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University Centre Auditorium
November 23, 2014
"I am not ashamed to reply to you in my mother tongue, however imperfectly, and am glad to be able to show that my fatherland means more to me than anything else".
Anyone wishing for further evidence of just how much his country meant to Bedřich Smetana need look (or, rather, listen) no further than his cycle of symphonic poems Má Vlast (My Country).
Vltava (or Die Moldau) is the most popular of the six pieces, which were composed and premiered separately. It is easy to understand its popularity, being highly melodic and beautifully orchestrated; it provided the final music in Sunday afternoon's opening concert of the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra's 2014-15 season.
Once again, the fact that the very nature of the orchestra guarantees a high turnover in membership (this year a third of the players are new) was belied by the quality of the playing and ensemble.
Vltava was a delight from its gorgeous opening - two flutes over violins and harp, has anyone ever composed running water better? - to its final bars; Aloni shaped the music exceptionally well, with very well managed tempo changes and good full-bodied sound from all concerned. And kudos to flutists Thomas Bauer and Thomas Law, and guest harpist Josh Layne, for making the first bars particularly atmospheric.
The Smetana closed a fine afternoon's music making and the orchestra impressed from the first bars of Beethoven's overture Coriolan, which opened with splendid tone and attack from the entire orchestra. Aloni's careful attention to dynamics - and his musicians' careful attention to their conductor - paid dividends and this was far from a mere "throwaway" opening item.
It is not often that one gets to hear both of the suites from Bizet's incidental music to L'Arlésienne, indeed I cannot recall the last occasion when I did, so Sunday's performance was a genuine treat (even if the second suite was actually arranged, by Ernest Guiarard, some four years after Bizet's death using themes not all of which are actually from L'Arlésienne).
Every one of the eight movements was performed with great care and attention to detail, from the sturdy string and wind unison which opens the prelude to the dizzying combination of melodies in the final Farandole.
Along the way there were many marvellous individual touches, of which I simply cannot fail to mention Seán Maynard's enticing saxophone solo in the minuet - is this the earliest sax solo in the standard repertoire? - Thomas Law's delicious flute, and the brass imitating peals of bells in Carillon.
When Georges Enescu conducted his Romanian Rhapsody No.2 at the 1939 New York World's Fair the programme note described it as "second of the set of Trois Rhapsodies Roumaines, Op.11". No third rhapsody has ever appeared.
According to The New Grove, the two rhapsodies were something of an albatross around Enescu's neck and he considered them to have had a deleterious effect on his reputation as a composer.
The first rhapsody is very popular and performed far more often than the second - and there is probably a very simple reason for this: whereas the first ends in a climactic folk dance, the second ends quietly. Enescu invariably performed the second rhapsody before the first in concert.
Sunday's concert provided a rare opportunity to hear the second rhapsody, which really is just as fine a work as the first. Throughout the orchestra sounded marvellous and I especially enjoyed the briefly lively dance - solo viola (the excellent Jethro Moneo) with second violins - before the sotto voce close.
An excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon in November and reassuring evidence that this year's GVYO is at least the equal of its predecessors.
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