What’s in a name.

“Yuja Wang’s Rachmaninoff” was the title of the final program to bring the Toronto Symphony 100th Anniversary Season to a powerful close. All three concerts were sold out. We knew why we wanted to be there, it’s right in the name.

She comes into the concert hall in couture, atop impossibly tall shoes. The entrance alone is a feat of elegance bordering on athleticism.

She bows so deeply and quickly it’s an acrobatic move. I’m afraid watching her head go flying down so far (but then again I’m older and stiffer).

It’s especially amazing to watch Yuja play this piece, the Rachmaninoff Third piano concerto, one of the most difficult of all piano concertos. As of today it’s now hers. Nobody can really touch what she’s doing out there. It meant that the concert’s title had a literal meaning for me. Rach III is hers as far as I’m concerned. “Yuja Wang’s Rachmaninoff” is truer than expected.

At times there’s a kind of swagger to her interpretation, sometimes sketching a phrase like a brushstroke in the air, so soft it’s almost a dare to your ear. “Can you imagine this played with such clarity, such delicacy?”

That the artist making those subtle gestures can come back with so much power a few moments later boggles the mind. I’ve heard this concerto a few times live and many times on record. I’ve staggered through it on my own piano (no I am not so delusional as to inflict it on an audience), and it’s never going to bore me or wear out its welcome, like a song played once too often. The interpretation emerges like a thought, created by the pianist as though she had just composed it a moment ago. It seems brand new.

I’m always a bit amazed watching Yuja, whose technique seems so fluid that she makes it seem easy anf effortless. No I can’t say she makes it sound easy, because she’ll be playing something bordering on the impossible. Yet there’s no sense of effort or struggle. I’d point to a pair of contrasting operatic styles. Jon Vickers or Maria Callas gave us the drama of a singer whose voice showed the signs of struggle, the voice full of pain and anguish. I wasn’t always confident they could reach their high notes and at times they would fail to do so. There were pianists like that, for instance Artur Schnabel, who played wrong notes. Then there’s an artist such as Luciano Pavarotti or Joan Sutherland, who never in my experience sang flat, an ease of production that allowed one to get lost in the music. I find Yuja is more like the latter, as she may play pieces of demonic intensity but her expression is always angelic, totally on top of the experience. If she doesn’t seem stressed or worried we won’t worry either.

I’m sorry for those people who beat a hasty retreat from the crowded confines of Roy Thomson Hall (I’ve never seen it so full), missing the two brilliant encores Yuja offered to her adoring screaming fans, myself included. The first was a lyrical piece I didn’t recognize (perhaps Schumann? Chopin?) that might be in G-minor. The second was one of the Carmen fantasies, taking melodies from Bizet’s opera as the opportunity for some brilliant pyrotechnics at the keyboard. Seriously, the people who left early missed something glorious.

I was envious of Joseph Johnson, the TSO’s principal cellist sitting in the best seat in the house just upstage of the end of Yuja’s piano bench.

He posted a lovely photo earlier this week, a shot of him and Yuja possibly taken by Jonathan Crow with whom they were making chamber music.

Envious? Of course.

I was one of the pushy people bravoing endlessly, but coming to a point where I felt guilty, that maybe Yuja had suffered enough, between two encores, the Rach III and applause fit for a rock concert. We needed to let her go.

Principal 2nd violin Wendy Rose was warmly celebrated by Gustavo Gimeno on the occasion of her last TSO. performance.

At intermission I was delighted to run into Janice Oliver, Project Manager for the COC opera house and the Citadel at Regent Park, my former boss at University of Toronto. She spoke of the integrity shown by the TSO’s programming in the first half of the concert.

Before intermission the TSO and Music Director Gustavo Gimeno demonstrated their support for the development of early career composers through the TSO’s NextGen Composer program, established in 2020, as the TSO website tells us.

“Three promising Canadian composers are selected each year and given opportunity to write five-minute orchestral works for the TSO. Throughout the process, the NextGens are mentored by TSO Composer Advisor Gary Kulesha and RBC Affiliate Composer Alison Yun-Fei Jiang with workshops in score preparation by TSO Principal Librarian Chris Reiche Boucher.“

Gustavo Gimeno explains:/
“A defining element of the program is the placement of new works by our NextGen Composers adjacent to Shostakovich’s First Symphony,” he says. “One of the reasons I love the NextGen program is because it allows us to investigate the area between very fresh and fully established in each creator’s artistry, which is where their distinct personality begins to present itself. Similarly, what you hear in Shostakovich’s First is an artist who is young, creative, searching.”

And it made a beautiful complement to Yuja’s Rach III, a three-movement work that’s roughly 45 minutes long. Before intermission we heard the three five minute world premiere pieces plus the half-hour of Shostakovich’s First Symphony.

I’m again moved to ask “what’s in a name” as we ponder the three new works from the three young composers. While Shostakovich’s piece is called a symphony (which was perhaps the fashion in his time), each of the new works has a title that is itself a fascinating commentary.

We began with Hraunflæði (Icelandic for ‘lava flow’) from Canadian/Icelandic composer Fjóla Evans.

Her program note says “In the first half of Hraunflæði, I attempt to evoke the impression of molten lava roiling beneath the surface and then emanating forth in an unstoppable yet slow-moving torrent. In the second half of the piece, the drier textures of the orchestra explore the sounds of lava solidifying. Towards the end of the piece, I imagine the hissing and sputtering of drops of rain falling on the still warm lava.“

While Hraunflæði is not to be confused with impressionist music that paints a precise tone-picture, there’s clearly something recognizable from her description, the opening soundscape of bent tones gnarly with a ferocious energy, while towards the end we get something that truly seems to cool off, music that’s less of an implicit threat, gentler, safer, more approachable.

Lines Layers Ligaments, the piece from Matthew-John (MJ) Knights seems to focus on the music on the page, his program note reminding me of Debussy (whose arabesques could be understood in a tradition of design upon the music staff) and Richard Strauss (whose Metamorphosen presents itself as an orchestral work for a large ensemble of solo instruments): a pair of allusions that likely will have some shaking their heads at what I’ve just said: because of course we didn’t get anything sounding like Debussy or Strauss in these five minutes, but something far edgier, rougher. While I loved the way he wrote about his music, the result was more like an etude or study, the orchestra making a great deal of music, then leaving us with a delightful concluding gesture.

Picante by Mexican-Canadian composer Luis Ramirez seemed to be the one that inspired Gimeno, himself another Latino after all. If the key to composition and marketing yourself as a composer is to create a good concept & title for your piece? then Ramirez will go far.

“Picante follows the masochistic experience of eating spicy food as it takes us on an imaginative journey inside the human body. The entire piece is built around a fiery gesture that builds over time into an explosive climax, before being close-up in a calm state of flavourful enjoyment. This burning sensation is quintessential in Mexican culture. The music captures the fascinating process that occurs when eating spicy food: Our hearts quicken; we sweat, sniffle, cry, and cough; we shiver; we groan; we scream; and we suffer. Nevertheless, the most crucial reaction is that the brain releases endorphins and dopamine to lessen and alleviate the pain. The result is an intriguing exploration of the fine line between pain and pleasure. After all, what is life, if not the search for pleasure amidst the pain?”

But in fact his piece is more than just a concept. The music is mostly pleasurable, including sensuous passages of great beauty. It’s not just a name or an idea. If he chose he could expand this to something far bigger than five minutes in length.

Alongside these three, the TSO then gave us Shostakovich’s flamboyant 1st Symphony, a badass display of wit and irony to bely the composer’s supposed inexperience. It makes a terrific companion to the three Nextgen premieres.

The TSO will continue this week with the music of Alan Menken led by Steve Reineke, and Marvel’s Black Panther in concert next week.