Douglas McNabney, artisitc director, Toronto Summer Music

Click "Read More" for the two other Conversations from that day.

David Perlman talks with Gordon Mansell of the Organix concert series.

To hear the full conversation with Gordon Mansell click the play button below. For any of our other podcasts, search for “The WholeNote” in your favourite podcast app, or go to TheWholeNote.com/podcasts for the entire list.

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Opera Atelier mounted the North American premiere of Armide (1686) by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 2005 to celebrate its 20th season.  Now OA has revived the production of this work, often considered the pinnacle of 17th-century French opera, in an enhanced version even more opulent than it was before.  It is a visual and musical feast that OA has been asked to take to the Opéra Royal de Versailles May 11-13, 2012 and to Glimmerglass Opera July 21-August 23, 2012.

The story, based on an episode of Torquato Tasso epic Gerusalemme liberata (1581), is set during the First Crusade and, as one might expect, depicts the Crusades as a battle between Good as embodied by the Christian knights and Evil as embodied by the Muslims.  What is quite surprising is that Lully’s librettist Philippe Quinault takes a more complex view of his characters than is present in his source.

We have two new videos from the Conversations@TheWholeNote video series.  In these episodes David Perlman talks to Catherine Wilson of Ensemble Vivant, and Jan Lisiecki.

Jan Lisiecki

Catherine Wilson

The word “new” is a curious one, for what exactly is meant when we call something new? New in relation to what? The dictionary defines the word new as “recently made, created, or invented; recently introduced and previously unfamiliar; something that has not been used by anyone else.” In juxtaposition to this there is the age-old quote from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

Last night, Thursday March 1, 2012,  the Toronto Symphony Orchestra launched the 8^th season of their “New Creations Festival” at Roy Thompson Hall with an array of offerings - a pre-concert chamber orchestra performance in the lobby, the four featured symphonic works in the concert hall, and a post-concert jazz performance/party back in the lobby. The overall theme for this year’s festival is “Europe and Canada” - a broad sweeping umbrella under which Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, this year’s guest curator, offers his selection of new sounds to Torontonian ears.

Playing with this idea of “new,” each of the four symphonic pieces presented its own set of contributions and questions. For Canadian composer Brian Current, he sees part of his role as a composer as advocacy work, creating music that reflects what it is to be alive at this time. The concert began with “This Isn’t Silence,” a composition Current wrote fourteen years ago in 1998. Since that time, Current told the audience, the title has become a mantra, a way of reminding himself and others of the importance of listening to what contemporary music is communicating and that it not be relegated to the background or considered irrelevant.

As I attuned my ears to the orchestral sounds of “This Isn’t Silence,” there was a relentless energy that accumulated as the piece progressed, reminding me of what I’ve often experienced while engaging as a concentrated listener in urban-based soundwalks. It was an orchestral city soundscape full of sudden changes, percussive attacks, and loud roars. As the work drew to its close, there was a form of serenity that emerged, yet not without the presence of a low rumbling undertone, reminiscent of the omnipresent motor drones we are all exposed to on a daily basis. If orchestral music can challenge us to become more aware of what our ears and bodies are unconsciously listening to in our everyday environment, then this is one way it can address the underlying assumptions our culture ascribes to — an indifference towards urban sonic design and an unquestioning tolerance of industrial noise. The composer’s music thus becomes a voice of awareness and barometer for the times in which we live.

The concert then transitioned into an exquisite performance of Claude Vivier’s poignant work “Lonely Child,” which was written in 1980. As Canadian-born soprano Barbara Hannigan began to sing the opening lines of the lullaby “Bel enfant de la lumière dors, dors, dors, toujours dors (Beauteous child of light sleep, sleep, sleep, forever sleep), I felt the purity of her tone penetrate right into the layers of my flesh, a reminder of the intense power that sound can have on the body and something I’ve not often experienced with bel canto singing. As the libretto transitioned from French into a sonic language created by Vivier himself, the delicate fragility of the sounds continued to create a haunting soliloquy on the yearning for love. A shift then occurred as the soloist opened up into her full-bodied and mature voice to make a fervent plea to be granted eternity.

In preparing for the performance, Hannigan consulted with the original performer of the work who worked closely with Vivier at the time. She was advised to dwell in both the child’s world and in the more passionate and “somewhat desperate world of an adult.” Her ability to use a full timbral range to delineate both these places in tandem was the brilliance of her performance. These soul-infused vocal sounds combined with the intense orchestral spectral textures brought the listener face to face with the timeless and universal human quest for unconditional love and acceptance - a story that has been told in countless ways and forms throughout the centuries. Although this work by Vivier is over 30 years old, it stands as a testament to what can happen when the human spirit opens up fully in order to communicate messages from other realms and worlds. One can only imagine what visions and innovations this Montreal-born composer would have dreamed had he lived beyond his 35 years.

The most recently composed work of the evening’s performance was Peter Eötvös’ “Seven (Memorial for the Columbia Astronauts) for Violin and Orchestra” (2003). Rooted in the traditions of European composition, this homage to the seven pioneering spirits who lost their lives while pursuing a collective dream derived its structure from various permutations of the number 7. Reaching back as far as the 16^th century to the experimentations with sound and space practiced by Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, Eötvös chose to disperse 7 violinists within the entire space and to divide the remaining 49 musicians on stage into 7 groups, with two groups of the low register double basses anchoring each side. With the solo violinist on stage and the remaining 6 in the upper balconies, these choices were made to evoke the impression of the 7 astronauts hovering in space.

Working with space as a compositional parameter immediately sets up an acoustic experience that could be seen as unusual or innovative. However the use of massive forces arrayed in multiple, spatially separated groups was an important practice that set the stage for the shift from the Renaissance to Baroque idioms over four centuries ago. In electroacoustic music, the use of an ‘orchestra of loud speakers’ set up in multiple locations within a space is standard practice, creating a complete surround sound experience and offering the composer the possibility of creating multiple layers of movement. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare instrumental and electroacoustic music on this point, but working with spatial ideas is certainly a potent way to dynamically open up and bring change to the orchestral experience.

The European/Hungarian component of the evening came to a conclusion with the final work by György Kurtág with his “Messages for Orchestra, Op. 34.” composed from 1991 to 96. Like Eötvös, Kurtág is a leading compositional voice in Hungary, and this work exemplifies their close ties. At a turning point in Kurtág’s career, he worked with art psychologist Marianne Stein who encouraged him to develop his own personal voice. This was no doubt an influencing factor in the writing of these intimate symphonic ‘messages’, as they are a form of sonic communication to his fellow Hungarian musicians: Peter Eötvös, Alfred Schlee, Albert Simon, and Zoltán Jeney. In a style reminiscent of Webern, all the musical elements are scaled down to the essence so that we as listeners receive an imprint of each of these individuals. In introducing this work, Eötvös emphasized that the core of Kurtág’s vision was to convey ‘pianissimo’. He went on to give the audience an opportunity to hear the dynamic differences in a short sequence played first on a grand piano and then on an upright piano using the mute pedal. This concept of pianissimo however refers to more than just dynamic differences, as it is also a metaphorical way of describing a style that seeks to go to the very heart and reduce the musical elements to their core. The importance of personal intimacies and formation of community becomes a central focus in these delicate works.

The intent of the New Creations Festival is to give the citizens of Toronto an opportunity to hear the visions and sonic formations of composers influenced by our current times. We can see from these four works that while the way musical elements are treated and organized may differ, there is something universally human and elemental that unite these four composers from Canada and Hungary with the vast array of musical expressions that have motivated the human creative spirit throughout time. During the intermission, Barbara Hannigan gave us an insight into her own creative process in preparing a work for performance. For her, it matters not if the work is contemporary, classical, baroque, or any other style. What motivates her as a performer and artistic communicator is the overall architecture of the work that provides her the space to create her own images, associations and memories.

The concert also provoked for me an additional consideration to this question of what constitutes a ‘new creation’. With the multiple challenges and crisis points currently confronting our collective society, does musical practice maintain business as usual? What effect does the past year of global uprisings and desire for democratic rights have on our creative expressions? How can our new creations contribute to the current movements of change?

When asked about the reasons for why the Occupy Wall Street Movement happened when it did, New York political organizer and activist Yotam Marom stated: “It feels like something has been opened up, a kind of space nobody knew existed, and so all sorts of things that were impossible before are possible now. Something just got kind of unclogged”. With the strong winds of transformation swirling around all levels of society, it is ultimately necessary, I believe, that the creative spirit take a leading role. As the New Creations Festival unfolds, both listeners and creators alike must keep their ears attuned to the ground to see if what we are hearing and creating provides an opening for new possibilities, dreams and directions in resonance with the broader cultural currents.

Olga Kern is a 30-something virtuoso pianist from Russia, whose North American fame became assured in 2001 when she won the Van Cliburn Piano Competition. She was in Toronto recently as part of a duo tour with distinguished violinist Vladimir Spivakov, a fellow Russian a generation older than she. The two of them played a sold-out recital (!) at Koerner Hall on Thursday, February 23, presented by local Russian-Canadian impresario Svetlana Dvoretskaia’s Show One Productions. Sonatas of Brahms and Franck anchored the serious bill, along with neoclassical Stravinsky (Suite Italienne) and the moving Spiegel im Spiegel of Arvo Pärt.

It proved a recital of understated perfection. Spivakov is an immaculate, restrained fiddler with silky light tone, and Kern accompanied him almost deferentially. Their playing was gorgeous, in a coolly dignified way. A rapt audience of predominantly Russians soaked it all up with reverence.

A day prior, Kern had presented a keyboard master class at Robert Lowry Piano Experts, inaugurating what is hoped to be an ongoing series of occasional piano master classes at this Leaside piano dealer. The spacious upstairs salon showroom was a lovely venue, and the piano was no less than a $200,000 Bösendorfer Imperial nine-and-a-half foot concert grand (on which Kern played her duo recital the following evening at Koerner Hall).

Three piano students were selected for this public learning forum, each of whom had been a prizewinner in the North York Piano Festival: 11-year-old Coco Ma of Toronto, high-school age Amadeusz Kazubowski-Houston of Waterloo, and adult Ricker Choi of Toronto. Each of them proved an extremely well-trained and flexible pianist, capable of enduring Madame Kern’s constant reproaches in front of an audience of perhaps eighty.

Kazubowski-Houston, a ponytailed, seemingly inward fellow of fifteen, offered the Chopin Fantaisie in f minor: his name and career I will enjoy following over the coming years. His technical equipment is already solidly in place, but more importantly, he offered welcome tenderness and poetry in this work, more than the martial heroics Kern kept stressing.

Coca Ma played the songful Ballade No. 3 of Chopin admirably for a young girl; she will grow into its emotions. She deserved a medal for putting up with a stern Russian lady towering over her and shouting commands like “More relaxed!” Maybe when you’re eleven years old and a talented pianist you’re used to being shouted at.

Ricker Choi, about the same age as Kern, presented a fascinating biography. He began the piano at age 13, then dropped it altogether at age 18 for a decade of studies in business and eventual work as a financial analyst.

Nowadays he is back to pursuing the piano with a vengeance, despite his day job in the banking industry. He is one of the pack of current hotshot adult amateur piano contestants who travel the globe to compete against other part-time pianists in international amateur competitions, and he has the trophies to prove it.

Choi played Liszt’s brash First Mephisto Waltz with clinical precision, spare pedaling, and clear engagement. Then it was time for Kern to critique his rendition almost bar by bar, and re-sculpt it to suit her taste. She observed that Choi was employing myriad tiny adjustments of tempo for expressive effect, and this annoyed her - and so he gamely adapted to a more metronomic version of Liszt’s dance.

Clearly Olga Kern is not someone for whom teaching represents the give-and-take of ideas; instead she proved an old-world European autocrat. On the plus side, we did experience a woman consumed by music, who frequently gestured, and sang, and demonstrated at the piano. She devoted ample time to each of the three participants, and went through their scores in detail. She was not cruel in her remarks, just grim and arbitrary.

Let’s hope future master classes will be more nourishing.