the dexterity of Varnus in playing this four-manual instrument, although I would have welcomed a clearer shot of his feet working the pedals, especially in the passages in the fugue where the melody drops into the bass line and the pedalboard becomes the scene of the action.

The enormous domes and apses of this church are a plentiful source of echoes, and although these are not overly obvious in the recording, they do dictate some of the lengthy pauses in Varnus' interpretation, as well as the relatively moderate tempi in some sections where musicians performing on a smaller instrument in a less-resonant acoustic can really shoot off at rocket speed.

It's a given that a performance recorded on such a grandiose organ is going to tilt somewhat in the direction of romantic fervour, and Varnus isn't afraid to let the music go there.  I particularly enjoy the way his extended pauses draw your attention forcefully to the extreme chromaticism of some of the massive chords, giving these contorted sounds plenty of time to seep into your consciousness.  In particular, he isn't afraid to draw on the full power of the 32-foot pedal stops at the grandest cadences.

On the other hand, there's no denying the almost playful character of some of the rapid running passages, especially in the opening pages of the fugue.  And I definitely admire Varnus for his ability to make use of the different stops to bring out inner voices which often disappear into the general wave of sound in lesser hands.

In no sense is this an "authentic" interpretation, but if you're going to play one of Bach's most dramatic pieces on a large organ in a large venue, this is the way to go.  This video captivated me with the power of the instrument and the intensity of the performance by Xaver Varnus, alongside the splendid camera work on the interior and exterior of a unique and historic building.  Here's the link:

Xaver Varnus Plays Bach's

Toccata & Fugue in D Minor

in the Berliner Dom

Further interest: if you check out the YouTube channel of Xaver Varnus, where this video is posted, you will find several other video recordings of him playing assorted works on a diverse range of organs.

Classical Music Concert Videos No. 2: Mozartean Charmer with Renee Fleming

Just like the immortal Messiah of Handel, this lovely little gem for soprano and orchestra is in grave danger of becoming known to the wider musical public solely by one movement.  And again, that one movement is an Alleluia.

That Alleluia is one of the great warhorses of the soprano repertoire, a real showstopper for a singer.  The maddening thing, for me at least, is struggling for a chance to hear the entirety of Mozart's cantata, Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, in a live performance.  Mozart wrote this delightful work in Milan in 1773, at the ripe old age of 17.  The identity of the author of the text is unknown, but it may have been Vananzio Rauzzini, the Italian castrato for whom Mozart wrote the music. 

But just try to hear the entire work in a live performance.  Three times in my life now, I've had the experience of going out of my way to attend a concert where this work was listed on the programme -- and all they did was the Alleluia!

Well, here's to make up for it.  I found this beautiful video performance of the complete four-movement cantata.  There are actually a number of such video performances available.  Although the video post lacks documentation, it's easy to see that the venue is the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. 

Neither the orchestra nor the conductor are identified in the clip, but the singer is -- the glorious American soprano Renee Fleming.

As any one of her legions of fans might predict, Fleming acquits herself splendidly.  The huge space of the Royal Albert Hall could certainly be said to be too large for authentic performance of Mozart, but the orchestra is suitably sized up while still maintaining a light and transparent sound appropriate for this music.  In a performance that is necessarily bigger than usual in scale, Fleming's voice strikes the necessary balance between agility and power.

And there's no doubting Renee Fleming's ability to sing this charmer with style.  Ravishing high notes combine with soaring lyrical phrases in the slow movement, Tu virginem corona.  Natural speech rhythms highlight the second movement recitative.  Both the opening movement and the final Alleluia show her nimbly negotiating the florid runs, and the cadential pauses in the first and third movements find her interpolating stylish but not overdone cadenzas.  In the closing bars of the work she tosses in some sparkling additional ornamentation to highlight the final repetitions of Alleluia.

If you're not familiar with this beautiful gem, this video is a great way to make its acquaintance.

Renee Fleming sings Exsultate, jubilate (Mozart)

Classical Music Concert Videos No. 1: String Orchestra Masterpiece

With this video, I'm starting a new series of reviews, devoted to actual live performances which have been captured on video and posted on the internet.  These make an acceptable substitute until live performances with audiences can resume -- and in some cases capture unique occasions that are worthy of preservation.  A link to the performance(s) under discussion will be included at the end of each review in this series.

It's hard for me to think of any other twentieth-century musical work which is at the same time so beautiful to audiences, yet so elusive to performers.  It's been recorded dozens of times, by many world-famous orchestras and conductors, and yet the number of recordings that actually hit the mark is much -- very much -- smaller.  For my money, anyway.

The Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, more often called for short the Tallis Fantasia, is one of the earliest masterpieces by the great English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Composed in 1910, this work has remained its creator's single most popular composition, and is widely regarded -- not only in the United Kingdom -- as one of the great masterpieces of all music.

Nevertheless, it remains a work which doesn't readily unlock its secrets to the average performer.  In order to make the Tallis Fantasia really come to life, the conductor and players alike have to immerse themselves in the idea that this music is a meditation on a sacred song -- because the tune on which it is built was written to be sung to a metrical version of the first verses of Psalm 2. 

It's also essential to keep in mind that this music was written for performance in a cathedral (Gloucester, to be precise) and the spacious ambience of such an ancient building is built right into the music, so to speak.  Played in a modern concert hall, and performed as just another piece of music, the Tallis Fantasia will likely hang fire -- and it has done so in many recordings by some of the world's truly distinguished conductors.

If there's one thing that today's video proves, it's that a conductor who is himself a string player has a huge head start in facing this score, because the sensitivity to the sound of massed strings is built right into his/her grasp of music.  This video also highlights the value of performing the work in a hall which, if not Gothic in style, is particularly well attuned to the sound of string instruments.

In 2014, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was preparing for a major tour of Europe, with two different programmes to alternate throughout the tour.  They presented one of these two programmes at a midsummer concert in Koerner Hall in Toronto, just before departing on for Europe.  This video recording of the Tallis Fantasia was made at that concert.

My memory of that concert was that I was simply overwhelmed by the power, the beauty, the intensity, the insight of Maestro Peter Oundjian's reading of Tallis. And I know I wasn't the only one, because this piece -- predominantly slow or moderate in tempo, and ending very quietly, drew rousing applause, three calls for the conductor, and loud cheers from the audience -- and all this at the midpoint of the entire concert. 

For once, my memory didn't deceive me.  This truly is a performance of distinction, capturing the passion, the meditation, the ebb and flow of the score in a way that only a few of the recordings I've heard have equalled or even approached.  Especially noteworthy is the almost organ-like sound from the players of the smaller second orchestra, playing with mutes.

The textures of the music brim over with rich, resonant chording, and the mostly-wood interior of the hall bathes the strings in a warm acoustic glow.

My only quibble is that one or two of the front-desk soloists, at several key moments, produce a sound that is too beefy for this particular piece.

As for the video production, both the visual and audio components are impressive indeed.  The microphones capture the rich, full sound of the orchestral strings beautifully, and the camera work includes some spectacular crane shots which give a birds-eye view of the layout of the two orchestras.

Every time I watch this video, I experience the same spine-tingling surge of emotion as the conductor drives the music onwards to its passionate climax.  Oundjian's acceleration here is a textbook example of how to get faster without rushing -- which sounds like a paradox, but it's the only way I can describe the effect he obtains.

Some musical snobs maintain that only an English conductor and orchestra can get this music "right."  I think these Toronto players could make them eat their words.

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

One of the Greats of My Lifetime: In Memoriam Ida Haendel

On June 30, at the age of 91, the violinist Ida Haendel passed away.

Born in Poland, she lived for many years in Montreal before settling in Miami.  But she was truly a citizen of the world, appearing with famous orchestras and famous conductors throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

During the time when she resided in Canada (1952-1989), she made regular appearances with all the major Canadian orchestras.  And that time period, in Toronto, is where she crossed my musical path, and left an indelible impression.

The first time I heard her playing in Massey Hall was in the Sibelius violin concerto, a work which was forever associated with her after she had first played it.  On that occasion, she received a letter from the composer which read, in part:

"I congratulate you on the great success, but most of all I congratulate myself, that my concerto has found an interpreter of your rare standard."

 

About her Toronto performance of the Sibelius, I most remember that I was captivated by the rollicking cross-rhythms of the finale, and by the energetic bite of Haendel's down-bow on the repeated sforzando notes.

Although my memory is less clear, I'm reasonably sure I also heard her playing the Brahms concerto, and possibly  the Tchaikovsky.

The concerto that remains forever associated with her, and her only, in my memory came to me from the occasion when she joined with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the first violin concerto by Shostakovich.

At that time, the composer's music was an unknown quantity to me.  Ida Haendel's interpretation of that concerto was so powerful, so immediate, so emotive, that Shostakovich instantly rocketed onto my list of favourite composers, and has remained there ever since.  The wandering solo lines of the first movement found her in meditative mood, with the energy building up to the heavy-duty up-and-down intervals at the climax.  The second movement scherzo and the finale both drew from her playing a distinct edge of savagery amidst the raucous shouts of the orchestra.

It was the dark passacaglia of the third movement that took me into another world altogether.  I've heard other soloists since then in this remarkable music, but Ida Haendel found something there that I've never heard from anyone else: a deep, universal sadness for the world's tragedy.  It may have arisen from having lived through the horrors of the twentieth century, not least the Second World War, but wherever the place from which she drew that emotion, it hit me with all the strength and power of someone who has experienced the dark night of the soul to its very depths. The long, wandering cadenza leading to the rousing finale then became a quest, a search for some way out of this bleak pit of despair.

I might not have used those words at that time, but this is how I remember that amazing concert, all these years later (that would have been in the mid-1970s).

Haendel was an artist of the broadest emotional range, perhaps one of the last of the great Romantic violinists.  She could be, by turns, cool and aristocratic, wildly energetic, deeply passionate, or withdrawn into an inner meditative self, but with her technique always at the service of the music as she felt it.  Other violinists may have played the great concertos with more fireworks, with more panache, with more flourish, but Ida Haendel inhabited the music, living every piece she performed to the full.

The world can never have too many musicians of her rare standard.

Dvořák With A Difference

I've just been watching a most unusual live-streamed concert performance of Antonin Dvořák's splendid Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104. 

It's the quintessential Romantic cello concerto, and in many ways the final inheritor of the classical concerto mantle passed down from Haydn and Mozart through Beethoven and Brahms.  This places it in a separate category from the more free-form and rhapsodic concertante works of most of the Romantic composers.  This concerto covers the widest emotional range, from bold dramatic strokes to meditative reveries, and makes large technical demands on the soloist.  It's filled with some of Dvořák's most ingratiating melodies, and equally full of remarkable structural features.  The orchestral aspect of the work is a textbook demonstration of how to write a work for cello and orchestra without either letting the soloist become overwhelmed or forcing the orchestra to pull its punches.  And it's been a favourite of mine, ever since I was just beginning to explore the world of music as a teenager.

What, then, was so unusual about this performance?  First of all, there was no audience except those of us watching on the live stream (thank you, Covid-19).  Second, there was neither orchestra nor conductor -- just a pianist.  Third, this rather different concert was part of a music competition, the Bader & Overton Canadian Cello Competition.

Unfortunately, this event only came to my notice in time to hear this one performance.  I'd have been happy to have heard some of the other performers as well.  But here's how it worked, in brief.  A preliminary elimination round which took place earlier in the week was not live-streamed.  Eight cellists advanced to the semi-final round, and each performed a recital of assorted works lasting (at a guess) about 45-50 minutes.  The recitals all included a commissioned work, The Turmoil of Madame Butterfly by Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich.  Three of these eight musicians then proceeded to the final round, which consisted of a concerto.  Although there were some duplications in the list of planned performances, in the event the three selected finalists had each chosen a different work for the concerto round.  The performances were judged by a jury of eight distinguished cellists from the Canadian music world.

Each competitor received a high-tech broadcast-quality microphone kit to use in live-streaming the performances from their respective venues, thus ensuring uniformity of sound quality across venues in seven different cities located in three different countries!

Which brings me to the performance of Dvořák by the last of the three finalists to play today, Ottawa cellist Bryan Cheng.  No surprise to regular followers of my blog, his accompanist was his sister Silvie, which meant that we heard the Dvořák Concerto played by the Cheng²Duo.  Their venue was the Dominion-Chalmers Centre in Ottawa.

The first movement brought large-scale, bold playing from Bryan Cheng in his first dramatic entrance, and the largest possible contrast in the lyrical second subject.  This slower music showed a much more personal, song-like approach, with a natural ebb and flow that had the music breathing almost like the voice of a singer.  This proved to be his approach in most of the slower, more rhapsodic portions of the score.  On the whole, the rest of the movement called forth a dramatic performance with marked contrasts in character from one passage to the next.

The slow second movement gave us more of the sense of a singing voice, and some lovely arabesques in the central portion.  The ending wound down in a truly nostalgic reverie, with the cellist playing almost in the manner of a Baroque recitative -- free tempo allied to natural speech rhythms.

The rather four-square first theme of the finale has a definite march style, and that led Cheng into some of his most forthright playing of the work.  This rondo theme is treated rather differently each time it recurs, and without the variation of orchestral sound to help, Bryan Cheng still gave a strong sense of originality at each appearance of the march.  In the intervening episodes, we heard soaring lyricism in the treatment of some of Dvořák's most enticing melodic ideas.  Then came that beautiful, emotional coda in which the music lapses into a dreamlike recollection of the opening theme of the entire concerto.  Even without a live audience to supply the needed reaction, it was plain that the cellist could hear and sense the silent holding of breath which this music encourage in listeners.

Of course, any concerto is a partnership between soloist and orchestra.  Even though the jury of such a competition necessarily focuses on the work of the soloist, we audience members can certainly admire the flair, energy, and finesse which Silvie Cheng brought to the piano reduction of the orchestral part.  These reductions can be fiendish things, filled with multiple lines moving in all directions at once and wide-spread chords following each other in quick succession.  It's true that we unavoidably missed much of the orchestral colouring which distinguishes this score, but as compensation we heard all kinds of detail in the inner voices which too often goes missing in a live performance with orchestra. 

Given the awkward circumstances which live music has to deal with in these days, this was definitely a performance of Dvořák's masterpiece to revel in, and a memory to treasure.  At a later date, when such things again become possible, I'll look forward to hearing a full-orchestral performance with Bryan Cheng as soloist -- and maybe the other half of the concert could be Dvořák's rarely-heard Piano Concerto with Silvie Cheng doing the honours!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the conclusion of the event, the jury's selections of award winners were announced.  Bryan Cheng was the first prize winner.  This prize includes a cash prize, a future recital date at the Isabel Bader Centre in Kingston ON, and a future concert date with the Kingston Symphony Orchestra.  The other two finalists, tied for second prize, were Leland Ko and Andreas Schmalhofer.

Live Performances During Covid-19 -- Part 7

Seven installments and no end to the online performances -- the socially distanced musical events keep on coming thick and fast.  But I've decided to end my series of articles with this seventh set.

This article presents a mixture of brand-new video recordings and older ones which I have only just discovered.  As always, a link is included with each review.

Holberg Concluded

The five cellists of the National Arts Centre Orchestra here present the final two movements of Grieg's Holberg Suite in an arrangement for five cellos by Gwyn Seymour. 

It's a curious paradox that the Air, the fourth movement, is both the most Bach-like and the most forward-looking movement of the suite.  This music's kinship to the serene Air on the G String or the Adagio movement of the Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue for organ is unmistakable.  But Grieg takes us into some more adventurous harmonic corners, most notably in the chromatic buildup to the final climax of the piece.  These cellists give it a flowing performance in a lighter emotional vein where some slower readings give the music more of a sombre or funereal air.

Grieg's Holberg Suite -- Air

And so to the concluding Rigaudon, a rapid dance enclosing a slower, more wistful contrasting section whose melody takes off from the same rising fourth that opens the rigaudon.  Due to the bouncy nature of this finale, the arrangement incorporates a good deal of pizzicato in various parts of the accompanying harmony.  Here also I became more aware than in any of the other movements of the way in which both melody and various other voices within the music get tossed around from one cellist to another. 

Grieg's Holberg Suite -- Rigaudon

And Now For Something Completely Different

Here's a social distancing performance that completely upsets the format so many others use.  Three section leaders of the Pacific Symphony have combined together to give a live performance of chamber music outside the chamber (you'll have to watch it to see what I mean). 

Also unusual is the choice of music.  Erwin Schulhoff, to give his name in its more familiar German form, was a Czech composer who composed much of his music during the years between the first and second world wars of the last century.  His Jewish ancestry and his Communist sympathies alike led to him and his music being blacklisted by the Nazis, and he died of tuberculosis in the Wülzburg concentration camp in August of 1942.  His Communism likely played a significant role in keeping his music out of view through the years of the Cold War as well.

The piece these three musicians have chosen to share is the finale, Rondino -- Allegro gajo from Schulhoff's 1925 Concertino for the unusual -- not to say eccentric -- combination of piccolo, viola, and double bass.  I think you'll enjoy this sprightly, upbeat music, which these musicians perform with great energy and a strong sense of fun. 

I think you'll enjoy their choice of venue too.

Principal Musicians perform as Social Distance Trio

Bach to the Basics

This clip features the same three musicians as the one above, this time in a composition from one of the greatest masters of the entire history of music.

This time, our intrepid trio of viola, bass, and flute presents the second movement, a languid Sicilienne, from the Flute Sonata in E-flat Major, attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach.  I suppose the "great experts" have their reasons for regarding this attribution with skepticism, but it's a truly delightful -- indeed, haunting -- melody which sounds authentic to this somewhat educated layman. 

What is intriguing here is the adaptation of the original keyboard part for a viola and double bass, which actually works surprisingly well, with the bass player carrying the all-important bass line and the violist filling in some of the keyboard's upper voices.

The venue is the same as in the Schulhoff excerpt, and apart from some unfortunate (albeit natural) background noise, the music comes across just as clearly.

Distance Trio -- the Sequel

And just as a footnote, the industrious musicians of the Pacific Symphony have recorded nearly 90 socially-distanced musical clips or excerpts throughout the last few months.  You can find the entire array of these laid out on the orchestra's YouTube page, here:

Quarantine Clips

The Final Blessing

After seven different episodes of this collection of socially-distance arts performances, I think I'm ready to wrap up this series of articles.  There's so much more out there that I haven't even touched on yet -- and it's great fun to go exploring online and see what you can find. 

At different points in this series of pieces that I've reviewed, several artists have commented on the healing power of music in difficult times.  The point is made more explicitly by music director Marin Alsop in her spoken introduction to this musical excerpt.

One of the most profound journeys of all music is that undertaken by Gustav Mahler in his massive Symphony No. 3, a work which seeks to depict the ladder of creation from the inanimate rocks and mountains through the flowers in the meadows, animals in the forest, the voice of humanity at deep midnight, choirs of angels singing in heaven, to the ultimate depiction of love as the animating force of the cosmos.  The final movement, which Mahler at first called "What Love Tells Me," is a long, slow adagio which spins apparently endless streams of continuous melody out of the simplest of diatonic figures. 

Here's how the great conductor Bruno Walter described the power of this music:

In the last movement, words are stilled—for what language can utter heavenly love more powerfully and forcefully than music itself? The Adagio, with its broad, solemn melodic line, is, as a whole—and despite passages of burning pain—eloquent of comfort and grace.

At the peak of the movement, after a massive climactic "passage of burning pain," the music dies away to near-silence and then -- a magical moment if ever there was one -- the sound of a solo flute casts a blessing of peace across the landscape.  And it's at that precise point, with that ethereal flute, that this virtual performance picks up the music, taking us through the final seven minutes of the symphony to its ultimate achievement of the heights of exaltation in a clear, unclouded D major.

The musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra provide some magnificent playing, particularly in the quiet opening pages, and the sound balance achieved at post-production for the video is remarkable considering how many different recording venues were in use.

Listening to these final pages is always a profound emotional experience.  Mahler speaks in a way that I can't even analyze intellectually to some significant place deep within me.  After hearing again this musical message filled with wholeness and love which the world so sorely needs right now, I can't think of any more appropriate place to sign off from this series of articles. 

BSO Virtually Performs Powerful Ending of Mahler's Third Symphony

Live Performances During Covid-19 -- Part 6

This series dedicated to reviewing virtual performances on video just keeps on rolling.  As before, each mini-review includes the link to the video. 

It's worthwhile to remember that putting together a short, simple work lasting 5 or 6 minutes in this format can easily entail close to or more than 100 hours of preparation, recording time, editing, audio technical work, and post-production generally -- far more than any standard performance with the artists gathered together would take to place their work on video.  So don't be holding your breath, waiting for a complete virtual symphony!

But since this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the towering geniuses of all music, let's begin with a virtual Beethoven performance.

The Romance of Beethoven

Musically, Beethoven stands right on the junction of what we now call the Classical and Romantic periods in musical history.  On a personal level, Beethoven was probably the last thing we would think of when we think of a "romantic" man: slovenly, loud, argumentative, vulgar, rude.  And yet, he was capable of writing music of the most ineffable beauty, and his Romances for violin and orchestra prove the point.

In this brand-new recording, we have world-renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes partnered with an ensemble of 34 musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F Major, Op. 50. 

Whether this was the master's intention as he wrote the work or not, Ehnes turns the serene, lyrical solo line into a love song, an ode to the art of music.  His colleagues from the orchestra in return perform the contrasting music in their parts with a poise and unanimity wholly natural, completely free of any suggestion of routine -- the ensemble breathing and playing as one just as well as in any live concert. 

This treasurable performance is further highlighted by the imaginative arrangement of the separate images of 35 musicians on the video, sometimes mimicking the layout of the orchestra on a stage, but other times going off in a completely different direction.  The film focuses from time to time on one group or section, much as one might do while watching a live performance.  The visual layout of the lingering final cadence matched the entire performance of the music in its ability to bring a smile to my face -- a very real and happy smile, devoid of any strain or stress.  This is what music can do for us in difficult times.

James Ehnes & the TSO: Virtual Beethoven Violin Romance No. 2

Holberg's Cellos (continued....)

'In Part 5 of this series, I reviewed performances by a quintet of cellists from Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra of the first two movements of Grieg's Holberg Suite.  In this video, they're back again with the third movement: a Gavotte which, in true Baroque style, encloses and frames a contrasting musette.  Grieg's music respects both the mid-bar starting point of the gavotte rhythm and the defining drone note of the musette, a drone which also calls to mind the traditional Hardanger fiddle of Norwegian folk music.  Once again, the cellists give a sprightly, upbeat performance of this pair of dances.  There's more shifting required between upper and lower registers than in the first two videos, but the ear soon adjusts, and the warm rich sound of the cellos provides ample compensation.

NACO Lunch Break: Grieg's Holberg Suite (Gavotte)

Hectic Virtuosity

A few articles back, I reviewed a socially-distanced performance of the finale of Act II from Mozart's evergreen comedy, Le nozze di Figaro.  This week, I discovered a recording made a couple of months ago, and waiting for my attention ever since, of the scintillating overture to that opera.  If ever there was a piece that seemed like an accident waiting to happen under quarantine conditions, that piece was this piece.  But to my surprise, the Orchestre nationale de l'Île de France acquitted themselves very well indeed.  One detail I noticed was the fact that, unlike many of these at-home collaborations, the musicians on this one didn't appear to be listening on headphones as they played.  In that case, I have difficulty imagining how this performance under conductor Case Scaglione managed to hold together.  But it did -- and Mozart's music remains its eternally fresh and sparkling self.

Les Noces de Figaro par l'Orchestre nationale de l'Île de France

If this is Saturday, it must be France..., no Hungary..., umm, Germany...?  Whatever...

I simply couldn't resist this excerpt for three reasons.  First, these musicians from l'Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse bring a certain degree of humour and imagination to their socially-distanced work which is good for a few chuckles -- even if there is a rather odd and pointless interruption a few bars from the end.  Second, this is one of the biggest online orchestras I've yet seen and heard which has managed a credibly coherent performance -- and indeed, this one is a good deal more than just credible. 

Third, this French orchestra has chosen to perform one of my favourite pieces of French music -- a piece which was a favourite orchestral bonbon when I was young, but which I think is far less often heard today, at least in Canada.  If nothing else, it is wildly off-the-wall cultural appropriation.  While composing his dramatic legend, La damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz became enamoured of the Hungarian Rakoczy March.  In a double act of sheer artistic and egotistic bravado, he transferred his first scene based on Goethe's monumental dramatic poem from northern Germany to Hungary just so he could include his version of the March as a stunning orchestral showpiece, one of half a dozen which punctuate the score of the entire work.

The musicians take up the music at the quietest moment in the centre of the March, a string tremolo which raises the curtain on the long crescendo leading to the full-volume orchestral restatement of the main march theme.  This in turn leads into the coda, which includes some of the grandest modulations that even Berlioz ever achieved.  This carefully coordinated performance creates every bit as stunning an effect as any studio or live concert with all the musicians in the same place could do.

For comic imagination, I really have to hand it to the percussion department -- the timpanist and the bass drum player gave me the best laughs of the piece!

Les musiciens de l'ONCT se réinventent!

Sinfonia Corona

The prize of the lot in this collection is undoubtedly this "Corona Symphony."  As the title suggests, this is an original work which has been composed, recorded, mastered, mixed, and finalized in socially distanced video form all while under quarantine.  Cameron Baba has assembled a group of young musician friends to bring his dream to life, and the results are definitely worth seeing.

The piece lasts for five minutes, and within that time the music works its way through three "movements" played continuously, fast-slow-fast.  The themes are simple and straightforward, with a strongly diatonic cut. The resulting music hovers somewhere between the worlds of American concert bands and English folk music.  What impresses me more than anything is the strongly upbeat nature of this piece -- no wallowing in post-romantic angst here.  Great music?  Perhaps not, at least by some people's definitions -- but definitely great fun to watch and to hear, a good musical pick-me-up when we could certainly use one.

For sheer energy and joie de vivre, not to mention determination in the face of obstacles, this video is hard to beat. 

Sinfonia Corona: A Social Distance Symphony