THE GAZETTE (Arthur Kaptainis)
Oct 7, 2012
Alexis Hauser opened the McGill Symphony Orchestra season on Saturday with an ambitious program of the sort one might expect to hear towards the end of the Saison.The main event was Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony in a performance that was noble, dramatic, rich in imagery and astoundingly secure as musical architecture. And technically accurate? Yes, this too, after some debugging in the first movement.
Strings were rich in the Andante. I cannot remember a more songful treatment of the viola tune, so finely adorned with dynamic swells and subtle accents. Woodwinds in the trio of the Scherzo seem to have been imported straight from Upper Austria.
The performance reached an apotheosis in the finale, like the Andante a marvel of unbroken narrative and in no way episodic. We saw the lily, the roaring cataract and the sky above. Did I mention that this score is nicknamed “Romantic”? Trumpets and lower brass, impressive throughout, seemed to sense the magnitude of their mission and they approached the end. They richly deserved their bravos. As did Hauser, master architect, master painter, master conductor
Alexis Hauser opened the McGill Symphony Orchestra season on Saturday with an ambitious program of the sort one might expect to hear towards the end of the Saison.The main event was Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony in a performance that was noble, dramatic, rich in imagery and astoundingly secure as musical architecture. And technically accurate? Yes, this too, after some debugging in the first movement.
Strings were rich in the Andante. I cannot remember a more songful treatment of the viola tune, so finely adorned with dynamic swells and subtle accents. Woodwinds in the trio of the Scherzo seem to have been imported straight from Upper Austria.
The performance reached an apotheosis in the finale, like the Andante a marvel of unbroken narrative and in no way episodic. We saw the lily, the roaring cataract and the sky above. Did I mention that this score is nicknamed “Romantic”? Trumpets and lower brass, impressive throughout, seemed to sense the magnitude of their mission and they approached the end. They richly deserved their bravos. As did Hauser, master architect, master painter, master conductor