Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Marcus Goddard: Mountain Visions (Marion Newman, mezzo-soprano). Brahms: Violin Concerto (Vadim Gluzman, soloist). Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5. Otto Tausk, conductor. Presented by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Roy Thomson Hall on March 16, 2025.
Touring orchestras do not stop as often as they once did in Roy Thomson Hall. Might we be on the cusp of an upturn? It was encouraging to see a nearly full house Sunday for the first Toronto appearance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under its music director of almost seven years, Otto Tausk.
This long limbed Dutchman and his mostly youthful charges seem to be getting along. All the crucial elements of Shostakovich’s surefire Fifth Symphony were present: the grim heroics of the first movement, the swagger of the Allegretto, the emphatic triumph of the conclusion. Principal winds were on form and the collective brass made a solid sound. According to my scribbled notes the solo trumpet tune in the finale needed to stand out more. No biggie.
What distinguished this performance from the run of Shosty Fives was the quiet intensity of the divided strings in the Largo. Tausk tapered the long lines exactly and captured their mournful essence. Drama heightened as volume approached the threshold of silence. The effect was mesmerizing. It helped that the audience was attentive. There was no applause between movements. Even a cellphone obbligato could not disrupt the atmosphere.
Before intermission we heard Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Vadim Gluzman, a Ukrainian-born Israeli, as soloist. The first movement (featuring the standard Joseph Joachim cadenza) and finale went well enough but again the slow movement made the best impression, owing to an elegant oboe solo as well as Gluzman’s sweet sound and lyrical style. The violinist then handily filled the hall with his encore, a simple serenade by the newly popular octogenarian Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.
Opening the program was Mountain Visions, a work commissioned by the VSO from its own associate principal trumpet, Marcus Goddard. Made largely of glissandi and swelling tones meant to evoke nature (and perhaps the weather), the piece all but buried the poem by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85) of which it was supposed to be a setting. Mezzo-soprano Marion Newman was the underpowered soloist. Since the hall was dark, the words as printed managed the trick of being both illegible and inaudible. The music far outlasted its advertised length of 10 minutes. Tausk did what he could.
The orchestra gave an encore after Shostakovich, the lively Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. What a fine thing it would be to find a Canadian piece to serve in this capacity.
Not that national sentiment was absent. The afternoon started with an address from the stage by VSO president and CEO Angela Elster, who thanked the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for presenting the concert and spoke a few timely words on the value of great music. Then Tausk took to the podium to lead a performance of O Canada, rousingly sung by an audience that felt motivated for the obvious reasons.
There are a few ways of fostering national unity. Reciprocal appearances by Canadian orchestras is clearly one of them.
More of the same, SVP!
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