[Originally published in the Toronto Star, February 9, 2015]
National Arts Centre Orchestra, With Pinchas Zukerman, conductor and violin; Yefim Bronfman, piano; Amanda Forsyth, cello. At Roy Thomson Hall, Saturday, Feb. 7
Despite being billed as a concert by the National Arts Centre Orchestra, it really should have been named the Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth and Yefim Bronfman show.
From the start, it seemed it would be a special night as pianist Bronfman stumbled onstage wearing a winter coat and gloves, looking like the ghost of Glenn Gould hunting for his piano chair. The audience roared with laughter.
Jokes aside, a concert featuring two Brahms concertos can be worrying. There is a real heft to Brahms that, more often than not, benefits from being surrounded by lighter works. Unexpectedly, the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 and Double Concerto in A Minor made a lovely pairing.
The four-movement “B-flat Major” concerto clocks in at nearly 50 minutes. This is mainly due to the fact that Brahms was insistent on including a fourth movement that can be overkill, especially after it’s transcendental third movement, which if played just right can stop the world from turning.
Bronfman tackled it all like a pro: with smooth velvet runs and knuckle-busting chords that ricocheted off the orchestra with luminous zeal. Despite frequent inappropriate applause between movements, the pace was assured and well fashioned.
Bronfman is a rare soloist who can walk onstage to climb the mountain, and not only scale it but plunge a flag into its summit. Saturday night, the mountain was conquered: all four movements of it.
The opening Double Concerto — one of the finest ever written — was radiant in the hands of Zukerman and Forsyth. The rich melodic lines were peppered with tasteful virtuosity and, more importantly, were not merely played but lived. There was an obvious tenderness between the players, a married couple behind the scenes, expressed through the warmth of their phrasing and casual glances.
Amid playing, Zukerman conducted the orchestra through the stormy parts. Between them, NACO concertmaster Yosuke Kawasaki conducted from the first chair with a respectable two-point variation using his violin bow.
What made it bittersweet was the fact this concert marked the last time Zukerman and Forsyth will play with the NACO in Toronto.
After Zukerman hands over the keys, after 17 years, to English conductor Alexander Shelley at the end of the season, Canada’s national orchestra will never be the same.