Toronto Symphony Orchestra: Opening Night with Pinchas Zukerman (violin), Peter Oundjian (Music Director), and Earl Lee (RBC Resident Conductor). Roy Thomson Hall, Thursday.
Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, in alphabetical order. Peter Oundjian was in a position to tell stories about both violinists Thursday night at Roy Thomson Hall during the gala opening of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra season.
Our soloist, however, was Zukerman, filling in on short notice for Perlman, who has gall bladder issues. I was left wondering at the end of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 what we might have missed while feeling reasonably grateful for what we got instead.
The Bruch is almost a textbook definition of a romantic warhorse. Zukerman gripped it confidently and projected its heart-throbbing melodies with the firmness of a master who has played it a hundred times.
The sound was strong and the legato continuous. Touches of portamento were not amiss. The pulse struck me as stalwart rather than mobile in the outer movements. Might the tone have been more varied, those dotted rhythms more tightly sprung?
As an encore, we heard the main theme from the 2004 film Ladies in Lavender, by Nigel Hess. It was a tearjerker of modest merit, but Zukerman brought to it a species of vulnerability that had been missing in the slow movement of the Bruch. Zukerman should explore new repertoire more often. With the National Arts Centre Orchestra out of his hair, he has time.
This short program began with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. Pops? Yes, but also wonderful music, and not necessarily easy to nail after a long summer off. The principal flute and oboe spoke sweetly in Morning Mood. Muted strings were ravishingly atmospheric in the “Death of Åse.” The sold-out crowd was transfixed, as a cathartic burst of coughing afterwards made clear.
Earl Lee, the RBC Resident Conductor, was given the fun assignment of Paul Dukas’s tone poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. A kinetic figure on the podium, Lee timed its famous grunts exactly, and the TSO players made suitably zesty sounds. Call me old fashioned, but I think a young conductor is well advised to use a score and go easy on the arm-work.
There was quite a bit of talking from Oundjian and TSO president Jeff Melanson. The traditional opening performance of O Canada was stirring. If I am reading my calendar right, this is the only piece of Canadian music we hear on a TSO symphonic program before the middle of November.
#LUDWIGVAN
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