Intimacy and symphony concerts are usually mutually exclusive, but pianist Louis Lortie, with the help of members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, did their level best to shrink Roy Thomson Hall down to the size of an 18th century reception room on Wednesday night.
- 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 concluding programme of the Toronto Symphony’s annual Mozart festival had Lortie playing the roles of pianist, accompanist and conductor. He fulfilled each with an easy elegance, thanks to the willing participation of no more than 38 members of the orchestra.
Very unusually for the Toronto Symphony, this was more of a chamber music concert than anything else, yet the performances were no less impressive for the reduced scale. Instead, it gave the audience the opportunity to appreciate some significant talents within the orchestra.
Talents like concertmaster Jonathan Crow, who, with Lortie at the piano, commanded the stage in the G Major Violin Sonata, K301. It was an assured, bold performance that never felt forced. The guest was downright playful at the piano, teasing sweet, pearly, flawless sounds from the New York Steinway.
And talents like the Toronto Symphony’s woodwind players, 12 of whom (along with assistant principal bass Kristen Bruya) served up an impossibly, impeccably refined “Gran Partita” Serenade, K370a, with Lortie conducting from memory.
Just as golden was the E-flat Major Piano Concerto No. 22, K482, played by all concerned with an extra dollop of refinement. This really was Mozart fit for a royal reception room.
The audience at the premiere of the concerto loved the slow (Andante) middle movement, set in a dramatic, minor key, so much that they asked for the orchestra to play it again. The performance on Wednesday night was gossamer-light yet pulled forward with enough tension to make it particularly compelling — so much so that hearing it again would have been welcome, as well.
For me, this concert represented everything that a festival should do: present the familiar in sometimes less familiar ways. Getting to experience the Toronto Symphony in smaller-scale works and in different permutations with a sensitive leader like Lortie was an ideal example.
It’s worth braving the cold to catch Thursday’s repeat performance.
Many veteran musicians say that the true mark of a pro is not how well someone plays, but how smoothly they can recover from near-catastrophe.
If that really is the measure of top-rank musicmaking, then the guest pianist-conductor and his 38 collaborators in the concerto deserve medals for the way they recovered from a nasty memory slip of Lortie’s in the final movement of the piano concerto.
For what seemed like an eternity — but was no more than 3 seconds — Lortie lost his way. Before he hit any wrong notes, he suspended both arms in mid-air as the members of the orchestra stopped what they were doing to collectively size up the situation.
Was the music going to continue or not?
The answer wasn’t at all clear until Lortie’s hands suddenly returned to the keyboard to resume the piece and the orchestra fell into lock step as if nothing at all was wrong.
It was a masterful display of collective concentration at work.
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
