MiV Home
University Centre Auditorium
April 22, 2006
"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation."
Although Pearl S. Buck could not have been writing about the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra - she died in 1973 - she might just have well have been, so accurate is the sentiment.
Perhaps even more remarkably, the GVYO actually do seem (paradoxical though that may sound) to improve every year.
Saturday night's triumphant Twentieth Anniversary Gala Programme was a memorable, enjoyable and - here's the rub! - musically far from negligible evening.
What's more, except for a few, almost imperceptible moments, it was all superbly played. Close your eyes and you could easily forget that it was not an orchestra of full-time professionals you were hearing.
The evening opened with Beethoven's overture to Egmont. Perhaps the very first chord was slightly imbalanced and hesitant, but nothing which followed was. János Sándor directed a performance which flowed smoothly from the weighty introduction into the main allegro, in which he ratcheted up the tension by means of a long, tightly-controlled crescendo. The final coda was exuberant and thrilling.
Yariv Aloni stepped up to the podium to direct Grieg's Norwegian Dances, a reading of such affectionate vitality as to make at least this listener wonder why we don't hear these pieces as often as, say, Brahms's Hungarian or Dvoràk's Slavonic Dances. (True, there are only four of the Grieg, but how often do you hear the entire Brahms or Dvoràk set at once?)
String tone throughout was excellent, there were some wonderful wind solos and the brass, although the trombones were arguably a mite overenthusiastic in the first dance, tastefully forceful.
Certainly this was the case in three of the four dances. About number two I am unable to be objective or analytical, because this music (the slower outer sections of it, anyway) was used by the BBC as the theme music to something-or-other during my childhood. It only takes a few notes to transport me elsewhere.
Bartók's Hungarian Peasant Dances are not his best-known music, but they certainly should be better-known than they are. From the marvellously vibrant strings of the opening to the exciting close, they featured, as their title might suggest, some agreeably rustic moments and some truly thrilling ones; they also contain some moments of great delicacy and all of these were captured in a performance which, I am sure, could scarcely have been more authentic - Sándor has this music in his blood.
After the interval came the world premiere of Christopher Butterfield's specially-commissioned Triple Expansion.
The title, we were informed in Butterfield's lucid programme note, refers to the working of a marine steam engine, employing three successive cylinders to extract the maximum amount of energy from the generated steam.
For those who had not bothered to read the note - or attend Butterfield's pre-concert talk - the music helpfully included some fairly complex descriptions of the engine's working delivered in chorus by those musicians not actually playing at the time.
The orchestra itself was divided into eleven sections: three in the balcony behind the stage, one at either side of the stage, four ranged across the stage, a large percussion group (including two sets of timpani) in the rear centre of the stage and an "ad hoc" group (which included Aloni on viola) clustered around the conductor at the front. They did, however, all play to the same beat - no post-Stockhausen polyrhythms here.
Butterfield has produced an interesting and attractive work - a number of people remarked to me how much they had enjoyed it ("more than I expected to" was not an uncommon refrain) - although I will confess that its tripartite nature largely escaped me.
There was, however, more than enough to occupy one's interest aside from detecting the music's structure. Antiphonal effects were, of course, present and correct, but they were used sparingly (and hence all the more effectively) and were not Gabrieli-like passages for entire groups, but frequently single notes or simply phrases.
When a reviewer says that he or she would like to hear a new work again I suspect it is often little more than a polite way of expressing a lack of comprehension of the music.
While not claiming an intimate understanding of Butterfield's piece, I'd certainly like to hear it again (and look forward to the CBC's broadcast) because for much of the piece, there was simply so much going on that it was impossible to take it all in.
The composer seemed delighted with the performance which, to the uninitiated, sounded confidant and very well played. A fitting tribute to the orchestra's first two decades.
The final work on the programme was an exuberant (and then some) performance of the second suite from Manuel de Falla's The Three-cornered Hat.
All three dances featured tight rhythms, excellent dynamics and de Falla's colourful orchestration.
The sight and sound of the evening was surely the raucous climax of the final dance - timpani and not one, not two but five percussion, including (naturally!) castanets - when Sándor stood triumphantly, arms akimbo, baton scarcely moving, confidently allowing his orchestra to play their hearts out.
As a well-deserved encore, the close of the final dance could hardly have been bettered.
There were many fine moments from individual players, but so impressive was the orchestra that I feel I can do nothing less than list all of their names below. (And pray I've spelled them correctly - please let me know)
And keenly anticipate another two decades of magnificent music-making.
The orchestra:
First Violin: Emily Redhead (concertmaster), Caren Abramoff, Rebecca Atkinson, Hannah Burton, Tyson Doknjas, Rui Fu, Emily Hopwood, Allen Hsu, Elizabeth Skinner, Michael Van der Westhuizen. Second Violin: Louise Reid (principal), Meigan Blunt, Gabriel Cayer, Eric Chen, Ian Chen, Rachel Elliott, Katrina Gong, Seo-Jin Kim, Leewis Liu, April Stainsby, Laia Zubrecki. Viola: Joseph Hundley (principal), Giovanna Aquila, Naomi Aro, Justin Chan, Michael Green, Thomas Redhead, Liam Shaw. Cello: Matthew Ross (principal), Rachel Capon, Johnny Humphries, Stacey Lee, Oliver Linwood, Maddy Smith, Andy Yu. Doublebass: Lissa Paul (principal), Jill Benton, Michael Cox, John Russell. Flute/Piccolo: Katherine Rogers, Amye St. Arnault, Angela Kim. Oboe/English Horn: Adam Weinmann, Deborah Tin Tun, Gwenn Buttemer. Clarinet/Bass Clarinet: Kate Frobeen, Emma Haagen-Loy. Bassoon: Laura Barton, Rebecca Norman. Horn: Patrick Reikie, Kaile Biglow, Laura Pattison, Josh Rauw, Amanda Bolger. Trumpet: Justin Worthington, David Johnstone, Tara Kannangara. Trombone: Nelson Salahub, Lurene Bates, Sabrina Bailey. Bass Trombone: Lara Nowlan. Tuba: Max Murray. Timpani/Percussion: Philip Rempel (principal), Nick Chang, John Green, Kevin Grady, Robin Tocszak. Harp: Liang Lin. Keyboard: Johanna Lam.
MiV HomeLast modified: Sun Apr 23 20:04:13 PDT 2006