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University Centre Auditorium
January 29, 2010
"But oh, these Russians! - as Busoni once remarked, these chemists, admirals, and amateurs, with their fur collars and the flavour of dandruff."
Since Busoni, indirectly quoted by Neville Cardus, died in 1924 the world's opinion about Russian composers has perforce been revised, more than once. Friday night's Concerto Concert, which featured an all-Russian programme, not only featured two extraordinarily talented young soloists, it also shed no little light on the music of that long-troubled nation.
Given his own response to the Stalinist attacks on musicians by the infamous Andrei Zhdanov, it seems somehow appropriate that Dmitri Kabalevsky should have composed the music for a film about Ivan Pavlov, he of the dogs fame.
The evening opened with the overture to Kabalevsky's best-known opera, Colas Breugnon, based on Romain Rolland's Rabelaisian novel.
János Sándor directed a sparkling performance of the overture (which often sounds rather like a rather poor parody of Shostakovich), beautifully played by all sections of the orchestra. In fact, I would venture to suggest that the performance was rather better than the music itself.
The orchestra, mostly students but with faculty taking most of the principal parts, was magnificent; good (no, let's be fair, excellent) though the UVic orchestra is, I suspect that the presence of their teachers lifted everyone's game.
If ever one wanted to hear the difference between a mere talent and a genius, the contrast between the Kabalevsky and the Shostakovich which followed provided just that.
Most composers withhold from performance works with which they are not satisfied. In the famous cases of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony and First Violin Concerto the reason was simple: self-preservation. Not even Stalin and his unmusical henchmen could have been persuaded that these works were in any way, shape or form "socialist realism".
The concerto was completed, as Op.77, in 1947 - the year before Zhdanov's infamous decree - but Shostakovich kept it hidden until 1955, by which time Stalin and his feared secret policeman Beria were safely dead and buried. It was published as Op.99. But even in the era of Kruschev's de-Stalinisation the authorities did nothing to promote the work, which was kept alive largely through the advocacy of its dedicatee, David Oistrakh.
Jordan Ofiesh was a superb soloist in this challenging (in every sense) work: his accuracy and full-bodied tone impressed, to be sure, but it was his innate sense of the music itself which lifted his performance above the merely good. From his first, confident, eloquent and elegiac entry his playing was assured and compelling.
In the quicker music - and there is plenty of it - Ofiesh's playing was wonderfully incisive, but it is probably the intense, anguished lyricism of the first and third movements which lingers in the aural memory. This really was a quite remarkably mature performance.
The accompaniment, too, was tremendous, from the brooding cellos and basses of the opening, to the whiplash ensemble in (most of) the faster music. Particularly noteworthy were the dizzying bass clarinet and flute of Rebecca Hissen and Lanny Pollet in the opening of the second movement.
There was just one hiccup: during the transition from Ofiesh's marvellously shaped cadenza into the fiercely complex finale, something happened (I believe it began in the percussion section) and ensemble collapsed.
Sándor rapped once on his music stand, the orchestra stopped, he spoke a couple of words (I couldn't hear them, but I suspect it was a rehearsal number from the score) and they were off again.
To his great credit Ofiesh seemed totally unperturbed and so smoothly was it all handled that, a few moments later, one could almost persuade oneself that the hiatus had never occurred.
A dazzling performance of one of the last century's great concertos.
My only reservation about the evening's final work is the music itself. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 is high on the (short) list of pieces which have almost sent me to sleep and it was only a sense of duty which prevented my leaving at the interval.
Having got that off my chest, I must further confess that, not only was I never in danger of dozing off during the performance, but that there were more than a few moments when I came perilously close to enjoying it. What higher praise can there be?
Yuki Tampo-Hinton was a spectacular soloist and this concerto certainly gave her the opportunity to display her superb technique, whether it was the rapidfire double octaves which litter the faster music, or the palette of delectable colours with which she painted the slower.
Sándor and his orchestra also made short work of the music's difficulties (and I am assured that it is a "bear" for the orchestra) and there were some delicious touches along the way - the more-than-usually-careful shaping of the famous opening phrase, to mention but one example. And somehow the performers managed to impose coherence on passages which all too often seem merely filler.
If I had to sit through a performance of "Tchaik One", then this was the performance I should have chosen.
An inspiring evening's musicmaking.
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