The promoters of this week’s Toronto Symphony concerts might not have noticed it, but the program and its presenters make up something of an international accord between the two big federal republics of North America.
So says James Ehnes, a violinist from Manitoba and a dual citizen of Canada and the United States who now calls Brandenton home.
“It’s kind of a nice, friendly international token,” Ehnes said. “A Canadian orchestra, with a Canadian conductor and a Canadian violinist who happen to live in the States.”
Ehnes, who turns 35 later this month, is one of the finest violinists of his generation, and he’ll add to the diplomatic amity by playing the Violin Concerto (Op. 14) of Samuel Barber, one of the greatest of American composers, in his appearances Tuesday and Wednesday with the Toronto.
“It’s a great piece, and as far as performing it, it shows off the violin so beautifully, for all of the violin’s virtues,” he said. “It has these beautiful melodies that are so well-suited for the instrument, and it has lots of virtuoso fireworks as well.”
Conductor Peter Oundjian also will lead the Toronto in a major Russian masterwork, the Fifth Symphony (in E minor, Op. 64) of Tchaikovsky, along with a contemporary Canadian work, Torque, written for the orchestra in 2009 by the Toronto-born composer Gary Kulesha. Ehnes and the orchestra appear Tuesday night at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, and Wednesday night at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.
Ehnes has a large discography of more than 20 CDs that includes standard works – his newest disc, out this month on the Onyx label, features the Mendelssohn Concerto and the same composer’s Octet – and unusual ones that he said “keep my appetite fed,” such as Second and Third concertos of Max Bruch, and the Tartiniana of the Italian modernist Luigi Dallapiccola.
He’s played the Barber concerto many times and recorded it, and he defends the composer and his concerto from charges that his work was unfashionably conservative.
“It’s kind of a miraculous piece. The way that it’s put together, the proportions of the piece, are very unusual but work beautifully,” Ehnes said. “Barber, who I think for many years was criticized for being old-fashioned harmonically, is in this work extremely progressive formalistically. I think it’s a fascinating combination of elements.”
Ehnes grew up in Brandon, Manitoba, as the son of American immigrants who had moved to the province for job reasons and ended up staying 40 years, he said. His talent for the violin declared itself early, and by age 11 he had won first place in the Canadian Music Competition’s string division, and two years later made his debut with the Montreal Symphony. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, and last year received the Order of Canada.
The bulk of the music Ehnes plays is standard repertory, but he’s pleased to see works such as the Walton Violin Concerto (which is on the same disc as his Barber recording) make more appearances on concert programs. But he’s bothered by another trend: the steady abandonment of once-staple Romantic showpiece repertoire such as Eduard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole and the concertos of composers such as Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski.
And then there’s Pablo de Sarasate, the 19th-century Spanish virtuoso whose Carmen Fantasy and Zigeunerweisen used to be played everywhere. While Zigeunerweisen turns up on solo recitals frequently, it’s not often heard anymore on orchestral programs, as Ehnes discovered during some concerts he did in the summer of 2008 with the New York Philharmonic.
“In the program … they list the last performance [by the orchestra]. And how many concerts do they give a year? It’s hundreds. And they had not played ‘Zigeunerweisen’ in 40 years,” he said. “Ten or 15 years ago, I would get asked a fair amount to play the ‘Symphonie Espagnole’ or a Wieniawski concerto, and that music is just really out of favor right now, which is a shame, because I think it’s beautiful music that deserves more credit than it gets.”
He sees this as part of a “disconnect” between what promoters think audiences want and what they actually want, and added that the trend is more acute in bigger cities, where recital programs have to have weighty canonical works rather than lighter pieces. “If it’s not by Brahms or Beethoven or Mozart, it’s just not serious,” he said.
“I’m not saying Wieniawski was a composer of the importance of Liszt, but I’ll certainly say that [with] the Liszt First Piano Concerto and the Wieniawski Second Violin Concerto, there’s no good reason that one is considered a masterpiece and the other is considered junk,” he said. “That’s just ignorance and snobbery.”
Ehnes, who is married to ballet dancer Kate Maloney, said he loves living in Florida, where one of his hobbies is vintage car restoration. And while his loyalties to both of his nations are firm, he is passionate about Canada’s contribution to the arts, which he said well outpaces its citizen numbers.
“In the music world, it’s amazing how many musicians are Canadians, for just not a very big country in terms of the population,” he said. “There’s a very strong culture there, and that’s something that Canadians to a certain degree are proud of, and should be even more proud of.”
Small in population, but large in territory, and one of the great unifiers of its people was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s classical music service on Radio 2, he said. It underwent a controversial change in 2008, when most of its classical broadcasting was cut in favor of pop, jazz and other kinds of music.
Ehnes decries the switch, arguing that artists now heard regularly on the CBC station, such as Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, have plenty of other outlets where their work can be heard.
“The CBC was of paramount importance to exposing people across the country to classical music … I grew up in a town of 35,000 to 40,000 people … and it could not have supported a classical music station. But we had the CBC,” he said.
Things have changed.
“Classical programming has been cut dramatically, to the point where it’s very difficult for anyone to be able to hear classical music as a young person, because the only classical programming is during school hours,” Ehnes said. “And that’s the thing that I think could have lasting ramifications. If you’re not exposed to it, you’re simply not going to know that it’s there, that it’s an option.
“And I think in our world today, people are losing sight of what music can bring to a society. We’re in a world of background music now, and people just don’t listen the way they used to. So I guess it’s only to be expected that the powers that be are going to start to lose sight of how important music can be in people’s everyday lives.”
Ehnes added: “The CBC was such an amazing cultural jewel for Canada for so long, and it brought something to everyone across the country. It was something we all shared together.”
The Toronto Symphony, too, went through a period of tumult about 10 years ago when labor disputes came to a head, but in more recent years the ensemble has been recording budget surpluses. Oundjian took over leadership of the orchestra in 2004, and his contract has been extended into 2012.
Ehnes said he first played with the orchestra about 15 years ago, and since then has soloed regularly with them and gotten to know many of its players well.
“Peter Oundjian has become a good friend over the past few years. He was someone I grew up admiring as a violinist, and it’s been a real pleasure getting to know him better and working with him as a conductor,” he said.
The Toronto Symphony’s current tour in Florida is its first since 1999. It begins tonight at the Naples Philharmonic Center in Naples, and ends Jan. 15 at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach. Ehnes, who will play all five of the Mozart violin concerti with the orchestra in Toronto the week after that, said the group “is at the top of their game.”
“I’m excited on their behalf to have the opportunity to show audiences in Florida that they are a major player out there,” he said. “They’re going to do the country proud.”
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James Ehnes and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will appear at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale, and at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Kravis Center, West Palm Beach. Tickets for the Broward performance range from $35-$90. Call 954-462-0222 or visit www.browardcenter.org. Tickets for the Kravis performance start at $25. Call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.