Okay, the Toronto Symphony's Saturday night performance wasn't precisely an "Easter concert", but two of the three works certainly had roots in the Christian tradition. The guest conductor this evening was Russian conductor, Andrey Boreyko. And for the third time this year (the two other occasions being the OSM with Kent Nagano and the TSO with Thomas Dausgaard) I saw the orchestra seated according to the old European tradition, with first violins to the conductor's left and second violins to the conductor's right. It's worth recalling that most of the great Romantic and post-Romantic composers planned their works for an orchestra seated in just this way, so the gains in following this seating plan are considerable. The second violins are better balanced with the firsts, and their parts (often lower in the harmony) come through much more clearly. Also better realized are the occasions when a composer creates a stereophonic effect by tossing musical ideas back and forth between the two violin sections.
The first work was the glorious Russian Easter Festival Overture by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Amazing as it may seem, the orchestra last played this work just 11 months ago, and did a fantastic job. Tonight's version, in the hands of a Russian conductor, topped last year's by just that little margin. It was a question of subtlety of detail, with Boreyko's left hand gently shaping and ever-so-slightly emphasising key points in phrases, especially in the quieter opening. You never forgot that these melodic lines, although sandwiched into regular rhythmic patterns as much as possible, actually originated as freely-chanted prayers without strict metre (in the Russian Orthodox Church). The other key point of Boreyko's success was that he kept just a little extra in reserve for the final pages, both in energy and in volume, so that the overture properly reached its climax in the final coda.
Following this came L'Ascension, a cycle of four meditations for orchestra by Olivier Messiaen, one of the most unique and interesting (to me) of twentieth-century composers. It's an early work, conceived for orchestra, and later re-arranged for organ (Messiaen's own instrument). I had never heard it before, but from the very first chords I would have known it was Messiaen's work even if I hadn't looked in the programme. I've never heard any other composer who sounds precisely like him: slow-moving, even hypnotic, with strange chords shifting and drifting from one to another, occasionally coalescing into an unmistakable major triad. Melodic figures with rapidly-turning notes resemble birdsong -- and that's no coincidence because birdsong was indeed one of the composer's major sources of material.
The first movement is a slow-moving prayer for brass and a few winds. The second has all the winds together in a unison melody with birdsong figures, that repeats itself regularly while the strings move independently around it. The third movement begins as a rollicking celebratory scherzo, a little too vigorous to be precisely dance-like, and culminates in a grand slow hymn of praise. The finale returns to the sublime mood of the opening, but now written entirely for the strings. The growing power of this prayer culminates in an almost visual ascent into the heavens which is suddenly cut short at its highest point. Messiaen was a devout Catholic, albeit a very mystical one, and I suspect this was probably conceived as a musical equivalent of the moment of the Ascension as described in the Bible, when Christ was taken up into the heavens and suddenly vanished into a cloud.
All of this was played with great concentration (essential) and equal intensity (equally essential) by all sections of the orchestra, carefully guided by Boreyko who clearly had the measure of this score. For both this piece and the Russian Easter, Boreyko quite rightly called for applause to acknowledge the numerous splendid solo contributions by members of the orchestra.
After the intermission we had the Brahms Piano Concerto # 1, with Helene Grimaud as soloist. Yes, this is such a monumental work that it usually occupies the principal spot in any concert where it is performed -- not least because the audience is apt to be exhausted after listening to this intensely dramatic and powerful work. Sir Donald Tovey described it as "a classical concerto of unprecedented tragic power" and that really says it all.
Tovey also commented astutely that it isn't necessary to force the tone in the thunderous opening. He was right. The first pages, for orchestra alone, are so hair-raising that the audience will probably feel overwhelmed even if the music is played no louder than a mezzo-forte. So it was unfortunate that Boreyko gave the orchestra its head in the opening bars -- too much timpani altogether, and some really ugly tone from the brass sections.
Things got dicey again when Grimaud made her first entrance. The piano's first utterance is not dramatic at all, but starts out as a gentle, almost pathetic melody that only gradually works back up to the fury of the main theme. Grimaud chose to treat this as if it were a solo work, with pronounced rubato alternately hastening and slowing the tempo. The problem: the orchestra has to punctuate her melodic lines with occasional chords, and Boreyko and the players were having a lot of trouble placing those chords and staying together on them. I wonder if Grimaud got carried away in the moment and played it very differently from what she had done in previous rehearsals and performances? It conveyed that effect.
As that stormy first movement proceeded, the concerto came together much better. Both soloist and orchestra settled into the music a little more securely, and the high-intensity coda created the right sensation of breathless excitement combined with overwhelming power.
The second movement starts out as a gentle prayer-like melody in the strings. Brahms actually inscribed the words Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini ("Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord") under this melody. The strings, which have become one of the glories of the Toronto orchestra, sang this beautiful hymn with a silky tone that was a true delight. As the movement proceeds, both piano and orchestra have to awaken by degrees to a mood of almost anger, but then quietly relax again back into the prayerful mood of the opening. The various stages were all finely scaled, conductor and soloist in unanimity, and the quiet gentle ending was shaped with the softest possible tone.
Grimaud immediately erupted into the dramatic finale, almost too abruptly perhaps, although it did save a pause of 30-40 seconds while everyone in the audience coughed (the cold and flu season apparently being not quite over yet!). By this time, the concerto was completely under control from all the performers. It still had the character of a fierce wild animal, as is entirely appropriate, but no longer was there the sense that it had gotten away altogether. The contrasting episodes in particular were beautifully shaped. The final recurrence of the main rondo theme and the coda were magnificent, and the instant standing ovation which ensued was entirely merited.
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