One of the most intriguing concert programmes in my entire music-loving career was set on stage at Roy Thomson Hall this week by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
It was, in fact, a concert which could have existed in no time or situation before the present day. Every work on the concert was previously performed, virtually and/or on video, by members of the Orchestra during the long, drawn-out months of the first pandemic lockdown. These performances are now being shared, for the first time, played live for a live audience at Roy Thomson Hall.
Hence the unusual title. Typically, we imagine things going from stage to screen -- a stage play or musical being adapted for film would be an obvious example. It's much rarer for any artistic expression to adapt in the opposite direction -- hence the unique nature of this concert.
It was in intriguing concert for another reason. It was two years ago this week that the world came to a crashing halt as the pandemic erupted. It was two years ago this week that guest conductor Ryan Bancroft went through all the rehearsals, even the final dress rehearsal, for a programme highlighted by Mussorgsky's famed Pictures at an Exhibition. This week, albeit with a different programme, his long-delayed debut with the TSO finally happened.
And finally, as we gathered in a world overshadowed by war and the threat of greater war possibly to come, Bancroft read a statement of support for the nation and people of Ukraine on behalf of the orchestra, its board, its staff, its supporters, and then asked the entire audience to stand for the national anthem of Ukraine. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the hall whose eyes became wet -- nor was that the last time it would happen in this concert.
The opening work was Dvorak's rollicking Slavonic Dance No. 8, a piece I've loved ever since I was a youngster, and used to play in the 4-hands piano original version with my sister. As a kid, I was instantly fascinated by the continual switching between groups of 3 x 2 beats and 2 x 3 beats, a pattern entirely characteristic of the traditional Czech furiant -- of which this rowdy dance is a prime example. As always, it ended far too soon.
For the next number, concertmaster Jonathan Crow took the stage to play the solo part in the ineffably lovely Romance No 2 in F Major for Violin and Orchestra by Beethoven. This piece falls into what I consider the "mid-range" of Beethoven's output: not nearly as well known as the great masterpieces, but far too well-crafted and thoughtful to be dismissed along with his cheap potboilers and moneymakers.
At a sedate tempo, Bancroft and Crow joined to give the work a truly gentle yet strong reading, capturing the opposites of tone which sometimes succeed each other within moments. Crow's beautifully sustained playing made me regret even more than usual that these Romances aren't programmed more often, as they surely deserve to be.
Third place went to the Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K.186a (201) by Mozart. Lightweight in comparison to later Mozart works in the size of the orchestra (strings, oboe and horn only), the symphony otherwise has much to say, particularly in the reliance on the structured sonata form for three of the four movements. Together, conductor and orchestra delivered a crisp, well-paced account which found ideal light and shade in each of the movements, culminating with a bouncy performance of the finale -- and a beautifully timed payoff line in the final notes of the symphony. One wonders if this little leg-pull might have inspired Beethoven's later similar jokes in the scherzo movements of his seventh and ninth symphonies?
After the intermission, the orchestra returned with Prayer by Vivian Fung, a work commissioned for performance by a virtual orchestra in the first months of the pandemic, two years ago. Fung rose to the challenge of designing music to be played by an orchestra that would never assemble physically together, and the result also sounded both powerful and convincing in a live and in-person performance. Texturally complex, Prayer nonetheless makes sure that the hearer picks out the essential melodic figures which are so frequently repeated in different instruments. An impressive piece.
The concert wrapped up with the orchestral suite derived from the ballet, Appalachian Spring, by Aaron Copland. This 25-minute "suite" for full orchestra (I actually think "symphonic poem" would be a better descriptor) contains all the essential themes of the original 35-minute ballet, amplified from the chamber score for 13 instruments which Copland composed according to the original commission.
It's an interesting sidelight that Copland always referred to the work as "Ballet for Martha" while he was composing it for Martha Graham. It was she who suggested the title, just before the premiere, based on a poem in which the "spring" in question is a spring of water, not a time of year.
To most listeners, though, the music itself will likely suggest a dawn-to-dusk panorama of country life, even without any further details given. The quiet, gentle music which frames the whole score inevitably suggests a musical portrayal of dawn and sunset to me.
Those quiet opening bars certainly captured the sense of waiting, or imminence. Bancroft shaped the entire score with a masterly hand, from the slow, hold-your-breath passages to the rapid, even raucous, music rooted in folk dancing -- particularly the atmosphere of the square dance. He especially proved his mettle in holding the entire orchestra tightly together at brisk speeds in the country dance passages with their frequent and wicked dropped and added beats.
Nothing spoke to the quality of the performance, and of the concert as a whole, better than the gentle fading into silence of the final notes at the end of Appalachian Spring, as the piece didn't actually end -- rather, it evaporated. Even more to the point was the breathless silence that followed, at least 20 seconds of rapt quiet before the storm of applause and cheering erupted.
We may have waited a long time for Ryan Bancroft to make his debut with the Toronto Symphony, but with his leadership of this concert -- and most of all with this magnificent performance of Appalachian Spring -- he staked a fair claim to be invited back, and soon. I hope he will be.
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