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.
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