(Program)
Elim Chan and Stephen Hough. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presented a mixed program of works by American composer Elizabeth Ogonek, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov on February 15th, 2020 at Roy Thomson Hall.
Ogonek — as though birds (Canadian Première)
Rachmaninoff — Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
1. Moderato
2. Adagio sostenuto
3. Allegro scherzando
Rimsky-Korsakov — Scheherazade, Op. 35
I. The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship: Largo e maestoso – Allegro non troppo
II. The Tale of Prince Kalendar: Lento – Allegro molto
III. The Young Prince and the Princess: Andantino quasi allegretto
IV. The Festival at Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock: Allegro molto
‘Rachmaninoff & Scheherazade’ runs till February 16th at Roy Thomson Hall.
It was conductor Elim Chan’s world we were all living in, last Saturday at Roy Thomson Hall. Her style and substance on the podium was an example of why orchestras need more female conductors, an incomparable combination of finesse and geometric exactitude in conveying what it is she wants to hear; a commanding presence ahead of the army of generals that is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Antwerp’s Symphony Orchestra is lucky to have her as their new music director. She led the TSO through a well incorporated program of almost all-Russian composers: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and American composer Elizabeth Ogonek (Ogonek confessed to her Russian origin, according to TSO violinist Sergei Nikonov). The program began with Ogonek’s piece titled as though birds, a three-minute stanza of orchestral music based on an excerpt from American poet Jonathan Dubow’s ‘Fugal’.
as though birds is in fact three one-minute-long variations played seamlessly by the orchestra, and corresponding to each line from the aforementioned excerpt. The first line ‘as though birds, startled’ inspires orchestra music that communicates the last word moreso than the first three: short whizzing phrases via glissando populate the material scored for strings and woodwind, accompanied by an eclectic cast of percussion instruments. ‘by a moulting sound’, the second line in the stanza, is the thick meaty slice of music prefaced by the first minute and digested by the third: a rapid volley between violas, piccolo, harp (which would make another appearance for the Scheherazade part of the evening), violins, toms, brass, low strings and piano—the functional word here is perhaps ‘moulting’: the act of an animal shedding its skin/coat. The piece moves into the final line, ‘quietly dispersed’, wherein figures are sketched for glockenspiel, piano, and high strings, the closing dispersion is evoked by the faint wafting sound of a vibrating sheet of metal. Yes it’s a bit odd to tack a three-minute piece to the top of the program, but it works as much as an overture as in its own right. It can make for a particularly fruitful read when a poet can translate music’s obstinate language into poetic sentiments—it seems Ogonek has gone the extra step of translating it back into music, arriving at something entirely different from what inspired Dubow’s ‘Fugal’.
Elim Chan, Stephen Hough and the TSO. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
The interrelation of literature and music is a sort of secondary theme that runs through the three pieces on this program: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade was inspired by Persian/Egyptian/Indian folklore, producing music that we would refer to today as some pale shade of cultural appropriation (known back then as merely harvesting a ‘potent source of inspiration’). And while Rachmaninoff’s second Piano Concerto doesn’t have a similar literary connection, its performer Stephen Hough is also a novelist, with two book in the last two years (Rough Ideas and The Final Retreat).
Elim Chan, Stephen Chan, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
The late great Christopher Hitchens excused his reluctance to take on a career as a novelist on account of his not being sufficiently musical, in that he believed that musicality is a necessary precondition to good fiction. Watching Hough’s performance confirmed that much for me, and made me wonder if a novelist could bring something just a bit more to the Adagio Sostenuto, my favourite stretch of this Concerto, indeed my favourite slow movement in the genre. It is music for the convalescent. It is a bit relevant that its composer was convinced of his ability to write it while reclined on sofa of one Dr. Dahl (to whom the Concerto is dedicated). So to appreciate this slow movement one has to put ones self in the bed of a convalescent who, having just glimpsed the first rays of health, wearily lifts an arm or leg to test gravity’s rebuttal against it. There’s a strain on the keyboard but it’s barely perceptible when played at a languid pace, with the corresponding hovering and inert gestures. Among the international roster of today’s top concert pianist, I think Khatia Buniatishvili’s performance of this Concerto is the most evocative, but Hough’s performance of the Adagio—mixed in the energy of a nearly sold-out Roy Thomson Hall-is the best I’ve ever yet. This performance also made me realize how big a part the flute plays in sculpting the second movement’s main theme; so much attention is directed towards the soloist that one risks missing out on the pith provided by the flute’s accompaniment, played by Julie Ranti, wrapping the icy twinkling of the keyboard in a warm sheath of colour.
Aside from Rimsky-Korsakov’s use of his source of inspiration, the circumstances that motivated the stories told by Scheherazade—the title character of the Arabian Nights collection—are also slightly cringey: the story goes Scheherazade is the next up at bat for a night with a Sultan whose misogyny involves post-coital killing the women he beds. To escape her fate, Scheherazade begins spinning tall and titillating tales, told apparently at the pace of one fable per night (always keep them wanting more: a showbiz axiom) such that the Sultan postpones his uxoricide till the next night, every night, for 1001 nights. Eventually deciding upon not killing her because she writes a good script. No wonder Rimsky-Korsakov was adamant about separating the details of these stories from the music they inspired, insisting his Scheherazade was not program music. Instead it’s like a best-of suite for a ballet that doesn’t exist, to hear it for the first time is to be always wondering which section will cast the next wickedly delicious spell of a melody.
Elim Chan, Jonathan Crow, and the TSO. Photo by Jag Gundu (edited for Blue Riband)
Indeed if spells were possible, they would come not in the form of wordy incantations, but in the long paragraphs of the kind of serpentine melodies that characterize the first movement: the flute is a snakecharmer, and Elim a ventriloquist whose strong and supple gestures with her baton and free hand ran taut imaginary lines to every member of the TSO. The second movement is a compilation of fairly evocative instances of the exotic, primarily the melodies coiled by principal bassoon and oboe while double basses hold a low moan. The voice of Scheherazade is represented by a melody on solo violin accompanied by harp and is the main theme of the first movement. It is the quiet voice of reason in response to the menacing motif of the Sultan: a brassy proclamation catapulted by trombones. The piece is halfway to a concerto for violin, concertmaster Jonathan Crow might as well have been standing next to conductor considering how much is written for the solo violinist. The rest of the work is a a bedlam of various competing marching bands, heading off in every conceivable direction. For the closing stretch, the Sultan’s theme returns with ferocity, which is resolved by Scheherezade’s theme gently accompanied again by the harp—the response to which is one of the longest and loudest ovations I’ve witnessed at the Hall.