Fine evening with NACO guest conductor
Orchestra performed a beautiful concerto
National Arts Centre Orchestra Carlo Rizzi, conductor; Giora Schmidt, violin Southam Hall, National Arts Centre Reviewed Wednesday at 8 p.m.
Do you know anyone who dislikes Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll? I know two or three. One hates it because its composer was anti-Semitic, another because it’s like a Coles Notes version of the opera Siegfried. Taken for itself, though, this short piece is an absolute gem, conceived as a birthday gift to the composer’s second wife, Cosima, and performed on the staircase outside of her bedroom on Christmas morning, giving her one of the most tender and elegant wake-up calls in the history of waking up.
Guest conductor Carlo Rizzi led the National Arts Centre Orchestra in a rendition of the score that was better than just adequate, but far from expressing the magical shimmer that we hear in the best performances. Still, it was not bad as a curtain-raiser. The orchestra played well.
There were quite a few notable violin concertos written in the 20th century. We perhaps don’t note them as often as we should, but conductor Rizzi, the orchestra and violinist Giora Schmidt brought one of the most popular to the Southam Hall audience Wednesday evening: that of Samuel Barber.
The performance was impressive in many ways. Schmidt had a beautiful sound which served the music well, especially in the first two movements, both of them lyrical. He also delivered the moto perpetuo finale with verve and élan. The orchestral playing was good, too, though there were moments when the brass overbalanced the solo violin, making the music a little less effective than it could have been.
The concert concluded with a firmly satisfying account of the Sibelius Symphony No. 5 in E-flat. Which is Sibelius’s greatest symphony? The one I am listening to at any given moment. On Wednesday it was the Fifth.
Rizzi’s interpretation was not strikingly original, though there were a few things that distinguished it. For one, the last few minutes didn’t sprawl as they often do. The second movement was marked by suitable dynamic and emotional contrasts.
All in all, a fine rendition.