Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Grażyna Bacewicz: Concerto for String Orchestra. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto (Eric Abramovitz, soloist). Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”). Anja Bihlmaier, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall on Jan. 9, 2025. Repeats Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 12 (George Weston Recital Hall) at 3 p.m.; tickets here
January is a slow month in many retail sectors, music included. Yet Roy Thomson Hall was packed Thursday evening for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra debut of Anja Bihlmaier, a 46-year-old German conductor who is little known on this side of the Atlantic. It cannot have hurt sales that the main offering was Dvořák’s surefire “New World” Symphony. Still, the show of faith and loyalty was impressive.
As was the performance, energetic or lyrical according to need. The Largo was a marvel of soft melancholy. Winds (including a guest English hornist, Aleh Remezau) were impeccably balanced and strings spoke fluently at a whisper. Bihlmaier’s beat was gentle but steady. Even the pizzicati of the double basses seemed to touch the heart.
The fiery third movement reminded us of the difference that a crack timpanist can make. Electrifying is not too strong a word to describe the effect of the finale, its themes vividly articulated and stirred up to a striking climax. There were good things also in the first movement, even if the brass players were too much in the foreground. Perhaps they can be persuaded to cool it a bit in the repeat performances of Saturday and Sunday.
My only other reservation concerned the brevity of the breaks between movements. We need a moment to collect our thoughts. Or was this a strategy to suppress intrusive applause? Either way, the musicians did not mind. They refused to stand at a curtain call — a traditional means of communicating rank-and-file approval of the conductor. I expect that she will be back.
Bihlmaier used a baton, incisively, in the Dvořák. She relied more on balletic body language in the 1948 Concerto for String Orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69), a Polish composer whose neoclassical oeuvre is being reexamined. Refined and songful in the Andante middle movement, the piece was otherwise effective mainly as a showcase for the luminous TSO strings, led by associate concertmaster Clare Semes. As the title implies, there were solos. None was found wanting.
The outstanding solo event of the evening was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto as played by TSO principal Eric Abramovitz on a basset clarinet, an elongated clarinet with a wider-than-standard range — this being the instrument the composer had in mind. Apparently it takes some tinkering with to be heard at its best. Hardly a minute passed without some adjustment to the keys or mouthpiece.
The output, of course, is what matters, and this was irreproachably smooth and lyrical, the high notes sweet and the low notes resonant. Phrasing was natural. Ornaments enlivened the texture without distracting from the genial beauty of Mozart’s conception. I cannot remember hearing a better performance.
There was ample applause and an encore — Abramovitz’s own Mozart in the Shtetl, a freewheeling fantasy with orchestra that recasts the concerto’s thematic material as if the composer (as Abramovitz put it) were Jewish. The audience loved it.
At the end of the concert the conductor thanked the crowd for its appreciation. It was a sincere if unusual gesture. The year 2025 is off to a good start. Let us hope the beat goes on.
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