Category Archives: Performance review – TSO

Equilibrium Requiem

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Last night’s TSO concert was a collaboration with Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists project with EQ providing the quartet of soloists for Mozart’s Requiem.  But before we got to the Requiem there was a performance of Mozart’s Symphony no. 39 in E-flat Major.  It was enjoyable.  A somewhat reduced scale TSO played as well as they usually do when Sir Andrew Davis is on the podium and he took us through an irreproachable reading of the works essential tuneful and easy to listen to four movements.  It made a pleasant “overture”.

mr1

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Beethoven at the TSO

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A comparatively rare excursion into purely instrumental music for me last night but the prospect of Sir Andrew Davis conducting Beethoven’s seventh symphony was irresistible.

The “garage piece” was the overture to King Stephen.  Probably the most notable thing about this is that it was composed for a play by von Kotzebue who had just turned down Beethoven’s idea of writing the libretto for an opera on the life of Attila the Hun.  It’s not a fabulous piece but it was efficiently despatched.

JAG_5046

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Mozart’s Messiah

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This year the TSO used the Mozart arrangement for Handel’s Messiah (though, naturally enough, with the original English text).  I have mixed feelings about it.  It’s not hugely different in sound to whichever of Handel’s versions one is used to and it’s definitely not one of those 20th century versions for 100 piece orchestra and massed choirs but I’m hard pressed to see what the point is other than it’s Mozart.

JAG_4231

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Hannigan and Storgårds

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The TSO’s opening concert of the season at Roy Thomson Hall was quite boldly conceived.  Basically hand the evening over to the powerhouse duo of soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan and violinist/conductor John Storgårds and see what they come up with.  It was an excitingly eclectic programme which produced some great performances but a sadly disappointing turn out.

hanniganstorgards1

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A new beginning?

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Last night the Music Director designate of the TSO, Gustavo Gimeno, conducted a concert of 20th century classics.  It was the first chance to see him with the orchestra since his appointment.  First up was the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor.  It’s a curious work with relatively little dialogue between soloist and orchestra.  Rather there’s a very Sibelian orchestral piece kind of sandwiched with a highly virtuosic violin part but it works in an odd sort of way.  It was also very well played with all the necessary virtuosity from soloist Jonathan Crow and an orchestral sound which while often dark and brooding was also quite transparent.

TSO June 28 Photo Credit Jag Gundu

Photo: Jag Gundu

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O Fortuna!

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At Roy Thomson Hall last night for the TSO playing Carl Orff’s extravaganza Carmina Burana.  It was fun.  I don’t think it’s a piece to over-intellectualize.  Big orchestra, enormous choir (Toronto Mendelssohn Choir augmented by the Toronto Youth Choir plus the Toronto Children’s Chorus), bawdy Latin lyrics and so on.  It’s big, brash and mostly quite loud though I think Donald Runnicles did a fine job of balancing orchestra and voices, especially when the soloists or the children were singing.

Mendelssohn Choir-06-2019- Nick Wons--35

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Wagner with Sir Andrew Davis

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The main event in last night’s programme at the TSO was the first act of Die Walküre in concert performance but it was preceded by The Ride of the Valkyries and, more substantially (if not louder) Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra Op.6.  It’s an interesting piece; post tonally expressionist with obvious homages to both Wagner and, especially, Mahler.  Sir Andrew gave it one of the best introductions of the kind that I have heard; situating it not just in the Viennese musical lineage but also drawing helpful parallels with the visual arts; Klimt, Kokoschka etc.  He also produced a reading of great clarity from the orchestra.  It’s easy for a big piece of this kind to dissolve into a sort of aural mush and thereby give the “I don’t like this modern stuff” crowd ammunition that it’s just “noise”.  Here the various strands, the references and even the musical jokes of the three movements were clearly delineated.  Lovely stuff.

Lise Davidsen, Sir Andrew Davis, Simon O'Neill (@Jag Gundu)

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Much to like

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There’s much to like in this year’s unfussy TSO Messiah.  It’s not bloated.  For most of the piece conductor Johannes Debus deploys around thirty strings, chamber organ, harpsichord, oboes and bassoon.  Trumpets and timpani are added for the grand moments later in the piece.  He even manages to get quite a delicate sound out of the largish (100+) Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.  The delicacy is a recurrent thread.  That and a really bouncy sense of rhythm.  One could dance to Debus’ Handel.

Allyson McHardy, Claire De Sévigné (@Jag Gundu)

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The truth untold

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GunLast night’s TSO performance of Britten’s War Requiem was a bit of a mixed bag.  There were things to like but, overall, I was not greatly moved; which I expect to be by this work, and it seemed like a very long evening for one work of modest length.

Let’s start with the positives.Tatiana Pavlovskaya was as good a soprano soloist as I have heard in this piece.  She sang with enough power to be a distinct voice in all but the very densest sections of the music while maintaining an admirable sweetness of tone without the almost customary screechiness.  The Toronto Children’s Chorus was excellent.  Toby Spence’s diction was top notch with every word clear.  There was some really nice playing from the chamber orchestra, especially the strings.  The last fifteen minutes from the blood curdling Libera Me to “let us sleep now” had the right balance of terror and lyricism though, even here, there could have been more drama.  Where was the frisson at “I am the enemy you killed my friend”? Continue reading →

Farewell to Oundjian

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Wouldn’t that make a really good title for a pipe tune?  But that aside Peter Oundjian is marking the end of his long run as Music Director of the TSO with a series of three Beethoven 9ths with Kirsten MacKinnon, Lauren Segal, Andrew Haji, Tyler Duncan and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir joining the TSO.  I caught the second yesterday evening.  It’s always a bit odd listening to a piece one has been familiar with for years.  Will I hear or learn something new tonight?  Will this performance probe the nature of the piece like I have never heard it probed?  The Tafelmusik performance and recording of this piece did just that.  I felt I was hearing it for the very first time.  Alas, the only new thought I had last night was about how repetitive certain sections are.  So there it was, an OK run through but no more.  The soloists were fine, though perhaps possessing a weight of voice better suited to Tafelmusik at Koerner than the TSO in full cry in the unforgiving sonic deserts of Roy Thomson.  I did think Ms. MacKinnon and the sopranos of the choir managed the fiendishly high setting of their part (probably a good job that Beethoven didn’t have to listen to complaints from his sopranos) very well.  Nice work from the piccolo accompanying them too.  Otherwise it was a bit unremarkable though that didn’t stop the obligatory idolatry from the RTH audience.  Heaven knows what would happen if they ever heard a truly great performance…

MacKinnon, Segal, Haji, Duncan, Peter Oundjian (@Nick Wons)

Photo credit: Nick Wons