{"id":30644,"date":"2015-10-01T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=30644"},"modified":"2015-10-01T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T16:00:17","slug":"scrutiny-tso-shakes-off-the-summer-with-kirill-gerstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/10\/01\/scrutiny-tso-shakes-off-the-summer-with-kirill-gerstein\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | TSO Shakes Off the Summer With Kirill Gerstein"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kirill
Kirill Gerstein, (piano) James Gaffigan (guest conductor), TSO Photo: Malcolm Cook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto Symphony Orchestra with soloist Kirill Gerstein and conductor James Gaffigan. Wednesday,\u00a0September 30, at Roy Thomson Hall.<\/h3>\n

In 1924 when George Gershwin was composing the Concerto in F, which was performed by Kirill Gerstein<\/a> and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra last night and will be reprised October 1 and 3, he was suffering from \u201cComposer\u2019s Stomach\u201d, his term for the chronic and debilitating indigestion which he had unsuccessfully tried to alleviate with idiosyncratic diets, home treatments, and medical consultation.<\/p>\n

Years later his psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg told him dyspepsia was common amongst musicians, declared him neurotic and prescribed psychoanalysis five times a week. Thus, Gershwin joined the ranks of great composers who sought the aid of psychotherapists. Gustav Mahler was quickly relieved by his four-hour consultation with Sigmund Freud in 1910; Sergei Rachmaninoff broke through his creative block under the care of Nikolai Dahl in 1900; but Gershwin parted ways with Zilboorg with no gastric relief, as neurotic as ever. One reason for this may have been that a different condition, for which there was no name at the time, was a cause of Gershwin\u2019s jumpy stomach. Dr. Richard Kogan, the psychiatrist and concert pianist whose presentations integrate lectures on the minds of the composers he performs,\u00a0has speculated<\/a> that Gershwin may have had Attention Deficit Disorder.<\/p>\n

However Gershwin might be diagnosed today, his complexities are audible in the Concerto in F Major for Piano and Orchestra, especially in its last movement, Allegro agitato, which includes a Grandioso section, a false climax, and culminates with a positively shrieking chord. After reading Kirill Gerstein\u2019s measured answers to Michael Vincent\u2019s 21 quirky questions<\/a> on October 28 I wasn\u2019t sure whether he would be neurotic enough, in the delightful manner of Oscar Levant, the pianist who was best known for his performance of this work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, Gerstein\u2019s rendition was more commanding and jazzy than Levant\u2019s, doing justice to the labile shifts in mood in the first movement, offering a beautiful relaxed and bluesy solo in the second movement, and interesting voicing in various sections. An especially strong brass section, with trombone and trumpet solos with just the right touch of grit, enhanced the performance. The overall effect was a bit more mellow than agitated, but highly satisfying nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\"James
James Gaffigan, TSO Photo: Malcolm Cook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whatever contributed to Gershwin\u2019s agitation, he experienced nothing like the terror that Dimitri Shostakovich endured under Stalin\u2019s persecution. Not a trace of it shows in the Suite for Variety Orchestra with which the concert opened. These light-hearted and upbeat selections may have been composed for film scores, and it\u2019s easy to visualize characters cavorting to their tunes. The sweetly melodic Waltz II, Allegretto Poco Moderato, recognizable from its use in the mildly kinky Eyes Wide Shut<\/em>, is as edgy as a Lawrence Welk piece.<\/p>\n

The ever affable musician and broadcaster Tom Allen, host for the evening, raised an important issue when he commented that we don\u2019t know if Shostakovich expresses a false happiness coerced by the State or genuine celebration after Stalin\u2019s demise in this work. Either way, lovely as they are, and as well as they were performed, their blandness seems to derive, in part, from the way in which Shostakovich\u2019s personality is absent. If tyranny can smother personality to the point that it can no longer be heard in music, then the culture that fosters the eccentricity of character that is as audible as it is in the Concerto in F is all the more to be valued.<\/p>\n

The program repeats\u00a0October 1 and 3. Details and tickets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Soloist Kirill Gerstein performs Gershwin\u2019s Concerto in F Major with the TSO, under guest conductor James Gaffigan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":30650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,76,19,32,52],"tags":[5596,1868,3360],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Kirill-Gerstein-James-Gaffigan-TSO-Malcolm-Cook-photo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-7Yg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30644"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30659,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30644\/revisions\/30659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30644"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}