Esprit Orchestra’s opening concert on Thursday, October 24, 2013, in Koerner Hall at Royal Conservatory Toronto was nothing short of a spirited affair. Celebrating the launch of their 31st season, the program featured works by three Canadian composers — R. Murray Schafer’s No Longer than (10) Ten Minutes (1970), Claude Vivier’s Zipangu (1980), and Samy Moussa’s Gegenschein and Zodiakallicht (2009) — followed by a reprise by popular demand of Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto (1985), performed by soloist Teng Li. This concert, characterized by rule breakers and the daring, proved that new classical music can be both serious and slightly cheeky at the same time.
Composer Samy Moussa (photo credit: musiccentre.ca)
With no formal introduction and sans conductor Alex Pauk at the helm, R. Murray Schafer’s piece began amidst the scattered sounds of instruments tuning up. Pauk, arriving fashionably late on stage, swooped in and soon started waving his baton around in grand gestures of no apparent relevance to the music being played. At this point, the audience’s confusion gave way to chuckles and laughter not often heard in concert hall settings. Of course, this was all part of Schafer’s intent: to play with the limitations of orchestral conventions. The wobbliness of his composition and its free jazz-esque cacophony eventually lead to the relocation of certain orchestra members onto the side balconies of Koerner Hall. As the audience tried to figure out what was happening (clapping often in uncertainty), the string players left on stage acknowledged the end of Ten Minutes with casual applause and promptly segued into Vivier’s Zipangu without any fanfare. As such, Ten Minutes proved much longer than ten minutes by cleverly leeching off of the following piece for added duration. According to Émile Durkheim (who Schafer quoted in his pre-concert talk), in order to define the law one must first break the law, therefore crime is necessary; Ten Minutes was thus a most benevolent crime.
Zipangu, on the other hand, focused mainly on the exploitation of bowing techniques in order to explore alternative possibilities in colour and texture. The use of artificial harmonics combined with glissando, for instance, resulted in a gentle yearning call which differed in quality from the austere granular timbre of extra bow pressure on the strings. Zipangu itself has recurring melodic elements – built upon complex harmonic structures, in fact – but they were often transformed and masked by a layer of ever-changing ‘noise’ in the way that the strings were being played. Esprit’s chamber ensemble did an exceptional job in performing Vivier’s highly volatile composition given that the changes in sound quality were instantaneous, jarring, and often occurring without notice.
Samy Moussa’s studies for large orchestra were the most mysterious pieces of the night. Gegenschein and Zodiakallicht were brief – no more than ten minutes in total – but intensely concentrated, exquisitely complex glimpses into the mind of a young Canadian composer who has had much success abroad. That said, Moussa’s studies required extreme attentiveness on the part of the audience which, unless everybody was already accustomed the syntax of contemporary orchestral music, was a difficult zone to reach given the short duration of the pieces. Thankfully, Moussa will be in Toronto to conduct another work of his with the Esprit Orchestra in January 2014, giving us another chance to become better acquainted with his music.
Composer Alfred Schnittke (photo credit: KEYSTONE)
Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto wrapped up the evening with one of the most overlooked instruments finally taking center stage. Given perhaps the most space a soloist without a grand piano has ever been granted, Teng Li took to the concerto with unwavering strength, fearlessness, and an unapologetic patience for the more emotionally charged moments in the piece. The sentimental air of Schnittke’s work felt vaguely familiar but never exactly. A quality achieved through his use of polystylism in which old styles of music, the waltz, for instance, were referenced through the lens of avant garde techniques. The resulting mood was a haunting one, and Li’s performance certainly won the hearts of the audience who were on their feet in applause.
All in all, the amount of spirit and energy given off by the Esprit Orchestra was truly infectious. Coupled with the buffet of sounds and timbres offered throughout the night’s program, this season opener was one that dared to confront listeners, challenging them to let go — of expectations, of norms, of the notion of right versus wrong. How else can a new era be launched?
