On the evening of the day the US election result was confirmed, veteran American composer and conductor John Adams made a welcome return appearance with the Toronto Symphony at Roy Thomson Hall. The first half of the programme began with a very lively account of Ravel’s Alborado del grazioso. Adams showed that he wasn’t going to pull any punches, dynamics bordering on the extreme with some very loud and hard-driven climaxes but also very quiet patches, notably a quite beautiful bassoon solo from Nicholas Richard.
Next was Le Livre de Baudelaire, which is Adams’ arrangement for soprano and orchestra of four songs from Debussy’s Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire. This marked the TSO debut of this year’s Spotlight Artist, Austrian-British soprano Anna Prohaska. It’s an interesting arrangement; 95% of the time one would not guess it was not by Debussy himself. There’s a sense of impermanence and mystery with a slightly overripe quality that fits the texts, drawn from Les Fleurs du mal, perfectly. But occasionally there are characteristic Adams touches. I noticed a really interesting use of woodblocks in the third song Le Jet d’eau and there’s a dark introduction to the fourth Recueillement by the violas and cellos that worked really well.
Prohaska does not have the biggest voice in the world but she sings beautifully and with sensitivity to the text. There were times though where she was close to being covered by the orchestra; a problem that was apparently worse for those with less privileged seating than the writer. That’s Roy Thomson for you. The orchestra was simply sumptuous.
After the interval it was all echt Adams. Nobody could have foreseen events earlier in the day when an aria from Nixon in China was programmed, as the composer pointed out with humour and sadness in his introduction. “This is prophetic!” is one of the most beautiful arias in an opera that has what Adams described as the best of all libretti. It’s such a shame that Alice Goodman wrote but two. The music is typical Adams of its period, musical minimalism to the fore with a pulse that varies in tempo but has a consistent forward momentum. Prohaska made the most of the gorgeous text and the orchestra again were on form.
The last piece was a relatively new (2023) work by Adams, Frenzy. It’s a TSO co-commission and this was the Canadian premiere. Adams described it as “a short symphony” which seems apt as there are definitely ideas developing through the piece. There’s less minimalism here but there’s still that characteristic driving pulse; the arpeggiation seems to be replaced by a kind of “swing”; almost like big band jazz. Although it’s only one movement there are three distinct sections; the pulsing intro, a more relaxed, almost mysterious middle section, recalling the Debussy orchestration and with an interesting part for a quartet of two harps, piano and celesta, and a rousing finish which brought exciting playing from the orchestra and went a long way toward justifying the piece’s title.
So, an enjoyable evening of quite varied music and a welcome return to Toronto for one of the living greats.
