'W' concert warmly wonderful

Friday, April 26th, 2002
Westminster United Church
Reviewed by James Manishen

Composers Peter Warlock and William Walton, we know. Gareth Walters and Grace Williams, we don't. Welsh, they are. Cold was the weather. Winning was the music.

So you've gathered that the letter 'W' figured in Wednesday night's Manitoba Chamber Orchestra concert at Westminster Church. Conductor Roy Goodman called it the 'W' event, perhaps implying that the other 25 letters might be explored as an ongoing project. Xenakis anyone? Or an evening of Roger Quilter? Everything worked so well on this one, the implications could be promising.

The 22 MCO strings are in the middle of a three-day recording session of these pieces for CBC Records, so there was a finish to their playing that was even more groomed than their usual skillful performances. As for Gareth Walters and Grace Williams, one was thankful to hear such appealing, well-crafted scores. These are composers we should know about, and the record will be most valued.

Walters' Divertimento for Strings is an attractive, well-argued gem whose straightforward lyricism and engaging modal harmonies offer a fine balance of song and earthy vigour. The Largo's folk flavour was especially lovely, graced by the spotlessly tuned MCO cellos in its main theme.

Williams' Sea Sketches for String Orchestra took a pictorial route in its five movements, though with a similarly personal current in the images, much like fellow countryman Arnold Bax, who also loved the sea.

It's the centenary of William Walton this year and performances of his music are happening around the world. Walton wrote more than an hour of music for the Laurence Olivier film Henry V, and several orchestral suites have been set from it. Wednesday night we had the passacaglia and siciliano, often paired for small orchestra. Gentle and affecting they are, but the big suites for full orchestra really stamp the score among the immortal ones.

Warlock's Serenade for Strings and Walton's orchestral setting of his String Quartet in A minor lay ahead at press time. Another movie connection, there, since Walton loved the way the legendary Hollywood String Quartet, whose members fronted the best studio orchestras, played the original version.

"I hope no one ever records my quartet again,'' he told them. "You captured so exactly what I wanted and yet we were 6,000 miles apart.'' One hopes "worthy'' will be in the MCO's arsenal, as they record this week.

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MCO challenges, rewards audience

Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Westminster United Church
Attendance: 800
Reviewed by James Manishen

Conductor Roy Goodman joked with the large audience at last night's Manitoba Chamber Orchestra concert.

"Those of you who left at the end, do come back" he said, in reference to the more than typical listening challenges in the program of Arvo Part, Nicholas Maw and Canadian Walter Buczynski. J.S. Bach's D minor Violin Concerto BWV 1052 was there to maintain an even keel for the uninitiated. Toronto-born Judy Kang took the solo role there, as well as in Part's Fratres presented last night in the version for violin, strings and percussion.

As such, the challenges resulted more in the desire to want to revisit these pieces than feelings of intimidation. The message was clear in such quality music. It's all right not to get it all the first time around, but indeed, do come back.

Certainly one would want to in the case of Buczynski's Lyric XVI for strings, heard in its world premiere last night.

Unlike the composer's previous 15, this one is a five-movement suite scored for string orchestra. Substance and beauty were in fine supply. Clear geography and airtight argument too, with a compelling range in harmonic language and genuinely lyrical vein. The free-flowing Canon centrepiece was quite memorable, suggesting the peculiar balance of light and shade Benjamin Britten did so well. The MCO delivered a splendidly clear performance, the score almost visually in view.

Judy Kang is an accomplished violinist and one sensed keen interest in the Baumgartner Stradivarius of 1689 on which she plays. By request, at intermission, Goodman delivered a brief chat on the Strad mystique, with due note that the sound really comes from the player. Kang's sound is focused, though not overly generous. Her command was unfailing in the Bach, though the briskly played outer movements would have benefited from yielding more to the music's events than to its momentum. The wonderful Adagio, with its ripe twists and turns along the harmonic road, showed how old J.S. anticipated all the moderns.

Arvo Part is no stranger to these parts, the resonance of his appearance at the New Music Festival still intact from a few years back. Fratres' ethereal individuality registered well. At press time, British composer Nicholas Maw's Sonata for Strings and Two Horns (1967) lay ahead.

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Elegance and ease come natural to Hoebig

Thursday, February 14, 2002
Westminster United Church
Attendance: 600
Reviewed by James Manishen

If you're going to arrange a string quartet for string orchestra you have
to ask yourself: what gets added, and what gets subtracted?

Last night's Manitoba Chamber Orchestra concert at Westminster Church
featured Gustav Mahler's orchestral setting of Schubert's `Death and the
Maiden' String Quartet. Jean-Francois Rivest was the guest conductor, with cellist Desmond Hoebig taking the solo spot throughout the first half in music by Boccherini and Tchaikovsky.

No slouch, that Mahler.

As Rivest explained in an illuminating intro, Mahler wanted to conduct
Schubert's often stormy opus and wouldn't be able to, given the fact that
string quartets weren't exactly audience magnets during his time. As well,
Mahler felt there were hidden dimensions in the piece that needed
exploration.

So Mahler added double basses to shore up the orchestral bottom, yet pretty well left the piece alone. Does it work?

Yes and no, but well worth a listen, one time at least.

Rivest spoke about Schubert's ``variety within unity'' and therein lay the
problem.

In the quartet, you have four players in active response to the heat of the
moment, playing with and off one another through the indefinable telepathy
unique to chamber music.

In the orchestral setting, there isn't the same sense of yielding, despite
many moments of heightened pleasure the additional instruments allow. An interesting experiment, but not to displace the real thing.

Elegance and ease come so naturally to cellist Desmond Hoebig that one
senses his reserves barely being tapped.

He played Boccherini's Cello Concerto in G last night with effortless
grace, fleetly on top of the tempos and with a tone of all song. The slow
movement's cantabile solo over pulsating strings suggested remnants of
Vivaldi not entirely cast aside. The outer movements' genial spirit and
sunny sixths made for happy times.

Tchaikovsky's Andante Cantabile from his String Quartet No. 1 must be on
every top ten list of the most recognized meoldies around.

Hoebig offered the composer's own setting for cello and strings, in a
reading one sensed attuned more to the integrity of the melody than to the
popularity and any inherent self-display.

The audience demanded an encore, for which Hoebig obliged in the Sarabande from J.S. Bach's Sixth Solo Cello Suite.

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An evening of intimacy, freshness of youth

Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Westminster United Church
Attendance: 400
Reviewed by James Manishen

The "chamber" aspect of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra refers more to the self-regulating style of the playing than in true chamber music, as found in small conductor-less ensembles.

The MCO wears its name honestly, though, serving its audience an evening of true chamber music once every season.

Last night's chamber night at Westminster Church had a can't-miss program of two great works for strings: Brahms' Sextet No. 2 and the Mendelssohn Octet.

In the Brahms you get a nurturing of intimacies. In the Mendelssohn, the freshness of youth -- though in this case cloaked in genius. On the platform were violinists Karl Stobbe, Hiroko Kagawa, David Visentin and Kathryn Sigsworth. Rennie Regehr guested on one of the viola parts, while Daniel Scholz took the other. Shoring up the bottom were cellists Paul Marleyn and Yuri Hooker.

Adding an additional viola and cello to the string quartet instrumental group makes for an almost orchestral sonority. And Brahms wasted no time exploring its possibilities in what is an evergreen fund of melody treated with vibrancy, yet steeped more in quiet reflection than in his first sextet.

Melodies, according to Brahms' biographer Max Kalbeck, that should sound as if sung by a "healthy, well-rested voice."

The Mendelssohn, then, is an ideally contrasting companion, since rest and reflection are hardly the stuff to spring from the pen of a 16-year-old firebrand whose inspiration comes faster than he can write it down.

Hearing the miraculously zippy Octet coming on the coat-tails of the Brahms made the evening -- the two works somehow interacting to elevate each.

The performances were finely grooved, with shapely phrasing and climax points nicely gauged. Always one felt purpose, tonal lustre and technical finish, as one would expect from players like these. The few pitch casualties sounded more like beauty marks.

You came away from this one hearing the music after the playing stopped. That happens, when content and commitment meet.

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Choir, orchestra combine for perfect harmony
Remembrance Day performance had many magical moments

Monday, 12 November 2001
Reviewed by Andrew Thompson

ONCE in a while, one experiences a concert in which all of the elements fall beautifully into place to produce an end result that is quite remarkable. Those who attended In Memoriam: A Concert for Remembrance Day on Sunday afternoon were privy to such an event.

The Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir joined forces with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in the fine acoustic space of the St. Boniface Basilica to present this concert in front of a standing-room-only crowd.

And the combination of the two organizations, under the guiding baton of the Phil's Yuri Klaz, was quite magical.

After a brief spoken introduction on the significance of Remembrance Day, Klaz led the MCO into Samuel Barber's heart-rending Adagio for String Orchestra. It was a reading that glowed and burned at exactly the right moments. The long, arched melodic material was drawn forth with passion and the anguished climax was perfect.

The partnership between Klaz and the MCO was seamless, eloquent and, apparently, all the more incredible because it was the result of only two rehearsals.

A sublime Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart was served up as the next offering: The Phil polished this little gem carefully and idiomatically. Klaz took a gentle pace that resulted in a lush blend of parts that was still classically simple and transparent. Able accompaniment from organist Don Menzies completed the effect.

Of course, the central core of the concert was the monumental Mozart Requiem. For this, the Phil and the MCO were joined by soprano Heidi Klassen, alto Lois Watson-Lyons, tenor Kurt Lehmann, and bass David M. Bedard.

Right off the top, it was clear that this was going to be a special performance: Klaz began the piece's portentous and majestic opening bars in dramatic fashion and by the time the choir entered with its powerful melody, the musical tension had already been well established.

Dynamics throughout were wide and expressive: The momentum was always maintained yet never was there a sense of hurry. Klaz held tightly on reins and brought forth great discipline and passion from his forces. The great double fugue of the Kyrie steamed ahead with focus and the MCO players were caught right up in the unified effort.

The soloists, too, stood their ground. Klassen was her usual powerful self and Watson-Lyons shaped her lines with intelligence and grace. The trombone line combined with Bedard's smooth tone in the early part of the Sequence kept the drama alive from the Dies Irae, and Lehmann's lyrical phrasing was a pleasure. The huge standing ovation that followed this incredible performance could not have been more richly deserved.

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A happy, happy half, then… the horror

Thursday, 8 November 2001
Westminster United Church, 7 November 2001
Attendance: 600
Reviewed by James Manishen

ONE could almost have imagined conductor Roy Goodman rehearsing the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra on how to play the intermission at last night's concert.

The first half was all sunlight and optimism: Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, with MCO principals Karl Stobbe and Daniel Scholz as soloists. Then, Haydn's ebullient Harpsichord Concerto in D, for which Goodman took the spotlight at the keyboard. Except for the poignant tugs in the slow movement of the Mozart work, it was a happy, happy half.

After intermission, one of the deepest, darkest, most elegiac pieces composed in the last century held court: Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings. And for the players, one could imagine each one at intermission, whether publicly or not, looking inward to find the mind set Strauss must have had as he wrote what was to be the ultimate damnation of all the Nazis did in a crumbling Germany of 1945.

"Barbarians" he called them, born out in this musical testament of anguish, not just for the artistic treasures and buildings destroyed in the war but for having tainted civilization forever.

Maybe we needed this kind of first half to set up the second, for the MCO's Metamorphosen had one well attuned to what marvellous music it is in an absolute sense, without feeling emotionally beaten back.

Strauss' themes, their constantly unfolding variation, the striking colours from so few players, and the famous Eroica quote were projected with powers intact. It's one of those works you can't hear too many times, for even apart from the music's emotional tension, you feel elevated just bonding with the reference points.

The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante is a magnificent conversation in a concerto, requiring two soloists used to conversing with each other.

The opening is magical: an extended, forthright statement culminating in a long crescendo after which the two soloists steal from out of nowhere holding a unison that innocently leads not to a theme, but a fragment. The outer movements raise the spirits unfailingly while the centrepiece Andante's full heart stands them in relief.

Last night's performance was a fine one indeed as Stobbe and Scholz weaved, dovetailed and spoke volumes in true accord. Goodman directed a crisp MCO from the harpsichord, rarely heard in this piece and most illuminating.

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Concert provides lesson
in finding immortality

Thursday, 11 October 2001
Westminster United Church, October 10
Attendance: 500
Reviewed by James Manishen

LAST night's Manitoba Chamber Orchestra concert was a lesson in the two main ways composers find immortality: sound like no one else, or use your influences with pride and conviction.

The former played out in the cases of Sibelius and Elgar, whose orchestral pieces Rakastava and the Serenade for Strings respectively bore that to the letter on this concert.

English composer Alan Rawsthorne's Piano Concerto No. 1 is a cannily crafted nod to Prokofiev, in large measure, with dustings of William Walton on the side.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin, a 26-year-old Montreal-born conductor, was on the podium in his debut appearance with the MCO. Soloist in the Rawsthorne was Ian Parker, 22.

And if you're thinking of Parkers at pianos — yes, noted Canadian keyboardists Jon Kimura Parker and Jaime Parker are Ian's cousins.

The whole program was finely played and expectedly stimulating, though with a slight nag that seemed to reveal why composers of great individuality need an extra current of temperament running through the interpretations.

A sense of imposing statement in the performance that parallels the music. The feeling that you are being given expressive and dramatic opportunities you should seize and paint with the same force of personality found in the creators.

Nezet-Sequin's readings were guided with care and affection though one couldn't quite find that current with much consistency.

Rakastava was indeed nicely shaped by the MCO strings, but dramatic tension eluded in the deliberate treatment of the second movement.

The Farewell close was a little benign.

The MCO's ensemble too seemed more loose-limbed than normal.

The Rawsthorne Concerto is a marvellous piece whose clever neoclassical face finds a lingering and memorably elegiac substrate.

Compare the Chaconne slow movement with that of Prokofiev's Third Concerto and you see where Rawsthorne is coming from, for Rawsthorne's sharply profiled piano writing (he was a fine pianist) and elegant melodic flair are from the same cloth.

Ian Parker displayed reliable fingers and a lot of poise.

Elgar's Serenade is a wistfully lyrical classic that former MCO music director Simon Streatfeild spoiled us with in a number of deeply felt readings during his long tenure.

Last night the MCO seemed to recall those good feelings, their phrases finely seasoned and suitably autumnal.

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Brueggergosman's glorious voice
was highlight if MCO evening

Wednesday, 26 September 2001
Westminster United Church, September 25
Attendance: 800
Reviewed by James Manishen

There was a feeling of wings being spread at last night's Manitoba Chamber Orchestra season opener at Westminster Church.

For one thing, a big thing in fact, it was the opening concert of the MCO's 30th season. Following last season's budget surplus --the fifth in a row -- plus a new Web site and television ad campaign, a large audience was on hand as music director Roy Goodman led the orchestra in a program of mostly American music, whose appropriateness tugged the heart since the events of September 11th couldn't possibly have been forecast when the program was planned.

The MCO was expanded from its customary 22 players to 31. A bright new star in New Brunswick-born soprano Measha Brueggergosman guested. And the normally rich fare found on most MCO programs was even richer on this one.

Along with the American-tinged music of Samuel Barber, the premiere of Canadian composer Raymond Luedeke's In This World evoked music of Japan. Aaron Copland's Three Latin American Sketches closed.

But the evening really belonged to Brueggergosman, for here indeed is a singer whose name will be new to many now, but will undoubtedly be familiar to many more as time goes on.

At 23 she is one of those artists who seizes you like clay in a potter's hands.

Shaping and coaxing her phrases with no less a level of intelligent organization as deep feeling, Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 emerged with all of the reflective nostalgia of the James Agee text and Barber's telling score intact.

But Brueggergosman also has the intangible element of making you feel that the work could have been written for her, a similar sense you got when American soprano Leontyne Price would make an event of this piece. And you're not far wrong making a comparison in voice either.

Brueggergosman chose an unnamed, unaccompanied spiritual for an encore. If ever the term glorious could be correctly ascribed to a voice, it is here, and was evidence of how three rapturous minutes leave a memory many times longer.

The concert opened with Barber's Capricorn Concerto -- a cross pollination of the composer's familiar neo-romantic persona with plenty of Stravinskian neo-classicism. Not an easy piece to bring off, the MCO's strings were a bit tentative to start but settled in under Goodman's crystal-clear command.

 

MCO's 2008/09 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio Two 98.3, Golden West Radio & Shaw Cable. MCO's Chamber Chatter newsletter
is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Heartstrings gala
sponsor: Mackenzie Financial Corporation.

© 2008 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra