Go, Canada—A Celebration of Canadian Talent
Conductor Les Dala brought the audience to its feet at the beginning of the concert Saturday evening. The first few bars emanating from the orchestra were O Canada. At the conclusion of our national anthem, he explained that this concert was planned as a celebration of Canadian talent. The three featured composers also represented three generations of Canadians.
First played was “Passacaglia” composed by Walter Buczynski. This piece was written with repeating baselines in the tradition of 17th century Spanish music. Buczynski, formerly one of conductor Dala’s professors at the University of Toronto, was inspired to write this to commemorate the life of a friend. At times, the music is appropriately dirge-like, but in other passages, it becomes solemn and majestic. The notes in the introduction play like a contemplation, unfolding in layer after layer of deep thought. Eventually, the notes take on a sense of foreboding as the music approaches a dramatic conclusion.
The second performance featured the evening’s guest artist, Iman Habibi. He performed “Piano Concerto No. 1” which had been commissioned especially for the PGSO. Currently completing a Master’s program at the UBC School of Music, he began music training as a teenager in Iran just before his family emigrated to Canada seven years ago.
Habibi’s concerto began with soft violins and gentle percussion. A confident player, he layered the piano’s bright, crisp notes over that and then paused to let the soft sounds of the strings dominate. The passages featuring only the sound of the piano literally stand alone allowing appreciation of the pure, clear sound that only a beautifully-tuned grand piano can produce.
By the third movement, the more experimental tonal parts were left behind and melodic sound emerged with more rhythmic cadence in the piano. This concerto had an interesting finish. Nearing the end, there were some surprises in use of percussion, punctuating the piano chords. Habibi exhibited some very dramatic and intense playing all the way to the end. The audience reacted enthusiastically to the guest performer, rewarding him with a well-deserved standing ovation.
The third Canadian composer featured was Gordon Lucas, currently the PGSO’s composer-in-residence and formerly concertmaster. He undertook a major re-write of the score originally composed by Modest Moussorgksy.
Written in sixteen movements, the music is meant to inspire the sensation of walking through an art exhibit. The movements entitled “Promenade” indicate the points at which the viewer/listener would be “moving” through the gallery. The music flowed with beautiful placid notes riding over a background of repeating rhythms from the bass instruments. Other individual movements were meant to represent the subjects of the various paintings. Moussorgksy must have considered he was expressing a visceral, emotional reaction to the visual images, articulated in music, rather than in descriptive words.
Gordon Lucas has built on existing arrangements by taking a composition which is usually played on a grand scale with nearly a hundred instruments and re-casting it in a version suitable to a smaller orchestra. It is an ambitious undertaking with so many fewer instruments, but the result was pleasing and genuinely appreciated.
Valerie Giles – Prince George Citizen
