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Music Reviews |
February 2006 |
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DVDs -
Various Brahms, Prokofiev and Sharman featured in TSO concert at Roy Thomson Hall Feb. 2, 2006 |
By Alidë Kohlhaas The clarinet is an instrument that many people associate mostly with jazz and swing because of the Benny Goodman Band of the 1930s and early'40s. Yet, the modern clarinet has been part of symphony orchestras since the 1850s, and no doubt in its more primitive form long before then. Today, there is no greater performer on this instrument in Canada then Joaquin Valdepeñas, the principal clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). His playing career has brought him acclaim internationally as a soloist and as a member of various chamber ensembles. So, it comes as no surprise that the TSO now and then gives this great player a star role as guest conductor and as soloist. He performed the latter part most outstandingly in a concert given on Feb. 2 at Roy Thomson Hall when the TSO showed off its stuff under guest director Hans Graf, the music director of the Houston Symphony. Valdepeñas shone in the Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op.120 by Johannes Brahms, arranged for orchestra in 1990 by Luciano Berio. It was a joy to hear Valdepeñas give a clear, commanding performance in which he explored his instrument's voluptuous sound to the fullest. The TSO responded well to Maestro Graf's firm direction of this work, further increasing the enjoyment of this arrangement of the Brahms Sonata. The concert opened with a performance of Rodney Sharman's Letter for the Future. Born in Biggar, Saskatchewan and now a resident of Vancouver, Sharman has been recognized as a composer across the globe. Letter for the Future is a meditation on a snippet of text written by the 16th century scientist, Galileo Galilei. In it Galileo marvels at the ability of the alphabet to carry ideas across borders and centuries; of its ability to let the dead communicate with the living and with the yet-unborn. Letter for the Future, scored for harp, percussion, and orchestral strings, was performed with the able assistance of the Victoria Scholars Men's Choral Ensemble. While the work has moments of interest, it also seems to this writer, that the composer fails to bring out the nature of Galileo's words, and the nature of Galileo. The piece begins with "Ma sopra tutte le invenzioni stupende," words of energy, passion and amazement that failed to come out in the composition nor in the vocal rendering. It reminds me too much of the equally misunderstood nature of Gandhi in Philip Glass's opera, Satyagraha. Neither man was a wimp in his time, yet composers have chosen to make them seem so in romantic reverence which is contradicted by the minimalist nature of the music. The final work in this concert was Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, Op. 100. Composed in 1944 and premiered in January 1945, it lets one marvel not only at Prokofiev's composing skills, but at the fact that this symphony received critical acclaim from the Soviets when it did not, in any way, conformed to the propagandist style of the USSR. While conceived in war, it is a confirmation of the composer's faith in the human spirit. It is a powerful composition, performed with tremendous energy and precision by the TSO under excellent leadership of Maestro Graf. |
