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A brash end to the season Toronto
Roy Thomson Hall
06/21/2017 - & June 22, 23, 24, 2017
Pierre Simard: The Bastion
Karol Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 61
Carl Orff: Carmina Burana
Aline Kutan (soprano), Daniel Taylor (countertenor), Phillip Addis (baritone), Nicola Benedetti (violin)
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Noel Edison (artistic director), Toronto Children’s Chorus, Elise Bradley (artistic director), The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Peter Oundjian (conductor)
N. Benedetti (© Jag Gundu)
This concert, part of the TSO’s Decades Project with its survey of the 1930s, featured a relatively rare work alongside one of the chestnuts of the repertoire.
First, though, the evening opened with another of the 40 brief sesquies commissioned to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary. Pierre Simard’s The Bastion is inspired by an historic building (built 1855) in Nanaimo, British Columbia (where the Montreal-born composer conducts the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra). The compressed piece conjures up a surprising number of dramatic contrasts.
Karol Szymanowski has his fans but his works remain at the edge of the common repertoire no matter how many noted performers champion him. One such would be Nicola Benedetti who brought ardent commitment to the Violin Concerto No. 2 from its dreamlike to the following build up to a swirling frenzy. She brought notable warmth to the opening of the second half and excitement to the big climax. She and Maestro Oundjian were definitely in accord in this convincing performance.
I think I have avoided becoming jaded with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana simply by not attending many performances of it. Among the TSO’s promotional material is an article on how it has become the most over-used music in films and I have been lucky in having avoided them as well. The raucous BIG opener ”O Fortuna” made me fear that we were in for a performance stressing quantity of sound over quality, but when subsequent sections featured either just the men or women of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir the choral sound was extremely attractive, with well-defined phrasing even in the hectic phrases of the tavern song ”In taberna quando sumus”. The 66-voice Toronto Children’s Choir were equally impressive.
The baritone has by far the largest solo role and Phillip Addis’s handsome instrument did very nicely although there were a couple of high-lying passages that might have been a bit of a strain. Daniel Taylor exuded all the plaintiveness required of the roasting swan. Most impressive was Aline Kutan. It is churlish to even hint at a lady’s age, but she has been doing this high-lying repertoire for quite a number of years and her voice still has all the purity and steadiness we have long admired.
In his prefatory remarks, Peter Oundjian referred to the tension and anxiety that suffuses so much music of the 1930s, a reflection of the turmoil of the era. Carmina Burana stands out because these qualities are absent - thus the reason for its popularity and its presence on lighter programs. (It also failed to be condemned by the Nazis, thus its reputation as a shallow, escapist work.) The TSO typically ends its season a populist note (Last Night of the Proms is a favourite). Orff’s work was ostentatiously suitable. (And, let’s face it, there was a lot of escapism in the 1930s.)
I note that there is no mention of the Decades Project next season when one would have expected a survey of the 1940s and 1950s. The season has a focus on new (and not so new) Canadian works, and it concludes with programs that allow Peter Oundjian to wrap up his tenure here with a string of celebratory concerts. Lets hope the project resumes in 2018-19.
Michael Johnson
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