Volume 25 Issue 7 - April 2020

JULIEN MIGNOT
Quatuor Ébène
Peter Oundjian: Also scheduled for April, Oundian’s first visit as
TSO conductor emeritus, leading the orchestra in Mahler’s transformative
Symphony No.5. The work’s breathtaking Adagietto sent
Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral service heavenward and three years later
immortalized Lucchino Visconti’s celebrated adaptation of Thomas
Mann’s novella, Death in Venice, a film that may hit too close to home
right now, despite its beauty. Slated to open the program, concertmaster
Jonathan Crow as soloist in Bruch’s lyrical calling card, his
Violin Concerto No.1. Crow’s local musical presence has deepened in
the last three years since assuming the artistic directorship of Toronto
Summer Music and enriching a time of year that not too long ago
was moribund. Speaking of TSM, Crow is scheduled to host a free
noon-hour preview of TSM’s 15th anniversary season, at the Richard
Bradshaw Amphitheatre on May 5.
Quatuor Ébène was set to conclude Music Toronto’s current series
of downtown concerts on April 16 with performances of Beethoven’s
String Quartet Op.18, No.6 and Op.132. The Toronto concert was
to follow a world tour with the theme “Beethoven Live Around the
World” that has resulted in live recordings of all 16 quartets. The next
day, April 17, the ensemble had planned to begin a complete traversal
of the quartets in Zankel Hall, NYC. What insights would they have
conveyed, what power, what joy? YouTube offers some consolation
with their six-year-old video of Op.132 from Festival Wissembourg in
Alsace and a three-year-old version of Op.131 also from Wissembourg.
From seven years ago, there’s a spirited NPR spot where each Ébène
member says a few words about their favourite quartet before
selecting Op.131 as the group’s consensus pick. “It’s so intimate, so
beautiful … leading to a heavy metal finale.”
Confluence: As I write this (March 20), Confluence Concerts’ artistic
director Larry Beckwith has begun a blog in which he aims to analyze
a Beethoven string quartet each day for 17 days. Informative and
diverting despite its relative brevity, it’s worth a read at confluenceconcerts.ca/new-blog.
Thoughtfully, Beckwith adds the performers
he’s listened to for each and where to find each performance.
NPR Music, specifically their Tiny Desk Concerts, is a treasure
trove of multi-genre performances, all under 30 minutes. A recent
delight featured Igor Levit – why has he not been heard in Toronto?
– introducing and playing up-close-and-personal selections from
two Beethoven sonatas and Für Elise, last November. Bent over
the keyboard of a small upright piano, his delicate, rigorous touch
coming from a position of strength, he played the first movement of
the “Moonlight” sonata. Next came the second movement of Sonata
No.10, Op.2, which he called one of the funniest and wittiest of the
sonatas. Levit drew out its cartoonish quality, tongue clearly in cheek
all the way to the double-barrelled surprise at the end. The concert
concluded with Bagatelle in A Minor “Für Elise,” which he characterized
as “a total eye-roller, one of the most beautiful treasures
ever written.”
Levit is one of many musicians in a growing list that Gramophone
Igor Levit Tiny Desk Concert
magazine’s streaming service has made available for these selfisolating
times. Go to gramophone.co.uk (their website) for streaming
or the hashtag #gramophone (on Twitter) if you are an artist and
would like them to watch your performance for possible inclusion.
Among the many participants as the calendar turns to spring are
Gautier Capuçon, Yo-Yo Ma, Alisa Weilerstein, Tafelmusik’s bassoonist
Domenic Teresi, Boris Giltburg and James Rhodes.
Three at Koerner: The immensely likable James Rhodes was the first
of three singular concerts I was able to hear in Koerner Hall, March 5,
6 and 8 before the world changed. Rhodes (whom I interviewed for
WholeNote’s March issue) began with a Bach prelude in honour of
Glenn Gould before playing – straight through with no break, like a
rock concert – three Beethoven sonatas, and three encores to satisfy
the enthusiastic crowd. The sheer lyricism and heartfelt beauty of
Giovanni Sgambati’s arrangement of the Melody from Gluck’s Orfeo
ed Euridice touched me the most.
South Korea-born violinist Kyung Wha Chung, who is celebrating
her 50th year as a performer, made her Koerner Hall debut on
March 6 with a substantive program of Mozart, Beethoven and Franck.
Her beautiful round tone seemed to be an outgrowth of, and throwback
to, violinists of the first half of the 20th century. Her straightforward
demeanour belied the luminous sounds she and her longtime
collaborative pianist, Kevin Kenner, produced – judicious phrasing
and dynamics that illuminated the composers’ scores, from the
riches of Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major to the second movement
of Mozart’s Violin Sonata No.21 in E Minor, K304, which floated so
naturally into the ether.
Hélène Grimaud’s recital on March 8 was notable for its curatorial
first half comprised of a mesmerizing hour of 13 works by Silvestrov,
Debussy, Satie and Chopin chosen by the pianist to reflect “transparent
textures, nostalgic, melancholic moods, cyclical structures… I
think of the works as a sequence of crystalline miniatures, capturing
time,” she wrote. “It serves to conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection,
a mirage of what was – or what could have been.” A phrase that
takes on more weight given our evolving circumstances.
For a taste of the Koerner Hall experience, RCM’s Live from Koerner
Hall Concert Livestream is available from rcmusic.com/performance
and free to all. There are currently 27 concerts available including
Barbara Hannigan and Reinbert de Leeuw’s memorable salute to fin de
siècle Vienna and the Second Viennese School; Terry Riley Live at 85;
Stewart Goodyear; the Dover Quartet with Avi Avital; Kronos Quartet
with Tanya Tagaq; and a number of world music and jazz performers
(Robi Botos and Kenny Barron stand out).
Be well. Keep your social distance. Partake of music where you
find it: on vinyl; on disc; on a streaming service; on YouTube. And
remember before going to sleep, we’re one day closer to the end of the
pandemic.
Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.
14 | April 2020 thewholenote.com