ORGANS, MINUS THE SOLEMNITY
Colin Eatock
Globe and Mail
Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009 04:10PM EDT
Secular brilliance, from an instrument more frequently associated
with the sacred
The 2009 Toronto International Organ Festival
At Metropolitan United Church
In Toronto on Tuesday
The instruments might belong to the church. But there was a
decidedly secular quality to the organ festival’s Tuesday night
concert at Metropolitan United Church, featuring New Zealand’s star
organist Dame Gillian Weir, Montreal organist Rachel Laurin and the
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, led by Raffi Armenian.
Part of a gathering of 350 organists from across the country and
around the world, – a celebration of the Royal Canadian College of
Organists’ 100th birthday – the program consisted of works by Cesar
Franck, Jacques Hetu and Joseph Jongen.
In this kind of program the organ takes on a different character:
proud and glorious, rather than pious and solemn. This is especially
true of an instrument like Metropolitan’s behemoth, the largest church
organ in Canada. With five keyboards, 110 stops and 7,840 pipes,
it’s as mighty as a freight train and as dazzling as the sun.
All that power, concentrated in the hands (and feet) of one musician,
calls for great skill and musical sensitivity. Fortunately, both Weir
and Laurin possess plenty of both, and gave masterful performances.
Weir began, playing Franck’s Choral No. 1 in A Minor , the only solo
work on the program. Her approach was understated, with subtle nuances
of volume and timbre that slowly built up to a satisfying conclusion.
The next piece, Concerto pour orgue et orchestre, Op. 68 , was a
substantial five-movement work by one of Canada’s better (yet curiously
underrated) composers, Jacques Hetu. His harmonic language is hard
to nail down – it’s neither tonal nor atonal – yet his music has a
clear sense of direction, and an unerring sense of timing and effect.
The original idea was for Weir to play the Hetu – but plans changed,
and Lauren, who premiered the piece at Edmonton’s Winspear Centre in
2002, played it once again with Armenian and his orchestra. Lauren’s
performance captured the work’s brooding quality and her choice
of unusual colours – such as the otherworldly "vox humana" stops –
was apt and creative.
Weir returned to the stage for the final work: Jongen’s four-movement
showpiece Symphonie Concertante, Op. 81 . Written by the Belgian
composer in 1926 for performance on a massive organ in Wanamaker’s
department store in Philadelphia, its style owes much to Debussy and
Ravel. Lush and elegant – if somewhat long-winded – it culminates in
a brilliantly scored movement that could be an outtake from Holst’s
The Planets . Weir rose to the occasion, her hands flying across the
organ’s five consoles in a display of virtuoso playing.
Throughout the concert, Armenian collaborated well with both
organists. There were some fine orchestral passages, such as the
extended wind solos in the Jongen – but at other times the orchestra’s
sound was muddied in the church’s bright acoustic.