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University Centre Auditorium
January 30, 2015
The traditional part of the program, consisting of Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, Sibelius' Finlandia and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, would have been sufficient to attract the usual Victoria devotees but, judging by ecstatic reaction of the audience, it was Rosauro's Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra that drew the crowds. Not that it was much of a crowd, with only two-thirds of the stall seats filled and the dress circle empty.
But even without the marimba, there was more to the music than first met the ear, with a few hints offered in the program notes. Thus: Is it possible to convey lascivious jokes and political dissent through a non-linguistic medium such as music? For a casual, present-day listener to the above repertoire, there is little to suggest that the composers might have had any such ulterior motives, yet audiences of the periods in question would have been better clued in to the socio-political context.
Brahms' single-movement overture contains a potpourri of exuberant and sometimes lewd student drinking songs, culminating in the well-worn "Gaudeamus igitur" ("On The Shortness of Life"). Not unexpectedly, the UVic students launched themselves into it with greater gusto than a less academic set of musicians might have mustered.
A loud cheer from the audience greeted Keenan Mittag-Degala as he entered the stage to perform Ney Rosauro's Marimba Concerto, accompanied by the orchestra. The music itself deserves attention, especially the elegaic second movement, but it is easy for the listener to be distracted by the sheer technical virtuosity of the marimbist. The instrument calls for the performer to manipulate two or even three mallets in each hand, whereby the distance between each pair has to be varied single-handedly to play the whole range from semitones to complete octaves. Mittag-Degala seemed to master the technique effortlessly. Then there were the passages where Rosauro's marimba score detaches itself from the tempo of the orchestra, only to be reunited later at precisely the right moment. How very brilliant and mischievous!
Young Evan Hesketh took a break from playing the viola to conduct Sibelius' Finlandia. He shows a great deal of flair and will undoubtedly become a familiar figure on the music scene in Victoria and beyond. Legend has it that Sibelius planned the work as a musical protest against Russian censorship of Finnish cultural life, recalling that Finland at the time was a province of the Russian Empire. Apparently he later denied that he had intended it as a political statement, but the fact remains that it was often performed under different titles so as to confuse the censors.
Finlandia embodies the sober Finnish scenery, history and soul. The orchestra fell short in convenying the dark mood, preferring to interpret it in a more cosmopolitan manner. Matters were made worse by the unusual placement of the timpani where the double bass players usually stand, i.e. close to the front and to the right. Perhaps this arrangement was dictated by the shape of the stage. Even so, the frequent rumble of the timpani served to muddle the music rather than providing the intended martial background.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 is so very...Beethoven. To use Leonard Bernstein's linguistic analogy, Beethoven's early vocabulary, syntax and grammar are endlessly familiar and might nowadays come across as tediously predictable. So why did the symphony give rise to such strong sentiments when it was first performed in Vienna in April 1803? The two last movements apparently contain Beethovian musical jokes that shocked the audience in general, and the critics in particular. One of the latter went so far as to equate the work with "a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death." To which a contemporary musicologist has added: "The unusual opening motif [of the fourth movement] sounds like as a hiccup, belch or flatulence followed by a groan of pain." Was Beethoven really being deliberately provocative? More the pity if the provocation is lost on most of us today.
Ajtony Csaba, the conductor, nonetheless added some sparkle to the fourth movement by letting go of his baton, which flew off in a wide arc and landed with a clatter somewhere behind the viola players. If there was a musical message intended for said players, the audience graciously pretended not to notice.
With the average age of the musicians in their early 20's, the UVic Orchestra offers spark and enthusiasm with no trace of grey-haired complacency. In terms of musical excellence, it is right up there with the Victoria Symphony, the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra and the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra. Lucky Victoria et environs, with its population of only half a million, to have access to such musical wealth over and above the many renowned chamber orchestras and choirs!
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