Saturday 11 June 2016

Being Pulled Three Ways

In the last couple of years, the Toronto Symphony has created some unusual concert programmes by combining works of very different musical style composed in the same decade.  The years from 1890 to 1920 are one ideal period for this kind of artistic cross-fertilization, and this year we have had a whole series of such concerts.  On Thursday, I attended a particularly intriguing concert made up of one grandly-scaled late Romantic piece, one totally wild and extravagant piece, and one set of cryptic little epigrams -- all of which were being composed at almost exactly the same time!

As I sat down and considered the programme before the concert began, I was struck by the realization that only one of these three works was likely to be familiar to most of the Toronto audience.  What's odd -- and ironic -- is that this is the work that has a long-standing reputation of being particularly thorny or difficult music: Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.  We've come a long way from the days when a concert absolutely had to be anchored by a mainstream symphony from 19th century Germany or Austria!

Artistic Director Peter Oundjian came onstage to give his usual pre-concert talk, and raised a laugh by commenting that he had better not make his talk longer than the first piece to be played!  Anton Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 are tiny little miniatures -- and I chose the words "cryptic little epigrams" with great care.  The entire set takes barely five minutes to perform!  Oundjian raised another laugh by commenting that the third piece "...is epic.  It lasts for over a minute."

Much of the music is very soft, and thus difficult to hear in the cavernous spaces of Roy Thomson Hall.  The very few loud crescendo passages were almost shocking in contrast.  I was forcefully reminded of Sir Hubert Parry's trenchant comment on the music of Webern's teacher, Schoenberg:  "I can stand this fellow when he's loud.  It's when he's soft that he's so obscene."  Without a score in front of me, it would be basically impossible to comment on the quality of the performance since I have never heard these strange, enigmatic pieces before.

It was with another shock that we turned to the next work, Elgar's Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 61 and realized that here was a lush outpouring of romanticism steeped in nostalgia.  It's a beautiful piece, and like much of Elgar's music it's not very well known outside his homeland.  I have to confess, though, that I've always felt much the same about this concerto as I have about his two symphonies.  To me, these big, sprawling works come across like butter scraped over too much bread.  The music is definitely lovely, but I've always found it easy to "check out" during the concerto's second and third movements.

(I have not heard this concerto performed live since the days when the TSO lived in Massey Hall.  A very young Andrew Davis led the orchestra with a violin soloist whose name now eludes me.  The soloist had the build of a football player, and played the concerto as it it were a rogue horse that had to be tamed -- so forcefully, that he snapped a string and had to do a lightning-quick instrument swap with the concertmaster.  He was lucky that this happened on the final note of a phrase.  The concertmaster then swapped with the player behind him, and so on back, until the dead violin came to rest at the final player on the last desk!)

This week's soloist was James Ehnes, a Canadian violinist of deserved international repute.  Anyone who has ever heard Ehnes play could guess that he wouldn't attack this concerto so forcefully, but would find far more light and shade in the writing -- and so he did.  The first movement, which is structurally the strongest, opened with a carefully shaped account of the long orchestral exposition, which set the stage ideally for Ehnes' first entry.  Throughout this movement the soloist and orchestra were beautifully balanced, a challenge because Elgar's writing for the orchestra does get very rich and heavy in places.  Pacing was near perfect, slackening slightly (but only that) at the appearances of the wistful second main theme.

The slow, songful second movement was still taken at an andante so that it didn't stretch out interminably, as a slower performance might.  The prize moment here is a unique passage in which the violin sustains a single low note, getting louder as it goes, while the orchestra plays a four-chord sequence incorporating that note in each chord.  Ehnes here maintained the sweetest tone while getting slowly louder on each recurrence of this sequence.  On the violin's lower strings this is not duck soup by any means.  It was a thrilling moment each time.  Interesting, because "thrilling" is a word most people will pull out when a violin is indulging in high speed acrobatics on the top string -- but it's the right word in this very different situation all the same.

The last movement is fast but long, and for me it seems to consist of bits of phrase that never quite coalesce into any themes of sufficient stature.  One can only then admire the soloist, who does get some wonderful passagework in many spots here.  Ehnes handled it all with aplomb.  But the entire performance of this concerto stands or falls, for me, by the slow, accompanied cadenza at the end of the movement.  This moment is the peak of the work's emotional message of nostalgia and regret, and the wistful tone has to be right.  Oundjian and Ehnes shaped this prolonged passage beautifully.  In that long-ago performance, I seem to recall that all the strings participated in Elgar's unique "thrumming" accompaniment (strings being strummed with the pads - not the tips -- of the fingers).  I could be mistaken, though.  In this performance, only a few of the violins and other instruments provided the thrumming accompaniment and it came across as exactly the gentle, distant whiff of sound required.

Overall, a very fine performance of a very big and challenging work -- and Ehnes capped it with a beautiful encore of a movement from one of Bach's Sonatas for solo violin.  He then made his way to the lobby to participate in an intermission chat with Tom Allen, and stayed around for autograph signing after the concert.

After the intermission, we got yanked in another completely different direction with The Rite of Spring.  I have heard this played live before, and it's always a powerful experience.  The orchestra now filled the stage as completely as if we were to hear a Mahler symphony, but of course with far more space for percussion instruments!  This is the second time in less than a decade that the TSO has presented The Rite, and on the previous occasion it was recorded for the TSO Live record label, where it comes generously paired with the orchestra's phenomenal reading of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances.

The programme indicated that this was the "1913 version" of The Rite -- which in practice means the work as originally written, before Stravinsky later struggled (not too successfully) to re-shape the final Sacrificial Dance.

Most people, thinking of The Rite, think of its raucous, percussive climaxes.  Yes, the music certainly leans very heavily on the percussion in many places.  What was notable about this performance was the way that Oundjian and company highlighted the chamber-like delicacy of much of the writing throughout the work, especially with the woodwinds.  And yet, when the loud, stamping chords of the Dance of the Augurs burst out, the horns and strings played with percussive precision.  Equally pinpoint precise were the similar hammered chords of the Dance of the Earth.

In the second part, the drumrolls under the quiet introduction were kept under control so the rest of the orchestra was not overwhelmed.  The plodding procession of the Ritual Action of the Ancestors took on a forward motion that created great tension against the bass-heavy writing.  And the final Sacrificial Dance had all the momentum and energy anyone could want.

Well, that's my last Toronto Symphony concert for this year, and definitely a rewarding conclusion to what has been (for me) a particularly rich season.

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