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Whatever else he created in the way of musical mayhem, Canadian/American composer Raymond Luedeke composed a stunning showpiece for double-bass virtuoso Joel Quarrington. Symphony Nova Scotia, on its finest mettle, with Bernard Gueller on the podium, escorted Quarrington through Luedeke’s Bass Concerto on Thursday night in the Cohn before an ecstatic audience. There is something ecstatic in the way Quarrington plays the bass. His musicianship, his phrasing, shading, tone colour and rubato (in which the musical line gets expressive without losing time), all serve his musical intent, imagination and the eloquence of his musical feelings. The slow first part of the intensely romantic middle movement, sub-titled The Lover, showcased that side of his personality. Luedeke took for inspiration in writing the Bass Concerto the psychological theories of the male psyche according to the Jungian School. The concerto begins with a section called The King, followed in the middle movement by combining The Lover with The Trickster, and finishing with The Warrior. Luckily, Luedeke, who has played associate principal clarinet in the Toronto Symphony since 1981, is much more of a musician than a psychologist. Whatever triggered it, his music takes on a life and character of its own, only mildly influenced by the imagery most evident in The Lover and The Trickster movement. The Trickster, like much of the first movement, is full of texture, spiky orchestration with the brilliance of a Shostakovitch symphony, lots of percussion in the instrumentation and single winds including bass clarinet and contra-bassoon in the basement with piccolo an independent voice rather than just the icing on the orchestral cake. This is a very showy work for all. On the technical side you’d be impressed if Quarrington was a violinist. But where the violinist’s fingers must work to a precision standard measured in millimetres, the bassist, with something close to four inches between whole notes on the fingerboard, and strings that are several miliimetres thick, has to combine the strength of a plow horse with the fleetness of a thoroughbred. The program began simply with Mozart’s appealing, divertimento-like Symphony No. 21 and ended after intermission with a super-hot interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, No. 4. Quarrington (who is principal bass of the National Arts Centre Orchestra) took up a stand at the back of the bass section to support colleagues Max Kasper and Lena Turofsky. This was another case of extreme orchestral aerobics. The outer two of four movements sear the ears with razor-edge rhythm and red-hot tempos. The Pilgrim’s March (second movement) is hypnotic with its steady shuffle of invisible feet, and the third movement a mild scherzo. The finale is a blistering saltarello, in which the music, true to its form, leaps around like a convention of agitated fleas. Yet, as in all Mendelssohn, fairy music is not far behind, and this one comes closest of all his symphonies to the sparkle of his Midsummer Night’s Dream. A real challenge to both players and conductor, the orchestra nailed it. The audience were then the ones to leap around in delight, though all they could do was clap their hands raw. From the Chronicle Herald, Feb.9, 2008 |
