Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Grażyna Bacewicz: Concerto for String Orchestra. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto (Eric Abramovitz, soloist). Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”). Anja Bihlmaier, conductor. Roy Thomson Corridor on Jan. 9, 2025. Repeats Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 12 (George Weston Recital Corridor) at 3 p.m.; tickets right here
January is a gradual month in lots of retail sectors, music included. But Roy Thomson Corridor was packed Thursday night for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra debut of Anja Bihlmaier, a 46-year-old German conductor who’s little recognized on this facet of the Atlantic. It can’t have damage gross sales that the principle providing was Dvořák’s surefire “New World” Symphony. Nonetheless, the present of religion and loyalty was spectacular.
As was the efficiency, energetic or lyrical in accordance with want. The Largo was a marvel of soppy melancholy. Winds (together with a visitor English hornist, Aleh Remezau) had been impeccably balanced and strings spoke fluently at a whisper. Bihlmaier’s beat was light however regular. Even the pizzicati of the double basses appeared to the touch the guts.
The fiery third motion reminded us of the distinction {that a} crack timpanist could make. Electrifying will not be too sturdy a phrase to explain the impact of the finale, its themes vividly articulated and stirred as much as a hanging climax. There have been good issues additionally within the first motion, even when the brass gamers had been an excessive amount of within the foreground. Maybe they are often persuaded to chill it a bit within the repeat performances of Saturday and Sunday.
My solely different reservation involved the brevity of the breaks between actions. We’d like a second to gather our ideas. Or was this a method to suppress intrusive applause? Both manner, the musicians didn’t thoughts. They refused to face at a curtain name — a conventional technique of speaking rank-and-file approval of the conductor. I anticipate that she shall be again.
Bihlmaier used a baton, incisively, within the Dvořák. She relied extra on balletic physique language within the 1948 Concerto for String Orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69), a Polish composer whose neoclassical oeuvre is being reexamined. Refined and songful within the Andante center motion, the piece was in any other case efficient primarily as a showcase for the luminous TSO strings, led by affiliate concertmaster Clare Semes. Because the title implies, there have been solos. None was discovered wanting.
The excellent solo occasion of the night was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto as performed by TSO principal Eric Abramovitz on a basset clarinet, an elongated clarinet with a wider-than-standard vary — this being the instrument the composer had in thoughts. Apparently it takes some tinkering with to be heard at its greatest. Hardly a minute handed with out some adjustment to the keys or mouthpiece.
The output, after all, is what issues, and this was irreproachably easy and lyrical, the excessive notes candy and the low notes resonant. Phrasing was pure. Ornaments enlivened the feel with out distracting from the genial great thing about Mozart’s conception. I can’t bear in mind listening to a greater efficiency.
There was ample applause and an encore — Abramovitz’s personal Mozart within the Shtetl, a freewheeling fantasy with orchestra that recasts the concerto’s thematic materials as if the composer (as Abramovitz put it) had been Jewish. The viewers cherished it.
On the finish of the live performance the conductor thanked the group for its appreciation. It was a honest if uncommon gesture. The yr 2025 is off to an excellent begin. Allow us to hope the beat goes on.
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Arthur Kaptainis was classical music critic of the Montreal Gazette from 1986 to 2022 and wrote for the Nationwide Publish from 2010 to 2016. His articles seem in Classical Voice North America and Gramophone in addition to Ludwig Van. Arthur holds an MA in musicology from the College of Toronto. He’s president of the Music Critics Affiliation of North America.
