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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
May 19, 2006
"The conductor's job in the presentation of a concerto may be likened to that of a driver of a team of horses which is drawing a single chariot (or any other vehicle, from a chariot to a hearse to a dustbin, according to who has composed the music)."
It is almost 70 years since Neville Cardus wrote those words and many a work has been presented under the title of "concerto" since which hardly fits the description.
Gilles Tremblay's Envoi, though, does. While its language is unquestionably "modern" (it was composed in the early 1980s) and while Tremblay's famous feeling for new and unusual sonorities is present throughout, the single most impressive attribute of the work is its sheer cohesiveness. While its structure may not be immediately apparent, it is immediately apparent that it does have structure.
Of course, the performance helps and this was one of Aventa's finest.
Tremblay makes great technical demands of his soloist, and Louise Bessette was an ideal soloist, combining a truly stunning technique with a wonderful palette.
No does Tremblay spare the accompanists, whether collectively or individually. Bill Linwood steered his team safely through the shark-infested waters of a truly challenging score, to the extent that one might easily imagine they had been playing it for years rather than days.
Of all the marvellously inventive effects in the work, I shall mention just two: the almost indescribably vertiginous combination of glissando trombones and water gong; and the antiphonal syncopated trumpets playing directly at suspended tam-tams, giving a suitably metallic edge to their sound.
The composer himself seemed delighted with the performance which, as he observed afterwards, "allowed the music to come through".
More than which no composer could hope for.
The evening closed with the concerto and opened with Tremblay's Solstices - a work which is different each time one hears it.
And, having heard all three Aventa performances, I can say that this was easily the best and most enjoyable, with a freshness that certainly seemed seasonally apt. Did Tremblay really intend the chirruping piccolo lines to mimic birdsong or was it simply serendipitous? And does it matter?
The remainder of the programme featured music by three of Tremblay's former pupils.
Michel Gonneville's alonetogetherall is an immediately attractive work, if perhaps a trifle overlong, with its four sections (fairly) clearly delineated.
The opening Bass Walking Orford to Cologne on Cool Fright Night was distinctly bluesy in feel (and had a commendable swing to its rhythm), with its alternating bowed and plucked bass notes. Something of the composer's sense of humour came across as the trumpet's first two contributions consisted of nothing more than blowing air through the instrument. This Louis Ranger, of course, did with aplomb and I thought I detected a ripple of amusement in the audience.
Mallarmé on Supergirl's Lap sounded as unlikely as its title and featured several dramatic accelerandos and rallentandos - as if the great French symbolist poet could not quite get comfortable.
Mount Sawtooth: Family Hike was an increasingly frantic one, with rapid-fire repeated notes from the piano and percussion, before giving way to the sonorous, solemn and almost sombre Dream bath coda.
Before the interval Bessette performed two solo piano works: Silvio Palmieri's Prelude VIII: Il giorno della mia morte and Fragments by Serge Arcuri.
Given his avowed inspiration in poems by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, one might have expected something rather more unconventional, even iconoclastic from Palmieri's music. In the event it seemed like nothing so much as Messiaen without the birdsong.
Fortunately, I love Messiaen's piano music and Bessette's pianism was, once again, outstanding. But I should rather have heard her playing the real thing.
Nor did Arcuri's piece leave much lasting impression, aside from a certain portentousness and an apparent unwillingness to finish, although the closing passages, which somehow put me in mind of Debussy, were something of a surprise.
And if I can't raise much enthusiasm for music so brilliantly played, then either I or the composers have a problem.
These minor cavils aside, this was a triumphantly successful close to Aventa's most ambitious and most challenging season to date. Long may they flourish.
The ensemble: Müge Büyükçelen, Sharon Stanis, violins; Darren Buhr, double bass; Mark McGregor, Richard Volet, flutes; Keith MacLeod, clarinet; AK Coope, bass clarinet; Darnell Linwood, horn; Louis Ranger, Merrie Klazek, trumpets; Brad Howland, Scott MacInnes, trombones; Jee Yeon Ryu, piano. David Humphrey, Masako Hockey, Robert Pearce, percussion.
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