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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
November 28, 2008
A cellist, tired of the lack of appreciation from his colleagues, walks into a store determined to change instruments. "I'd like to buy a violin" he tells the shopkeeper.
"You must be a cellist!" comes the reply.
"Well, yes I am, but how did you know?"
"This is a fish-and-chip shop, sir".
While it is - just - possible to understand the wealth of viola jokes (where, after all, are the great pre-20th century concertos or, pace Brahms, sonatas for viola?), the plethora of jokes about the cello seems somewhat less defensible.
From the moment when it ousted the viola da gamba, great composers wrote great music for the cello. This was well-known even before the 1961 discovery of the long-lost Cello Concerto in C by Haydn, arguably the finest such work of its time.
The concerto, brilliantly played by Tafelmusik principal, Christina Mahler, certainly provided one of the highlights of Friday night's superb concert by Canada's leading period orchestra.
Performing, as is their historically-informed wont, sans conductor, Tafelmusik demonstrated just why the man with the stick was not deemed necessary until well into the nineteenth century. Ensemble was as close to perfection as I have ever heard and their silky tone was a joy.
From her first entry, full of joie de vivre, Mahler was a marvellous soloist, displaying effortless virtuosity and a singing tone. The heart of the work was the slow movement, with the first solo entry emerging seamlessly from the accompaniment; rarely in his orchestral music does Haydn display such emotional depth as he does here; rarely, indeed, does one hear it played at this level.
The two halves of the concert each opened with music by Joseph Boulogne Chavalier de Saint-Georges. The first, the Symphony in D, Op.12 No.2 featured an opening allegro presto full of momentum, a charming andante which allowed the orchestra to show just what pianissimo really means and a jovial finale. I must confess, though, to being a little distracted during this music, for reasons I shall mention below.
The second piece, the Simphonie concertante in G, Op.13 for two violins was an unalloyed delight. Violinists Aisslinn Nosky and Julia Wedman made the most of the music, much of it in highly playful mood and the interplay between the two was a delight.
The second movement went beyond playful to the downright puckish and included an exquisite passage in the which the two soloists were accompanied simply by another pair of violins.
Music and performances to make one wish to further one's acquaintance with the composer, who clearly had a musical personality of his own.
Mozart's Symphony No.29 closed the evening. Again the performance was both wonderful and frequently wondrous - although I confess to preferring the opening movement very slightly slower. The slow movement featured yet more breathtakingly quiet playing, the minuet was stylishly robust with the horns and oboes adding a piquancy to the sound.
The exuberant allegro con spirito tripped gaily along until its final notes brought the audience to its feet.
For an encore we received another stylish piece by Saint-Georges.
It was just as the musicians were taking to the stage for the opening music that I realised, with a feeling of profound foreboding, that I was seeing the "aura" that often presages a lengthy migraine headache.
With my usual medication not to hand, I could only try to relax and let the music take over. During the opening symphony by Saint-Georges the lights certainly became no worse, but did not seem to diminish significantly.
Before Christina Mahler and her colleagues had completed the first movement of the Haydn concerto, however, the aura had completely gone - and it did not return.
The therapeutic power of music - indeed, of Tafelmusik.
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