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First Metropolitan United Church
October 15, 2010
The next time you are playing Musical Trivia you might like to try this one on your friends: Which Danish composer composed all seven of his published symphonies while working in the US?
Anybody who correctly answers "Asger Hamerik" may definitely pat themselves on the back. Despite his impressive pedigree - he studied with Niels Gade and Hector Berlioz, indeed claimed (with some justification) to have been Berlioz's only pupil - and the fact that during his twenty-seven years (from 1871) as Director of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, according to The New Grove, he had a considerable affect upon American musical life, he seems little, if at all, known today.
Of course, there are numerous composers whose actual music does not seem to live up to their reputations; had Hamerik's music been poorly-constructed or lacking in thematic interest then this neglect would be easily explained.
However, judging by his Symphony No.6, subtitled (for no good reason that I could fathom) "Spirituelle", which closed Friday night's splendid concert of Scandinavian music, Hamerik's music is both tuneful and very well constructed, making his current status all the more inexplicable.
Yariv Aloni directed the Victoria Chamber Orchestra in a first-rate performance of this intensely unfamiliar music which must surely have raised the profile of Hamerik in Victoria.
The opening movement found the orchestra in fine form, producing an exceptionally rich and full sound; the second movement, a true scherzo, was notable for its precision and its propulsiveness. The slow movement featured some truly delectable melodies and countermelodies, initially with the cellos underpinning the violas, later with the second violins underpinning the firsts.
I will admit that the agitated central section of this movement was, for me, the least convincing part of the entire symphony, but the transitions from and to the more lyrical outer sections were most impressively handled, as were the lovely solo contributions from principal viola Lee Anderson and leader Yasuko Eastman.
The finale, with its reminiscences of the first movement, fizzed along in a jolly fashion bringing the evening to a resounding close.
The earlier music on the programme was all by composers rather or (in the case of Dag Wiren) somewhat better-known that Hamerik.
Wiren's Serenade opening proceedings and, even without the oh-so-familiar melody in the finale, would surely have achieved some sort of niche in the string orchestra repertoire.
Friday's performance was certainly a convincing argument in its favour, even if the opening couple of bars featured a slightly inchoate string tone (this was the season opener, after all). Aloni's care over dynamics reaped dividends and the whole was infused with life: the third movement, in particular, sounding like a brisk walk in alpine terrain.
Jean Sibelius's Suite Champêtre is a relatively late work and infrequently played. At times - particularly in the outer movements, with their frequent tempo changes - it seems as if the great Finn is deliberately trying not to sound like himself, but about the central slow movement, which received some outstandingly impassioned playing, there can be no doubt.
Edvard Grieg rarely ventured into large-scale works; and why should he considering the emotional depths his miniatures frequently plumb.
For anyone like myself, who grew up in Britain during the 1950s, works such as the Nordische Weisen come complete with nostalgic pitfalls, as the BBC, it would seem, used a number of them as theme tunes for radio and TV programmes. Such was the case with the second of this set of three, all of which were delectably played.
Aloni and the VCO are to be congratulated not just for the unfailingly high quality of their performances, but for their adventurous programming of which this delightful evening was an excellent exemplar.
A postscript: the programme for Friday's concert offered a free cookie to anyone who could successfully identify the TV programme which utilised the Wiren Serenade (to be precise, its finale) as theme music.
I had been (over)confident coming in that I should be able to claim one, but soon realised that I had been confusing my Swedish composers and actually thinking of the serenade by Lars-Erik Larssen (an easy mistake to make, I hear you say).
I was slightly taken aback to realise that the challenge was not a rhetorical one; however a few minutes with the web revealed that it was the BBC's Monitor, an arts programme from the late 1950s and 1960s (Ken Russel's wonderful documentaries on Elgar and Delius were commissioned for it).
Which certainly explained why I recognised the tune, but why anyone else should it still something of a mystery.
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