Series saved by stunning performance
Brahms: 20/40
(out of 4) Members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with pianist Philip Chiu. At Trinity-St Paul’s Centre, May 28
Three excellent string players who joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra over the past decade teamed up with Quebec-based pianist Philip Chiu to deliver extraordinarily fine performances of chamber music by Johannes Brahms on Monday night.
What the audience didn’t expect was a pre-concert announcement that this would be the last event for the 46-yearold Associates of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Longtime board member Alan Sperling told the 200 or so audience members gamely braving the 30-plus-degree non-air-conditioned hall that the organization had run out of money and could see no way of continuing to fund five concerts a season. They had one of the lowest ticket prices in town: $22 per concert for adults or $80 for the full series of “Small Concerts.”
Run by a group of older people with limited social media skills and with a very small marketing budget, one of Toronto’s bestkept musical secrets was clearly too secret.
This despite the fact that they use a hall with excellent acoustics for chamber music, draw from the best of the best (most of the performers either work for the TSO or have a close association with it), and have programmed a wide range of music from the classical canon, as well as contemporary works.
Monday night’s program featured two masterpieces by Brahms: the B-Major Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8, with violinist Shane Kim, cellist Joseph Johnson and Chiu on piano; and the C minor Piano Quartet No. 3, Op. 60, adding violist Theresa Rudolph.
There were moments of such beauty in the interpretations that they brought tears to my eyes. These musicians had clearly worked out every detail and were giving it their all. Their major accomplishment was in modulating and shaping the music’s vast dynamic and emotional sweeps as well as polishing little details.
Chiu kept a light foot on the sustaining pedal, giving the piano part particular clarity. The ensemble sound was limpid throughout, never forced. In short, this was the very definition of elegant playing that sacrificed nothing of the music’s considerable thematic baggage.
This was the sort of fully committed performing that makes converts even of diehard chamber music skeptics.
One member of the audience was sufficiently moved to pledge $10,000 at intermission, on the condition that the organization match the amount in other fresh donations. Sperling climbed back up on the stage to say this was sufficient incentive to plan for a new season — not next year, but in 2019-20.
Chamber music is a tough sell but far from impossible. Yes, it can be done on a shoestring budget — and done well — as a new generation of performer-producers is teaching us.
Toronto’s Pocket Concerts is a case in point. They perform in small spaces, most often in people’s living rooms. They are only five years old but have 836 people following them on Facebook, compared to 141 for the Associates.
Pocket Concerts’ final concert of the season — on Sunday afternoon at Only One Gallery in Parkdale — will likely be sold out. As co-founder Rory McLeod told me recently, “The secret is not just about great music, it’s about creating community.”
We should all hope that the Associates can learn from this and figure out how to build their community.
As we heard on Monday, they have everything else going for them.
Classical music writer John Terauds is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.