But let me say first, Schubert is not usually understood as any sort of mystery, and maybe that’s a problem. When I open my Schubert impromptus or sonatas, having heard others play these pieces, I might think I know how they’re supposed to sound. Conventional wisdom..! But it can be a trap if it means that everyone approaches a text the same way.
So let me go back in time, several months in fact.
When I first started listening to Janina Fialkowska’s recent ATMA recording of Franz Schubert piano music, I was taken aback in the first half-minute of listening, puzzled in fact. I listened to the CD –comprised of a piano sonata and four impromptus—at least five times in the summer before setting it aside. The playing is phenomenally accurate, and at times dazzling for its virtuosity. I was puzzled, though, so I put it aside. I didn’t realize how I could write about it, as I was trying to reconcile the excellent playing with the puzzling readings.
I was unwilling and unable to review it, because of misgivings that began in that first half minute. I was listening to music that I thought I knew, music that I have been playing on the piano since my teens. The music on the CD was played really well, so I couldn’t simply complain that it was flouting the usual. The traditional way it’s played? it sounds a lot like what it’s understood to be: transitional music leading us to the German romantics (Schumann, Mendelssohn, and eventually Wagner). We have been told that Schubert is full of songs and melodies, offering us an alternative to the composers employing counterpoint such as Bach, Mozart, Haydn & Beethoven, to name its most famous exponents, leading us in a kind of alternative path to melodists such as Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Shostakovich. No wonder he was at times under-estimated, given that a set of assumptions verging on stereotypes underlie the reception of his music: assumptions brought to bear on performances and interpretations.
So here’s the thing, when I went looking for something to help me understand and defend what had initially bothered me about the CD I found something, and it’s not just relevant but indeed, subversive of that conventional wisdom. Schubert’s grandfather was a Moravian, from a part of central Europe that is part of Bohemia. I had originally thought to call this piece “Schubert’s Moravian Rhapsody” and then decided to follow my first impulse, even if I might attract a readership who’d be wondering when the guitars start and whether Freddy Mercury is the natural heir to Schubert.
Haha as if I could be so lucky.
But I mention Moravia & Bohemia in the interest of shining a slightly different light on Schubert, particularly after my weeks pondering Fialkowska’s CD. Now I’m feeling something more like elation, having clicked into a whole new way of understanding her CD, after following up on a hunch in my online reading about Schubert’s background and his music.
If one wants to make Schubert part of the irresistible evolution of German music, the unstoppable steam-roller driven by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and eventually Wagner, one tends to respond to his affinities to that style, while ignoring the anomalies. This is a bit like doing research where you ignore any evidence that won’t support your conclusion (and please note, I believe performance is a genuine kind of research, as interpretations are propositions). And so his symphonies –which are marvelous – are seen through that lens, as are his piano sonatas, quartets, and songs. The quirky music that doesn’t match the role Franz is asked to play, indeed forced to follow because it’s in the script? They don’t get programmed quite so often, because indeed, maybe they don’t make as much sense, as part of the irresistible tide of German music.
Now of course, if one embraces his ethnicity? That’s a different story.
Now I will push pause on that discussion, while sidling up to Fialkowska, who may think I owe her a big apology for beginning this review with so much apparent negativity. I bow to her in all respect for a CD of some brilliance, bordering on genius. I think she might read this and think I’m full of crap because I don’t believe she came at Schubert with any of these assumptions. Nope. She’s playing this music, reading it according to her creative instincts and her taste, not by some sort of treatise. This is me deconstructing / analyzing my first response, trying to understand my initial misgivings, that have given way to huge admiration. And what’s more, I am thinking about how this approach might be exported to other Schubert works, not just piano but large scale pieces. But perhaps first I should talk about what Fialkowska played on her CD.
Pianist Janina Fialkowska
When I began with this CD, I listened to the opening movement of the Sonata in E-flat, aka D. 568, and then put it aside, perplexed. I remember thinking of Jan Lisiecki, but unable to make sense of the association at the time. I’d dismissed the thought because I figured I’d connected a pair of Canadians of Slavic origin, and nothing more. But later, I recognized something in her playing that resembled his playing. They both play a bit fast and loose with tempo, as an expressive device. This isn’t rare, but I think the way they do it is connected through that Slavic heritage, a refusal to be quite so Germanic. It’s not uncommon to encounter such liberties in a performance of Chopin, but much more unlikely when it’s Schumann or Beethoven: two composers I’ve heard played by Lisiecki.
I may seem to be off on a colossal tangent, but it’s just that I more than got over my initial misgivings, and went from being perturbed at what I originally felt Fialkowska was doing to Schubert, to being intrigued at a doorway she opened. Maybe we need to look a bit closer at the music of Schubert, especially as far as rigid assumptions about how he should be played. Perhaps Schubert has some unexplored affinities with Chopin that deserve a fuller airing. I’d love to hear more from her in this vein.
The CD offers four impromptus op 142, that are the less – often programmed ones: which means, the ones that don’t quite conform to the usual understanding of Schubert. These are the ones that are more ethnic, more quirky, at least in Fialkowska’s interpretation. But I was particularly blown away by her insights with that E-flat major sonata, bringing out a whole new flavour of Schubert that I’ve never encountered before.
I will be watching to see what she does in future, as I suspect there’s more to come.
It was a year when the Pollyanna sentiment seemed to be in the ascendancy.
Trudeau beat Harper. I can’t help wondering, would that have been the case if the Paris attacks had come just a few weeks earlier, possibly dampening our enthusiasm and our willingness to open our hearts?
Merkel –who welcomes refugees–rather than Trump –who would slam the door– was Time Magazine’s person of the year. Here’s hoping that it isn’t Trump in 2016, because you know what that’s likely to mean in an election year (gulp!).
Refugees have been a big news item in Canada, where the prevailing impulse is welcome & assistance. I’m proud of my country.
What a difference a year makes.
If “the Pollyanna sentiment seemed to be in the ascendancy” now i wonder if she is ready for the glue-factory, past her best-by date, out of touch. And so, while I continue to emulate her principles, best understood via the maxim “if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all,” it rings hollow right now. Yes i can avoid being mean or destructive, but as I look back I can’t help wondering, is my ability to be appreciative altered by my own mood? I have more enjoyment of a good dinner if I sit down hungry rather than sated & full from a recent meal. Events in November left me with less of an appetite for living, less interest in having fun, as though I misplaced my sense of humour. Lately I have become unaccustomed to the sound of my own laughter.
And so, that’s my subtext as I look back at 2016. Is it the reason that the first half of a year shone so hopefully? studded with highlights.
1211 – (left to right) Jacqueline Woodley as the Forest Bird (background) with Stefan Vinke as Siegfried and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as Mime Director François Girard, Set and Costume Designer Michael Levine, (Photo: Michael Cooper)
The single best vocal performance of the year blew me away in the first month of the year, as Stefan Vinke impressed on his very first page, emphatically singing the high C that no Siegfried ever sings. His marathon heroics were accompanied in the first two acts by Wolfgang Ablinger-Speerhacke, one of the finest singing actors seen in these parts as Mime, and then –once he’s been killed off—replaced by the dramatic sound of Christine Goerke’s Brunnhilde. Little did I know that the magic of this Siegfried, not just the singing but the majestic COC Orchestra spurred on by conductor Johannes Debus, wouldn’t be equalled in 2016.
The earlier part of the year also included the most ambitious and original moments, all before the end of February, as art transcended its usual disciplinary boundaries:
Joel Ivany’s original take on the Mozart Requiem with the Toronto Symphony, soloists and the joint efforts of the Elmer Iseler Singers & Amadeus Choir, prepared by Lydia Adams, all under the leadership of Bernard Labadie, who was returning from a hiatus due to significant health issues.
Going Home Star, Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s bold contribution to Truth & Reconciliation, a ballet about the residential schools with a brilliant score by Christos Hatzis
Betroffenheit, from Kidd Pivot, as much a work that felt like therapy as art.
The year started to tank with the whole Melanson affair, an omen for what has been a post-factual year. I suppose –as a liberal—I should admit that it’s a knife that cuts in both directions. Justin & Sophie Trudeau have been encased in a magical halo of admiration for months, a halo that’s beginning to slip off as the cognitive dissonance builds. The question of whether Melanson was doing a good job leading the TSO was perhaps secondary to the issue of optics in the fund-raising world, just as optics led to Melanson’s cancellation of Valentina Lisitsa’s performance with the TSO. Is it ironic or apt that they would both exit the same way? which is to say, due to circumstances having nothing to do with their ability to do their jobs. She plays the piano well but that was secondary, in light of her tweets. And as far as I could tell, the TSO was in the midst of a resurgence that, hopefully, can continue without the big guy, given that many of his initiatives –the TSO Sunday night radio show, the commissions of Canadian composers to celebrate the Sesquicentennial in 2017, the films with live accompaniment—continue.
I won’t mention the things or the people that disappointed, although I want to properly nod at the other great moments of 2016:
Flitting through Fledermaus
Opera 5’s Die Fledermaus was the single most enjoyable night of theatre I saw all year. From the inclusiveness of Jennifer Nichols’ choreography –with bodies of every shape & size and no one left behind—to the boldness of Aria Umezawa’s Brechtian adaptation including aerials, burlesque and drag, and not to forget the free beer, this was simply a brilliant undertaking.
Against the Grain didn’t disappoint, whether in A Little too Cozy or the highlight of the autumn, Ayre, allowing me to be uplifted in spite of myself.
Lucio Silla was an unexpected joy from Opera Atelier, just as we’d been promised. How wonderful to discover a new work!
Sondra Radvanovsky’s Norma was unforgettable, surrounded by a brilliant team especially tenor Russell Thomas (also wonderful in Carmen in the spring) and conductor Stephen Lord.
Tapestry Music Theatre had a banner year, but I was most impressed by Rocking Horse Winner, in an adaptation by Anna Chatteron (libretto) and Gareth Williams (music ) starring Asitha Tennekoon & Carla Huhtanen, and yes, the inspired set, designed by Camellia Koo.
And it seemed that I couldn’t get enough of Ariodante, loving the COC Orchestra & chorus, Johannes Debus & Sylvain Bergeron so eloquent in the pit, the puppetry and dance, and the singing of Ambur Braid, Alice Coote, Owen McCausland, Jane Archibald and Varduhi Abrahamyan.
MVP (most valuable player)?
Toronto continues to lean heavily upon a few key players, in the literal sense when we include Jonathan Crow with the TSO, or behind the scenes (thinking especially of the TSO’s logistical wizard Chris Walroth), people who ensure that we’re always entertained and edified, such as Johannes Debus with the COC Orchestra, their chorus under Sandra Horst; Opera Atelier’s music director David Fallis who also leads the Toronto Consort; and Guillermo Silva-Marin of Opera in Concert, Toronto Operetta Theatre and Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, notable for the commission of Isis & Osiris by Peter Togni. And there are lots of others I could name who wear multiple hats, doing brilliant work with companies big and small.
Director Joel Ivany
When you consider Joel Ivany’s work on the COC’s Carmen in the spring and Toronto Summer Music’s Rape of Lucretia, alongside his Against the Grain brilliance with A Little too Cozy and Ayre, without even mentioning his exploratory work out in Banff that likely will be seen here before too long, I’d have to call Ivany the MVP of the past season.
Dylan Brenton is one of the founding members of Wolf Manor Theatre Collective, their Artistic Director and a member of the Ensemble.
Here’s how the WMTC describe themselves & their mission:
Wolf Manor Theatre Collective are a Toronto based theatre production company, formed by professional & emerging Canadian Artists. The company is built on the grounds of professionalism and ambition cultivated among young artists. Our interest is in exploring theatrical work which stimulate a diverse audience through stylized takes on classical text, explorative contemporary work and newly devised theatre. All our work is conceived by a small ensemble, in simple and creative design. Our goal is to cultivate theatre of such fluent construction that it may be relocated from space to space; allowing for presentations in diverse venues and touring productions. Our emphasis on accessibility seeks to create an engaging theatrical experience for non- conventional or new theatre goers, particularly high school students. In addition to full scale productions, the company also engages in youth outreach, offering workshops for adolescents and young adults interested in professional careers in the arts. Wolf Manor are seeking to contribute to the growing need for inclusion, diversity and opportunity in the Canadian performance industry.
I had the pleasure of working with Dylan a few years ago while he was still at Ryerson Theatre School. A graduate of RTS and The Academy of Dramatic Combat, he’s also trained with Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Guerilla Ruffian Squad. Originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, he’s been involved in over 80 productions over the past 10 years. Select tv credits: Black Sky Leader, The Expanse, (SyFy); Harris, 12 Monkeys, (SyFy); Select Theatre: Macbeth, Macbeth (WMTC); Claudio, Much Ado About Nothing (Perchance Theatre); Mr. Hyde, Jekyll & Hyde (Echo Productions).
As Dylan prepares for the title role in Danny & the Deep Blue Sea with WMTC, I seized the opportunity to ask him some questions to find out more about him and the project.
1-Are you more like your father or your mother?
There really seems to come a point in your life where you realize, or maybe decide, if you are or not your parents. I think that right now I am smack dead in the center of this. I got a lot from both of my parents, and they would say I got the worst from each of them. e.g. I got mom’s teeth and dad’s forehead.
I think in reality, I have taken the most from my father. He’s a teacher, an actor, a writer and realistically just a very spiritual person. He thinks very deeply about a lot of things and doesn’t hesitate to share an unpopular opinion, as for him, it is quite calculated. I’ve recently found myself doing a lot more of that than before. The biggest thing about us: we’re big. Big men, big voices, big personalities. We’re crude and boisterous, spastic and excitable. He is a very affectionate man, something you do not see a lot of in his generation. His desire to show and accept love is something that I’m finding more and more in myself. I have watched his personality change a lot over the years and now I’m seeing me behave in irrational, hot headed and emotional ways such as he did in previous years. He’s a Buddhist now and this has really changed how he behaves.
As for my mother, we share some things as well, our love of fun, charity unto others, a taste for designer (John Fluevog) shoes and nice restaurants, among many other things. But she has many qualities that amaze me: patience, tolerance, forgiveness and subtlety. This is how she puts up with the four ridiculous men in her life: myself, my brother, my father and my grandfather. All of which she supports unquestionably.
Dylan Brenton (photo: Pierre Gautreau)
2-What is the best thing or worst thing about what you do?
The absolute best thing about what I do is that I have no idea what I do yet. I’ve tried on a number of hats already over the years. I act primarily, produce out of necessity, I direct out of curiosity, I am lured towards becoming a fight director and have budding interests throughout the whole industry. My ego occasionally allows me to refer to things as being my ‘work’ or ‘style’ or (this is the real kicker) ‘aesthetic.’ Realistically, I’m only now just starting to understand what I like. The best thing I can do is try to create a body of work out of things I like. What I like the most is people, the human spirit and human interaction. So I guess my real answer is: the people. I have had the privilege to be taught, mentored by, work with, employee, mentor and teach a lot of incredible people. I would like to think that everyone I’ve shared experiences with are people that I look up to, I feel like I have been surrounded by people so easy to admire.
All I have ever sought after is to be a consistently bettering version of myself that pulls my work to the level my colleagues deserve. In turn, I think this, in a non-competitive way, allows everyone to be everyone’s role model. If we take turns being leaders, being led, setting examples and then following better ones, we all get to grow towards a more universally realized level excellence. This for me, means constantly elevating the standard of work ethic, play, creativity, honesty, focus and professionalism. If we strive to be our best and respect each other, others strive to be their best and demonstrate the same respect. It’s a strange circular way of thinking, but it fuels artistry and encourages growth for the whole community.
The worst part: Crippling self doubt and recurring imposter syndrome. Yeah, that sucks.
3-Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Right now I’m listening to a lot of hip-hop, both new and old, a lot of neo-soul, a lot of hardcore and punk again and topping it off with a healthy portion of Jimi Hendrix and Leonard Cohen. I also guiltily listen to a lot of terrible early 2000’s ‘emo-pop-punk-whatever-we-call-it’. The simplest way for me to understand how my taste in music changes on the daily, is that what I’m drawn to is passionate and intense. I like thick aggressive beats, with spitfire flow. I love fast guitar riffs with crunchy gain and crowds screaming lyrics. I admire mind opening sounds under imagery packed poetry.
Kurt Cobain nailed it when he said “Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and accepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it’s good and it has passion.”
4-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
Patience. I am 24. Twenty Four. You’d think I was branded with an expiry date with how unnecessarily manic and spontaneously flurried I behave. Ask my partner, it very reasonably drives her crazy that I’m constantly buzzing to get something done the second I think about it – at all costs. Mid conversation, I will rocket into stupid frenzies about an idea for a new play or a cocktail I want to build. I want everything right away. Don’t get me wrong I procrastinate everything, but when I have an idea I will throw myself at it instantly. It’s an expensive habit.
5-When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
When I do rest, I rest hard. I have been known to watch a full season of a show I followed in the past in a day. Family comes first, so I’m all about doing absolutely nothing all day when my partner gets a day off too. I’ve become a hobbyist bartender, with quite an eclectic cabinet at home, so that’s a way I love to kill time. I’ve recently started picking up board games, which is super new for me, and love the social interaction of playing a bunch of new games.
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Five more about the upcoming project
1-Please talk about Wolf Manor Theatre Collective.
Wolf Manor is the manifestation of what I love doing. Surrounding myself with minds and talents different and greater than my own in order to, as a unit, generate exciting theatre work. We originally focused exclusively on Shakespeare and newly written work, basing our brand around very intimate productions, set in uniquely developed worlds using a small number of actors and storytellers. Our debut production, CAESAR, used only 5 actors to play the 40+ roles and had the artists build the soundscape and music for the show together, the show was directed such that it used everything the space (Abrams Studio theatre) could offer, but could be brought to any space and still make sense. To date all the Wolf Manor shows have never contained more than 9 performers, even while staging Shakespearean epics. Over the first 5 productions, the collection of artists has grown immensely, while only a few core member have been involved with everything. The notion of our collective is that any past show member is always contributing to the growth and can always ask about coming on board to offer skills, test new skills or shadow and learn. We consider every show to be a new iteration of the collective, a new way of showcasing the specific flavor that is a Wolf Manor show. The idea of a collective for me is something greater than the sum of its parts. We celebrate the artist and the unified minds and work of every person involved in the show. For this reason we have been lucky to work with some incredible people and call some outstanding professionals part of our family. As is the case in this industry, this means, those wonderful people are going to get a lot of different opportunities. Roles and tasks among people in the company switch around depending on who’s available to do what and what people want to work on or enjoy doing. This year is about to be a big year for us. We’re doing 4 full shows. As a result, there’s a huge need to refine and structure. A lot has been learned and a fair share of luck and generosity has come our way. Moving forward we want to continue solidifying what Wolf Manor does and how we operate. The style of the shows keeps evolving, but with the same core focus – physical creation of new worlds to explore radical stories. The biggest thing for us is to listen to the shifts in our industry and implement our voice in the making of change. Moving forward we hope to use our style and our work to cultivate new worlds, tell new stories and represent new voices.
2- Please describe Danny & the Deep Blue Sea
Danny & The Deep Blue Sea tells a story about two volatile people who meet at a bar. She is there to escape the confines of her bedroom and he to avoid another fight on the streets. The two beat each other down, expose every raw nerve to one another and when the dust settles demonstrate immense need for the other’s help.
This play has sat in Bria McLaughlin’s and my brains since theatre school. Diana Reis gave us the second scene as part of a scene study class and we both fell so in love with what the script let us play with. We’ve been promising ever since we would do this play, and this season it felt right with what WMTC wanted to do. This play spoke to me specifically this year because it is about love amidst violence and the extremeness of the human experience.
Bria McLaughlin & Dylan Brenton (photo: Tony Perpuse)
The idea of need and deserving has fuelled the whole season of programming. This show opens the season because there is something so guttural, base and immediate about everything the two characters do to one another, I would like to think in our exploration of human needs this season each show takes a look at it from different levels of stakes, status and consequence, but everything lands on the question of what we need from and why we need others. As for casting, I see a lot of myself in the role, so it’s been one I wanted to tackle for awhile, I am fascinated by violence and violent behaviours. I think Danny comes from a world I recognize. I know this guy, I saw him on the subway a few nights back, I saw him at the punk show I was just at. Hell, I may have been him at a few punk shows in the past. He’s a congregation of unsettled energy which finds release in aggressive physical bursts.
3-Who’s involved in your production?
This is easily the smallest iteration of the collective to date. As of right now, there are only 4 of us working directly on the show, but with a lot of outside assistance that have started entering the room and helping from afar.
I am in the show, producing the show and handling the marketing right now, but getting lots of help from many friends on this one!
The real heart of the show is the work of Bria McLaughlin, she acts opposite me and holy hell, does she deliver something amazing. This woman has been on fire ever since we’ve graduated, doing an amazing show at YPT, which toured to MTL and taking other great shows to Winnipeg, and just crushing it in Filament Incubators ‘Swan’ by Aaron Jan. This girl is actually FIRE. She is a force to be reckoned with and brings next level emotional availability, physical willingness, intellectual dissection and rugged honesty to everything she does.
Bria McLaughlin is Roberta in Danny & the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley (photo: Tony Perpuse)
We have been super lucky to find Anthony Perpuse to kick it in the director’s seat, though he rarely seems to sit down. This script was a matter of Bria and I loving the show and approaching a director with the same fire we had. We couldn’t have landed with a better match of three artists between Bria, Tony and Myself. Anthony has been more of a coach from the very get go, so engaged, so on his feet during the whole process. It’s like he’s in every scene with us to spur along the next line, help us rile up the following attack, and forcing us to breathe into the moments of extreme defeat or absolute beauty. We’ve been kept delightfully on our toes, but have become unbelievably specific in our work. He has really torn us away from the biggest pitfall of the play: sitting in sappy emotional inactive yelling. I would say both myself and Bria have found some of our best work through this process and cannot wait to shake some ground with our take on the roles.
Rounding up our rehearsal team right now is Julie Foster, our life saving SM. Julie doesn’t actually step into the room with us until December 28th, but we are so excited to have her on board! She seems exceptionally organized and fuelled by a lot of the same heart that we do. She’s going to be a killer presence in the room!
Amongst our group, we think we’re bringing the story to life in its best incarnation. We are playing with some new things – Tony has brought in a lot of hip-hop influence and I have played with a lot of hardcore music to build a really raw version of Danny. Also, we’re doing the show right on the floor of the bars, not using the stages. It’s going to be more immersive than we expected. Advanced apologies if I spill my beer on anyone!
At the end of it all, this story is incredible on its own and we want to do it service. These characters are walking open wounds, who both try to find ways to climb inside one another. This has been a great challenge for Bria and me as actors, being that raw and immediately available. We’re just excited to throw it into some of our spaces now, and with the help of our technicians find something vicious and beautiful in every room we play this beast for!
4- The play is subtitled “An Apache Dance”. There are lots of examples on youtube.
Please discuss the ways in which this play connects to that style of dance, with its ritualized violence.
This subtitle is ideal for this play, and the most popular videos of the dance style have been a huge influence in some of our talks about the play. I like to think of the Parisian Apache dance as a cross between swing dancing and a mosh pit. It’s insane to watch a woman be thrown to the floor and whipped around so aggressively, what’s more fascinating is that she keeps getting back up and going for more. It would seem like a moth to the flame level of danger, but there’s a huge twist in this. The woman is the dominant and in control partner. She lures the male into the dance and proceeds to manipulate all the apparent abuse she endures. She pushes the male to take the dance further and intensify the violence, but all on her terms. Without spoiling any of the script or story itself, this behaviour plays right into how these two behave, and looks at how they have lived their whole lives, walking themselves into danger as a best means to control the chaos. Danny feels free in beating people up, Roberta feels power in making people react. These two were bound to cross paths, but no one can ever be sure who has who by the throat.
5-Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?
I don’t like listing just one person, honestly. There has been a lot of amazing professionals generous enough to share their wisdom with me. I owe a lot of respect to a lot of people. In the end I admire everyone and measure myself by the company I keep. The biggest influence in my whole life right now is my partner, Tessa, for having the patience due endure my rehearsals at the house, my manic behaviours and my irrational stress. She’s the real star of the show.
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Danny and the Deep Blue Sea opens Wolf Manor Theatre Collective’s 2017 season January 13th at the Imperial Pub. For ticket information click here.
Sometimes a person may feel clueless. There are times when I feel satisfied with myself and my abilities. I go to a concert or watch a production in a theatre, and come out bursting with things to say. I know, that sounds obnoxious. If you’ve sat with me, I apologize!
But there are times when that free flow dries up. I don’t mean a writer’s block. I can always write, even when it’s about not wanting to write. I guess that’s what this sounds like.
But this concerns my ability to know, questioning anyone’s ability to know. Some things simply are hidden, secret.
Case in point, there’s a story in the Globe and Mail under the headline “TSO board chair replaced, others out in abrupt leadership change”. It’s full of factual statements. And I come away from it, wondering what’s going on, and I know I’m not the only one.
This is only one in a series of dramatic news stories involving the TSO. Let me remind you of two others:
In April 2015 the Toronto Symphony cancelled the appearance of pianist Valentina Lisitsa.
In March 2016 TSO’s CEO Jeff Melanson resigned in the face of allegations and rumours.
It’s funny to notice the common element between all three stories. The current board resignations, Melanson’s resignation earlier this year and the Lisitsa affair, all represent decisions that took place in response to some kind of secret decision making. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that pressure was brought to bear in each case. It’s simplistic to suggest that the three are the same, I am only noticing a pattern, that all three stories revolve around a secret process, around pressure being brought to bear, and people being removed or departing:
Lisitsa
Melanson (yes he resigned)
Members of the board (yes they resigned)
I have no idea what’s going on behind all this! Mysteries, right?
Whereas I come out of the exposition of a first movement sonata, confident that I can handle the disorder of the development section, this kind of mystery makes me feel that I am out of my depth. I don’t understand what’s going on behind the closed doors. And why should I after all, I’m not one of the privileged few who are custodians / stewards of the TSO.
All arts organizations have boards and there are decisions made that will be private. I wonder, why is the TSO letting us see any of this?
But the TSO seems to be facing in the right direction. They have their Sunday night radio show that helps them build public interest. They’re doing more and more films with live accompaniment, usually selling every ticket. I can’t help thinking that there’s been a power struggle behind the scenes, that the board of the TSO has been conflicted or perhaps even opposed to the initiatives of those in charge.
I don’t know.
Let’s talk about a few more mysterious things, connected to the TSO.
Peter Oundjian with the Toronto Symphony (Photo: Michael Morreale)
They are about to get a new conductor. It’s funny, I sense that for much of his tenure Peter Oundjian did not have full unanimous support from the TSO, that at times his orchestra resisted his control. Over the past five years, however, there has been a gradual change in the orchestra with the arrival of some new & talented players. One of the truisms in management is the habit of bosses to bring in their own people, to ensure loyalty & compliance, while getting rid of those who are opposed. It’s difficult if not impossible to do that as the leader of a unionized orchestra. It takes time. I believe Oundjian’s recruiting over the past few years has changed the orchestra’s attitude by the creation of a new consensus, a critical mass of superb young players brought in under Oundjian’s guidance & mentorship. There’s a sense of commitment & attention that wasn’t there five years ago. How ironic that in 2016 as the orchestra feels more like Oundjian’s orchestra than ever before: that he’s already got one foot out the door. But then again, it may be because the pressure’s off, and he’s able to relax and enjoy the music-making.
Who’s next as TSO Music Director? we shall see.
And one other mystery to me is why every rinky-dink concert performance in Toronto that has text sung in another language can manage to project translations / subtitles, but the TSO can’t. While they can manage to project state-of-the art high definition films on huge screens, they can’t give us the English translation for the words being sung in another language. I suppose it’s Roy Thomson Hall, not the TSO, who’s letting us down. But is the TSO asking for this? They should insist.
As we come to the latter part of the year, a festive time when we hoist drinks, hug our loved ones and count our blessings, I’m playing a bit of a game, partly inspired by my friend Ian Henderson. Perhaps in echo of “The 12 days of Christmas”, Ian has been sharing a delightful Christmas treasure each day on Facebook.
I’m a sucker for conceptual shenanigans, and so I’m putting an umbrella over the next few pieces I publish, framing them as “mysteries”. I like the word because it’s one with many meanings, some that might be apt for the season.
I should add that the period at the end of the year has always been a time of melancholy reflection for me. My father passed away between Christmas & New Year’s when I was a five-year old boy. And every year we watched my Mother light a candle. Whatever her thoughts may have been as she remembered every year, it was her private experience. We would respect her space and her need to contemplate what had been, and what would be.
One important thought to add is that some mysteries can be solved. I would like to invoke the symbolist poets and artists (for example Maurice Denis), who sought to pose questions of such depth as to bemuse you with the insoluble. These are not to be mistaken for puzzles with a solution.
As the end of the year disappears into the darkness of the shortest day, it seems apt to retreat, to contemplate, and then begin anew in January. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
“L’Echelle Dans Le Feuillage” by Maurice Denis, via ArtNet. NB There is at least one similar image in the current AGO show.
Imagine you were having a spiritual crisis. There you are, wondering, asking yourself about God and the meaning of life.
And then you stumble upon a film on pay TV that seems to offer answers, precisely at the moment of your crisis. You might think, “wow, this is heaven –sent. Thank you God!”
Of course, it’s a bit of an oxymoron, if heaven sent you a film that gets into an intense religious debate, concerning the nature of religion and God, via allegory of course, leaving you to say nope there’s no God.
While I found it a bit heavy-handed, I love ambition. You never reach the sky if you don’t aim high, and Sausage Party is a lot more than its title would suggest, a film that can be taken on many levels. That title for example has sexual connotations.
Or in other words, while Sausage Party is an animated film, a full-length cartoon, it is decidedly not for children. No!!
It’s full of violence, more gore than anything I’ve seen in a long time. It makes you cringe a fair bit.
It’s got more swear words than a Tarentino movie.
And yes, it’s full of sensual imagery throughout.
Need I add: that the animation is spectacular? imaginative?
If you go by the first half-hour, you might find Sausage Party a bit too intense, trying way too hard. It’s hitting you over the head with its quest for meaning, possibly because it takes itself a little too seriously as a stoner picture. I felt I was having déjà vu, watching a food-based remake of Fritz The Cat.
Normally I avoid spoilers, but I have to make an exception in this case. While I got the impression that it didn’t do well at the box office—perhaps because it disappeared before I had a chance to see it: although google tells me it did quite well, easily making back its investment in its first week of release, and making several times that amount before too long.
YES it’s clear that the participants had a wonderful time making it. I don’t like it when I watch a play or opera, where the cast seem to be certain that what they’re doing is profound, even though the only thing that gets across the footlights is the reek of pompous self-importance, where you envy them their awesome project and wish you could have been involved. Okay so maybe Sausage Party is similarly guilty. Why not, when the voices are the work of the usual suspects, as in, the current cool stoner kids in Hollywood: Jonah hill, James Franco, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen, plus more serious artists such as Salma Hayek and Ed Norton.
They’re self-infatuated, and who could blame them, as they likely made each other laugh during recording sessions, and likely only 20% of that wit made it into the film. Even so, there’s quite a bit of eye-candy, quite a bit of conceptual shenanigans to excite you. No it’s not for everyone. But I confess it hit the spot in a year when I needed something imaginative, subversive, passionate. This is an adult cartoon at a time when nobody seems to behave like an adult anymore.
If it’s the end of the world, grab someone and have fun. Carpe diem? or carpe bosom.
And the party goes on, because I get to see it again tomorrow.
Toronto is known for a few things. We’re a very knowledgeable hockey town, even if that’s often been a special kind of torture. We’re possibly the most genuinely multi-cultural city in the world, embracing all colours of the rainbow, including that LGBTQ rainbow as well. It’s known as a clean city, as a polite city notwithstanding some outrageous displays of rudeness during the recent baseball playoffs.
While Toronto’s downtown is full of churches, many of them have been re-purposed as condos, divorced from their original religious roots, in an era when attendance in protestant congregations is apparently in freefall.
And yet there’s a reason I jokingly call this city “Messiahville”, because Handel is probably the most popular most programmed composer. There are many flavours of Messiah, whether the larger than life versions presented by the Toronto Symphony, the alternative electric version from Soundstreams the past two years, the historically informed performances one gets from Tafelmusik Orchestra & Choir, or the many local versions & excerpts found in churches all over town.
Tonight was the Tafelmusik Koerner Hall experience. While it may have been a night of inclement weather that didn’t stop most of us, as the hall was pretty full. I proclaim that “all’s well” in Messiahville because the shows keep getting better. They have to, given such a discerning community of listeners.
Ivars Taurins, who portrays “Herr Handel” in the annual singalong, isn’t merely affecting a role. On the other nights, when we’re listening rather than joining in, Taurins is every bit as invested in channeling the composer, in finding a pathway to the essence of this marvelous oratorio. Every time he seems to get deeper into the role, because he’s getting deeper into the work.
Ivars Taurins (photo: Sian Richards)
Taurins is a remarkably physical conductor, but not in the sense of someone who is merely balletic, as the movements are all intimately wedded to the music. When there’s a big line he gives us –and the choir—a big gesture, to punctuate that moment. And he brings the same ear to his leadership of the orchestra, treating them as another group of voices integrated into the whole. It’s an enactment whose playfulness drills deeper into something genuine & true. Nowhere was this more evident than in the attacks Taurins coaxed from the timpanist. Taurins often prolongs climaxes, making a great deal of drama out of the last bars of some of these numbers. We’re accustomed by now to predictable cadences in the classical world, and why should that be? Taurins gives us something delightfully different.
The Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Choir respond to Taurins sinuous movements, as though extensions of that fluid body, voices entering and answering as clearly as if you were inside the composer’s head. At times the Choir are pushed to the limit, as in “And He shall purify,” taken at a breathless pace yet sung with the precise clarity of flames flickering in the light. At other times they’re part of Taurins’ drama, as in a Hallelujah Chorus that builds oh so gradually, teasing us with mini-climaxes, and only fully opening up on the last pages. They’re in a groove right now, matching this hall’s acoustic perfectly, every syllable crisp & clear. I’m in awe of the choral story-telling, whether in the debating in “Lift Up Your Heads”, the passion agonies of Part Two, or a courtroom summation direct from Revelation, as we’re told: “Worthy Is the Lamb”. Taurins and Tafelmusik Orchestra & Choir are one of Toronto’s treasures, and should perhaps be included in guidebooks as a must-see / must-hear event each December for any visitor.
I think this is the most impressive quartet of soloists I’ve ever encountered in a Messiah performance. Each one had at least one amazing moment of authenticity, blowing the lid off the usual way that music is done.
Krisztina Szabo has been ubiquitous in this town of late, often in modernist works on the opera stage. How refreshing, then, to see her not in a new opera, not in something atonal or dissonant, but something well-known. Yet her “He was despised” was fresh, especially in the taut drama of the middle section. Every few moments in “he gave his back to the smiters” she seemed to take on a different emotion, sometimes seeming furious, sometimes sad, sometimes compassionate. The da capo of “He was despised” was especially rich, sung in a softer sound, as though completely heart-broken.
Soprano Amanda Forsythe
Amanda Forsythe is the best soprano soloist I’ve heard in Messiah in quite awhile. The soprano gets some of the best music –for instance channeling an angel in the narration of Christmas Eve—and will usually be memorable so long as they’re more or less in tune. Forsythe sang with great restraint, impeccable taste, and an irrepressible friendliness manifested in eye contact with others onstage. I’ve probably mentioned my pickiness with respect to “I know the My Redeemer liveth”, a number that is sometimes undermined by too much enthusiasm; if you try to persuade us that you know that your redeemer liveth, you will sound as though you don’t really believe. The simplicity of Forsythe’s delivery persuaded me, particularly on several high notes attacked with delicacy rather than boldness.
This was my second experience of Colin Balzer, and I feel he and Taurins have deepened their reading substantially since last time. Improvisation seemed possible in almost every number, particularly “thou shalt break them”, an aria that was like an eruption of energy. His tone is achingly lovely throughout.
Baritone Tyler Duncan
I was particularly pleased on my first encounter with baritone Tyler Duncan, speaking as a younger brother of a baritone who grew up craving brilliance from everyone and being frustrated more often than not. I heard something new in several numbers. In “the trumpet shall sound” we were in the presence of testimony, as he shared a mystery with us. At times in this big bold aria he seemed to be whispering, spilling the beans of something intensely personal and internal even as the orchestra played loudly. It was truly magical. Yet when he wanted to celebrate in this same aria he gave us the feeling of jubilation, something extemporaneous and unpredictable.
I have to think that Taurins is the key, as he seems to be inviting his soloists to explore and probe, as each of them finds an intriguing place in their approach to the music and text, that is never an operatic portrayal but instead a kind of testimony or confession.
Tafelmusik Orchestra & Choir present Handel’s Messiah at Koerner Hall Friday and Saturday, with the singalong Sunday at Massey Hall. Information.
Anthologies tend to be a mixed bag. I’m quite partial to a Schirmer collection of 26 Bach piano transcriptions by an assortment of great composers.
It has its strengths and weaknesses. I am not particularly inspired by what Saint-Saëns did with the Gavotte from Violin Sonata #2, and I don’t bother with the Rachmaninoff Prelude to the violin Partita in E: that is, not when I have the three movements of the Partita in a wonderful Rachmaninoff book of transcriptions, also including his lovely paraphrase of Schubert’s “Wohin” and the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummernight’s Dream.
This Bach transcription anthology includes some very different approaches, perhaps best understood in the divergent personalities of the five key composers in the book:
Franz Liszt, usually big and powerful in the version of Bach that he’s channeling
Ferruccio Busoni, even bigger and more powerful than Liszt, and roughly half a century later, in a ferociously virtuosic re-invention of Bach
Harold Bauer & Wilhelm Kempff, understated in their careful replicas of the original. I find these most impressive in the famous tunes such as “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” (Kempff) or “Komm süsser Tod” (Bauer).
Johannes Brahms, who is somewhere in the middle, between the extravagant flamboyance of Liszt & Busoni on the one hand, and the Lutheran economy found in the transcriptions of Kempff & Bauer.
Busoni had always been my favourite in this book, both in the challenges he makes to any pianist, and in the sounds one hears coming out of the piano. And yet I am re-thinking one particular transcription, after a book I read yesterday.
Pianist, teacher and conductor Leon Fleisher
I was completely absorbed with Leon Fleisher’s 2010 book My Nine Lives over the past weekend. Knowing the central drama of Fleisher’s adult life – his loss of movement in his right hand (plus his eventual recovery & rehabilitation) and its impact on both his pianism and his pedagogy—I should have expected to bump into one particular composition. The Schirmer Collected Transcriptions offers a few juxtapositions when there are two different versions of a well-known piece.
Best among these –and representing a mind-boggling divergence of approach—are the two different approaches to the D minor Chaconne from Bach’s Sonata for Violin No 4. Busoni has been my hero from the first moment I brought this book home. The first piece I devoured was Busoni’s massive paraphrase of the St Anne Prelude and Fugue, perhaps because it’s the most impressive organ piece I know. Busoni manages to orchestrate his piece to sound larger than life, or at least, larger than just a piano. That’s what i always loved in a piano piece, whether in a loud piano sonata such as Beethoven’s big sonatas such as the Waldstein or Hammerklavier, or in Liszt’s B Minor Sonata. They push any piano–and pianist– to the limit, the way a good orchestral composition challenges a stereo system.
Similarly, Busoni takes a piece for solo violin –the aforementioned Chaconne—and makes it sound like something Stokowski would be conducting with a full orchestra. I’m not saying I play it perfectly. But it’s an invitation to make your piano sound massive, and even when you play softly –as you often do in this big long piece—that too has gravitas and weight.
I think the other version went over my head when I first saw it. It’s Johannes Brahms, arranged for the left hand, and doing something completely different from anything Busoni did. I’d like to think Busoni could respect this composition, but he’d never write with such economy or self-effacement. For the longest time, I never gave the Brahms a second thought, only noticing it as a kind of witty tour de force, both for the tightness of Brahms’s paraphrase of the Bach piece, but also requiring brilliant technique in the execution.
In time I found that I started to play the two in succession, impressed in spite of myself with Brahms’ refusal to be a show-off, as a kind of point-counterpoint exercise (except Busoni never did say “Johannes you ignorant slut” or the Italian equivalant).
Reading Fleisher, however, has given me an entirely different perspective. I’m embarrassed that I never really connected with him as a disabled artist even as a person who has had my own issues with disability. I blush at the thought, but maybe i was thrown off because my first impression was simply that Fleisher was one of the most impressive players I’d ever heard. And he never let his infirmity beat him, seguing into several other careers – other lives as the book suggests—without being stifled or silenced. In looking now at the Brahms, I am so much clearer about this, and honestly, ashamed that I didn’t fully grasp the horror of what this artist was going through.
When you play the Brahms with one hand, and follow it with the Busoni, it’s a bit of a critique, if not an actual mirror being held up. I’m not sure, as I look at my response, if it’s entirely flattering. My whole strategy in playing operas or paraphrases on the piano since I was a child was to reproduce an orchestra, both in colours and especially in the sense of breadth. I think I was disappointed listening to some transcriptions –for example Glenn Gould’s take on the Siegfried Idyll of Wagner – that made something genuinely pianistic rather than trying to imitate an orchestra.
The best commentary – and censure of my own views, I suppose—is in Fleisher’s lovely description of the Brahms.
“Probably the single greatest work for solo left hand is by Brahms, who was looking for a way to capture the sparseness, in a piano transcription, of the unaccompanied violin line of Bach’s wondrous D minor Chaconne. Writing for only one hand allowed Brahms both to echo the limitations of the solo instrument and the ways that Bach miraculously transcends them. Brahms wrote the piece for Clara Schumann, who particularly adored the Bach Chaconne, and who happened to be sidelined, at the time, with right-handed tendinitis. (Fleisher 247)”
I’ve heard of Europeans who claimed that Shakespeare in translation (whether French or German) was superior to the original. While I laughed at this, I can’t deny that I far prefer Bach’s Partita in Rachmaninoff’s transcription to the original: echoing the philistinism I mock in the previous sentence. And ditto in my love for Busoni’s Chaconne, although i am developing more and more admiration for what Brahms did.
Do I lack taste? All I can say in my own defense is Chaconne a son gout.
I escaped into another world, a place populated by famous musicians.
You may remember Leon Fleisher as an American pianist. I recall him for performances that were usually my favourite versions of piano concerti, usually paired with Conductor George Szell and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.
And then something went wrong.
Fleisher was having problems with his right hand in the 1960s. Two fingers lagged behind, tending to curl when they were urgently needed to play complex music. At the height of a promising career, the pianist was forced to consider alternatives. He started conducting, continued playing –but with a focus on the relatively small body of work meant for the left hand—and teaching. Eventually treatments restored the use of his hand.
This can all be discovered in great detail through the magic of My Nine Lives, Fleisher’s memoir, written with the assistance of Anne Midgette.
It’s quite a life that Fleisher has had, as he now comes up to his 90th birthday in 2018, making the title more than just a metaphor.
His was a privileged childhood, not because he came from a wealthy family, but because his talent was recognized and encouraged by family sacrifices.
For example Fleisher studied with Artur Schnabel, a problematic statement for at least two reasons:
To study with Schnabel you had to get to him in Europe
To study with Schnabel you had to be admitted as a student: but Schnabel refused to work with anyone under the age of sixteen, and Fleisher at this point was 9 years old
The hard part was persuading Schnabel, by cleverly ambushing him to get an audition. Apparently he was a much kinder man than his reputation would suggest.
My Nine Lives is a very enjoyable read, a kind of rabbit-hole I fell into this weekend, populated with famous musicians and great compositions. Yes there’s name-dropping, but it’s very welcome, capturing some wonderful moments in the history of American musical culture.
We begin with the young Fleisher in San Francisco, hearing about the different strategies of teachers working with prodigies. Along the way as we observe Fleisher’s growth, we’re being presented with questions about music and pedagogy. Here’s the very first sentence of the book for example:
“For Mr Schorr it wasn’t a good lesson until he made me cry.”
Fleisher’s life is structured around a series of lovely discussions that he calls master classes. His first concerns a work that was an occasion for an important premiere in his teens, namely the Brahms D minor concerto, telling us about the work and how to play it. Similarly, when disaster struck and we’d heard about the problem with his right hand, the next master-class concerns the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand. Because of the way they’re written these aren’t digressions but a natural, organic part of his story.
There’s a lot of Fleisher’s real life in this book, and it’s unflinching. If anything Fleisher is hard on himself, refusing to conceal his weaknesses, tossing out painful suggestions that his affliction might be psychological or (as his first wife said) karma. But in his late 80s Fleisher has the use of his fingers back, apparently through a combination of treatments including botox, and continues to play, teach and mentor. You may recall him as one of the 2007 Kennedy Center Honourees, alongside Steve Martin, Diana Ross, Brian Wilson and Martin Scorcese.
As I begin to approach the end of the book that consumed my Saturday, I don’t want it to end. I think it would make a wonderful Christmas gift for anyone in your life.
The Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, The Canadian Children’s Opera Company in partnership with tiff presented a concert performance of Howard Shore’s score for The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films. If you think that sounds like a lot of people, you’d be right, and that’s not even including the big-screen presentation of the film, with its cast of thousands of humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, hobbits, uruk-hai, and assorted birds. Considering that I consider the first film to be the weakest of the three, I did not expect such an overwhelming experience, and am a little gaga imagining what the other two might be like, in a live concert version.
It’s not at all the same experience as the films we’ve seen in the theatres or at home on DVD or Blue-Ray. We have subtitles for the dialogue, which was often drowned out by the powerful musical forces arrayed around and behind the screen.
I’ve made analogies to try to describe this experience after seeing several other tiff—TSO co-productions, and I realize that my words fail to adequately capture the true magic of the experience. It needs to be said that
Each one of these concert presentations is sold-out
The TSO now has seen some competition in town from other promoters offering films with live accompaniment
The reception at the end was overwhelming, suggesting that anyone there on a lark will be back again if they get the chance.
And the TSO brought their A-game. For some previous films they’ve not used all their big-name soloists, but tonight, there was Jonathan Crow, Joseph Johnson, and Neil Deland.
I think of Shore as a film music composer with a background in rock or popular music, one of many now composing for film, such as
Danny Elfman
Michael Kamen
Mark Mothersbaugh
Mark Knopfler
Tangerine Dream
David Byrne
…and there are lots of others.
But it’s a simplistic thought and hardly a new development, especially considering the composers who could write jazz—such as David Raksin or Elmer Bernstein– from more than half a century ago who changed the sound of film scores.
Composer Howard Shore
Shore has a particular sound that he employs in the Tolkien trilogy that doesn’t necessarily stand on its own, so much as work in partnership with the films. While I am a great admirer of Bernard Herrmann –to name one obvious example—I didn’t have nearly such a powerful experience seeing his films live (last year the TSO and tiff partnered to offer us Psycho and Vertigo), as I had tonight, and i confess it took me by surprise.
I think part of it is Shore’s counter-intuitive choices. In the sequence where Boromir dies–to give the most obvious example in the film– we get a very plaintive sound from the chorus, something you might call sentimental, but that I’d simply call beautiful, effective, powerful.
These moments are distant cousins of moments in Elfman scores where he uses wordless chorus. For some reason these compositions have a a particularly powerful impact live. I have no doubt that my favourite moment in The Two Towers –the sunrise sequence in the battle of Helm’s Deep, where Gandalf re-appears on a horse—would become overpowering done live.
I may be overthinking this, but where Herrmann’s scores are mostly cool surfaces applied to overpowering images in the Hitchcock films, Shore’s scores are more purely romantic.
And yes I’m hoping that the TSO & tiff offer us the other two Jackson Tolkien films.
In passing I must mention that Shore created an operatic version of The Fly¸ from one of several Cronenberg films scored by Shore.
As the Canadian Opera Company looks for possible scores, here’s one by a Canadian composer that has already been staged in France, USA and Germany.
But I digress.
There’s no question there’s a big market for this. I mentioned not long ago that Danny Elfman participated in a live performance of Nightmare Before Christmas with Paul Rubens & Catherine O’Hara in the Hollywood Bowl.
I wonder just how big the potential market is for this kind of film showing. Make no mistake, it’s a very special thrill, and the TSO seem to recognize that fact. I am expecting that next season they will have even more films with live accompaniment.
barczablog 