As the years roll by, I've become more aware of a growing adventurous streak in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's programming -- a new direction which relies less on the established "classics" of the European tradition and goes more into the fringes of the musical world, and into the broad and diverse range of new music being created in our own times.
It's a trend which accelerated during the tenure of the orchestra's previous music director, Peter Oundjian, and which seems to be gathering even more speed under the current maestro, Gustavo Gimeno.
This week's concert programme is a case in point. Three of the four works are pieces which I have never heard, including one world premiere (a TSO commission) and one Canadian premiere. I'd almost be willing to bet that the third piece unknown to me is a Toronto premiere -- although, since it's a composition of the Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinů, it's entirely possible that it was performed in the early 1970s under then-Music Director Karel Ancerl.
The best of the three more recent works was the first one, Mi Piñata: Celebration Prelude by Luis Ramirez. This TSO commission is one of a group of works to be performed throughout the orchestra's hundredth anniversary celebrations. Ramirez has paid tribute to a favourite festive tradition of his homeland in this lively, colourful piece, bursting with sparkling energy and joie de vivre.
The second work was Martinů's The Rock. The orchestra savoured the lush textures of this music, but for me it eventually began to develop the atmosphere of a soundtrack to a Hollywood Biblical epic. Interesting to hear once, but not something I would go out of my way to hear again.
Hans Abrahamsen's Horn Concerto was given its Canadian premiere by the principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, for whom it was written, Stefan Dohr.
The concerto form, ever since the time of Bach and Vivaldi, has thrived on the contrasts between solo or small group and full orchestra. I begin to wonder if it's even possible to write a concerto any more, in
a musical environment which values incidental fragments over longer
lines, and fascinating textures over structure. Abrahamsen's work made the point perfectly, in the context of this concert programme.
The first of three connected movements was dominated by an oft-repeated four-note rising triadic figure, basically a crib of the first four notes in the main theme of the opening movement of the Dvořák symphony, which would follow after the intermission. Where Dvořák carries the theme forward through a statement, counter-statement, and further development, Abrahamsen remains stuck on the first four notes, over and over. The work demands many fancy technical tricks from Dohr, who played it all with great skill and aplomb, but for me the concerto as a whole was a misfire.
And the fourth work? This, too, is an exploration of a new world in music, if only in a punning sense, for the last and largest work on the programme is the Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 by Antonín Dvořák -- the symphony which the composer titled From the New World.
With a repertoire warhorse like the New World Symphony, there's always the danger that familiarity will breed contempt. Not in my case -- as I haven't heard the work played live for several decades, so there was all the excitement of fresh discovery for me. And not in the case of the orchestra or Maestro Gimeno, since the performance held firmly together through all the tricky moments which abound in the score.
Getting the energy of the performance right is critical, since there are many passages waiting to lapse into overblown melodrama, particularly if the conductor or players make the mistake of trying to infuse excitement into the music. All the excitement needed is right there in the notes, and it doesn't need any revving up beyond what the composer wrote.
By and large, and with the possible exception of the final and slightly overblown catastrophic climax in the last movement, the performance of the symphony trod the energy line very neatly, neither too much nor too little. The entire work showed impressive rhythmic unity in spite of the extremes of tempo and multiple gear changes. The horn section covered themselves with glory in a work which probably features more utterly exposed passages for the horns than any other in the repertoire. Chief among them, of course, are the magical chords which open the slow movement. That chord sequence, by the way, serves to explain the shift of key from the E minor of the first movement to the D-flat major of the largo, but (as Sir Donald Tovey so memorably said) the explanation is more mysterious than the trick itself.
Following on from those deep, rich chords, it was a further inspired touch from Dvořák to entrust the main theme to the cor anglais, and the resulting meditation, absolute poetry in tone, stands among the greatest moments in all of music. Cary Ebli did full justice to one of the best-known of all cor anglais solos. The string sections too made musical magic in the long, sustained phrases for muted strings. At the end, the strange opening chords were recalled by the brasses, darkly luminous, and fully capturing the effect that is both remembrance and regret at once.
How I wish that the Toronto audience hadn't been so well trained to applaud at the end of every movement over the last 20 years or so. I'd far rather let that tonal magic soak in for quite a few more seconds of silence before the scherzo explodes across the stage. Alas, not much chance of that happening.
To sum up: Gimeno's New World scored very highly for excitement with control, and for tonal beauty with energy. It brought the concert to a rousing end, and gave the conductor a well-deserved standing ovation with multiple calls.
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