Under Elim Chan’s direction, the Toronto Symphony’s latest programme promised much: Lukáš Vondráček as soloist in Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto; the premiere of Still Here by indigenous composer Cris Derksen; and Shostakovich’s masterfully ambivalent Ninth Symphony to close. Virtuoso display, social conscience and irony-laced symphonic wit were all delivered, but not to equally convincing ends.
Vondráček,who has recorded all the Rachmaninov concertos with the Czech Philharmonic, scaled the Himalayan Third with formidable assurance. Passagework was dispatched at supersonic speed; textures were often thunderous and power-packed, yet also exceptionally clear; inner voices were teased out with forensic precision.
Yet what should have been like a grand-scale collaboration too often resembled a monologue, even a harangue. From the very opening it was clear that blending with the orchestra was not on Vondráček’s agenda. At best he treated his fellow musicians as an obliging backdrop. His phrasing, often featuring spasmodic surges and pointless rhetorical exaggerations, drew attention to his ego rather than anything more elevated. Chan, alert and unflappable, did what she could to corral the ensemble, but the imbalance of musicianship was fundamental and irreparable. Even Vondráček’s encore – Chopin’s C sharp minor Nocturne – felt less like an offering than a self- indulgence, its sensitivity skin-deep and self-regarding.
The premiere of Cris Derkson’s Still Here, created in collaboration with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), was framed with admirable sincerity. Introduced jointly by the Orchestra’s CEO and a CAMH representative, and accompanied by a short film documenting the project, the piece set out to evoke loneliness within community – a powerful and urgent theme. “I’m still here even when I battle demons every day,” was the moving testimony of one of the CAMH clients. However, little of that translated into the music, which unfolded as a well-meaning but obvious meditation rather than a probing exploration. Muffled recordings of everyday sounds punctuated its episodes; a recurring exchange between woodwinds and xylophone gave it some shape, while the orchestra took up repeated figurations derived from that dialogue. For all its good intentions, however, the score seldom suggested the tension it sought to articulate. It deserves a return to the concert hall, but it would benefit from a fuller multi-medial realisation; something more visually and dramaturgically integrated and with enhanced interjected recordings.
That left Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony to salvage the evening, which it did with bracing authority. Chan drew playing of vivid character from the TSO: taut, idiomatic and alive to the score’s mercurial shifts. Tempi were daringly brisk, especially in the Presto middle movement, yet articulation was never blurred, rhythms never skittery. What impressed most was the inflections within phrases – crescendos that seemed to grow organically from within the line rather than being applied from outside – and a sustained dramatic tension that never relented.
This was a reading that understood the symphony’s ambiguity without labouring it. The slow movement hovered between brooding and lament; shadows flickered even in the most riotous passages. Grotesquerie and a circus of grins and grimaces animated the outer movements with an omnipresent sense of danger. Woodwind solos – plangent bassoon, characterful flute and clarinet – were superbly etched and the trombones brought mordant assurance to their crucial contributions. Throughout, Chan’s approach was disciplined, collaborative, musically insightful and free of self-regard. Where others claimed the spotlight, she illuminated the music.
