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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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