Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra visits Toronto for the first time under the baton of its new Music Director, Alexander Shelley.
National Arts Centre Orchestra with Alexander Shelley (conductor) and Gabriela Montero (piano) at Roy Thomson Hall. Saturday, April 1.
Scandalous. What ensemble in this enlightened age would field the same number of strings in Mozart and Richard Strauss? This was the outrage on offer Saturday night in Roy Thomson Hall, where the National Arts Centre Orchestra gave what was characterized as its annual Toronto concert under its new Music Director, Alexander Shelley.
In a way, the stylistic misdemeanor was entirely characteristic of this Ottawa ensemble, which from its foundation has been scaled to classical repertoire rather than the romantic biggies. This did not stop Shelley from programming two hefty Strauss tone poems and giving a crowd of TSO customers (this being a TSO presentation) many reasons to like them.
My hopes were high through the opening sequence of Death and Transfiguration. The pulse of this hero dying of old age was vividly irregular, if such a thing can be. The NACO woodwinds whispered eloquently of hope while strings made the laboured breathing of the protagonist (again, somewhat paradoxically) a thing of beauty.
The balance of the epic struggle was more admirable for exposing the inner workings of Strauss’s orchestration than carrying us aloft on a glorious torrent of sound. In Don Juan also the impression was of clarity rather than clout. The unison horns made a stalwart entry but the passages that achieved the highest definition were the quiet ones.
Usually, the oboe gets a bow, but the Steinway was rolled into position too quickly to allow for a curtain call. Gabriela Montero was the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor.
This Venezuelan is noted for her romantic flair, a virtue that became something of a vice in this passionate but structurally imposing work. After a languid introduction by the orchestra (I counted 41 strings) Montero laid on the rubato. There was a flurry of activity in the finale but the overall impression of was of beautiful tone cultivated for its own sake.
In place of the Beethoven cadenzas most pianists use, Montero improvised her own in a lyrical and sturdy style comparable to that of Brahms. Improvisation is her specialty. After the Mozart, she riffed on the horn theme from Don Juan (a tune volunteered by an excellent whistler in the audience). Rachmaninoff-ish swirls evolved into ragtime, all very coherently. The otherwise phlegmatic crowd came to life.
But back to Shelley, a trim and dashing Englishman in his mid-30s who spoke amply from the stage in our two official languages. Generally fluid and avian in style, he got the best results with more pointed stickwork in Death and Transfiguration and in Ringelspiel, a tartly dreamlike evocation of a merry-go-round by the Serbian-born Montrealer Ana Sokolovic.
Shelley led this inventive 12-minute piece from memory. He is a clearly a musician of high calibre. But a Strauss cycle? It is true that Pinchas Zukerman pulled the NACO into Bruckner and Mahler territory before departing last year. But it still seems to me that this excellent ensemble should hone in on the underserviced symphonies of Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn and non-gargantuan scores by later masters.
#LUDWIGVAN
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