This week's concerts from the National Arts Centre Orchestra brought us a programme of striking and attractive Romantic music from France, with two works known as repertoire staples accompanied by one recently recovered work which had sunk into obscurity.
Actually, all three works have been rather obscure in live performances of late. Perhaps over-familiarity played a role, but I suspect that the major culprit is money. The need for orchestras to improve the revenue side of their balance sheets tends to push them into catering to their audiences' insatiable desire for Beethoven and Mozart, to the detriment of other composers.
Whatever the actual reasons, this week marked the first time I have ever heard the Cello Concerto No. 1 by Saint-Saëns in live performance, while the Franck Symphonie in D minor I have heard only once before, over half a century ago. High time the balance should be redressed, as also with the increasing exposure of both chamber and orchestral music by Louise Farrenc, represented here by the skilful and enticing Overture No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 24. The more thanks, then, to guest conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier for bringing to the Ottawa audience these marvellous performances in an eye-opening programme of French romantic music.
The concert opened with Farrenc's overture, a concert work with no overt programme or story to tell, but which nonetheless captures plenty of drama -- indeed, it sounds as if it could quite easily be an operatic overture of the period. In classic concert-overture form, the work opens with a grand slow introduction, then moves into a faster sonata-form movement. The orchestra's strings showed their mettle in the extra-high-speed figurations of the principal theme and numerous subsequent passages. The contrasting lyrical second theme was played with smooth phrasing, and subtle manipulations of tempo added much interest. The overture told its tale in an action-packed seven minutes, winding up to a dramatic conclusion.
Ottawa-born cellist Bryan Cheng then joined the orchestra for the Cello Concerto No.. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Although not as lengthy as some concerti, this single-movement work embraces a wide range of different sound worlds, challenging both conductor and soloist to meet all the demands of the work. In company with the fourth piano concerto and the third ("Organ") symphony, this concerto stands as one of its composer's most successful experiments at marrying Liszt's and Schumann's ideas on cyclical form with clear classical structure.
Cheng's reading of the solo part was filled with equal measures of Romantic fervour and classical clarity of line. This was clear from the opening, where the cellist leaps headlong into the first main theme immediately after a single staccato orchestral chord. This theme's curious shape, with its emphatic landings on off-beats, was clearly presented by Cheng (and later by the orchestra) at a comfortable tempo which gave it plenty of dash and fire without the dotted notes becoming hectic and effortful.
Dash and fire in plenty were also heard in the soloist's numerous little cadenza-like passages dotted throughout the piece. Especially noteworthy was Cheng's fearless performance of several key passages at lower than normal volume levels, as if daring the orchestra to keep their end quiet too, quiet enough for the soloist to be heard. They did, very effectively, and the results added much magic to those gentler moments which can sound prosaic in other hands.
Speaking of magic, the most purely magical moment of the entire concert came with the beginning of the contrasting middle section, best pictured as an "insertion" between the exposition and development of what might otherwise be considered a conventional sonata form movement. This intermezzo, filling the role of the second or slow movement, began with Tortelier leading the muted orchestral strings in the lightest possible bowed staccato playing of the gentle, piquant minuet, a dance which to me always evokes an image of dancers rotating on a music box. Quiet, yes, but completely unified sound all the same.
Cheng's playing of the legato passages in this lyrical central section matched the orchestra in finding fantasy in the music.
The return of the main theme in the final section found Cheng and the orchestra both ramping up the drama and fire of the playing even more, without ever spilling over into melodramatic excess. There was another moment of magical peace in the quiet meditation for the cello before the work wound up again to its emphatic conclusion. Well-merited cheers, for both the orchestra and the soloist. Bryan Cheng was then joined for his encore by principal cellist Rachel Mercer in an intriguing piece for two cellos by the renowned cellist, Paul Tortelier (Yan Pascal Tortelier's father), presented as a surprise birthday gift to the conductor.
After the intermission, the concert concluded with the orchestra's powerful performance of Franck's only complete symphony. The work was acclaimed by progressive musicians when it was premiered, and one might think that more would follow. But Franck's ultra-religious wife continually pressured him to write more "serious" music (which to her meant religious music) and he did, with results which must have pleased her by eliminating nearly all the unique sensual and technical qualities which make this symphony so remarkable. That was the world of music's loss.
Tortelier's performance of this work never lost the big picture, but still highlighted many fine details which other interpreters miss. His first movement, as an example, retained the full measure of mystery and anticipation when the entire slow introduction repeats, note for note, after the first appearance of the main allegro theme. Many conductors would cheat by not returning to the original slow tempo or quiet dynamics. Also noteworthy was the tempo of the allegro, well within the workable range but a little slower than many conductors would choose. The payoff was the emergence of all kinds of intriguing details in the development section, which was thus able to get faster without overspeeding. Franck's use of multiple threads in the musical argument leads to all kinds of momentary but startling little harmonic clashes which would tend to vanish at a higher speed but which certainly registered here. The movement wound up with a majestic coda.
As in the concerto, Tortelier ensured that the plucked string and harp chords opening the second movement were played in a quiet, almost mysterious manner. This etched those chords into our memories, a good thing as they are the basic structural underpinning for most of the entire movement. The first statement of the actual melody featured sumptuous tone from the cor anglais. Also breathtakingly quiet were the rapid little tremolando string arabesques which begin what sounds like an independent episode before showing themselves to be a counterpoint to the chords and the cor anglais theme. The contrasting middle section brought delightfully sunny playing from the strings and winds.
The finale opened with energy and gusto, and this was maintained by Tortelier right up to the finish line. Again, there were all manner of intriguing little touches which other conductors miss. Musicians and conductor relished all the strange turns of harmony to which the composer subjected the theme. Although there's really no way to make the grandiose reappearance of the slow movement's theme, fortissimo on the winds and brasses, truly convincing, Tortelier managed the transitions in and out of that strange interruption as well as could be. The entire symphony wound up a terrific head of steam in the rush to the finish line, entirely appropriate to Franck's vision.
An uncommonly rewarding concert!
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The Last Word
This review marks my 500th post in this blog. Some early articles combined more than one review in a single post, while later ones included several essays and in memoriams which were not reviews. In the end, it works out to 500 reviews in 11 years, as close as no matter. It's been quite a journey.
This "half millennium" seems to me like a perfect place to say farewell.
Over the last year in particular, there have been times when I've been finding the reviewing task becoming more of an onerous duty than a personal joy and pleasure. There have been occasions when I've felt like I was simply repeating myself and retreading old ground. This, by the way, most emphatically does not refer to the concert at hand in this review!
It seemed appropriate to me to end with a review of Bryan Cheng, a musician who is (with his sister and piano partner, Silvie) not only a remarkable artist but also a dear and valued friend.
This blog started as a retirement project, and an entertaining hobby, but most of all as a chance to share what I had to say about the world of the performing arts. This sense that I have now said it all is, for me, the strongest reason to put this project to bed.
Thank you to all the loyal readers who have followed my efforts, and an especially heartfelt "thank you" to the artists who have so kindly tolerated my fumbling attempts to assess their work. I hope not too many of them have had to tear up the letters of protest which they started as an initial reaction to my reviews!
But if that was the case, perhaps I had best end with the immortal words of Donald Francis Tovey, a musician and author whose words have provided me with so many apposite quotes:
"Peace be to their wastepaper baskets, and to mine."
