{"id":72961,"date":"2021-11-11T14:54:22","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T19:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=72961"},"modified":"2021-11-12T09:50:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T14:50:50","slug":"scrutiny-toronto-symphony-gets-band-back-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2021\/11\/11\/scrutiny-toronto-symphony-gets-band-back-together\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | The Toronto Symphony Gets The Band Back Together"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gustavo
Gustavo Gimeno (Photo courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with Music Director Gustavo Gimeno. Roy Thompson Hall. Nov. 10. Repeats Nov. 11 & 13. Details available [HERE<\/a>].<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

No balloons. No Cake. No Fireworks. But there was a party last night at Roy Thomson Hall. The occasion was a dual-fold return after a 21-month absence, and conductor Gustavo Gimeno\u2019s official debut as Music Director at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A welcome return.<\/p>\n

The mood was one of relief that the TSO survived it all, and an appreciation that we can all see each other in the flesh. After all, going to concerts is a social experience, and I would argue a vital one.<\/p>\n

After a late start, the first few notes of a fanfare by Anthony Barfield reminded us what we\u2019ve been missing. They were symbolic and heavy. The piece, Invictus<\/em> \u2014 Latin for \u201cunconquered\u201d, is from an imaginative composer better known in the brass community in the US. The piece combined classical, gospel, hip-hop, jazz, and the kitchen sink. Being a reflection of the time that inspired it, COVID-19 and strife amid the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the US at the time, it evoked the Summer of 2020. It felt unsettled, worried \u2014\u00a0unfinished even.<\/p>\n

The rest of the program continued to reveal more about Gustavo Gimeno\u2019s musical ideas, and an orchestra willing to trust them.<\/p>\n

There was a clean, small course performance of Haydn\u2019s Overture to the opera L\u2019isola disabitata (The Desert Island)<\/em>, Hob. la:13. Despite a smaller-sized orchestra, the sound was surprisingly vast. They used a more conversational seating arrangement, with second violins seated opposite the first violins. The result was playful and bright. They looked like an orchestra relishing the experience.<\/p>\n

Then there was also Schubert\u2019s Symphony No. 5<\/em>. With Mozart on the brain, this was Schubert offering a glimpse into a world that might have been if Beethoven hadn’t shown up at the party with a case of red wine and a new vision for what a symphony could do. Gimeno allowed the four movements to unfold patiently \u2014 slow in today\u2019s standard, but just right for 1816. The TSO sounded balanced throughout and relatively unfazed with the clapping between movements from an out-of-practice audience.<\/p>\n

The best of the night was all about Hindemith\u2019s Concert Music for Strings and Brass<\/em>. Composed in 1930, the Op. 50 is arguably the most underrated of his three Konzertmusik works. Over two movements, Gimeno coaxed a Hitchcockian flavour from the score. Jolting between dark, sinister strings and busy, flourishing textures, the piece took the shape of a hurried city at night.<\/p>\n

At the onset of this review, I said there was a feeling of relief during the concert. Thinking about it more, I could not help but feel a sense of gratitude. A realisation that the existence of our city orchestras, Toronto and elsewhere, are not infallible.<\/p>\n

For now, thanks to some fortitude, we have a lot to look forward to.<\/p>\n

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No balloons. No Cake. No Fireworks. But there was a party last night at Roy Thomson Hall as the TSO took the stage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38476,76,19,875,38,52,63],"tags":[39869,22538,2881,6495],"yst_prominent_words":[6985,15581,15580,15579,10549,11011,6616,6648,13269,11881,6613,13304,18196,10705,6637,6826,6741,6827,6825],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/Toronto_Symphony_Orchestra-Review-A_welcome_return.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-iYN","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72961"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72968,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72961\/revisions\/72968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72961"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=72961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}