The Canadian Music Concert

Hoang Bao Tram Dang

MUHL 391 Canadian Music History

Concert Review

        On Monday, March 21st, 2016, there was an interesting Canadian music concert in Tanna Schulich Hall of Mcgill University. The concert was directed by Brian Cherney. The title of the concert was dedicated to John Weinzweig: “Autour de John Weinzweig”. The concert was a good chance to introduce Canadian music and bring it closer to music lovers. The program included six Canadian composers with tonal and atonal music. The concert was very well prepared and went well.

        Orphee by Bruce Mather was the piece that started he concert. This was a very impressive work to open the concert. The work began with the piano part followed by the percussions. The piano was disconnected and explored the extreme register range. Its thin texture brought the feeling of Orpheus’s harp. The percussion came in after the solo piano. The two instruments performed with sudden change in dynamic and unpredictable rhythm. While the piano represented for Orpheus’s harp, the percussions symbolized for the stone which came alive after hearing Orpheus music. The percussionist, Benjamin Duinker had to manage several percussion parts at once and he was quite successful. After a long introduction of piano and percussion, the singer enters with high pitches. The line of the singer was atonal and she managed to sing very well. She had such a powerful and expressive voice. The singer brought the piece to end with a long fermata along with the piano and percussion. The ending was not very obvious so the audiences did not know if the piece finished or not. There were one or two in the audiences clap first and then everyone followed. This reaction occurred very often with atonal or contemporary music.

        String Quartet No. 3 by John Weinzweig was the second piece of the concert. The piece was played by two violinists, Amy Hillis and Joshua Peters, a viola, Catherine Gray, and Andrea Stewart the cellist. The group was well balanced as if they had been playing together for a long time. The quartet had fives movements. It was mood shifting and longing. The line of each part was long and the motives were transferred from instrument to instrument. For example, the motive in the violin later could be heard in the viola but in different rhythm.

The second movement was in a fast tempo allegro appassionato. For some reason, the group was somewhat heavy at the beginning of the piece. The rapidly repetitive notes in a long duration might be the reason the music was not quite spontaneous since it was tiring for the musician to play. It could be better if the repeated notes could have been played shorter and crispier. The third movement was alike the first movement with slow tempo and long line in each instruments. The fourth movement was a fast tempo. It started with very short, rhythmic, and fast motives in the violin. Apparently, the violinist felt insecure for playing alone so the music was not precisely. From the place I was sitting, I could see the bow of the violin shaking when there is a pause. It was not easy to play in such a high pressure situation. Despite of the shaking opening, the rest of the movement went very well.