Season opener places the Toronto Symphony Orchestra centre-stage

Here’s a guaranteed-to-work formula for a season-opener: take one new work by an in-demand composer (Atlanta native Carlos Simon, whose music also featured in this year’s Last Night of the Proms), add the most famous composer of all (Beethoven), throw in a brilliant, home-favourite pianist (Calgary-born Jan Lisiecki), and add a warhorse synonymous with spectacular visuals (Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition).

Embarking on his fifth year with the Toronto Symphony, Gustavo Gimeno added several twists. Instead of, say, Beethoven’s Emperor, Lisiecki was joined by TSO concertmaster Jonathan Crow and principal cellist Joseph Johnson in the much less often heard Triple Concerto. And the (over-?) familiar Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky was replaced by Sergei Gorchakov’s version. The result was both enticing and innovative, accessible yet thought-provoking, reassuring yet edgy.

Inspired by the poem Awake, Asleep by the Nepali poet, Rajendra Bhandari, Carlos Simon’s 2023 Wake up! Concerto for Orchestra starts promisingly. A two-note ‘wake-up’ motif in the brass is set against hovering strings, soon acquiring an American-style flashiness brimming with jagged energy. But all too soon the music runs out of breath and drifts into a somnambulant state. That may be part of its programmatic point. But over its 20-minute duration, the point becomes pointless, the structure frustratingly episodic. Stylistically, Wake up! falls between the stools of Bernstein-like jazziness and Lutosławskian diluted avant-garderie, and the major-triad ending feels like a cop-out. This is the first of six concertos for orchestra planned for the season; it makes an early bid for the wooden spoon.

The idea of placing two TSO principals alongside Jan Lisiecki for the Triple Concerto was better in principle than in actuality. Despite the awkward set-up, which gave the pianist no eye contact with his partners, there was certainly a good musical understanding between them, and plenty of outstanding musicianship. The problem was simply the reticence of the cellist, who sounded almost apologetic, despite Beethoven giving him the most prominent solos in all three movements. In consequence, the others had little to bounce off. There is abundant wit and charm in the work, but hardly any of that came across. A reminder of how classy these musicians are came with the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s D minor Trio as a poetic and generous encore.

In the foyer of Roy Thomson Hall, the exhibition of the Viktor Hartmann art works that inspired Mussorgsky’s Pictures was a nice touch. Gimeno explained his choice of Gorchakov’s orchestrations as an opportunity to see the familiar through the unfamiliar. Indeed, Ravel’s Technicolor orchestration, unrivalled in its flamboyance and imaginative flights, is rather like a Matisse or a Monet to Gorchakov’s darker-hued, more shadowy Rembrandt-like alternative. There is an almost cinematographic quality to this version, as if pictures and images are coming alive and moving. The trumpet call at the start of The Old Castle would not be out of place in a black-and-white Eisenstein film, and in the churchy episode of the final Great Gate of Kiev we could almost hear the Orthodox prayers. Claims that Gorchakov is somehow closer to the original piano version are also not unfounded. Compare, for example, the immediate, earth-shattering power of The Ox-Cart to Ravel’s gradual crescendo, which follows Rimsky-Korsakov’s well-meaning but interventionist edition.

So many unfamiliar details helped to give the performance an exhilarating edge. Gimeno’s direction, too, was a masterclass in balancing control with excitement (the Marketplace at Limoges was especially deft). Whether or not Gorchakov’s orchestration becomes as mainstream as Ravel’s, it's hard to imagine a more convincing case being made for it.