Ottawa Orchestra Presents A Good Night For Rachmaninov

One of the evening’s pleasures was welcoming back David Currie, the orchestra’s music director and the person more responsible than any other for making it one of the best community orchestras around.

He was absent from the past two programs because of illness, and, while his substitutes did well, he was a welcome sight on the podium.

Rachmaninov is one of those composers that sophisticates sometimes dismiss with a supercilious sniff.

Of course, they’ll usually admit that a few works are OK, such two of the piano concertos, many of the solo piano pieces and …well, by the time they’re done, we have a list of two or three dozen scores and must admit that he was no half bad.

So what of the Symphony no. 2 in E minor? It’s one of his finest works, an opinion no one who heard last night’s OSO performance is likely to contest. A few blemishes aside – a split note here, a moment of inconsistent string intonation there – Currie and his musicians produced a powerful and memorable account of the score.

Rachmaninov and Stravinsky didn’t have a lot in common aside from their shared Russian background. They didn’t care much for each other’s music, and, though they lived in Beverly Hills at about the same time, they avoided one another.

Then Mme. Rachmaninov invited the Stravinskys for dinner. After each composer shrugged off a symbolic insult from the other, they had a jolly evening.

Stravinsky was the greater composer and Rachmaninov certainly knew it, but both men also knew the Rachmaninov’s music would enjoy greater popularity and that a work of genius such as Stravinsky’s 1931 Violin Concerto in D would remain on the periphery of the repertoire.

Last night, David Steward and the orchestra performed the concerto, doing it basic justice and often considerably more. It was a real pleasure to hear and a good example of Currie’s “full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes style of programming.” -- www.ottawasymphony.com