Stir ’Splainer: Everything you need to know about the opening concert of the VSO, October 16
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presents a virtual performance of Bach & Beethoven with Ehnes and Tausk
Internationally acclaimed violinist James Ehnes will play Bach’s shimmering First Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041 at the VSO’s season opener. Photo courtesy VSO
The VSO launches its 2020-21 season on October 16 at 7:30 pm with Bach & Beethoven with Ehnes and Tausk, a concert that’s part of its Assante Vancouver Centre Stars Series.
MAESTRO OTTO TAUSK is picking up the baton where the VSO left off with its BeethovenFest earlier this year, celebrating the master’s 250th anniversary with the uplifting Symphony No. 7. Internationally renowned violinist James Ehnes will play Bach’s shimmering First Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041.
Here’s what you need to know about the virtual performance.
The story behind the Seventh
The symphony was composed in 1811 and premiered in Vienna on 8 December 1813, during a charitable concert to benefit soldiers wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. The second movement, “Allegretto”, received such a raucous response that it had to be encored immediately in the performance. Three more performances of the Seventh Symphony took place in the following 10 weeks, with Beethoven himself calling it “one of the happiest products of my poor talents.”
Notes on the acclaimed violinist
Ehnes began playing the violin at age five. By nine, he had become a protégé of celebrated Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. He was 13 when he made his orchestra debut with L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
A dear friend of the VSO and a JUNO- and Grammy-winner, Ehnes has been a guest of the world’s best orchestras, including those in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, London, Munich, and Berlin, to name a few. As part of global Beethoven celebrations, he was invited to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas at the Wigmore Hall throughout 2019-20. He plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.
For the VSO performance, recorded at Christ Church Cathedral, Ehnes played as a soloist and also directed.
“It’s really rewarding being the leader as well as the soloist in that it creates more of a chamber music type of feel,” Ehnes said. “I find there is a particularly special level of engagement from every player in the ensemble. This Bach A minor Concerto is a piece that many students learn as a ‘rite of passage.’
“If you study the Suzuki method, it’s in one of the books, and I remember that’s how I first got to know it,” he says. “It’s a piece that I loved then, and I love it now, and I’m sure that I’ll love it until the day I die. It’s always interesting, it’s always challenging, it’s always beautiful, and there’s always something new to discover in it!”
On the new virtual symphony experience
VSO musical director Otto Tausk has reinvented the 2020/21 season with curated digital performances. Photo courtesy VSO
Tausk, who’s in his third season as music director of the VSO, is also the newly announced chief conductor of recently formed Phion Orkest van Gelderland & Overijssel. Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and Stuttgarter Philharmoniker are among the many organizations he has guested at.
After a rollercoaster spring, he has reimagined the 2020/21 Vancouver season with a curated series of digital performances. The organization discovered that, with no audience present, it could construct a sizeable stage extension in the Orpheum with sufficient space for physically distanced musicians to record a full Beethoven symphony.
How the show is streaming
Consider it the Netflix for symphonies: with its opening concert, the VSO is launching TheConcertHall.ca, presented by TELUS, a new virtual home to connect audiences around the globe. After release, most performances will stay up for the duration of the season. Some performances and interviews are free, and there are student discounts for others.
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