The Toronto Symphony reveals custom and high quality on its first Spanish tour | Culture | EUROtoday

Start with the oboe. With this intentionally cryptic title—a direct allusion to the tuning ritual of each symphony orchestra—the previous archivist of the Toronto Symphony, Richard S. Warren, advised the story of the Canadian formation. A narrative that started in 1922 beneath the Viennese imprint of Luigi von Kunits, after a primary pissed off venture in 1918, and that was consolidated for greater than twenty years with Ernest MacMillan.

The orchestra aspired to a world projection with Walter Susskind; the younger Seiji Ozawa infused it with unprecedented power, whereas the veteran Karel Ančerl supplied a Central European refinement. With Andrew Davis he lived his most wonderful years; Günther Herbig polished the sound, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste needed to climate probably the most turbulent interval.

The ebook closes in 2002 with a chapter titled Towards the unknownwhich invokes the verses of Whispers of heavenly loss of lifeby Walt Whitman. The rebirth got here in 2004 by the hands of Peter Oundjian, a course of documented in Five Days in September: The Rebirth of an Orchestra. This new golden age has continued since 2020 beneath the route of Gustavo Gimeno.

The Canadian orchestra is now immersed in its first Spanish tour with the Valencian conductor, a route that hyperlinks with a number of European capitals. After two live shows in Madrid, on January 27 and 28, one other in Zaragoza on the twenty ninth and this Friday’s occasion in Barcelona, ​​the itinerary will proceed by means of Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp and Vienna. The repertoire is structured across the Fifth Symphony by Sergei Prokofiev and the Quarter by Gustav Mahler, with the incorporation of some up to date works and two live shows by Sergei Rachmaninov and Béla Bartók, carried out by the pianist Bruce Liu and the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

The live performance held on the Zaragoza Auditorium this Thursday opened with a tribute to the eighty fifth anniversary of the delivery of Torontonian musical hero Glenn Gould and the seventieth anniversary of his debut as a piano soloist with this orchestra. The Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy titled her symphonic piece, about ten minutes lengthy, in 2017, Curiosity, Genius, and the Search for Petula Clark: a cocktail that mixes the determine of Gould with the title of one in every of his most unusual radio documentaries, wherein he obsessively analyzes the music Who Am I? as he listens to it over and over on the radio, driving down a freeway in northern Ontario.

It just isn’t straightforward to discover a clear relationship between this music, the determine of Gould or the music of Petula Clark. All in all, Murphy’s sensible orchestration, along with a direct vitality and an accessibility that at instances refers to movie music, make the work a pretty and efficient proposal within the theater. The virtuosity of all sections of the Toronto Symphony, particularly the woodwinds and percussion, was evident in probably the most frenetic passages. However, probably the most attention-grabbing second got here within the part indicated as little ceremony.the place the string outlines a reflective and deeply human chorale, which turns into denser with successive entries of the woodwind and brass: maybe an allusion to the distinction between the frequent man, moved by mental curiosity, and the eccentric and punctiliously constructed public character.

He continued Second piano concerto by Sergei Rachmaninov, with pianist Bruce Liu as soloist. It is price remembering that the nice Russian composer performed with this orchestra in his first stage, between 1908 and 1918, in accordance with Warren in his ebook. Rachmaninov didn’t foresee the harshness of the Toronto winter and had to purchase a fur coat on the historic Holt Renfrew division retailer. But, not discovering her measurement, she needed to accept a garment whose sleeves have been brief and that hardly lined her knees.

Something comparable occurred to the Canadian pianist of Chinese descent—whose title intentionally evokes the martial artist Bruce Lee—with the sound that this live performance calls for. Liu, who burst onto the worldwide scene because the model new winner of the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 2021, is a pianist with a light-weight and fluid contact, with contained musicality, however with out the sonic energy demanded by the intense actions of this work.

The greatest got here along with his masterful interpretation of the slowly sustainedthe place he knew learn how to make genuine chamber music with the clarinetist Zhenyu Wang and the string part. Liu demonstrates a captivating naturalness within the recent, ingenious and at all times different figurations that Rachmaninov writes to accompany the orchestra. In the primary motion, Gimeno’s conducting was at all times in favor of the soloist, supporting his fixed tendency to include and lighten the speech, with the ensuing lack of pressure. Everything improved, nonetheless, within the cheerfully joking closing, the place the Canadian’s capacity to supply readability to the intricate strings of notes was joined by a way more decided orchestra.

After the applause, Liu provided as a tip the Nocturne op. 27 no. 2 by Fryderyk Chopin, a studying that confirmed its authority within the present interpretation of the Polish composer: mixture of freshness and fluidity, beautiful dynamic chiaroscuro and a stolen content material, regardless of a slight reminiscence lapse within the left hand within the first bars. Much higher linked to the live performance heard was the second tip, provided in collaboration with the wonderful concertmaster by the Canadian orchestra, Jonathan Crow: an association for violin and piano of the Romance Op. 21 no. 7 by Rachmaninov, written in 1902, shortly after finishing his Second live performance and to beat your artistic block with the assistance of hypnosis.

The second half was devoted totally to Sergei Prokofiev, and was the place the hallmarks of the orchestra have been greatest acknowledged. A gaggle that reveals a really explicit sound hybrid, the results of its personal historical past. It combines the technical precision and impeccable brilliance of the brass, attribute of the nice American orchestras, with a much less aggressive and admirably pasted woodwind, nearer to the European custom, and a string part of clear German organicity, seasoned by North American self-discipline. All this was evident from the andante preliminary of the Fifth Symphony of the Russian composer.

After that sound exhibition – which, within the admirable acoustics of the Zaragoza corridor, was much more favorable than within the Madrid auditorium – got here the cheerful marked one other demonstration of character. Gimeno printed this scherzo admirable impertinence and humor from starting to finish, with out shedding an iota of readability or precision. It was in all probability the most effective of the night time, with the decisive contribution of clarinetist Eric Abramovitz’s magnificent solo and an distinctive viola part.

He adagio later sounded somber and lyrical, but additionally fluid and tense, with its highly effective motor climax constructed with astonishing readability. Finally, the cheerful playful It opened displaying the standard of the cello part divided, to showcase the athleticism of the Canadian ensemble, with the violas setting the tempo, one other wonderful solo by Abramovitz and the momentum of the horns together with the remainder of the brass and percussion.

The intense applause led to 2 ideas. The first was a considerably mannered model of the gavotta of the well-known Symphony no. 1 “Classic”. Much extra attention-grabbing was the fruits of the live performance, with the sardonic March, op. 99which the composer would later reuse in his opera The story of an actual man. Prokofiev wrote this piece in 1944, similtaneously his Fifth Symphonythroughout his retirement in Ivanovo – about 300 kilometers from Moscow – the place he met colleagues of the stature of Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Kabalevsky.