Noteworthy

Adversity can sometimes fuel a composer’s creative output. In this Toronto Symphony Orchestra program, patrons will experience the works of two great composers who triumphed over personal struggles to write some of their most inspired masterpieces. 

After a year of declining health and surviving a heart attack, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the Violin Concerto No. 2 as a 60th birthday gift to famed violin virtuoso David Oistrakh—except that Shostakovich miscalculated, and Oistrakh was only turning 59. Though the piece was written in C-sharp minor, a challenging key for the violin, Oistrakh had Shostakovich rewrite the solo because he deemed it too easy for him. Indeed, Oistrakh was so happy with the early birthday present, he proclaimed the slow “Adagio” movement the greatest gift Shostakovich ever gave him. 

This intimate and introspective piece will be brought to life by Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä, a champion of Shostakovich’s violin concertos, who is making her TSO début under the direction of compatriot conductor Hannu Lintu. Vähälä describes this concerto as “gripping, captivating, sometimes stern, yet devastatingly beautiful. The expression ranges from very transparent and austere to wild and grotesque, all packed with pure and deep emotion.”

Unlike most of Shostakovich’s concertos, which end triumphantly, this ending is uncharacteristically anticlimactic and ambiguous, which is thought to be a show of defiance against Soviet expectations of optimistic endings.

During this concert, audiences will also be the first to hear the World Première of Echo Chamber, a TSO Commission written by Liam Ritz, the orchestra’s RBC Affiliate Composer. It was written specifically to be paired with the violin concerto. While Shostakovich’s work was a commentary on his surrounding world and events in Soviet-era Russia, Ritz’s piece addresses what is relevant to our collective experience in the current world. 

In Ritz’s words, “Echo Chamber looks at our constant interaction and reliance on digital content, and how the increasing prevalence of AI-created materials poses potentially dangerous repercussions for how we, as a society, ingest information.”

Ritz hopes that this piece can challenge listeners to reflect on how we consume ideas and to think critically about what we are seeing and hearing on a daily basis.

While the first half of the program features music that may be less familiar to some concertgoers, in the second half, many will recognize melodies from one of the most beloved Romantic symphonies of all time.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 has a large pop-culture footprint, from films to figure skating routines. Even Frank Sinatra borrowed part of the second movement’s iconic horn solo for his song “Moon Love”. In fact, many orchestras use this solo as an audition excerpt. You might also find yourself humming along to the familiar third-movement waltz, which is based on a popular song the composer heard sung in the streets of Florence, Italy. 

The Fifth Symphony was composed during a period when Tchaikovsky was suffering deep emotional turmoil and a creative drought. When it was poorly received at its first few performances, the composer himself declared it a failure, further shattering his already insecure ego. Fortunately, after the later performances received a warmer reception, he regained faith in his composing abilities.

Tchaikovsky was a great admirer of Beethoven. So perhaps it is no coincidence that the fifth symphonies of both composers follow the same emotional trajectory from darkness and hardship to hope and triumph. Whereas Beethoven’s Fifth famously opens with “fate knocking at the door,” Tchaikovsky described the opening of his Fifth Symphony as “complete resignation before fate.” Listen closely, and you will feel his emotional struggles musically expressed in the “fate theme” that recurs throughout every movement. 

Article by Denise Lai, a physiotherapist, college professor, and alumna of the McGill Choral Society and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.