Tag: Classical music

Review: Mastro Tausk and the VSO open the season with a wonderful Firebird

An Assured performance of Stravinsky’s ballet was the highlight of a mixed bag season opener.

Otto Tausk conducts the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky’s the Firebird

Symphony season is back! The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra opened their 2024/25 season with a program of big Russian warhorses with a bit of a twist. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t but the continued confidence of the VSO’s playing made it an exciting sign of things to come.

Tausk’s Firebird hasn’t really changed much since 2018. There is still a fantastic sense of pacing, a good ear for textures, and a strangely slow infernal dance. The thing that has changed since 2018 is the relationship between conductor and orchestra, which has only deepened over the last six seasons. In 2018 the ballet sounded like it was finding its footing as it was going along, taking about a half an hour or so to settle in. In 2024 Tausk and the VSO were in the zone right from the top, nailing the atmosphere right away. The orchestra plays with a warmth and clarity that has only continued to improve as the Tausk years go by.

As for the pacing, Tausk wisely keeps the ballet moving at a fluid pace. This is the key to performing the full ballet as the incidental music can really die if left to wallow. The biggest compliment I can give Maestro Tausk is that by the time the performance got to lead up to the infernal dance I was almost surprised that we were there so quickly. Tausk and the orchestra never let the music lose my interest at any point. No self indulgence to be had here.

As for the big set pieces for the most part they were very well serviced. I had forgotten until back in the moment just how slowly Tausk takes the infernal dance it’s almost jarring after the pace of everything else. For me it worked tough, the orchestra managed to convey a grounded nature to it that built to a manic accelerando at the end. The highlight of the performance overall though was the section bridging the infernal dance and the finale. Principal Bassoonist Julia Lockhart delivered a fantastic solo and the VSO strings were as gorgeous as I have ever heard them in the tremolo build up to the finale. The finale brought the piece to a beautiful close. Tausk and the VSO nailed it in 2018 and they did here as well. Maybe the brass could have let loose a little more near the end, but with playing at this level it was hard to complain.

The twist to Friday night’s performance of the Firebird was that it was accompanied by”symphonic cinema” which was a “live directed” silent film by director Lucas van Woerkum. I am not going to lie to you I was too locked into the Orchestra’s performance itself (credit to the VSO and Tausk for that) to have really paid attention to the film itself. From what I got though it very much came off as an art instillation film, nothing super spectacular, but nothing offensively bad either. The best I can say for the film is that it didn’t add or detract from the performance itself. Given what I feared this could have been, I consider that a victory.

I wish I had more positive things to write about Stewart Goodyear’s rendition of Rachmaninoff’s third piano ticket that occupied the bulk of the first half of the program. Rach 3 is a tough customer, it contains gobs and gobs of notes, but really can’t sound like the soloist is just playing gobs and gobs of notes. There needs to be great clarity in the voices, and a real emotional weight to make the concerto work to its fullest potential. Goodyear seemed like he barely had the gobs and gobs of notes under his fingers, let alone getting close to achieving anything else. It just kind of felt like the concerto swallowed him whole. The thundering climactic cadenza of the first movement felt meek and unbalanced, the second movement failed any sort of lyricism, and all of the finale’s energy came from the VSO powering the movement forward. Unfortunately the less said about this one the better.

The concert opened in full with Jocelyn Morlock’s Night, Herself  which is a beautiful 10 or so minute piece that is very emblematic of its composer. Rhythmically inspired and very texturally colorful,  Night, Herself is one of the nicer “contemporary composers rework a familiar theme” pieces. One wishes the VSO could have done a more wide ranging tribute to Morlock throughout the season, but the bit we got here was nice.

Review: Maestro Tausk and the VSO Nail Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony

On a night built around Vadim Gluzman it was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra who stole the show.

On a night built around Vadim Gluzman it was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra who stole the show.
Otto Tausk, Vadim Gluzman and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Photo Credit: VSO

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is wrapping up its 2023/2024 season in style. Friday evening’s prelude of sorts to the day of music and the season finale (Das Lied Von Der Erde yay) featured a big time performance of Shostakovich’s 5th symphony. When the orchestra is playing this well it’s hard not to be excited.

Tausk can probably conduct a great Shostakovich 5 in his sleep. The nerds amongst us remember his surprisingly excellent performance of the symphony with the VSOI program, back when that was a thing that existed. Friday night’s performance was straight forward and to the point but in all the right ways. This was the kind of performance that didn’t get in the way, and provided the orchestra a chance to go for it at every turn. The first movement moved at a quick tempo, flowing organically through its changing themes. Tausk has always had a grasp of the modernist Soviet scherzo and here was no exception, this was played with the gusto required. The Third movement, the gnarliest music of the work, had all of the emotional depth that it needed and more. The now mighty VSO strings searing through the movement’s climaxes in a way that seemed impossible 10 years ago. Also something that felt impossible for the longest time  was a finale where everything didn’t get swallowed by percussion and brass. The VSO is now an orchestra that can go full bombast with the clarity of a truly great orchestra. Tausk, for his part, played the final movement with an intelligent ambiguity that made the movement feel like an internal struggle between joy and terror. Oh and those Mariss Jansons esque accelerandos peppered into the finale were a really fun touch.

The most exciting part of Friday’s performance was that the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra sounded as coherent as they have all season. The balances were perfect, the intensity impressive, and gone were some of the wobbles in the woodwinds and brass that have popped up here and there throughout the season. This felt as confident and comfortable as the VSO has been all season. Perhaps it was that Tausk has now been around consistently for the last month, perhaps it was the large special concert audience that provided motivation, or perhaps this is just one of the “VSO pieces.” Whatever it was everyone involved was on fire. Truly exciting stuff all around.

Oh yeah and Vadim Gluzman was there too. Gluzman is one of the most reliable soloists out there and Friday’s performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto was no exception. The first movement took a bit to get going but once the first orchestral outburst came halfway through the movement the VSO jump started what was a pretty great performance from there. The second movement was beautifully sweet and lyrical. Gluzman and the orchestra played off of each other wonderfully. The final movement, the highlight of the performance, Gluzman went full folk delivering a movement that felt almost stuck to the ground in the best ways possible. This was a really good performance from a great soloist that got its due from an enthusiastic Orpheum audience Friday evening.

At the end of the day though it was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s magnificent Shostakovich that stole the show. This performance was so good that it made me question why not just put this symphony on as your big day of music ending performance? I understand not wanting to feel like you are ripping off paying customers the night before, but the VSO sold this concert on the Vadim Gluzman performance not the Shostakovich. I feel like there was a real missed opportunity here to really grab some potential new fans for the orchestra. You could have still done the Carmen fantasy and the VSO Sinfonietta play along in the first half and then really tried to blow the audience away with Shostakovich in the second. It feels like the VSO plays these kind of big splashy “not the usual crowd concerts” (and lets be honest most of next season) too safely. Casual classical crowds can handle thorny major works! You might just convert a few of the free customers into paying ones that way!