By Hugh Fraser
Cora Brittan's High In the Heavens
Inspired by Holst's The Planets "Venus"
HAMILTON - As I mounted the steps of Christ's Church Cathedral, Sunday night, to attend the Boris Brott Summer Music Festival concert there, I wondered how many pieces of music I had witnessed, over my many years, that had come to this place to die.
I have never heard an orchestra sound well in this space. Not even one as brilliant as this National Academy Orchestra. The acoustic is loud, even raucous, when it is not simply crude and harsh. The enormous effort to achieve any nuance or subtlety seems wasted as the effect will soon be swamped by the inevitable uproar to follow. A miniature baroque band to accompany Messiah is the best one can hope for here.
Hopes of great performances of Respighi's Pines of Rome and Holst's The Planets, even when not accompanied by jubilant Spanish vuvuzuelas and horn honkings out on James St., seemed a bit forlorn. However the point of the exercise was not to slam the door shut on James Street but to open the doors and welcome in what has become an artistic renaissance in this downtown community.
To do this, Brott had invited local artists to create pictures inspired by these two great works - pieces that already are so visual they form a thesaurus that composers of film music have used since the works first saw the lights of the concert hall.
These art works were then photographed, turned into slides and screened above the orchestra as Brott conducted the music beneath them. And in this we can report a real artistic triumph.
This job was done by Brott staffers -- Diane Clark who photographed most of the works and Mary Pat Elliott, who edited the slide show to roam the pictures picking out details and fascinations she found within them that so aptly fit the music as to enormously enhance both arts at once. Alongside her was Genevieve Leclair to facilitate the musical and thematic transition of the slides.
The originals were displayed at knee height around the south west corner of the nave and the contrast was striking. Elliott elided the childishness of Anna Constance Lipowski's Villa Borghese -- by highlighting foliage and other details that gave it a gravitas and presence it might have otherwise lacked.
Jamie Lawson's Mars inspired by the movement in Holst's The Planets
Works that Clark and Elliott so effectively enhanced for the Holst were Ruth Marshall's glass mask (Saturn) that shimmered with iridescent layers of light and lovingly lingered over its coils. Also lightened and exploded with vivid life was the geometric wonders of Uranus the Magician and the wonderful subtleties of Ward Shipman's Neptune where backgrounds were wallowed in to reveal enthralling patterns, textures and colours.
Ruth Marshall's Saturn
Parade of the Puppets by Maxime Goulet and conducted by apprentice maestro Genevieve Leclair came with its own child-like paintings of puppets that were screened. The lovely second movement, Wang-Fo, was a nice relief from the jagged, discordant syncopations that just don't come off well in this space.
Ryan Trew's Starlike, commissioned by the Vancouver Symphony for the recent Winter Olympics in that city and conducted by apprentice maestro Samuel Tak-Ho Tam was very pretty; all tinkly bells, glistening arpeggios and scales nestled into thick, comfy chords. It was rarely strenuous and climaxed by merely increasing volume.
The heat was oppressive and the ministering angel who handed out the bottled water at half-time should get a humanitarian award.