Montréal Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, 13 May 2015.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Montréal Symphony Orchestra (MSO) pay each other courtesy calls each season, usually with their best stuff. The exchange this week and last was a less of a best-fest and more a matter of each respective music director trying out material for which he is not acclaimed. Results, perhaps inevitably, were mixed.
On Wednesday Kent Nagano and the MSO brought Sibelius’s Second Symphony to Roy Thomson Hall. Normally a mesmerizing mix of heroism and mystery, the score under Nagano seemed an exercise in digging in and blowing hard at rigid tempos. Happily, the MSO has a strong intrinsic sense of its own beauty, so the sound rarely turned raucous. Principal oboe Ted Baskin provided sweet respite in the Trio of the (volcanic) Scherzo.
Velocity in the first three movements was undone by a strangely slow finale, which was scaled dynamically between various degrees of fortissimo. The tune is irresistible, but the performance sounded laboured. Nagano, who will give a cycle of the seven Sibelius Symphonies with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in December, has said that he is rethinking his approach to the composer. He has time.
Earlier we heard Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 with an unfashionably large string complement and a solo contribution to match by Piotr Anderszewski. Partial as I am in principle to restoring some heft to Mozart, strings need to be better focused than this. The Steinway sounded glassy and articulation was so-so. Curious to hear such an account under a conductor whose last Toronto appearance was with Tafelmusik.
The surprise hit of the evening was Nocturne by Samy Moussa. Nagano has gone to this Montreal-born resident of Germany repeatedly. No wonder. He employs tonality coherently rather than decoratively, and his orchestration (here touched by Mahler) is likewise harnessed to a deeper meaning. There were perhaps too many lower-brass terrors in Nocturne, but the eight-minute evocation conveyed an integrity missing from the run of contemporary compositions.
Nagano led Moussa and Mozart without a baton. For Sibelius he was armed. The crowd was positive about everything.
This concert followed a Saturday visit by Peter Oundjian and the TSO to the Maison symphonique in Montreal. Michael Vincent received the Toronto performance of Bruckner’s Seventh the previous Wednesday as something little better than a rehearsal; Natasha Gauthier was only slightly more impressed by the TSO’s Friday visit to the National Arts Centre. I heard virtue in the Adagio in Montreal. At least the trajectory is upwards.
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