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A rare treat Toronto
Roy Thomson Hall
05/26/2016 - & May 28, 2016
Charles Ives: New England Holidays: "Decoration Day"
Leos Janácek: Taras Bulba, JW VI/15
Edward Elgar: Sospiri, Op. 70
Richard Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor) 
A. Davis (© Malcolm Cook)
The second installment of the TSO’s Decades Project got off to a grand start with this concert under Conductor Laureate Sir Andrew Davis.
The Decades Project is an overview of the symphonic music of the 20th century, decade by decade, to be performed over five seasons (2015-16 to 2019-2020). A series of three programs will be devoted to each decade. Last fall we heard music from 1900-1909; now it is the turn of the “teens”.
The opener was Charles Ives’ “Decoration Day”, composed in 1913 but hardly heard for many decades thereafter. (It wasn’t published until 1989!) The work confounded both musicians and listeners of the day, and one can see why, given its restless impressionism and lurching, off-kilter march. Its dwindling melancholic ending catches an audience off-guard even today.
Providing a contrast was Leos Janácek’s Taras Bulba, completed in 1918. The three-part tone poem shows off the composer’s distinctive sinewy sound. Each movement reflects a brutal episode in the life (and death) of the eponymous hero, and a further touch of savagery in the performance would not have been remiss. Still, there was a good deal of tension, and the swelling climax came off well without overtopping itself.
Edward Elgar’s five-minute Sospiri (“Sighs”) makes one want to hear more of the same, but its brevity probably helps its wistfulness from becoming wallowing. Accompanied by harp and organ, the orchestra’s string players gave it an airy, elevated performance.
The main event was Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, completed in 1915. Thanks to the work’s demand for a super-enlarged orchestra (brass players galore) it is a rarely performed work so it receives a degree of extra preparation. Davis and orchestra delivered the full degree of expansiveness at the climax, as well as sparkling pointillism, as when the storm approaches. The demanding detail work from various sections was meticulously delivered.
On a personal note: I spent my teenage years living in a rural area right next to an ancient volcano, very steep and hazardous. With my friends and sisters I would climb it a lot. Amazingly, no-one was killed. The Alpine Symphony truly makes the memories real.
Prior to the Alpine Symphony there was music in the Roy Thomson Hall lobby by two alpenhorn players, a marvelously evocative prelude to the great Strauss work.
Michael Johnson
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