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SCRUTINY | High Standards Prevail in MSO Visit

By Arthur Kaptainis on November 26, 2015

Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano, conductor
Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano, conductor

Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Kent Nagano conducting. Yulianna Avdeeva guest soloist (piano) at Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-593-4828 www.osm.ca/en

Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony: Is that the one the begins grumpy and ends with a bang? Of course, the composer articulates many shades of feeling and gradations of personal and political meaning between these bookends. The Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano captured a satisfying quota of them Wednesday in Roy Thomson Hall in a concert presented by the TSO.

This was the first of three performances, the others happening Thursday and Saturday on home turf in the Maison symphonique. My suspicion is that the long and contemplative first movement will acquire better definition in Montreal. Despite its ferocious climaxes, this is substantially an exercise in stepwise melodic motion at a moderate tempo. The strings should sound ominous, not nonchalant.

There was no commitment problem in the second movement, a ferocious scherzo that has been decoded by some as a portrait of Stalinist terror. The MSO gave it all the velocity and virtuosity it needed. In the ensuing Allegretto we delved more deeply into the spirit of the artist, largely through extended solos by the orchestra’s famous principals, none of whom were found wanting. One sensed the collaboration of a conductor who was attuned to the texture of the music and musicians who could make the melodies speak.

The introspective atmosphere continued through the beginning of the finale and resolved itself with a strange burst of gaiety at the end. Was this Shostakovich’s celebration of having outlived Stalin? What we know for sure is that the Tenth was premiered in December 1953, 10 months after the dictator’s death. We also knew that we had heard a bracing performance.

This program began with a sequence of excerpts from Bach’s Orchestral Suites as arranged by Mahler, more tastefully than I expected. Neither Mahler nor Nagano turned the Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 into an Adagietto. Veteran flute principal Tim Hutchins was faultless in the familiar Badinerie.

Next came Stravinsky’s Capriccio of 1929, a neo-classical anti-concerto that frustrates expectations in interesting ways. Nagano crafted an exacting accompaniment (the MSO and Stravinsky go way back) but the most impressive contribution was by the 30-year-old Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, who made a crisp and playful thing of the off-kilter solo part.

Odd as this piece is, it appealed strongly to the crowd. Avdeeva could have given one of Stravinsky’s seldom-heard solo-piano pieces (or even the not-so-seldom-heard first of the Three Movements from Petrushka) as an encore.

#LUDWIGVAN

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Arthur Kaptainis

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