Inherently cinematic – the Fifth’s famous “Adagietto” was previously (over)used and widely popularized by Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film of Death in Venice – the symphony proves an ideal fit for the world crafted by Field and his star Cate Blanchett (who spent months studying with Australian conductor Natalie Murray Beale to prepare for her role as Lydia Tár).

All of which is to say, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s recent performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 (1902) could not have come at a better time. Though Tár sadly did not take home any gold at last month’s Oscars ceremony, the brief flurry of media coverage surrounding the film, focussed in part on the authenticity of its musical performances, has drawn renewed attention to this greatest of works in the classical repertoire. Is Mahler No. 5 the best Mahler symphony? Perhaps. Is it one of the most essential, must-see live compositions in the entire history of classical music? Absolutely.

Guest conductor John Storgårds acquitted himself admirably with a score that many conductors – Tár and Leonard Bernstein among them – have considered the Everest of their respective careers. Storgårds’s fine, controlled conducting brought out the best in the TSO, which for the past decade has been slowly making its way through all nine symphonies. (Next year, they turn to Mahler’s monumental Third Symphony, which features a full choir alongside an expanded symphony orchestra.)

Despite its epic, eighty minute duration (nearly twice that of Beethoven’s Fifth, for those who count this sort of thing), at no point did the TSO’s performance drag or otherwise lose the audience’s attention. From the opening trumpet solo of the Trauermarsch (Funeral March) – here performed, correctly, onstage, whereas Tár had the idiosyncratic touch of placing the trumpeter offstage, as in other Mahler symphonies – through the closing Finale, the TSO’s performance was arguably the highlight of the Toronto spring classical season.

And then, of course, there’s the Adagietto. In isolation – as in its use in the Visconti film – it is a work of sublime beauty. In context, where you can hear the little hints of it build over the forty or so minutes of the first three movements before it arrives, and then echoing afterwards through the finale, it is even more impressive. I actually find it quite difficult to write about the Adagietto, twelve minutes of musical perfection so extraordinary that we risk burying it under the weight of superlatives, so all I will say is that the TSO got it right.

If I have one criticism of the evening, it was the inclusion of a full half-hour’s worth of pre-intermission programming featuring North American premieres of the late Joonas Kokkonen’s Adagio Religioso (1991) and Scottish Composer Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto (2016).

Not only did this cause the concert to run long, but a work like the Fifth, in my view, requires the undivided attention of the listener. Although Grime’s violin concerto is actually quite exciting, and Kokkonen’s string-heavy, lyrical Adagio rather beautiful, both were completely overshadowed by the masterwork that came in the second part of the program. I’ve attended Mahler performances where it was just the symphony and nothing else – while it might lose the TSO some intermission drink-and-snacks money, I wouldn’t mind if they embraced that approach once in a while.

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For TSO tickets and to see the full concert calendar, click here.

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The highlight, highlight, highlight of the evening was 23-year-old Kanneh-Mason’s rendition of Elgar’s Cello Concerto (1919). Dvořák might have the slight edge, but Elgar’s masterpiece is undoubtedly the other great cello concerto. From its dramatic opening adagio, through to its breathtaking finale, it ranks among the best works of classical music ever written.

And one that demands only the best musician to bring it to life. Only a few short years ago, Sheku Kanneh-Mason became the first Black musician to win the BBC’s Young Musician Award – an accomplishment which shot him to fame within the classical music world, and beyond. Judging by last week’s performance, Kanneh-Mason is a fine musician, albeit one prone to the occasional hiccup as he allows his exuberant style to get away from himself. Once or twice in the quicker passages, Kanneh-Mason got noticeably ahead of the orchestra, with Conductor Emeritus Peter Oundjian doing his best to rein him in. Youthful exuberance can hardly be faulted, and aside from that minor quibble the guest cellist was more than up to the task. His wonderful encore of the traditional Welsh tune “Myfanwy”, during which he played cello and whistled(!), added an unusual and highly welcome dynamic to the evening.

The relatively short programme also featured Ralph Vaughan Williams’s devastatingly beautiful Variations on a Theme By Thomas Tallis (1910). Easily one of the most popular works of classical music ever written – last year, it ranked third in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame audience poll – and deservedly so. With its remarkable orchestration, combining a full string orchestra, string quartet, and a string ensemble, Vaughan Williams transforms Tallis’s original 16th century theme in a lush, expressive work of deep harmonies. The soaring string lines – especially, and not coincidentally, in the cello section – combine perfectly with the smaller, more intimate solos of the quartet. Oundjian, who led the TSO from 2004 to 2018, conducted the orchestra with the skill and emotion he is known for.

Rounding out the evening was a world premiere, the latest from renowned Toronto-born composer Gary Kulesha, who also serves as Composer Advisor to the TSO and previously was Composer-in-Residence for the Canadian Opera Company. His Fourth Symphony (2023) was trademark Kulesha: exciting, occasionally discombobulating, and only somewhat derivative. The first movement, with its shades of Stravinsky and of R. Strauss, was probably the least interesting part of the composition, but it all came together in a satisfying finale that contained a few good jolts for the audience. Kulesha’s long-overdue fourth symphony – No. 3 debuted all the way back in 2007 – felt surprisingly at home next to the English masterpieces of the 20th century that graced the programme.

The post Sheku Kanneh-Mason Joins the TSO For Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and a Canadian World Premiere (Concert Review) appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

The date was April 23, 1923, the site Massey Hall, with a group of musicians gathered under the baton of Serbian-Canadian conductor Luigi von Kunitz. The program included Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, a not inauspicious start for what was then a volunteer orchestra.

As we inch ever closer to that centenary, the TSO has started the celebrations early (perhaps making up for lost time during the COVID-curtailed previous season), with a “Maestros’ Special Homecoming” last week. The one-night-only performance, April 9th, featured five of the six living conductors who have served as TSO Music Director. Sir Andrew Davis (1975–1988), Günther Herbig (1989-1994), Jukka-Pekka Saraste (1994–2001), Peter Oundjian (2004–2018), and Gustavo Gimeno (2020-present) were all on hand to conduct personal favourites from during their tenures. Only Japan-based Seiji Ozawa (1965–1969) was unable to attend, sending along a short note, included in the programme, reflecting on his years with the TSO.

The evening, hosted by soprano and CBC radio host Marion Newman, was a lightweight, celebratory affair, with musical selections, from Berlioz to Wagner, averaging around ten minutes a piece. While the short durations were understandable given the number of conductors to take the podium, it was nevertheless disappointing to have so little in the way of capital-S Serious fare. It would have been nice, for example, to see each conductor take on their favourite opera overture. Instead, with minor exceptions, we were treated to amusing but largely insubstantial pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Appropriately for the festive vibe, the evening kicked off with Sir Andrew Davis conducting Berlioz’s Carnival Overture (1844), a rambunctious, brass-heavy concoction with a significant role for the English horn. A reworking of material composed for Berlioz’s failed opera Benvenuto Cellini, the Carnival is an orchestral showcase, giving every musician something challenging and technically impressive to work with. Sir Andrew’s follow-up, Delius’s “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” from the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet (1906) is a more lyrical, thoughtful affair. While there were some lovely and tender moments in “Paradise”, it’s easy to understand why Delius is a largely forgotten composer; the work comes across as an off-brand imitation of his countryman and contemporary Edward Elgar.

Günther Herbig is ninety years old, but while his walk across the stage might have been slower than it used to be, his selection, Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture (1845), was the most exciting choice of the evening. Perhaps it’s because Wagner is one of my favourite composers, or because I have fond memories of performing the Overture with my undergraduate orchestra, or perhaps simply because it was the only work of real substance in the program, I found the Tannhäuser captivating, moving, and fresh. Not bad for a nonagenarian.

Pour one out for Jukka-Pekka Saraste, flown in all the way from Helsinki, who evidently drew the short baton during pre-concert negotiations. His sole contribution, the Sibelius “Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island”, No. 1 from Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22 (1896) clocked in at a grand total of seven minutes. No matter; it’s a lovely piece and Saraste clearly delighted in bringing a taste of home with him – a piece, in fact, that saw its Toronto premiere under his direction back in 1998.

Toronto’s own Peter Oundjian, only the second Canadian to ever serve as TSO Music Director, was warmly received by an audience with fresh and fond memories of his recently concluded tenure. Oundjian is certainly one of the most famous Music Directors to take up the role, having earned international acclaim as a violinist in the Tokyo String Quartet before transitioning into a celebrated (and Grammy-nominated) conducting career. Oundjian’s “Homecoming” selection included Canadian composer Alexina Louie’s The Ringing Earth (1986), a short, simple fanfare of moderate substance and plenty of percussion. Smetana’s “Šárka”, No. 3 from Má vlast (1879) was more interesting, a symphonic poem portraying one woman’s bloody “revenge against the male race for the infidelity of a lover”, as Smetana described it.

Finally, current Music Director Gustavo Gimeno took the stage, leading a rousing performance of Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole (1908). A dance suite with elements of Ravel’s own Bolero and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol (1888), it begins slowly but eventually builds towards a frenzied climax, recreating the sensation of a Spanish village fair.

Tannhäuser aside, the other highlight of the evening was the encore, an amusingly gimmicky performance of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 7 (1887). The gimmick? Each of the evening’s stars conducted a fraction of the piece, before jokingly bumping their predecessor off stage and taking their own turn with the orchestra. Appropriate enough as an end to the evening, and as a start to a celebration of one hundred years with the TSO.

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Visit the official website for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra here.

Next season, the TSO’s centenary continues with performances from Yo-Yo Ma, Yuja Wang, and so much more (including return appearances from Sir Andrew Davis and Peter Oundjian). For the full 2022-2023 season brochure, click here.

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This week’s return to Roy Thomson Hall marked the first time Ehnes has graced a Toronto stage since December 2020, when, together with pianist Stewart Goodyear, he put on a three-day livestreamed performance of all ten Beethoven Violin Sonatas. However, the April 6-7, 2022 performances are the first time he’s been in front of a live Toronto audience in several years, an audience that welcomed him, alongside TSO Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis, with rapturous, and deserved, applause.

The program began with TSO Affiliate Composer Emilie Lebel’s The Sediments. Inspired by the writings of conservationist Rachel Carson (she of Silent Spring fame), Sediments is a poetic meditation on “the weight of sediment, and our history. Water flows on, whether I am here or not. Everything that ever was is still here,” as Lebel writes in the program notes. Of the various obligatory CanCon commissions this season, Sediments is a clear standout. Ominous but with light touches, it sounded like a mashup of Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien score and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The opening fortississimo chord also shocked the heck out of my concert companion, which is obviously a great selling point.

Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1895) was, as always, a sheer delight. One of several Strauss tone poems (see also: Also Sprach Zarathustra and Eine Alpensinfonie), it recounts, in symphonic form, episodes in the life of legendary 14th century German prankster Till Eulenspiegel. From the opening fairy tale-like theme through the amusingly pompous bassoons (standing in for conceited academics) through the teasing love theme as Till unsuccessfuly flirts with village girls, it concludes on a darkly humourous note, the resounding bass and drumline announcing the arrest, trial, and apparent execution of the protagonist. The punchline? Following his presumed demise, the opening theme returns once more, Till (and Strauss) winking to the audience that there are still more pranks to be had. (And here the concert missed April Fools’ Day by less than a week!)

Ehnes joined the TSO in the second half for an impeccable performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 (1806). Ehnes is a singular talent, technically flawless and emotionally engaged. The opening Allegro begins with a simple, almost childlike theme, but Beethoven modifies and plays around with it – especially on the solo violin – in interesting, dynamic ways. The subsequent Larghetto is moderately paced, lyrical, with harmonic fluorishes played with precision by Ehnes. The Rondo/Allegro finale is deservedly celebrated, with an extraordinary mid-movement cadenza (Ehnes favours the Fritz Kreisler version, though there are dozens of others to choose from) that, in Ehnes’s hands, truly gave the impression of an improvisation, as if Ehnes was momentarily moved to offer musical comment on Beethoven’s composition.

Following a lengthy standing ovation, Ehnes returned for an encore, performing an excerpt from a Bach sonata. Ehnes dedicated the performance to the memory of Canadian conductor Boris Brott, who was tragically killed in a hit-and-run earlier this week. Brott was the first conductor Ehnes ever worked with, and Ehnes was visibly moved by the loss of this stalwart of the Canadian classical music scene. It was a beautiful, if sombre, note to end the evening on.

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Next up at TSO: Celebrate 100: Maestros’ Special Homecoming @ Roy Thomson Hall, April 9, 7:30pm. Tickets here.

For the full TSO season calendar, click here.

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Oh so many months later, the TSO last week put on a “Screen to Stage” performance at Roy Thomson Hall, celebrating not movie music, but Appalachian Spring and other works TSO released to YouTube throughout lockdown. Admirably, there wasn’t a cliché to be found in the program, which was enthusiastically received by an in-person, half-capacity audience.

Following a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem, Screen to Stage kicked off properly with a lively performance of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 8 (1878). The TSO, under the baton of guest conductor Ryan Bancroft, was in fine and rambunctious form with this final entry in a sequence of dances composed by Dvořák, capitalizing on the then-recent success of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances. Dance No. 8 is quick and exciting, interspersed with moments of stillness, presumably to give any would-be dancers a rest.

The Dance was followed by a Romance – No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra (1798) to be precise – composed by Beethoven at the height of his powers (and not long after he realized he was starting to go deaf). The Romance is a work of real beauty, soft and lyrical, performed with grace by TSO concertmaster Jonathan Crow, accompanied by a smaller ensemble. The Romance‘s initial sweetness gives way to a dramatic quality that would come to mark Beethoven’s “heroic period”, which began in earnest only a few years later.

The first half concluded with Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 (1774), one of the composer’s earliest, and in my view, least exciting symphonies. The opening movement, with its recognizable central theme, is a promising start, but the influence of traditional classical forms on the young Mozart (all of eighteen at the time) holds the symphony back. Mozart is my favourite composer, or top three anyway, but I find that No. 29 lacks the majesty or innovations of his later masterpieces like the “Jupiter” symphony.

After intermission, it was time for Edmonton-born Vivian Fung’s Prayer, a brand new commission. A hodgepodge of Wagner, R. Strauss, and Copland-like elements, it was… actually not bad? The obligatory CanCon of the night, I approached it with no small amount of dread, but Fung has a trained ear and a sense of harmony, which is more than can be said for a lot of contemporary composers. My concert-going companion found it ominous, particularly in the low chords that open and close the Prayer.

Closing out the evening was the deservedly fabled Appalachian Spring (1944), which is so much more than “that one with that Shaker tune”. It’s been a while since I listened to Spring, and I was pleasantly surprised to (re-)encounter a work of ingenuity and sophistication. Not to mention the occasional, and welcome, incongruity, like the dissonant chords that interrupt the quotations from Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”, thereby preventing Spring from descending into kitsch. Spring originated as a ballet commissioned by famed dancer Martha Graham, though it’s better known today as a popular orchestral suite. Familiarity with its minor narrative thread – a young couple prepares for their wedding in a pioneer village – isn’t necessary for an appreciation of this great work of 20th century classical music. It proved a rousing and satisfying way to close out the evening.

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Visit the official website for the TSO here.

Watch the TSO’s March 2020 lockdown performance of Copland’s Appalachian Spring here.

And for more lockdown entertainment, check out the Kalamazoo Symphony’s April 2020 performance of Beethoven’s Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, conducted by Toronto’s own Julian Kuerti, here.

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