{"id":7164,"date":"2012-10-26T23:24:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T03:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=7164"},"modified":"2012-10-26T23:24:23","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T03:24:23","slug":"concert-review-valery-gergiev-and-stradivarius-ensemble-give-koerner-hall-a-lesson-in-intensity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/10\/26\/concert-review-valery-gergiev-and-stradivarius-ensemble-give-koerner-hall-a-lesson-in-intensity\/","title":{"rendered":"Concert review: Valery Gergiev and Stradivarius Ensemble give Koerner Hall a lesson in intensity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Russian star conductor Valery Gergiev led the fine musicmaking at Koerner Hall on Friday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Try to imagine your favourite combination of power, softness and luxury — dark chocolate and whipped cream, iron fists in velvet gloves, a sports car lined in rich leather — and you can begin to imagine the experience of hearing the Stradivarius Ensemble of the Mariinsky Orchestra at Koerner Hall on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Valery Gergiev, the world’s most in-demand conductor, had been invited to bring his elite players from St Petersburg to add musical sparkle to the Royal Conservatory of Music’s annual gala concert.<\/p>\n

The guests delivered on their promise — and then some. The range and quality of sound produced by the 29 Russians was awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n

Some of the credit could go to the Old Master instruments that each of these star players is given by the Mariinsky organization. But this is really the story of a group of people who play as a close-knit ensemble with a music director who has nurtured their artistic cohesion as members of a busy opera, ballet and concert orchestra over the course of more than 25 years.<\/p>\n

They came bearing a programme that was heavy while also being leavened by its composer’s mastery over the art of building and releasing narrative tension.<\/p>\n

The utter silence from the capacity audience during the full length of this intermissionless concert spoke volumes.<\/p>\n

The program opened with the remarkable Metamorphosen<\/em>, one of the valedictory works by German composer Richard Strauss. It expresses his sorrow at the devastation of his homeland in the closing year of World War II.<\/p>\n

Strauss wrote separate parts for 23 instruments, alternating between a deep wash of notes and intimate interplay between a handful of players. Gergiev shaped the piece with uncommon grace, helping the ensemble deliver a sound as rich yet delicately balanced as one would hear from a fine choir.<\/p>\n

It made me wish we had more opportunities to hear this composition in live concert.<\/p>\n

The other two works on the program were Russian.<\/p>\n

The first, the Chamber Symphony<\/em> by Dmitri Shostakovich, is also a musical response born of personal dejection. The composer wrote it in 1960 as an adaptation of his String Quartet No. 8<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Although the programme-closing 1880 Serenade for Strings<\/em> by Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky is relative fluff in comparison to the other two pieces, the orchestra performed it with equal intensity, lending much of the music a deep, golden glow in the process.<\/p>\n

This gala was about great art impeccably performed. The instruments on stage may have been collectively worth tens of missions of dollars, but the concert itself was priceless.<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Try to imagine your favourite combination of power, softness and luxury — dark chocolate and whipped cream, iron fists in velvet gloves, a sports car lined in rich leather — and you can begin to imagine the experience of hearing the Stradivarius Ensemble of the Mariinsky Orchestra at Koerner Hall on Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,76,19,36,52,58,60,63,1],"tags":[6450,857,1876,2467,6471,3147,3445],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/10\/gergiev.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-1Ry","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7164"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7164"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}