With Tuesday's concerts, we settled into the usual routine for which the Festival's weekdays have become known: an afternoon concert at 1:30pm or 3:30pm (or two concerts using both times) and an evening concert at 7:30 pm. The schedule is routine; the actual concerts are anything but that -- a truth amply proven on Tuesday.
As well, there are some fascinating changes this year. The former house programme, a book the size of a short novel with all the information for the entire Festival, has been replaced with a daily single-sheet leaflet. The artist's cover-painting-of-the-year is still featured each day, followed by a simple listing of works to be performed at that day's concerts. A QR code directs your device to the Festival website where the customary detailed performer biographies are located.
This follows the similar lead of such leading arts organizations as the Toronto Symphony and the Stratford Festival in providing minimal programme information in printed form, with details housed on their websites.
The next big change is the highly significant land acknowledgement at the beginning of each concert, which now comes in the form of a breathtaking video taken on the ground and in the air of the Wausauksing First Nation, just across the harbour, with the acknowledgement spoken as a voice-over.
Beneath these changes, and others mentioned in previous reviews, the Festival of the Sound is still just that: festive, and full of the glorious sounds of great music.
I: Brahms and Haydn
The Tuesday afternoon concert featured the Rolston String Quartet along with the Festival's Artistic Director (and senior resident clarinettist) James Campbell. The quartet opened with a piece guaranteed to put me into a truly good mood -- the String Quartet No. 5 in G Major, Op. 33 by Haydn. This can only be described as an exuberantly jolly piece. When the quartet opens with a final cadence before launching into the opening main theme, I can almost picture Haydn chortling to himself over his desk as he wrote those notes -- and that's only the first of several jokes in the score.
The Rolston Quartet gave us a reading full of energy, zip, and go. Violinist Luri Lee played the long solo song in the second movement with an impassioned air that would elude many players, and her colleagues filled in the accompaniment parts with equally appropriate accenting of key notes.
The four savoured the jokey cross-rhythms of the Scherzo third movement, and then leaned with more weight and fire than some would use into the allegretto variations of the finale. All in all, an exciting and rewarding performance of a composer too rarely heard nowadays.
After that upbeat opening, Campbell joined the Rolstons for the autumnal Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115, by Brahms. This work is perennially in demand at the Festival, probably in a dead heat for first place of Most Often Performed with the Schubert Trout Quintet.
The Rolstons brought a similar sizzling energy to the table here, which was nicely balanced off and shaped as needed by Campbell's mellow, thoughtful performance of the clarinet part. The result was a reading of this beautiful masterpiece which offered more tension and thrust than many, without getting out of scale with the fact that this is a mature man's composition, a work written in recognition of a whole lifetime of experiences of all kinds.
Particularly treasurable was the ensemble's crystal-clear playing in the chattering presto of the third movement. The extra drive also resulted in a bigger, more striking contrast at the point where the fifth variation in the finale suddenly closes into a rescored reiteration of the Quintet's opening phrases. That moment suddenly felt more like a collapse than ever before, to me at least.
II: Canadian Pianofest # 1: Janina Fialkowska in Recital
With the name "Janina Fialkowska" and the description "all-Chopin recital," the audience knew that great things were in prospect for the evening -- and they were not disappointed. In a space of not much more than an hour, Fialkowska's programme ranged from the well-known to the rare, and covered most of the genres in which Chopin composed for the solo piano during his brief but impressive career. Only the Impromptus and Mazurkas, I think, were absent.
Among the rarities, particular mention is due for the Waltz in a minor, Op. posth. which was published from manuscript in 1955. It was my first chance to hear this piece played live.
Also noteworthy for me was the inclusion of both Polonaises of Op. 40. The first of the pair, the famous "Military" Polonaise is a true repertoire warhorse, but its companion in C minor, which has something of the character of a funeral oration, is less well-known, and more's the pity. Not for nothing did the great Artur Rubinstein remark that the first was the symbol of Poland's glory while the second represented Poland's downfall.
It's often been observed that Chopin was "the poet of the piano," but much less often acknowledged that his music, even in its most stormy and dramatic moods, remains unfailingly poetic none the less.
The key to Fialkowska's splendid interpretive gifts with this composer lies in the fact that her playing, too, is always poetic in character, whatever the mood.
The fire and majesty of her playing in the Polonaises and in the Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor was as intense as her undulating accompaniment in the Berceuse was gentle and soft.
The strong character of Fialkowksa's playing is such that even old chestnuts like the Waltz in E-flat Major, Op. 18, the Military Polonaise, and the three Preludes Nos. 4, 7, & 19 emerged freshly minted and with a strong feeling of new discovery.
Always impressive is Fialkowska's imaginative way with rubato, restrained in amount but carefully chosen for impact and for the total shape of each work.
Overall, an intensely rewarding recital, and the cheers and applause of the standing ovation were entirely merited.
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