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In addition to the two well-known passions by JS Bach (the ones based on the gospels according to St Matthew and St John) there’s also the Passion according to St Mark that we know to have been performed at least twice in Bach’s lifetime. Although the complete musical score has been lost, the availability of the libretto makes it possible to reconstruct the work, BWV 247.

Today I experienced an overwhelming performance at lovely St Barnabas Church, of the St Mark Passion in the reconstruction by Simon Heighes (1995), a preview of what will be presented by the Second Annual Bach Festival on May 28th. And it was overwhelming because I was seated in the front row, a few feet from the tiny orchestra and the soloists, surrounded in the luxurious sounds of some of the best singers & players in this country.

Oboist John Abberger, Artistic Director of the Toronto Bach Festival

If you have any curiosity about this work, if you have the desire to hear good singing & playing, you must take advantage of the opportunity in May. The intimacy of the music requires a space like this one, where you can hear every note clearly, where you can make eye contact with performers wearing their hearts on their sleeves. There are three concerts in the series featuring the vocal talents of Brett Polegato, Asitha Tennekoon, Daniel Taylor (indisposed today unfortunately), Ellen McAteer, Agnes Zsigovics, Jan van der Hooft, Ryan Cairan, Jessica Wright and Larry Beckwith; and  an orchestra comprised of Julia Wedman, Patricia Ahern, Emily Eng, Matt Antal, Felix Deak, Matthew Girolami, Joëlle Morton, Marilyn Fung, Christopher Bagan, Marco Cera, Alison Melville, Anthea Conway-White and directed by oboist John Abberger. I mention them all because everyone had moments of great beauty. In a work played by such a small ensemble, there were exposed passages giving everyone their moment to shine.

Some of the music is familiar, although I don’t know whether it’s Bach’s choice in the original or Heighes’ in his reconstruction, to re-purpose music that we’ve heard before elsewhere. I recognized a couple, for instance, the tune we sing as the Passion Chorale but to different words. We also encounter JS Bach’s setting of Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, based not on Mark but Psalm 46, so I’m not sure how that manages to get into the piece: even if it’s guaranteed to turn on the waterworks when I hear it sung so perfectly.

Tenor Asitha Tennekoon

The two singers with the largest workload soldiered along without much glory until near the end. Both Asitha Tennekoon as the Evangelist and Brett Polegato as Jesus have large amounts to sing, but mostly in soft recitatives. But in the second part, each gets an aria and it’s worth the wait. The sopranos McAteer and Szigovics soar gloriously throughout the afternoon both from the chorus, and then emerging for their own solo fireworks.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear the St Mark Passion when it comes again May 28th.

Today I had the pleasure of hearing the Toronto Symphony in an afternoon concert, repeating most of last night’s program. The energy is different in the middle of the day especially mid-week. The matinee extends a win-streak of wonderful playing with guest conductors over the past few weeks, as Andrey Boreyko seemed to know exactly how to inspire this orchestra.

The program of four pieces was augmented by a wonderful bonus:

• Mark Bélanger’s Wink from Drummondville to Toronto
• Christos Hatzis’s The Isle is Full of Noises
• Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto #2
• The bonus: a brief encore composed by pianist Lucas Debargue, sounding like a soft-rock Rachmaninoff prelude
• Johannes Brahms’s Symphony #3

Although not in strictly chronological order, the concert felt like a gradual trip to the past.  The newest piece on the program in its TSO premiere was Bélanger’s Sesquie, a two minute romp full of whimsy and broad gestures that made me giggle aloud. As the title suggests, the composer was having a lot of fun and thank goodness this was one of those times when the joke was totally intelligible. Bélanger seemed to be colouring with big fat crayons, employing a brass choir then an answer from the woodwinds, and something subtler still from the strings. What I think we’re seeing with these two minute gems is that the limitations of the commission –a two minutes fanfare after all—serve to inspire the composers rather than limiting them.

Conductor Andrey Boreyko with composer Christos Hatzis (photo: Jag Gundu)

Christos Hatzis’s The Isle is Full of Noises was premiered about 4 years ago by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal as part of a Shakespeare-themed program, this piece inspired by The Tempest. I don’t know about you, but I love encountering program music where the composition is intelligible as an expression of the idea it is meant to signify. Hatzis begins with the sounds of human breathing, an activity that naturally comes first in this kind of organic sound-poetry. We work from darkness to light, from abstract to concrete, from disorder to order, as seemingly random or dissonant sounds organize and cohere in a buildup towards a melodic and tonal affirmation at the end. And just as Prospero’s island is sometimes a bit threatening but ultimately a safe place for good people and not so terrible even to those who are evil, so too with the sounds, that never threaten but do surround us safely. I can’t help feeling that for Hatzis –especially after his Juno-award (just a few days ago) for Going Home Star—the possibilities are unlimited. Much of the time we seemed to inhabit a sonic world reminding me of early Stravinsky –perhaps corresponding to his word “impressionistic” in the composer’s program note—as in The Firebird ballet score, but with the occasional addition of unexpected sounds from a different rule-book just to keep us honest. I was thrilled to see how well the audience received Hatzis’s music.

I am not cheating the proper chronology in portraying Liszt’s 2nd piano concerto as the next newest sounding piece, given that Brahms, who came later, always seemed to want to cheat the calendar and emulate a more conservative style & sound; more on Brahms in a moment.

Before I speak of Liszt, let me say simply that Lucas Debargue is an extraordinary and charismatic pianist. Yes, he played the concerto accurately as far as I could tell; as it’s not a concerto that I’ve ever played through—because I don’t like the music very much—I couldn’t tell during some of the thunderous sequences whether he was really playing it right or not. But the sound was magnificent, a big full sound whether in slow forte passages or fast ones. In the lyric middle section we heard an achingly beautiful sound, the legato dripping from his fingers.

Pianist Lucas Debargue, conductor Andrey Boreyko and the TSO (photo: Jag Gundu)

I said “charismatic” because a big part of his appeal lies in his body language, a head that bobbed so much it verges on self-parody, although when you play this well: you can move any way you like! At times he gave us that Glenn Gould style liquid body language, where he is channeling the music without regard for anything else, and totally in the moment of the creation. Boreyko met him halfway with a powerful sound from the orchestra. And I can’t help mentioning a magnificent solo from cellist Joseph Johnson, perhaps just a bit bolder in his playing after his showcase last week in the Schumann concerto, perhaps precisely the kind of payoff one would hope for.

After the interval came the most moving reading of Brahms’ 3rd Symphony that I have ever encountered. Boreyko’s approach was deliberate, understood in a very good way. The conductor’s baton was used to begin and end, but was set aside for the subtler places, namely the two inner movements and the conclusion of the symphony: where we had a chance to hear inner voices in a transparent series of solos. In the big moments the orchestra were wonderfully tight, very clear in their articulation. In the places where the orchestra pauses, Boreyko fully indulged those moments as though for a big collective breath. In additional to so much wonderful solo work in the brass, woodwinds & percussion, we heard exquisite yet restrained sounds from the trombone choir invoking the mystical implications of the instrument that Brahms likely sought, particularly at the end.  The TSO faithfully executed Boreyko’s lucid reading, a profound interpretation of this the most elusive and difficult of all of Brahms’ symphonies.

Judging by the way the Toronto Symphony are responding to their current series of guest conductors, I have to wonder. Are they better than we realize? Perhaps it’s unrealistic to expect so much excitement from a resident music-director. Or then again, maybe this is a glimpse of what’s possible. Tonight I was again blown away, and I don’t know if it’s fair to credit the visitor or the people in this orchestra.

Thomas Dausgaard was the latest guest conductor to work magic on the podium of Roy Thomson Hall tonight in a program including Schumann’s cello concerto, Mahler’s 10th Symphony & another Sesqui (the two minute fanfares commissioned especially in celebration of Canada’s Sesquicentennial), this time by Christine Donkin.

Guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard (photo: Jag Gundu) leading the TSO

We began with the most accessible Sesqui yet, at least among the ones I’ve heard. I was reminded of the Simpsons theme by Danny Elfman, an upbeat and vibrant two minutes of pattern music and broad melodies from the brass. Nevermind conservatories and academic approaches. And I wasn’t the only one blown away by Donkin’s direct and crowd-pleasing approach to music.

Joseph Johnson, the TSO’s principal cellist, then took the spotlight playing Schumann’s cello concerto.

Cellist Joseph Johnson, conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the TSO, joyfully finishing (photo: Jag Gundu)

It’s unfortunate that the comments in the program –calling the piece “enigmatic in its refusal to embrace virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity”—put such a negative spin on a piece of music that was and is decades ahead of its time. You may as well mock a person for not being a conformist, even though the originality of this piece is surely part of its charm. Johnson brought his gleaming honey sound to the lyrical moments, a performance that was unmistakably popular with his peers in the orchestra. Aside from the joy he brought to the performance, I believe these concerts employing the TSO soloists –for example when principal horn Neil Deland plays a horn concerto or concertmaster Jonathan Crow plays Scheherazade—are wonderful opportunities to build the chemistry of an ensemble, with benefits far beyond what we hear on that occasion.

After intermission came Mahler’s 10th in Deryck Cooke’s realization, the major work of the evening if not of the year so far. This is the first time I’ve heard the piece played live, although I’ve heard a few recordings over the years.

I prefer Dausgaard’s approach, which is to say, fast rather than slow, transparent –with inner voices showcased—rather than opaque, and only moderately loud most of the way, making the climaxes much more dramatic. If you give us too much loudness too soon, you have nowhere to build. And so for example in the first movement, when we get that unforgettable loud chord, a passage roughly ¾ of the way through the first movement, one that’s imitated if not repeated in the last third of the last movement, Dausgaard gave it to us softer than I’ve ever heard it played. Oh I’m not saying it was pianissimo, it was still powerful and forte, but not the ear-splitting loudness we sometimes get. In fact, the sound built from there, to the most dissonant sounds in that movement that were genuinely ff or even fff. The dance-rhythms, though, were very light, very clearly accentuated, the pace quick and energetic. And so we dodged the lugubrious depressive effect some get with Mahler, even if their performances are also legitimate and fascinating to hear, thinking especially of Klemperer, who was my Mahler conductor of choice during my youth. I listened to a recording of the opening movement this morning conducted by Leonard Bernstein, who has been my favourite Mahler conductor; Dausgaard gave us a pace every bit as energetic and vibrant.  For over an hour we were treated to bold confident attacks and precise playing with nary a fluff or mistake, wonderfully together and often at a breakneck pace.  To repeat what i said already, this was among the most impressive playing I’ve heard all year from the TSO.

Wonderful as this reading was, there were times when I thought I detected places to quibble with Cooke, places where I thought Mahler must be cringing if he were listening. The middle movement is stunningly beautiful: but seems to end so abruptly I can’t help thinking that Mahler would have added something or repeated something. The simple tonalities we hear in places during the final ten minutes of the work seem to me to be sketches rather than Mahler’s last word, which is troubling when this movement IS supposed to be Mahler’s last word. Here perhaps the problem is that –for one little stretch—Daugaard gets the orchestra to play in a way that –for better or worse–calls attention to something that’s missing in the score.  I believe it’s inevitable that we notice some shortcomings in this, which is in effect a kind of paraphrase, and only genuine Mahler in the first movement. After so much complexity, after an hour that kicks down the door to the 20th century and stomps all over conventional tonality, it seems so odd to suddenly step back from the brink, to be employing harmonies less adventurous than anything since perhaps his first symphony. I have to think that in these passages Cooke’s version shows us that Mahler had sketched but not really finished his thinking, that if he had heard it, he’d change it. But this symphony is at a disadvantage, because it hasn’t been programmed and played for a hundred years like the other symphonies, but only was completed by Cooke in the 1970s; orchestras likely will find other options, other ways to play through this score that seem more coherent. Or maybe the fault is mine and the way i am listening..? Yet I didn’t notice so much of a disconnect at the end of Nezet-Seguin’s recording, although now i need to re-listen to it. But I think the wonder of Mahler –any of this symphonies—is how many different good interpretations are possible in the same work.

I look forward to Dausgaard’s next visit.

There are several different currents flowing through Roy Thomson Hall right now, and each one is inspiring the Toronto Symphony and their audience in different ways.

• We’re hearing two minute Sesquis: original little jewels to commemorate the Canadian Sesquicentennial.
• We’re encountering core classics alongside new pieces
• We’re meeting brilliant young artists to inspire both the orchestra & the audience, possible candidates to lead the TSO in the future.

In the first half we were treated to Karen Gomyo’s precise & passionate reading of the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Violinist Karen Gomyo with the TSO conducted by Robert Trevino (photo: Jag Gundu)

Gomyo pushes the envelope with her dynamic range, beginning some of her phrases very softly, letting her tone crescendo through phrases, sometimes seeming to erupt with emotion. Her commitment was hypnotic drawing the audience into the drama of this titanic work.

For the second consecutive week I watched a new face lead the TSO. Last week it was conductor Hannu Lintu, leading a Beethoven symphony and a brand new work. Tonight it was Robert Trevino as the conductor, ably leading the TSO through the newest of the 2 minute fanfares to Canada’s birthday—a contrapuntal piece with palindromic tendencies from Cheryl Cooney—to lead off. Trevino followed Cooney’s Sesqui with the Beethoven violin concerto and concluded with the 1947 version of Petrouchka.

Conductor Robert Trevino (photo: Irene Haupt)

Where Lintu let his baton do his talking –leading a stirring performance—Trevino showed us the most affable podium manner this side of Peter Oundjian, explicating the Stravinsky score in such an unpretentious way as to highlight the comedy in the story of this ballet.

Robert Trevino, the charismatic story-teller, before he picked up the baton to conduct (photo: Jag Gundu)

Dare I say it, that this is what the TSO desperately needs?! I wasn’t the only one laughing, but more importantly, when the various comic bits came up in the score, people guffawed and giggled with genuine recognition.

And the performance! This isn’t easy music. Recalling the google doodle that you may have seen a couple of days ago, commemorating the 150th birthday of Sergei Diaghilev, there were three consecutive important ballet premieres from Stravinsky with the Ballets Russes:

• Firebird in 1910, with a big romantic score that was mostly tuneful and caused no scandal
• Petrouchka in 1912, where the edginess of the music corresponded to a grotesque story of puppets and magic. For my money this is the most surprising and original of the ballets from Stravinsky, with its use of folk music and mechanical patterns suggestive of non-humans moving, apt for the humans portraying puppets in this ballet
• Le Sacre du printemps in 1913, famous for its riot, although the riot may have been as much for its actions & dance as for the music, admittedly a bit noisier and more dissonant than Petrouchka

I should perhaps also mention that Sunday’s concert for the TSO also includes Debussy’s Prelude á l’après-midi d’un faune: an 1893 composition that was also made into a ballet by Diaghilev in 1912. In tonight’s concert Debussy’s piece was not included. I’m not sure why they give us the shorter program Saturday. Petrouchka is full of amazing solos, much of it highly challenging music. I wish I knew who the piano player was, as their playing was especially good, one wonderful soloist among many (in the slower section resembling a piano concerto): but the others get their names listed in the program. Trevino was undaunted by the varied time-signatures, keeping the orchestra together, while gradually building the intensity and tempo to a scintillating conclusion.

I hope we see him again.