Concert Review: Otto Tausk Conducts The BPO
Songs of Heroes In An Age of Anxiety
Vancouver Symphony conductor Otto Tausk took the podium at Kleinhans Music Hall Friday morning Coffee Concert (November 22, 2024). The program featured grand, cinematic compositions that conjured heroes from the stage.
The BPO sounded relaxed and well-rehearsed under Tausk’s baton, no easy feat for a visiting conductor.
Wagenaar’s Overture to “Cyrano de Bergerac”
The program began with a performance of Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar’s Overture to “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Wagenaar’s narrative tone poem of the famous love story is similar in form to Beethoven’s Egmont Overture (performed by the BPO at its November 9th 90th Anniversary concert) and Richard Strauss’ “Don Quixote,” which the BPO performed March 1, 2024.
The “Egmont Overture” (1810), “Don Quixote” (1897), and “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1905) are orchestral tone poems, or musical soundtracks to familiar tales with individual instruments acting as characters. Prior to the advent of film, these tone poems performed a function similar to movie scores.
The BPO realized the drama of Wagenaar’s overture, punctuated by a well-executed brass fanfare.
Edge Of A Dream
Violinist and composer Tim Fain took the stage and performed his own “Edge of a Dream” (2021). Fain discussed his composition below.
Throughout much of the work, I employ several short motifs, juxtaposed as pixels, through which a larger structure emerges. In Part I, the three rising pitches in the strings at the outset of the movement, the insistent staccato figures in the woodwinds, and the two downward sweeping intervals in the solo violin are recombined and remixed.
By contrast, Part II explores longer-form melody: after a chaotic climactic moment and short cadenza, the solo violin finds its way back home to the original tonality and peaceful character.
Part III is, once again, almost entirely centered around a short motif consisting of the four notes of an arpeggiated 3rd inversion D major 7th chord. As the original descending intervallic motif from Part I returns, now in a somewhat more hopeful major tonality, the movement comes to an exuberant close.
Fain has composed or arranged several film soundtracks, including “Black Swan,” “12 Years A Slave,” “Moonlight,” and 2023’s biography of artist Edward Munch.
Fain’s style is cinematic: framed like an image with foreground, middle ground, and background. “Edge of a Dream” features a background of shimmering strings, Fain’s violin in the foreground, and occasional woodwinds or percussion meandering in the middle ground.
“Edge of a Dream” conveyed Fain’s theme of hope in the face of tragedy, but Part II drifted into incoherence. Fain and his composition rallied, however, and brought the piece to a satisfying conclusion that featured a gauzy, dreamlike cadenza.
Beethoven’s Eroica
As discussed in this space, Beethoven composed during the Age of Revolutions (American and French, to name just two) and, like many Romantic era artists, he hoped to sweep away a millennium of stifling, feudal oppression and free the creative, human spirit.
When Beethoven began the Eroica in 1804, he called it his “Bonaparte Symphony,” dedicated to the French Republic’s First Consul who he (like millions of others) hoped would be a leveling figure, fighting for the common man. Beethoven was planning a concert tour of France, so there was that, too.
When, however, Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor of France, Beethoven saw him as just another garden-variety tyrant; he tore out the title page of the “Bonaparte Symphony” in disgust and cancelled the French tour.
The BPO excels at Beethoven and filled Eroica’s first movement with energy and drama. They transitioned into the second movement which begins with a dirge leading to a bright interlude and a bouncy Scherzo third movement.
The Eroica’s final movement begins with grand, mysterious themes that lead to a thrilling, triumphant finale, reminiscent of a victory parade.
If you are as fascinated as I am about this historical period, I recommend “Eroica,” by Simon Cellan Jones, below (BBC 2003) in which we see that famous moment when Beethoven decided that Napoleon was “just like all the others” (1:19:45-1:20:30).
You may also wish to watch Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” released in theaters a year ago; a 3½ hour Director’s Cut was recently released on Apple TV+. Media Room’s review of the “Napoleon’s” 2023 theatrical release may be found here.
Otto Tausk and the BPO gave an excellent performance, conjuring heroes from the stage.
As I walked out of Kleinhans Music Hall onto a cold, rainy Pennsylvania Street I could almost hear the rumbling of an approaching American kakistocracy, with swords in their hands and plunder in their hearts.
It occurred to me that, like Beethoven, I live in a world without heroes. No one is coming to save us.
The program repeats Saturday, November 23 at 7:30PM. For tickets and more information click here.