MiV Home
University Centre Auditorium
January 31, 2014
"I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little."
Many a music-lover would wish to take issue with Maurice Ravel's self-assessment - not to mention his criterion for greatness, by which Telemann would surely rank as the greatest composer of all time (and others, like Mahler, would not qualify at all).
Ravel's own instrument was the piano and, though no virtuoso himself, he wrote some of the century's finest works for the instrument, the two concertos not the least of them.
For at least one listener, the performance of the Concerto in G by Barry Tan was the highlight of Friday's concert; if nothing else, it was surely the greatest music of the evening.
Tan proved to be a steely-fingered soloist who was nevertheless capable of producing some exquisite tone colouring. The languid solo which opens the slow movement was beautifully judged and his playing in the outer movements had all the sparkling energy one could desire.
Ajtony Csaba directed a first-rate accompaniment; perhaps, for my taste, the outer movements could have been a little quicker, but they did not lack momentum. Special praise must be directed at clarinetist Paul Gilchrist, trumpeter Matt Richard and trombonist Liam Caveney (I trust I have all these names right), whose parts do so much to define the flavour of the score.
For an encore, Tan played (unless I am much mistaken) Earl Wild's Etude No.4 on Gershwin's "Embraceable You", a fluid, virtuosic and quite delectable performance.
"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer".
It is a little odd, perhaps, that many of those of us who would wish to argue with Ravel's verdict on himself would not necessarily take issue with Richard Strauss's.
Perhaps part of the answer, even for the agnostic and atheist among us, is contained in the old saw (based on a remark of Bruno Walter's): Bruckner knew God, Mahler spent his whole life searching for God Strauss never even began to look.
Which brings us to Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration).
For my money, Strauss might just have well have entitled the work "Pride and Prejudice" or "Sense and Sensibility" for all the "spirituality" I hear in it.
Mind you, it contains a lot of the best of early Strauss and Csaba directed a very fine performance, from the excellently textured and layered opening - the sound rich, almost lush - to the gentle close.
All sections of the orchestra played well and the work as a whole was very well paced, shaped and balanced. The big climaxes were very good indeed, the sound possessing both weight and depth.
As curtain raiser we were treated to an excellent rendition of the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni, with sonorous opening chords and, at the opening of the main allegro, the violins floating serenely over the accompaniment in true Mozartian fashion.
A most rewarding evening.
MiV Home