French Romantic Beauty from Bryan Cheng and the NACO

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." 

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 2022-2023 # 3: The Glory of the B Minor Mass

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir crowned its season on Tuesday night at Koerner Hall with a powerful, majestic, thrilling performance of one of the most sublime works in the entire choral repertoire: Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor, BWV232. 

The B Minor Mass is an extraordinary one-off among the great choral works for several reasons. First, its sheer scale renders it virtually unusable for the church liturgy as the music lasts for a good solid two hours, give or take a bit. Second, it is unlikely that it was ever performed in Bach's lifetime, since he finished it only in the last year of his life, 1749 (although there were performances under his direction of the majestic Sanctus and one or two other portions). Indeed, the earliest documented performance of the complete work finally took place over a century after his passing, in 1859. Third, this score makes great demands on the skills of singers and instrumentalists alike, demands which make it one of the most challenging works in the repertoire.

Bach created the B Minor Mass by bringing together numerous works which he had written earlier in his life, and then substantially recomposing many of them for this new purpose. In line with several of his other great works from his last years, it seems quite possible that he composed and assembled the Mass as a kind of textbook or anthology of the many stylistic possibilities for accompanied voices in the late Baroque era. With such a checkered ancestry, it's remarkable that the Mass has such remarkable unity-in-diversity, the music flowing forward with clear purpose and momentum through each of the liturgy's five main sections. 

 

The key designation of "B minor" refers (as with Bach's short masses) only to the key in which the music begins -- that is, the key of the opening Kyrie eleison. From the first notes of the Gloria onward, with the appearance of the natural trumpets in D, the key of D major becomes the centre of gravity around which the remainder of the work revolves.

 

For this performance, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir's Music Director, Jean-Sébastien Vallée chose to feature ten voices from within the Choir's professional core, the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, as soloists in the various solo and duo numbers.  

While all ten did fine work, special praise is due to counter-tenor Simon Honeyman who sang three of the five numbers allotted to the alto/mezzo-soprano with crystal-clear articulation in the rapid passagework and a real sense of feeling above all in the penultimate Agnus Dei. Also particularly remarkable was the unanimity of style between Honeyman and soprano Sinéad White in their joyful Christe eleison. Due for special praise was Rebecca Claborn's beautifully shaped and phrased Laudamus te.

Above all, the Mass in B Minor stands or falls by the work of the chorus. Scholars have substantially concluded that Bach meant the music to be sung with one voice to a part, and many experts sneer at the idea of a chorus of one hundred as we heard on this occasion.

The Choir's splendid clarity in the interwoven polyphonic lines could well give those scholars pause. The very opening Kyrie eleison displayed absolute clarity of texture, permitting the hearer to follow any one line out of the polyphonic texture with no difficulty. 

The Choir went on from strength to strength throughout the performance, from the lively, enthusiastic In gloria Dei patris to the formally shaped Gregorian chant lines of the Credo in unum Deum, and from the mysterious depths of the Qui tollis and Et incarnatus est to the joyful exuberance, even exhilaration, of the Et resurrexit and Osanna.

 

More than any other moments, the Choir reached the heights of their performance in the grave majesty of the Sanctus and the Dona nobis pacem.

 

With a decent-sized but not overlarge orchestra playing on authentic instruments, the audience was able to hear Bach's instrumental lines much as the composer would have heard them, particularly true of the D trumpets, the natural horn in the Quoniam, and the duet of two wooden transverse flutes. Matthew Larkin's playing on the chamber organ, the sole keyboard continuo instrument, created a secure underpinning for the entire performance.

Music Director Jean-Sébastien Vallée shaped the performance with care, avoiding interpretive excesses and stressing above all the unity of style from movement to movement. In that opening Kyrie, he had directed the Choir to a specially clear articulation of the lines, and his sparing use of that device throughout the evening always heightened the audibility of the parts without spilling over the edge. He also avoided excessively loud fortes and soft pianos in perfect keeping with Baroque-appropriate style. 

With all of these careful touches and many more, Vallée brought the entire world of the B Minor Mass to vivid life. The ecstasies, the meditations, the sorrows, the joys, and the overwhelming majesty were all there, and rightly so. 

The capacity audience in Koerner Hall were moved to sustained cheering at the concluding standing ovation. And no wonder -- this was, in every way, the finest B Minor Mass I have ever heard in a live performance.

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Following that memorable concert on Tuesday night, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir released news about the upcoming 2023-2024 season on Wednesday morning. The programme combines established masterworks with commissioned new work and innovative programming concepts. Two of the concerts will be performed by the Mendelssohn Singers, the professional chamber choir which forms the core of the larger Mendelssohn Choir.

The season brings such established favourites as Orff's Carmina Burana and Verdi's Requiem, and less well-known works by Brahms (Schicksalslied), Handel (Dixit Dominus), Bach (Christ lag in Todesbanden), together with music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Clara Schumann and commissioned work from Composer in Residence Tracy Wong. A new arrangement of Schubert's song cycle Winterreise for soloist, piano, and choir, will feature baritone Brett Polegato. The favourite Festival of Carols will launch the Christmas season, and the annual collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Handel's Messiah will be another not-to-miss highlight.

For full details, here's the link to the new season information on the Choir's website:

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 2023-2024

 

 

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A Personal Note on my Experiences With the B MInor Mass

 

In my lifetime, I have only heard the Mass in B Minor performed live four times. Indeed, I probably shouldn't count the first one since I was singing for my first and only season in the Mendelssohn Choir in February of 1978, just a slight 55 years ago! I vividly remember the intensive rehearsing, with the choir and at home, trying to master Bach's vocal lines -- which have a knack of going to the most unexpected but absolutely logical places. Worlds apart from Handel, whose lines are much easier to sing because they don't play those kinds of tricks on you! Even after all these years, I can still pick out and recognize those tricky spots every time I hear the music in recordings, or live, as last night.

 

I heard the work again in the late 1980s, at the Carmel Bach Festival in California. At that time, the Carmel Festival was still using a 1950ish style of performing, heavy, ponderous, and stately, which made for a reverent but not totally exciting performance.

The third time was with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, quite a few years back (early 2000s?) at St. James Cathedral in Toronto. Much as I loved the Cathedral as a building and still do, it proved to be a far from ideal venue for large forces, the sound hovering between washy and muddy. Sadly, that venue was not kind to the Choir's undoubted skills.

Last night though, in Koerner Hall, I heard as fine a Mass in B Minor as I could possibly want, sung and played with skill, precision, and passion, directed with great insight, and blessed with a well-nigh perfect acoustic for a performance on this scale. A joy to any lover of Baroque choral music!

National Ballet of Canada 2022-2023 # 2: The Energy In the Mix

While the larger audiences flock to the established classics of story ballet, there's no denying that an artistic director's imprint on a ballet company is far more visible through the modern dance works, the commissions, and especially the mixed programmes of shorter ballets.

 

For this reason, I have been especially eager to see the first mixed programmes of Hope Muir's tenure as artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada.

 

Sadly, I had to miss the first one in November as I was out of the country, so this week I have finally gotten a chance to experience her touch in person.

 

This month's mixed programme marries one established classic of the National Ballet's repertoire with two premieres, one of them a world premiere of a commissioned work. Both choreographers of these new pieces are being introduced to National Ballet audiences for the first time. 

First, though, the established classic, which also led off the programme. George Balanchine's 1947 work Symphony in C, set to the sole symphony composed by Georges Bizet. It's always puzzled me a bit that some commentators refer to the "icy" quality of this work, because it's never struck me that way. Brilliant it certainly is, but I don't find it at all cold. It winds up to the most spectacular grand finale of any ballet I've ever seen, with over fifty dancers on the stage all at once in the final moment.

 

The National Ballet has a long and fruitful record of staging many major Balanchine works, largely thanks to their long-standing thirty-plus years relationship with legendary Balanchine répetiteur Joysanne Sidimus. Generations of the company's dancers have benefited from her insights into Balanchine's  unique and distinctive style, to say nothing of her ongoing concern for the artists' well-being. Sadly, this show marked her final engagement before retiring. I know her work will be missed.

 

As for the performance, the Symphony in C requires a lead couple and subsidiary couples in each of the work's four movements, but the work of the corps de ballet is also critical to the piece's success, and with the diverse casting of those lead and subsidiary couples all around, it can quite fairly be regarded as a "company piece" -- certainly not just a vehicle for a couple of principal dancers.

 

Balanchine made extensive use of symmetry as an element of the choreography here, at every level ranging from the precise degree to which hands are turned up or arms lifted all the way to entire symmetrical stage pictures. All of the company did themselves proud on this occasion by nailing all these aspects of required symmetry to virtual perfection, while still dancing with plenty of energy in the outer movements and a lovely lyrical sense of flow in the second slow movement. The hurtling bodies of the high-speed scherzo still maintained an absolute sense of control, even in Balanchine's most fiendish moments of complex footwork. A treasurable performance.

 

One final note about Symphony in C: with this run of performances, the National Ballet became the first dance company ever to present this work with the dancers wearing flesh-toned tights matched to their individual skin tones. Balanchine's work is closely hedged around with copyrights and legal protections, and this switch from the original pure white tights was remarkable even more because the copyright holders permitted it than because the National Ballet wanted to do it. By the way, the effect is almost unnoticeable, certainly unremarkable, in performance -- unless you are specifically looking for it. Baby steps? Perhaps -- but small changes can have large impacts on the individuals involved.

 

After the first intermission, we moved on to Rena Butler's Alleged Dances, a work commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada, here receiving its world premiere.

 

Where so much of contemporary dance can seem angular and very unlovely at times, what struck me more than anything about Butler's vision here was the fluidity of the movement, the frequent use of curved positions, of smooth flowing movements, with more continuous movement overall and less moments of stasis than in many contemporary works. It would be possible to trace many different artistic currents flowing through different moments in Alleged Dances, but I think that kind of blow-by-blow analysis would diminish the overall impact of the work as a whole. 

 

I wish I could say the same for the music. Fruitful it may have been for Butler in stimulating her dance-making, but I found John Adams' music in John's Book of Alleged Dances to be among the more sterile examples of so-called minimalism in music that I've heard. I have nothing but praise for the work of the onstage string quartet, or the smoothness with which their playing melded with the pre-recorded track played on the sound system, but a little bit of Adams' music goes a very long way with me.

 

There were two curious (or perhaps not so surprising) overlaps between Butler's work and the final piece on the programme, David Dawson's Anima Animus. Both used musical scores stemming from the realm of minimalism. Both shows were costumed in effectively gender-free costuming by using plain leotards with solid-colour sections of varying shapes applied over the neutral-toned base -- brilliant red in Alleged Dances and stark black or white in Anima Animus. The effect in both cases was the same, although the means used were different; gender basically vanished as an element of the show, leaving a core fluidity of humanity to come through more clearly.

The contrasts of white and black in Dawson's work gave strong connection to his theme of working within the duality proposed by Carl Jung, of the anima as the feminine element in the masculine soul, and the animus as the masculine element in the feminine soul. In dance terms, this meant that the choreographer worked with a strong dose of classical technique, but having the male dancers in key moments performing movements normally performed by female dancers, while the women performed movements more usually reserved for the male dancers. It was a fascinating piece for me, but also a bit frustrating, as I found it hard to get beyond trying to parse all the gender shifts that were going on. A second viewing would be helpful to allow me to focus on other elements of this complex, multi-layered work. 

I'd be more than happy to see either Alleged Dances or Anima/Animus restaged in the future, and certainly glad to see more work from either or both of these choreographers.

In closing, a shout-out to the busiest performer of the entire show. The performance started with all the high-speed and high-energy cascades and notes in the string parts of Bizet's symphony. I hope the orchestra was led by someone else for that, but I don't know. Then, this busy musician had to lead the quartet in the equally energetic music of John Adams for Rena Butler's half-hour work. And finally, he was faced with the dizzying acrobatics of the solo violin part in Ezio Bosso's Violin Concerto No. 1, EsoConcerto for Dawson's Anima/Animus. This 2017 work included seemingly endless roulades and ostinato passages, along with lengthy stretches set in the high harmonics -- among other challenges. So, a definite shout-out is in order for the National Ballet Orchestra's Concertmaster, Aaron Schwebel, and the huge roar of cheering for him when he appeared at the curtain call was surely no more than was his due.

Hope Muir has certainly moved the National Ballet into new territory with this programme, and I look forward to more of her choices of repertoire in future seasons.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra 2022-2023 # 1: Mozart and Beyond the Infinite

 It's odd, I could have sworn that I had made it to one Toronto Symphony Orchestra concert this year already (besides the Messiah), but I don't seem to have reviewed it. My bad.

Saturday night I was at Roy Thomson Hall to hear the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir join forces again in a gripping, dramatic performance of the endlessly fascinating Requiem, K.626 by Mozart (using Robert Levin's completion). Just as fascinating and dramatic were the selections performed alongside it -- for once, not a full evening of Mozart -- and the unique approach to staging this performance. In his chatty and humorous remarks, guest conductor Michael Francis said that this unique programme was an attempt to assemble other works which reflected the wide range, from serenity and lyrical beauty to dramatic intensity and musical complexity, of Mozart's final and incomplete masterpiece.

As soon as the orchestra and conductor were assembled on stage, the lights went down. The side stage door opened and a soprano voice was heard intoning a melody in the style of Gregorian chant. In a slow procession, four sopranos and four altos joined in the melody and walked, one by one, across the stage until they turned to face the audience, spread evenly across the width of the hall. Each singer carried a light to illuminate the music and their faces; all else was darkened.

This was, as far as I know, the first appearance on a Toronto Symphony Orchestra programme of the remarkable medieval composer, abbess, and mystic, Hildegarde von Bingen. As the eight voices soared in the elaborate rising and falling phrases of her unique style, there  was utter silence in the hall -- everyone was captivated. As the music entered its final section, the singer who had led the procession turned and completed her walk off the other side of the stage, the others following her one by one until the final notes of Hildegarde's O virtus Sapientiae faded slowly into the offstage distance.

Michael Francis then lifted his hands and, as the lights slowly came back up, led the orchestra directly into the opening chords of Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music, a striking and evocative tribute to two members of Mozart's Masonic lodge in Vienna. The deep tones of trombones and bassoons give this music a distinctive colour all its own, and the orchestra members did it full justice.

After Francis gave his remarks, he next led the orchestra into a full-sized version of the extraordinary Grosse Fuge by Beethoven. Originally for string quartet, this is one of the most startling and challenging products of the final period of Beethoven's life. The TSO's remarkable string sections did splendid work in presenting all the complex and intertwining lines of this near-symphonic movement in which multiple fugal expositions seem to be taking place simultaneously. 

The final work in the first half brought back the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the small professional chamber choir embedded in the larger Mendelssohn Choir, to perform the impossibly beautiful Miserere by Gregorio Allegri. This complex psalm setting for two choirs and intoning tenor soloist has achieved worldwide fame in the form in which Mozart copied it down from memory after hearing it at the Vatican. As a side note, it's quite startling to hear the composer's very different original thoughts as recorded and released by the Sistine Chapel choir a few years ago. I don't know if Mozart elaborated the music instead of merely transcribing it, or if the editor of the familiar published text did so.

In any case, tenor Isaiah Bell gave the leading tone chants from the top right level of the hall, the main choral body stood in the choir loft, and the small quartet second choir -- including the all-important soprano who has to sing a high C in slow and serene form in each verse, were on the top left level. This spatial dimension caused the music to fold in around the audience, and brought the first half to a conclusion every bit as entrancing -- in a literal sense -- as the opening procession.

The programme notes made no comment about the irony of a concert orchestra featuring two works of unaccompanied choral music by composers who would have no idea of what such a body of players might be capable of doing, and wouldn't even know many of the instruments which the modern orchestra uses! That unique programme certainly set many people talking and reflecting in lobby during the intermission.

 

And so to Mozart's immortal Requiem, which comprised the second half of the programme. I've made extensive comments about the magnetic drawing power and editorial difficulties of this work in two reviews of previous performances -- one being the traditional Süssmayr completion...

 

 Sublime Late Mozart

 

..while the other was the Levin edition.

Funeral Rites

Michael Francis led the orchestra and the full Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in a performance which definitely stressed the drama and the intensity of Mozart's score, with such lyrical passages as the Recordare and the Benedictus coming as a relief from the power of so much else.

 

In line with contemporary practice, his tempi were brisk but not to the point of blurring except, perhaps, in the Offertory where the Quam olim Abrahae fugue was beset with muddy textures in the most complex bars of stretto.

 

Particularly welcome was the starkly powerful performance of Levin's biggest divergence from the well-known Süssmayr edition, the Amen fugue after the Lacrymosa, which can seem very much out of place from its surroundings if presented too lightly or speedily.

The other big fugal movements, the Kyrie eleison at the beginning and the Cum sanctis tuis to the same music at the close, bookended a performance of the Requiem as fine as any I've heard.

In part, this was due to the splendid contributions of the solo quartet. Soprano Jane Archibald, mezzo-soprano Susan Platts, tenor Isaiah Bell, and bass-baritone Kevin Deas each sang effectively in their respective solo moments, particularly in the Tuba mirum, in some ways the most operatic part of the score, where all four have to take a line in turn. However, it was as a quartet that they truly made their mark, the four voices balancing beautifully in the many passages where they sang together.

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir must have this music in their blood by now, having sung it so many times over the years. For all that, there was no hint of routine about any part of the performance. The choir articulated their notes splendidly where Francis called for that, without getting choppy, and sang with firm and beautifully phrased legato in other parts of the score. The large choral fugues were all sung with just the right mixture of clarity without edginess and power without shouting. A magnificent performance by any standard.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra plays this music with a great blend of strength and subtlety. The featured moments for trombones and winds, the textures of the strings in lighter passages, the nicely judged "enough but no more" of the timpani, all went together to provide a firm foundation and clearly Mozartean musical identity to the whole performance. Given the size of the orchestra and choir, I wondered at the use of chamber organ. It was largely inaudible except in a few quieter moments. The hall's main concert organ would, I think, have been entirely appropriate.

 

With a Requiem of such power and beauty, balanced by the unique presentation of four rare masterpieces in the first half, this ranks as one of the most memorable concert collaborations of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Toronto Symphony Orchestra in recent years. Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear these same artists join forces in Mozart's incredible Great Mass in C Minor, K.427? That's a concert which I would call long overdue!

 

 

"Messiah" and Me: A Personal Reflection

Following on last night's splendid performance of Handel's immortal oratorio (see previous post), it seemed like a good time for me to reflect on my own long-running history with this work.

Messiah forms one of the earliest cornerstones of my lifelong love affair with the whole world of classical music. I grew up hearing Handel's work in all its majestic, playful, solemn diversity of style. Excerpts were sung at our annual pre-Christmas extended family party. Some of the adults sang selected solos, and the group joined in choruses. 

It was talked about at home too, due to my father's decades-long membership of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (over 45 years). In time, my older sister, my brother, and I all took singing lessons and all took a turn singing in the Choir as well.

By now, we of the younger generation were singing some of those wonderful solo arias at the annual family Messiah fest. In one year, we actually worked our way through pretty much the whole of the first part, before wrapping up as always with the Hallelujah chorus. I've continued singing them all my life, sometimes with organ accompaniment, sometimes accompanying myself on the piano (we'll pass lightly over the hit-and-miss quality of my piano playing). Trying to sing Handel's most florid coloratura while sitting down and playing is an interesting challenge!

Mind you, I did achieve an odd distinction when I joined the Mendelssohn Choir myself for one season in 1977-78. We'd been intensively rehearsing and taping a lengthy work by Murray Schafer for the CBC, and the taping sessions ran right into mid-December. Thus, there was time for only one orchestral rehearsal before the annual Messiah performances, and no time at all to crack our scores before that one rehearsal. And right there was when the Toronto winter weather did me in, and I came down with a cold, losing my voice. I must be one of the very few members of the Choir, perhaps the only one in the last 90 years, who never actually sang Messiah with the Choir!

An odd side note: the idea that the Choir can do Messiah on next to no rehearsal got so ingrained in my thinking from this episode that I actually did a double-take when I saw in social media how many rehearsals were held with choir and orchestra for this week's concerts. Their rehearsing definitely paid off!

Looking back, I realize now that my family were participating in an old tradition of performing classical music at home. For many people, perhaps most people, this has died out as the arrival of recordings has made it unnecessary, since you no longer need to play or sing to hear the music. A pity. But no matter what, for me (as for so many other music lovers), Christmas has always meant Messiah.

 

And this is odd, because Handel really composed the work to be performed in the Lenten and Easter seasons, and always and only performed it then. Messiah is odd in another way, too, among Handel's output of English oratorios, a form he basically invented. All of his other oratorios are dramatic narratives, concert operas in all but name. Even Israel in Egypt, although it lacks dramatic characters, is a thoroughly dramatic and narrative work.

Messiah is another matter altogether: a purely Biblical text, meditating on the whole arc of the Biblical story of Christ from the annunciation of his birth to his final revelation as the enthroned Son of God at the last day of the world. The only narrative in the entire work comes in the four brief recitatives of the Nativity scene, leading up to the angelic chorus, Glory to God.

I'm certainly not alone in the English-speaking world in finding that Handel's immortal inspiration has a powerful grip. Last night, I was brought to tears by the understated but deeply-felt Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow as sung by Michael Colvin. I've never heard it given with a greater sense of the meaning of the words, or with greater emotional intensity.

For many people, the climax of Messiah comes at the end of the second part with the majestic Hallelujah chorus. Handel wrote in a letter that, when he was working on the score of Messiah, "I did think I did see all of heaven open before me, and the great God himself." It's common to assume that these words applied to the Hallelujah and perhaps they did.

For me, though, the unfailing sense of the heavens opening comes in the majestic leading chords of the final choral fresco, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and then again a few minutes later in the first fortissimo outburst and the final massive cadences of the concluding Amen -- and the power of this music brings me to tears once more, every time I hear it.

 

There have been times in my life when I have grown tired of Messiah, when I've felt as if it's finally losing its grip on me. Bach's beautiful but very different Christmas Oratorio claims an equal share of my time when Christmas rolls around. But then, I sit down to listen at home, or (as last night) attend a top-notch live performance, and all that familiar music unfolds its beauty for me once more. And then the final chorus opens the gates of heaven, and I find that I've fallen in love with Messiah all over again.

The Eternal, Immortal "Messiah"

 For the first time in too many years to count, I sat down in Roy Thomson Hall on Saturday night to enjoy the annual Toronto Mendelssohn Choir/Toronto Symphony Orchestra performance of Handel's grand, immortal Messiah.

 

Two factors drew me to this concert, after missing it so many times. One was the indefinable, but still quite strong, feeling that I desperately needed to hear Messiah after the ordeal of the last two winters.

The other was the discovery that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's Music Director, Gustavo Gimeno, was going to lead these performances himself.

This is a real rarity. No TSO Music Director since Sir Ernest Macmillan, with the periodic exception of Sir Andrew Davis, has made a habit of leading these performances. It's become traditional to rotate one of the TSO's most popular annual events among the hands of assorted guest conductors. The orchestra says this is to allow for variations of interpretation, a very valid aim. But that's just what we are going to get here.

 

These concerts mark Gimeno's first-ever occasion to lead live performances of Handel's eternally popular oratorio. This is actually not surprising. Messiah has a far less powerful grip on the popular imagination in continental Europe than in the English-speaking world. I was, then, even more eager to hear how this first-time interpreter would fare with a work which is far more challenging than many of us Messiah veterans like to admit, and a work which would not necessarily be a key element of the musical world in which he had grown up and studied.

Then there's the whole question of whether there would be any innovations in the sequence of numbers, the choice of numbers to be omitted, or the versions of various numbers to be performed. It's entirely possible to write a whole book about the history of Messiah, and the huge multiplicity of alternative numbers which Handel composed. Trust me, it's been done. I took my own briefer crack at "the Messiah problem" in my rare music blog, Off the Beaten Staff, five years ago. Here's a link to that post:

 

Will the Real "Messiah" Please Stand Up?

 

 

Enough preamble. Let's get right to the performance. As usual, these TSO performances fly somewhat in the face of the authentic performance movement by using a large choir, but keeping the orchestra down to a smaller, more Baroque-sized body. No qualms about authenticity from this listener. Handel was well-known in his day for always wanting more singers and more players than he had. More to the point, the musicians of the TSO by now have all had experience in the requirements and skills of authentic Baroque performance and demonstrate it with a will. The old days of thick, plush, Wagnerian orchestral sound in Handel are, thankfully, long gone.

Gimeno staked his turf right from the opening overture, adopting a whole sequence of what most would consider central tempi at the present day, generally free from excessive speeds or distortions of the basic pulse. What he did bring to the performance, generating added interest, was a whole range of subtle little variations in the dynamic levels, avoiding the general sameness within each number that most conductors prefer. Gimeno also stressed clear articulation of notes in some passages, while generally shunning some of the comical excesses of other interpreters.

The only arguably excessive tempo was in His yoke is easy which lost its playful character and became hectic and effortful as the choir -- in just this one place -- struggled to keep up.

As for changes in the assignment of numbers, there were few, and they were confined to the second and third parts. The middle section and da capo of He was despised and of The trumpet shall sound vanished altogether. The recitative He was cut off and the following arioso But Thou didst not leave were transferred from tenor to soprano. On the plus side, But who may abide was correctly assigned to the mezzo-soprano. Otherwise, the traditional sequence of numbers with the traditional cuts was observed.

The orchestra of mainly strings, with a few winds, plus the necessary trumpets and drums, was for the most part effective, except that the orchestral tone tended to vanish altogether in the few passages where the choir sang full out. Continuo was provided throughout by a chamber organ, with nary a harpsichord in sight. Given the scale of the performance, it was just as well that Roy Thomson Hall's big concert organ was not used.

Although all four soloists had fine qualities and fine moments, I felt that the honours of the evening among them rested with tenor Michael Colvin. His characterization and feeling for the text made the recitative Thy rebuke hath broken his heart and the succeeding arioso Behold and see if there be any sorrow into a high point of emotional intensity. He then capped his performance with another dramatically conceived and fiery interpretation in Thou shalt break them.

 

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards would certainly have challenged Colvin for the honours if she had been allowed to use her rich, contralto-like tone in the entirety of He was despised -- and I wish she had done so. In the first part, she brought dancing joy to O Thou that tellest and simple lyrical beauty to He shall feed his flock. The dramatic intensity of her For He is like a refiner's fire made a stunning contrast.

 

Soprano Lauren Fagan sang throughout with simple lyrical beauty and soaring accuracy of high notes, all with no hint of overplaying her hand. A level of emotional commitment to match Colvin's would have been welcome in He was cut off and But Thou didst not leave, as also in I know that my Redeemer liveth. Lovely as it was, this aria somewhat skated over the meaning of the words.

Baritone Elliot Madore struggled with the coloratura of Thus saith the Lord, blurring the long chains of high-speed notes. He proved in much better form as the evening went on, bringing drama and accuracy to Why do the nations and The trumpet shall sound.

 

The most exciting contributions of the performance came from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The choral parts in Messiah equal in length and intensity the work of all four soloists together, and the reduced body of 100 singers rose to the challenge admirably. Diction was variable from section to section, obviously due to the varying numbers of singers in each section who chose to wear masks. 

Aside from that one issue, the choir brought pinpoint accuracy to Gimeno's requests for articulation, and responded willingly to his unconventional but intriguing dynamic requirements. Equally clear were the long coloratura lines in such choruses as And He shall purify and For unto us a child is born. At one time, you might have heard the choir making a mighty shout in all the choral movements, but throughout the evening they held back the big guns, saving their full power for the Hallelujah chorus and the concluding Worthy is the Lamb... Amen. Most impressive of all were the times when the choir responded to the call for truly quiet singing, the voices reducing to a mere murmur while the text remained clear. 

All in all, an auspicious Messiah debut for Maestro Gimeno, predictably nimble and stylish playing from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, an enjoyable evening of singing from the four soloists, and a splendid performance from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

Performances of Messiah continue for the next four nights (December 18/19/20/21) at Roy Thomson Hall. Tickets can be purchased from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's website.

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 2022-2023 # 2: Festive Christmas Music From the TMC

December 6 marked the return of a welcome Toronto Christmas tradition: the annual Festival of Carols from the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, including the well-loved carol singalong.

Although the Choir did present a virtual Christmas program in 2020, and last year went with a shortened live or virtual concert which (to meet Covid rules) ended with a "hum-along", it was the full-throttle audience participation in classic Christmas music which so many had missed.

Indeed, the demand for tickets was so great that the Choir added a second performance on December 7 and a webcast of the concert on December 9!

 

With this event, the Choir launched the Christmas season with the kind of festive energy that, even at Christmas, isn't easily or often found. The Choir's performance in this concert was memorable, exciting, and bursting with joie de vivre.

Under Music Director Jean-Sébastien Vallée, the Choir and the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers performed a kaleidoscopic array of Christmas music, including arrangements of traditional carols and profound music of the Christmas season, representing a time span from the 1600s to the present day and a world view encompassing multiple cultures and regions.

Two of the most beautiful and touching works were premieres, with the composers present: O Nata Lux by Christopher Ducasse and Heartbeat by Shireen Abu-Khader, the latter a TMC commission. Ducasse's music gave more than a nod to the serene polyphony of the European Renaissance, while Abu-Khader's work incorporated Byzantine chant, fusing it with her own distinctive and heartfelt melodic language.

There were many highlights in this diverse anthology of seasonal music. Right at the outset, the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers brought beautiful and coolly serene tone to John Sheppard's motet Verbum Caro Factum Est ("The Word Was Made Flesh"), their voices soaring over the audience from the side gallery of the church.

The dialogue of Gabriel and Mary in Gabriel's Message was given by soloists Jacob Abrahamse and Emily Parker, and both they and the full choir relished the light-hearted dotted rhythms of this traditional English carol in Olivia Sparkhall's arrangement.

Two other bouncy arrangements by Mack Wilberg, Noe! Noe! and Ding! Dong! Merrily on High, were given by the choir with ample energy and the signature precision we've come to expect.

Speaking of energy, organist Isabelle Demers at one point launched an improvisatory interlude with a few high-powered bars of Messiaen, and it's a pity that space couldn't have been made for her to perform the entire number, Dieu parmi nous ("God Among Us") -- that being an obvious choice for the occasion.

 

Soprano Rebecca McKay brought ethereal tone to her part in Donald Fraser's This Christmastide.

 

Another delight was Donald Patriquin's arrangement of a lively traditional French noël, Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres. 

 

Among the most heart-touching moments of the entire evening was Paul Mealor's In the Bleak Midwinter, with Dan Bevan-Baker's luminous baritone solo over the quiet choral backdrop a true delight.

Coreen Duffy's setting of Adon Olam, a traditional Jewish hymn of praise to God, created a harmonic atmosphere which was unique in this concert.

 

Fortunately, the currently-fashionable styles of minimalist repetition of words or syllables (which only muddy the text), and wrong-note modernism in arrangements of traditional carols, were confined to only a couple of numbers.

 

The entire concert was arranged in six sets, lasting ninety minutes without an intermission. The eagerly-awaited singalongs were placed at the end of sections 2, 5, and 6 with the audience invited to rise and join in singing O Come All Ye Faithful first. Sir David Willcocks' splendid arrangement, a staple of church music since my childhood, brought tears to my eyes. Silent Night concluded the fifth set, and the high energy of Joy to the World brought the entire concert to a rousing conclusion.

Well, almost. Of course there had to be an encore, and of course that encore had to be that other grand old Christmas tradition, Handel's Hallelujah chorus. While the choir and organist tore into Handel's immortal inspiration with their customary flair, there may have been a few extra voices involved. I hope the choir, the conductor, and the audience located near me will forgive me for treating this as another singalong number but I simply couldn't resist -- I haven't had a chance to sing it for nearly a decade! And I don't think I was the only audience member singing along at this point either.

The concert repeats tonight (December 7) at 7:30 pm at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, and the webcast is available starting on December 9. Tickets for either the live or the webcast version of this splendid concert can be purchased at this link:

 

Festival of Carols 2022