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Dave Dunnet Community Theatre, Oak Bay High School
October 22, 2016
Once in a very long while a musician will appear who, by virtue of sheer talent and charisma, becomes the veritable embodiment of his (and, to this date, it always has been "his") instrument. Although others had played the instruments before, with considerable success, nevertheless Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt, Pablo Casals and Andrés Segovia all, in a sense, "put their instrument on the map". (Sadly, the viola remains a cinderella instrument, which is surely why Lionel Tertis is not the household name he should be.)
When it comes to the doublebass, despite the towering historical figures of Domenico Dragonetti, Giovanni Bottesini and Serge Koussevitsky, there is no question that "the man" is Gary Karr, who not only defies the laws of physics with his playing, but was also the first man in history to make a career as a solo doublebassist.
The audience who packed the Dave Dunnet Community Theatre almost to the rafters on Saturday were more than fortunate: in addition to witnessing Karr's final public performance, we also got to hear a world premiere of a work (one of dozens, if not hundreds over the last half-century) written specifically for him — and conducted by the composer herself.
But let us consider the entire concert (while bearing in mind that, in the not-very-brightly-lit-at-all auditorium, taking notes was something of a hit-and-miss affair) in the order in which it was played, beginning with Brahms' Academic Festival Overture.
This piece must surely be the longest "tease" that Brahms ever wrote; from the the hushed, yet pregnant opening to almost the final bars, it is clear that the composer is preparing to unleash a "big" tune, yet the music keeps skirting around it (albeit flirting with numerous other contemporary student drinking songs along the way) and can easily, in the wrong hands, become rather dull and frustrating.
Brian Wismath's hands, though, are far from being the wrong ones and he led the orchestra through a finely-contoured performance, with good playing from all sections and well-managed tempo changes.
And if, when "Gaudeamus igitur" finally appeared in all its glory, the playing sounded very slightly tipsy, I am positive that Brahms would have approved. I know I did.
As I discovered just a couple of months ago, attending a performance of a much-loved work carries potential risks as well as rewards. While readily acknowledging that it is not necessarily the greatest of his nine symphonies (most authorities would nominate the seventh and I'd probably agree) I have always felt an affection for Dvořák's Symphony No.8 which is unmatched even by the "New World".
Happily Wismath directed an excellent performance, from the gloriously lyrical cello and wind opening to the tumultuous final coda. Tempos were on the steady side, but this paid dividends with the mass of inner, particularly string, detail much of which was new to me — and, as regular readers will know, I am always ready and eager to hear new detail in familiar music.
The adagio opened with lovely clarinets, flutes and oboes and featured some quite magical moments, particularly the dialogue between the solo violin (the excellent Raya Fridman) and the winds, which was quite chamber-like in quality. The movement's great climax was suitably impressive.
After a nicely lilting third movement (admittedly with a little hesitancy in the playing at the beginning of the central section), the trumpets grabbed the attention at the beginning of the finale and the music never let go, with a good deal of detail, excellent solo flute from Mary Jill McCulloch and plenty of excitement at the end. Dorothy said that some of the music "sounded almost out of control" which, to my mind (the keyword there being "almost") is exactly how it should sound.
One final word: here, as throughout the evening, Collin Lloyd played the principal horn part superbly, the more praiseworthy when one considers that he was playing as a subsitute at less than six hours' notice. Bravo!
Glière's Russian Sailor's Dance from his ballet The Red Poppy is not exactly subtle, however it was certainly arresting and exuberant.
But the moment I suspect many of the audience were waiting for finally arrived as Karr took to the stage with his favourite Jim Ham-built bass (Ham himself was playing in the first violins) for the work that, in his own words, "put me on the path of becoming a solo bassist": Max Bruch's Kol Nidre.
Here Karr showed just why he is a master musician; of course the notes were all there, but it was his consummate phrasing and the sheer intensity of his playing that had the entire audience apparently holding its breath for the duration. The accompaniment was solemn and very well played.
Anne Lauber took the baton for the first performance of her Three Intermezzi, written specifically for and dedicated to Karr.
After a slight hiccup caused by Karr trying to play the solo line of the third intermezzo after the introduction to the first — "you can tell how nervous I am" he quipped, before turning his music around and pretending it was also upside-down) — the performance proceeded without further mishap.
While I certainly enjoyed the lumbering, slightly sarcastic first piece and the second with its lively middle section, it was the atmospheric third intermezzo which seemed the best of the three with its exquisite duet between the bass and English horn (Sheila Longton on fine form).
Throughout the orchestra played this unfamiliar music with assurance and Karr, it goes without saying, was and is sui generis.
Obviously the evening was going to end with one of Karr's "party pieces", in the event it was the Moses Fantasy by Paganini, written to be played on a single string on the violin.
Karr of course defied gravity by doing the same thing on an instrument somewhere between three and four times the size, although that is considering length alone; if we wish to acknowledge the volume contained within, we should probably cube that number and consider the bass somewhere betweeen fifty and sixty times bigger than the violin.
It was certainly a performance to remember, even if it did take the audience a few minutes to realise that they were not only permitted but actually expected to laugh. Wismath did a superb job of keeping pace with Karr's extreme and often outrageous manipulation of the tempo — to call it merely "rubato" seems too mild a term — and the final notes brought the audience to its feet.
It was a historic and memorable evening and I am sure I am far from the only person who felt it was both a privilege and an honour to have been present to witness it.
And there is great satisfaction in thinking of some of the younger members of the orchestra in fifty years or so — after most of us present will be safely six feet under — telling their grandchildren: "you know, I was in the orchestra for Gary Karr's final public performance".
The End of an Era.
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