Some conductors find sensuality buried in Igor Stravinsky’s now nearly 100-year-old score to the ballet The Rite of Spring. Others, like Kent Nagano, see it as a spiky, motoric succession of patterns. Both can make for interesting listening.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
The capacity audience at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday night roared their approval of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and its music director’s taut, mechanical view of Stravinsky’s music.
There are so many repeated musical figures and jagged rhythms that it makes sense to emphasize that aspect of the score, even if there are ways to soften its contours and get the springtime hormones flowing with more sensual sounds.
From a technical point of view, it really was an impressive performance by the Montrealers, one that began earlier in the evening with a neatly creased reading of Joseph Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, more than a century the Rite of Spring’s senior.
With 44 players on the stage, more or less half the forces needed for the Stravinsky, Haydn’s tidy, witty piece sounded muscular, nicely nuanced and, above all, crisp.
Placed in between these two works was An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise, a 1984 creation by British composer Peter Maxwell Davies for the Boston Pops orchestra.
Given its origins, it’s no surprise that the wedding is depicted with folk tunes and dances, cleverly varied as the imaginary alcohol begins to flow through the orchestra. It was fun to listen to Davies’ colourful writing, which culminated in a bagpiper marching up on stage.
I can’t figure out how these three pieces fit together on a concert programme, aside from showing off Nagano’s preference to meticulously sculpt every phrase and texture as if from granite.
The result was impressive and worthy of respect and admiration, if not actual love.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
