- Toronto Symphony Orchestra
- At Roy Thomson Hall
- In Toronto on Wednesday
Quebec composer Jacques Hétu died on Feb. 9, three weeks too early to hear his last major work. But at least he knew that his Symphony No. 5 would be performed, with full honours as it were, during the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's annual New Creations Festival.
Like Beethoven's Ninth, Hétu's Fifth (which the TSO commissioned) is a large-scale symphony with a choral finale. The first three movements depict Paris before, during and after the Nazi invasion in 1940; the fourth is a setting of Paul Éluard's poem, Liberté. Like most of Hétu's output, the piece unfolds logically with a lively if somewhat academic way of using traditional symphonic methods.
The opening movement contrasted the uneasy pathos of its broad string theme with the heedless good humour of skirmishing woodwinds, as if to portray two different attitudes to the coming storm. The second and weakest movement showed the invasion through martial rhythms and lots of commotion in brass and percussion. The third Occupation movement was more expressionistic and (for Hétu) experimental than anything else in the piece. Its silky chromatic melodies, frozen string chords and sudden brass outbursts conveyed an impression of a society forced out of balance.
Hétu wrote the finale first, and it could easily stand on its own. Its solemn tone, hymn-like melodies, plainchant settings of the repeated refrain " j'écris ton nom" and even the incantatory structure of Éluard's text made this movement feel like a religious work appended to a symphony. In fact, if you changed the final word to " trinité," it would be a thoroughly Catholic piece. The skillful orchestration bloomed with light near what might have been a contemplative ending; but Hétu closed with a brassy, affirmative allegro that added little.
This well-crafted symphony stands as a representative summation to Hétu's career. The TSO's performance with conductor Peter Oundjian had many fine moments, though its lyrical energy often flagged.
Canadian lyric soprano Barbara Hannigan appeared for a virtuoso performance (the first in Canada) of Irish composer Gerald Barry's La Plus Forte, a monodrama based on a one-act play by August Strindberg. This streamlined piece was mostly built from tiny melodic cells that dominated the music for a minute or two before giving way to others. Barry's obsessional yet emotionally pointed score brilliantly counterpointed the wordy monologue, during which Madame X realizes that the Madame Y she is speaking to has had an affair with her husband. This revelation was followed by a bit of neo-classical music that showed how far the protagonist was from losing her grip on the situation, and her husband. Barry needed only two notes to animate the whole last part of the piece.
The opening music was Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round, a string-orchestra tribute to Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla. It began with variations on a tango refrain and concluded with a touching threnody for Piazzolla, complete with a tolling funeral note deep in the basses. Like Piazzolla himself, the piece was both suave and earthy. It ended on a widely spaced, unresolved chord.