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University Centre Auditorium
April 10, 2010
"Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors."
The words are those of a well-loved conductor, Leonard Bernstein, yet could apply just as well to the great János Sándor, who on Saturday night bid his farewell, after fifteen glorious years, to the University of Victoria, its orchestra and chorus.
One of the joys of attending a concert conducted by Sándor has always been watching his supremely elegant, immaculately expressive yet brilliantly precise stick technique; indeed, it has sometimes occurred to me that it might well be possible, simply from watching the tip of his baton, to deduce the music being conducted.
But technique, of course, is no guarantee of a great performance (as witness certain "wunderkind" instrumentalists of the last couple of decades, who have the speed and accuracy of an industrial sewing-machine - and, unfortunately, the soul to match). The great conductor - and I am more and more convinced that Sándor is precisely that - must give the music an emotional context, if (s)he is to carry the audience.
The characteristics of a Sándor performance are accuracy, depth and a magnificent sense of the music's architecture, allied (no matter how gloomy the music) with a sense of joy from the performers that this man is somehow summoning from them their best - or even better.
In a sense Saturday's concert was not about the music, but about the man and his legacy. And the extraordinary affection and regard in which he is held by his musicians and audience.
However, Sándor is also a modest man and, were he writing this, would want to concentrate on his musicians, not himself.
It was an evening of opera favourites (even if, for some of us, that is an oxymoron), most with chorus, a few purely instrumental.
The latter included the overtures to Wagner's Tannhäuser and Verdi's Don Carlos, the Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana and the Triumphal March from Verdi's Aïda.
Say what you like about Wagner (and the least worst is that he was not at all a nice man) he knew his way around an orchestra; the Tannhäuser overture is a superb example and demonstrated what a fine instrument the current UVic Orchestra is, in every section.
The Intermezzo from "Cav" (we also had the "Bell" Chorus from "Pag"), in Sándor's hands assumed a hitherto-unsuspected profundity; the Verdi march, with its offstage trumpets, is hokey, perhaps, but it is an undoubtedly superior variety of hoke and was as stirring as its composer intended.
The UVic Chorus (aside from one confused passage in their very first entry) also rose to the challenge - at least part of which, in this venue, is actually being heard above the orchestra. A problem exacerbated, on Saturday, by our seats, which meant that the "Anvil" Chorus, from Il Trovatore, sounded more like the Anvil Concerto from where we were sitting.
Although not always optimally balanced - as with most amateur choirs, there are never enough men - the choir sang with fervour, passion, power (when necessary) and delicacy, when that was appropriate. Chorus Director Susan Young also contributed some fine solo singing in the Scene and Prayer from "Cav".
The evening closed with the Grand Finale to (Act II of) Aïda, in which the combined forces made a glorious sound and from which perhaps the only thing missing was onstage elephants.
As I said above, were Sándor writing this review, he would want me to ignore his own contribution; but he is not writing this and I am going to take this opportunity to say what I think of him: János Sándor is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the finest conductors I have ever heard, his work with young musicians is both astonishing and uplifting, his own enthusiasm for the music is highly infectious, and I am both honoured and proud to know him.
Although one can never tell what the future has in store, Saturday night marked the closing of what, I am sure, will be seen, in retrospect, as a Golden Age at UVic. The unanimous standing ovation at the close was fully merited; indeed, I don't believe I have ever seen such an outpouring of affection from a Victoria audience before. I saw several people discreetly wiping tears from their eyes as they left the hall.
A final though to the powers-that-be: why not mark this glorious decade-and-a-half by releasing a set of recordings? I know that most, if not all, UVic concerts are recorded and I can think of a number of Sándor performances (Beethoven's Ninth, "Alexander Nevsky", Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony, Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique", Sibelius's Second, to name but a few) that I would happily pay money to have in my collection.
On behalf of myself - and, I am sure, many, many others - I should just like to say: thank you János, we are going to miss you.
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