Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Marcus Goddard: Mountain Visions (Marion Newman, mezzo-soprano). Brahms: Violin Concerto (Vadim Gluzman, soloist). Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5. Otto Tausk, conductor. Introduced by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Roy Thomson Corridor on March 16, 2025.
Touring orchestras don’t cease as typically as they as soon as did in Roy Thomson Corridor. May we be on the cusp of an upturn? It was encouraging to see a virtually full home Sunday for the primary Toronto look by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra underneath its music director of just about seven years, Otto Tausk.
This lengthy limbed Dutchman and his principally youthful prices appear to be getting alongside. All of the essential parts of Shostakovich’s surefire Fifth Symphony had been current: the grim heroics of the primary motion, the swagger of the Allegretto, the emphatic triumph of the conclusion. Principal winds had been on kind and the collective brass made a stable sound. In accordance with my scribbled notes the solo trumpet tune within the finale wanted to face out extra. No biggie.
What distinguished this efficiency from the run of Shosty Fives was the quiet depth of the divided strings within the Largo. Tausk tapered the lengthy traces precisely and captured their mournful essence. Drama heightened as quantity approached the edge of silence. The impact was mesmerizing. It helped that the viewers was attentive. There was no applause between actions. Even a cellphone obbligato couldn’t disrupt the ambiance.
Earlier than intermission we heard Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Vadim Gluzman, a Ukrainian-born Israeli, as soloist. The primary motion (that includes the usual Joseph Joachim cadenza) and finale went properly sufficient however once more the sluggish motion made one of the best impression, owing to a sublime oboe solo in addition to Gluzman’s candy sound and lyrical type. The violinist then handily crammed the corridor together with his encore, a easy serenade by the newly common octogenarian Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.
Opening this system was Mountain Visions, a piece commissioned by the VSO from its personal affiliate principal trumpet, Marcus Goddard. Made largely of glissandi and swelling tones meant to evoke nature (and maybe the climate), the piece all however buried the poem by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85) of which it was imagined to be a setting. Mezzo-soprano Marion Newman was the underpowered soloist. For the reason that corridor was darkish, the phrases as printed managed the trick of being each illegible and inaudible. The music far outlasted its marketed size of 10 minutes. Tausk did what he may.
The orchestra gave an encore after Shostakovich, the full of life Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. What a superb factor it will be to discover a Canadian piece to serve on this capability.
Not that nationwide sentiment was absent. The afternoon began with an handle from the stage by VSO president and CEO Angela Elster, who thanked the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for presenting the live performance and spoke just a few well timed phrases on the worth of nice music. Then Tausk took to the rostrum to steer a efficiency of O Canada, rousingly sung by an viewers that felt motivated for the apparent causes.
There are just a few methods of fostering nationwide unity. Reciprocal appearances by Canadian orchestras is clearly one among them.
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Arthur Kaptainis was classical music critic of the Montreal Gazette from 1986 to 2022 and wrote for the Nationwide Submit from 2010 to 2016. His articles seem in Classical Voice North America and Gramophone in addition to Ludwig Van. Arthur holds an MA in musicology from the College of Toronto. He’s president of the Music Critics Affiliation of North America.
