Winnipeg Free Press

Gwenda Nemerofsky

Sunday Jan 18, 2009

Audience members may have been scratching their heads while exiting Centennial Concert Hall Friday night. They had just been to a Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra concert full of surprises and unusual events.
The debut work that received much advance attention was Canadian composer Victor Davies’Concerto for Tubameister and Orchestra. This special commission is a rare showcase for the patriarch of the brass family, and gave WSO principal tuba Chris Lee a chance to move front and centre to demonstrate his prodigious talent.

Tuba stereotypes banished quickly as Lee showed the previously undetected light-hearted and jaunty side of the instrument, moving along at a good clip, with equally cheerful strings and brass accompanying.
He showed great dynamic variation in the Theme and Variations, and Davies was sure to include those rumbling low notes we all love.

A waltzing tuba? Perhaps a touch elephantine, but Lee played with impressive delicacy and sweet flow to keep Waltz for Franco from becoming plodding. This was a graceful rendering by conductor Rei Hotoda and the WSO.

Perhaps best of all was Sancho Panza Goes to the Bull Fight, a castanet-enhanced samba, engaging the tuba in trills, syncopation and sky-high notes, while the trumpet section morphed into a mariachi band. If only the violins could have let their hair down and injected more life into their parts, the effect would have been complete. Olé!

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 began with optimistic brightness and lyricism. Hotoda breathed good energy and urgency into the richly melodic opening movement and the orchestra responded with crisp, attentive playing.

The Allegretto was balletic in its lightness, violins precise and clean, while cellos, French horns and clarinet offered up mellow solos in the Minuet.

The final movement was a fine display of artistic teamwork, as a perfectly synchronized and expressive string section galloped along, with scampering flutes and solid brass giving it their all. Why then, did the violins give up the ghost in the final moments, ending shrilly and out of tune? It was a shame to end an otherwise strong performance this way.