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Concert review: Alisa Weilerstein soars above under-rehearsed Toronto Symphony Orchestra in season-opening performance

By John Terauds on September 18, 2013

Alisa Weilerstein in full flight with the Toronto Symphony on Wednesday night (Josh Clavir photo).
Alisa Weilerstein in full flight with the Toronto Symphony on Wednesday night (Josh Clavir photo).

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra opened its season at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday night with a British-themed programme anchored on the many virtues of young Amercian cello star Alisa Weilerstein.

The cellist delivered; the orchestra and music director Peter Oundjian less so.

It was disconcerting to see nearly a third of the seats empty for the start of the Toronto Symphony’s 2013-14 season.

Part of that may be due to the confusing presence of the gala opening concert on Saturday night, featuring pianist Lang Lang.

Were this week’s Wednesday and Thursday night presentations merely a warmup organized to make up for the cancelled annual pre-season Northern Ontario tour? (Not just an outreach exercise, the tour helped the orchestra return to playing as one after a summer spent apart.)

This is not to say the Toronto Symphony Orchestra isn’t a very fine ensemble. Its recently acquired rich string sound was in ample evidence throughout a programme that included music of Benjamin Britten, Edward Elgar and Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony No. 7, premiered in London in 1885.

In fact, all of the sections played very nicely, but the overall interpretation lacked finesse, final coat of polish that speaks of fine attention to detail.

Not that Weilerstein could be accused of this; her performance of Elgar’s 1919 Cello Concerto was breathtaking in its technical ease, careful attention to the most minute of details and the intensity with which the soloist underlined so many key musical moments.

This was the sort of performance that sears itself into memory for its magnetism. And it wasn’t just a virtuosic show; it displayed the full range of human emotion expressible in music.

Weilerstein’s performance alone was worth the price of admission – and despite the flaws, I’d like to suggest that hearing the Britten and Dvorák works was, too.

Britten’s 1945 Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell is a magical, masterful showcase of everything an orchestra can do, while wrapping a wide embrace over Britain’s rich musical history ranging from the 17th to 20th centuries.

In Oundjian’s hands, the music was bright, clear, but a bit black-and-white where there could have been more subtle gradations of sound generated from different sections of the orchestra.

The same was true for the Dvorák symphony, much too rarely heard in this part of the world.

It’s a big, stolid piece of dramatic symphonic writing that nonetheless contains a wealth of thematic and contrapuntal details that could make for a graceful turn on the concert hall stage.

What we heard was stolidly competent on Wednesday night. The TSO is capable of better – too bad it can’t be for its first performance of the fall.

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CBC Radio 2 recorded Wednesday night’s concert for future broadcast.

John Terauds

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