A stunning debut at Carnegie Hall
Tchaikovsky’s ‘Symphony No. 5’ was a highlight of the performance
It’s always a rare treat for me to attend a concert at Carnegie Hall. With its beautiful warmth and rich, bass-driven resonance, the 2,800-seat venue is acoustically exceptional.
In Toronto, there’s simply not a space that can compare. The sonically dry and concrete-covered Roy Thomson Hall, home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, is the sensory deprivation chamber of music venues. And Koerner Hall, though vastly superior and considered one of the finer spaces in North America, occasionally feels stretched to its limits when hosting a large symphony orchestra.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned about Carnegie over the years I’ve sat in its auditorium: the venue is only as good as the musicians who occupy it and the hall’s venerable acoustics can only amplify what is already there. It can make a great orchestra sound superb. But it can also underscore any weaknesses in an ensemble that’s out of its league.
On Tuesday evening, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory Orchestra wielded Carnegie to its advantage, sounding superb in a glorious performance that made full use of the hall, acoustically activated by the finest of musicianship. It was a feat made all the more impressive considering it was the orchestra’s Carnegie debut, led by Canadian conductor Peter Oundjian.
In many ways, you’d have been forgiven for mistaking Carnegie Hall for Canada House. The occasion drew a significant (and boisterous) Canadian contingent and featured dignitaries such as Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations.
It felt appropriate, then, for the program to begin with some Canadian content. Kelly-Marie Murphy’s “Curiosity, Genius, and the Search for Petula Clark” was an inspired choice to open the evening. Her 2017 composition is an homage to the great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, namesake for the Royal Conservatory’s professional training centre.
The piece is marked by an air of breezy discovery, dotted with biting rhythms that undercut dense chords from the strings and brass. There was a fullness to the orches- tra’s sound in these sections, pro- pelled forward by unrelenting syn- copations and fiery rips of plucked notes by the double basses, thrilling both aurally and visually.
This power carried into Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto,” featuring the Royal Conservatory’s artistin-residence, Stewart Goodyear.
The Canadian pianist is by no means a performer’s musician. He isn’t glitzy nor flamboyant in how he presents himself, instead hunching over his instrument, head bowed down over the keys, as if pulling out each note with delicate care.
Goodyear’s interpretation of the concerto was fitting of its title, toggling gracefully between the piece’s introverted and extroverted warmth. Oundjian, meanwhile, was a stately presence on the podium, even though the orchestra was at times performing in opposition to Goodyear. Whereas the soloist’s melodic lines were often percussive and clipped, the violins presented Beethoven’s main theme with a broad and lyrical tone.
The orchestra and Goodyear complemented each other more effectively in the second movement “Adagio,” grounded by a plaintive and gorgeous motif that’s shared among various instruments in the orchestra.
As a whole, however, the piano concerto felt like a somewhat minor prelude to the offerings of the evening’s second half.
Tchaikovsky’s rousing “Symphony No. 5” marked the high point of Tuesday’s concert, delivered by the orchestra with thunderous and rapturous virtuosity.
It was a performance characterized by impeccable balance and maturity, filling the hall with a full and gorgeous sound.
In the second movement, French horn principal player Katrina Dunkle delivered an exquisite solo that was delicately wistful, though never brittle.
Tchaikovsky’s grand theme that recurs throughout the four-movement symphony felt fresh with each variation. Any temptation from the strings to slow the tempo was dismissed by Oundjian, who rightfully kept the proceedings brisk, with musical phrases that always leaned forward into the next.
It was a rendition that earned an extended standing ovation from the appreciative crowd, which packed three levels of the auditorium. Deservedly so.
Decades in the making, this concert was a formidable showcase for one of Canada’s premier training orchestras.
Here’s hoping a return to Carnegie is already in the works.