Joseph Johnson, Aziz Shokhakimov, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
(Program)
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presented a mixed program of works by Antonin Dvorák, Bedřich Smetana, and Felix Mendelssohn on Thursday January 30, 2020 at Roy Thomson Hall.
Smetana — “The Moldau” from Má vlast
Dvořák — Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104
1. Allegro
2. Adagio ma non troppo
3. Finale: Allegro moderato
Mendelssohn — Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56 “Scottish”
1. Andante con moto
2. Scherzo. Vivace non troppo
3. Adagio
4. Allegro vivacissimo
‘Dvorák & Mendelssohn’ runs until February 1st at Roy Thomson Hall
Two Czech and one German composer are behind the three works in this TSO program that features a symphonic poem, concerto and symphony. Bedřich Smetana, born and buried in the Czech Republic, is perhaps to that country what Jean Sibelius is to Finland: a national composer as well as a composer for their national geography. ‘The Moldau’ is a symphonic poem (one among the six-part cycle titled My Fatherland) that serenades the longest river in the Republic, reminiscent of Sibelius’s ‘Finlandia’ and ‘Oceanides’. Even at just over ten minutes, it carries a weighty staff of 3 trombones, 6 double basses, 2 trumpets, a guttural timpani section, one relentless triangle, a soothing harp, and the full expanse of high and low strings. Jewelled with a number of Czech folk melodies that might yet still make for a couple good songs by a folk artist willing to do some excavation. It begins with a swimming motif on flute, and pizzicato violins with short intermittent leaps on triangle. This introduction gives way to a gentler sailing theme on strings which, like a searching torpedo, gradually builds a meandering energy and rises into the full mast of the aforementioned instruments. Conductor Aziz Shokhakimov and the string section made the most of this stretch with a display of dynamic range at the instances when score explodes to a climax and then suddenly congeals to barely audible pianissimo. The finale is a clean cut combination of a score mimicking the caterwaul of a waterfall, a conductor with a flair for dramatic action, and an orchestra up to the task—two concluding notes wrap up the journey as the hypothetical torpedo kisses its target.
Alastair Eng, Roberta Janzen and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
To introduce the Dvorák Concerto, cellists Roberta Janzen and Alastair Eng provided some personal context: the former having been a member of the TSO for sixteen years and always grateful for the occasions when a concerto for her chosen instrument gets staged, and Eng marked the first time he heard Dvorák’s Cello Concerto at the age of five in Roy Thomson Hall, thirty years ago, and decided then and there upon his profession. Partly inspired by the composer’s attendance of a Cello Concerto premiered in Brooklyn (Victor Herbert’s, 1894), Dvorák’s reluctant composition enjoyed an almost exclusive spotlight for the instrument in the nineteenth century as the concerto format became dominated by works for piano and violin. His initial reluctance was primarily in the face of the spectre of composing a conversation between the orchestra and what is essentially a ‘tenor’ instrument, easily overpowered by the orchestra’s many screaming kettles. The Concerto’s popularity since 1896, nodoubt a result of the kind of performance delivered by the TSO’s principal cellist Joseph Johnson (on a Paolo Costello cello made in Genoa, 1780), proves that the genre isn’t just the showcase of a shouting match between soloist and orchestra, but as well a seamless dialogue coloured in the blue timbres of the cello’s sonorous oration.
The main question and task is simple: how to keep the orchestra from drowning out the soloist. Roy Thomson Hall is massive—even the higher registers of the Sibelius Violin Concerto can evaporate into its concrete slabs—and there were several instances of seeing Johnson’s bow moving but his sound was lost in that of the orchestra still descending from a climax—here Shokhakimov’s control could have cleaned things up a bit. This is as much a loud concerto as it is delicate, ‘a work of symphonic ambition’ as much as it expresses the ‘transparency of chamber music’. When it is loud, Shokhakimov’s animated hand gestures make him seem like a delirious but wholly effective puppeteer. When the music lightens, however, it is Johnson that takes control, case in point the long forlorn aria near the end of the third movement: the cello sits on top of the gentle accompaniment of flute and softly rolling timpani to create both a visual and sonic depth in the material. In light of the soloist’s long awaited entry into the first movement—perhaps Dvorák’s way of admitting the uneven pairing between the two parties—the third movement ends instead with a long passage by the solo instrument which, initially compliant, has managed to tame its accompaniment. With the marching rhythm that kickstarts the finale, it’s unclear how the soloist can keep up, but again finding an ally in the flutist, it leads from the side until the tempo slows to a walking pace. Whereas the Smetana tone poem tours a meandering river, this concerto ends its flight with an easy glide into the last light of a picturesque sunset; the orchestra pulled the curtain with a dramatic tutti at the behest of Shokhakimov’s metronomic jujitsu.
Joseph Johnson wasn’t done for the night, he returned to his role as principal cellist for the performance of the Mendelssohn ‘Scottish’ Symphony. There’s still one more performance of this program left, and if you’d like to get into a period-specific headspace for this Symphony, I’d recommend a couple similarly inspired poems by William Wordsworth, ‘The Ruined Cottage’ and ‘The Solitary Reaper’ in particular.
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass![…]
No sweeter voice was ever heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.[…]
And, as I mounted up the hill,
the music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
“” William Wordsworth, from The Solitary Reaper
The Symphony is characterized by the ‘stern and robust’ impression of the natural scenery on the composer during his trip to Scotland in 1829. It is a heavy symphony, poured for forty minutes without a break and at various tempi, colours and melodies—all apparently germinated in the composer’s mind by perfect lighting on some broken column:
The chapel close to it is now roofless; grass and ivy grow there, and at the broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and mouldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found today in that old chapel the beginning of my ‘Scotch Symphony’. “” Mendelssohn on the Palace of Holyrood House, July 1829
The Scherzo is the part you’ll most likely take home with you. During intermission, I caught a sight of principal flutist Kelly Zimba’s finishing touches to her part of the Scherzo’s first theme on stage, the main melody of the unidentified Scottish folk tune that engenders the Scherzo. It’s a clarinet, however, that introduces the main theme, with an accompaniment of dotted rhythms on strings. This accompaniment, delicate at first, builds in time to give muscle and variations to that theme. An orchestral tutti drives the pace to a dance rhythm undergirded by pianissimo woodwind. Near the bottom fourth of the movement, a small glade clears and Zimba steps into it to reprise the main theme, nailing it. The material winds down gently till it evaporates. The third movement is a long paragraph reading like some of Mendelssohn’s popular Song Without Words (Op. 109 especially), dovetailing into a contrastingly upbeat finale. The fourth movement is announced with a cry from the violin section, Shokhakimov whirled towards the section to rally them into the final stretch. The final ten or so minutes sounds like the overture to an opera that was never written, a chain-reaction of gossip and mozartian intrigue. How the coda is handled can make or break a performance of this movement, “capped by horns, with a warlike cry of such bald simplicity that is in danger of sounding banal—and indeed does so if this coda is taken too slowly and grandly” says Robert Philips in his encyclopedic Guide to Orchestral Music. Neither slow nor banal, instead the orchestra arrives at this conclusion with a downhill momentum in an engine revved continuously by Shokhakimov who, with a literal hop and thud on his podium, brought the symphony to a close with its final exhausted note.