Venue: The Orpheum Theatre
Date(s): 30 September 2001
Reviewer: JH Stape
The Vancouver Symphony's first Sunday Series concert of
the 2001-02 season came in for stiff competition from glorious autumnal
weather. But "high culture" triumphed handily over the formidable
blandishments of nature, and few could have regretted spending a warm,
sunny afternoon in darkness, concentrating on masterworks of the
classical repertoire. Mozart and Beethoven are usually an unbeatable
combination. Add committed playing, fine conducting, and one of the
stars of the international scene, and one could hardly wish for
more.
The crisply rendition of the first Mozart piece on the programme made
one long for the whole of The Marriage of Figaro (incidentally,
Vancouver Opera's season opener in October). But, in any case, the
overture's verve and sprightliness set the right tone for the
afternoon's musical feast, the driving rhythms in Maestro's Tovey's
very brisk reading of the score leading nicely into Mozart's Symphony
No. 39.
Its relative neglect, at least in comparison to Symphony No. 40 and the
justly celebrated Symphony No.41 ("The Jupiter) is simply inexplicable.
In a brief introduction, Maestro Tovey said that the work should
perhaps be nicknamed the "joyous," and so it was performed. Under his
baton, each movement was an exquisitely detailed contribution to a
whole that, if not in a single mood, was never less than joyously
thoughtful, from the opening adagio to the predictably robust menuetto
to the grand finale.
Tovey's conception was characteristically convincing and plumbed
interpretative depths, as he elicited particularly fine playing from
the bright strings. The performance was idiomatic, confident, and
finely nuanced, and one can only wonder why this symphony has not
gained secured hold on the public imagination.
Beethoven's magisterial Violin Concerto in D Major is uncontestedly a
masterpiece of the first order, and received a masterly reading by
Kyung-Wha Chung, whose name is one to conjure with on the concert
scene. Dedicated to the late Isaac Stern, the performance had a
laser-like intensity, with soloist's clarity of tone and formidably
concentrated effect winning her a well-deserved standing ovation.
Both the first and third movement cadenzas were thrilling, not for
their superficial showiness or bravura technical demands neatly overcome,
but for an extreme emotional intensity that was unrelenting. The sheer
intelligence of the playing, the beauty of tone, and the passionate
shaping of the concerto made for a performance that revealed new
depths even in this war-horse of the concert scene. With excellent
support from the orchestra, certainly now enjoying an artistic
maturity, this was a dream-like performance.
To move from such a dazzling event into a brilliantly sunny afternoon
was to enter a more vulgarly painted world and to awaken to a sense of
lost intensity, for such was the magic that Kyung-Wha Chung conjured
in this most romantic of classical pieces, at turns brooding and
bright, sun-lit and quietly shaded.
© 2001, J.H. Stape