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First Metropolitan United Church
February 21, 2014
"Spiritual values never die. The universal idea must prevail. This crucial idea has permeated all my life and most of my works."
The words are those of Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch. Today Bloch is hardly a mainstay of the concert repertoire, Schelomo being almost the only work of his large output which is still regularly performed.
Yet during his lifetime - he died in 1959 - he was lauded and revered - even referred to as the "fourth B" (the others, of course, being Bach, Beethoven and Brahms). In 1966 he was name-checked (along with several other composers) by Schroeder in a Peanuts strip. What greater recognition can there be?
This continuing neglect of Bloch is not easy to explain, especially almost half a century after his death, by which time the usual post-mortem dip in popularity should surely have waned.
Friday night's concert by the Victoria Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Music Director Yariv Aloni closed with a spectacular performance of Bloch's Concerto Grosso No.1, with Sydney Bulman-Fleming playing the piano obbligato.
The opening movement was weighty and energetic, the dirge which followed, extremely sombre. The third movement opened in extremely atmospheric fashion and led, via a finely-controlled accelerando to the "rustic dances" - a delightful section whose main melody put me in mind of Grainger and Holst.
Finally a bracing fugue, with wonderfully clear entries and plenty of vitality and bounce, sweeping all before it. Although the piano part is not exactly barnstormingly virtuosic, it is an essential part of the fabric and Bulman-Fleming's playing was just right: neither obtrusive nor too self-effacing and rhythmically spot on.
If Bloch had more enthusiasts like Aloni and the VCO one cannot help but feel that his place in the musical pantheon would be rather higher than it presently is.
Stephen Chatman's Over Thorns to Stars might be dubbed "The Adagio for Strings meets The Unanswered Question" (with a bit of Copland thrown in for good measure); yet while Barber and Ives were clearly influences, the music is distinct enough to stand by itself, especially when played at this level of intensity. It is true that some of the more challenging passages revealed slight insecurity of intonation, but this was by no means easy music and I'd far rather have an emotionally satisfying performance with a few insecurities than a note-perfect yet bland one.
In the final bars the composer adds a flugelhorn and Becky Major, playing from the balcony, contributed a beautifully mellow and lustrous tone to the proceedings.
Max Bruch is another (almost) one work composer: his Violin Concerto No.1 (so there are obviously more, which one never hears) is performed quite regularly and the Scottish Fantasy rather less so.
Bruch's Serenade on Swedish Folk Melodies was completely new to me - and, I suspect, to many others in the audience.
The opening and closing movements (of five) are both marches and had a particularly Scandinavian feel to them - summoning up memories of similar movements in works by Dag Wiren and Lars-Erik Larssen, although the Bruch is considerably earlier.
The andante second movement and andante sostenuto fourth were both charming and delightful, with some delicious layering of the textures. The central allegro featured a number of deftly-handled changes of rhythm and tempo.
Throughout one could easily believe that the orchestra had been playing this music for years.
The evening opened with Mozart's Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K.546. Clearly the adagio was serious, weighty business - as the excellently firm cello and bass lines at the opening suggested. The fugue proved a powerful companion.
None of the music in the programme was familiar (certainly not to me, although I admit to having heard the Mozart before) and yet I would welcome the chance to hear any of the four works again - and soon.
Another marvellous evening from Aloni and the Victoria Chamber Orchestra.
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