If all classical music concerts were like the spectacular, all-Beethoven affair at Koerner Hall on Sunday afternoon, people would mob box offices and clamour for standing room. This was a truly special occasion.
- 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
Every once in a while for this frequent listener, concerts start to feel a bit routine. I begin to wonder if overexposure can breed a sort of ennui. And then I have the privilege of taking part in something that reminds me that truly great concerts can revive every single cell in a person’s body.
The wonderfulness on offer Sunday afternoon was the first-ever visit to Toronto by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, in the company of Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard and American pianist Garrick Ohlsson.
The programme was all middle-period Beethoven, a.k.a. dramatically charged, thematically rich gems from the first decade of the 19th century.
Dausgaard conducted the Coriolan Overture and Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” from memory, teasing a phenomenal amount of detail from his very tight 39-member ensemble.
The conductor didn’t spend a lot of time waving his arms. Instead, he worked at shaping and encouraging a dialogue and cohesion from different members of the orchestra — all with the aim of highlighting the lighting-fast changes of mood, tempo and dynamics in Beethoven’s scores.
The intimacy of Koerner Hall meant that every musical gesture was clearly heard — and sometimes felt, in the case of the double-basses. It was also a treat to clearly see the engagement of the musicians with each other and with their programme.
Ohlsson, Dausgaard and the orchestra were of one mind in the concerto, making for a particularly vivid interpretation.
From beginning to end, everything we heard was engaged and engaging. These Beethoven pieces are so well known, yet these performers managed to find ways of highlighting something new or seducing us with glorious ensemble playing over and over again.
Most of the people on stage had probably performed these pieces more times than they cared to count. Yet the music sprang from their instruments with the energy and conviction that there can’t be anything else in the universe as fine as these notes, right here, right now.
And it was impossible not to believe them unquestioningly.
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
