ESO legacy grows

As the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 60th anniversary, it has once again renewed its legacy of reaching out to the greater community at large. That legacy was further enhanced with its return to the Arden Theatre after a much-too-long 27-year absence.

From the first sounds of their concerto at the Arden last Sunday, the audience was swept away by their sheer technical brilliance and seemingly effortless finesse.

Music director Bill Eddins, now in his seventh year with the ESO, was a wizard with the baton, conducting in an elegant, straightforward manner. But it was his warm, engaging manner welcoming the audience – often with a freewheeling humour – that set everyone at ease.

Together he and special guest pianist Kemal Gekic selected a five-part program that sparkled with repertoire from the early to late romantic period.

Eddins opened with the ESO playing Hector Berlioz’s Marche Troyenne, a robust and dramatic work that portends the advancing armies out to sack Troy. Starting off with a melodic sweetness, the short movement quickly developed ominous undertones heightened by explosions, scurrying feet and galloping sounds.

Perhaps the most transcendental work in the concert was ESO’s interpretation of Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration Opus 24.

Eddins described the tone poem as “a huge sprawling and dark work, but one of his most beautiful.”

He went on to describe the story behind it – a man lies dying and as his fever intensifies, his life is played out before him. It’s a life of nostalgic childhood memories, first love and youthful desires.

“But he is always interrupted by the knock of death always reminding him he is on his death bed.”

The work started with the quiet pulse of strings and timpani representing an irregular heartbeat. Slowly it grew into a gentle serenade, but the quiet opening rhythms became more threatening and overpowering as death approached. At the moment of death and transfiguration, where the soul soared into the cosmos, Eddins coaxed a beautiful majestic climax from the orchestra that was breathtaking and serene.

Jointly the ESO and Gekic performed Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major. A renowned world interpreter of Liszt’s compositions, the Croatian-born pianist allowed the composer’s message to glow and burn with hidden meanings.

A flamboyant concert pianist that lives and breathes Liszt, Gekic was at once delicate and smooth with moments that rippled into a blur of athletic finger-work. In drawing out the phrases, he projected a certain freedom that was unbound and electric.

Almost as a tease, Gekic included one of the classical repertoire’s favourite crowd pleasers – Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Thoughtful and mellow at its inception, it shifted into the galloping chords so many millions know as the theme song for the Lone Ranger television series.

All in all, Eddins conjured a sensitive balance allowing all the lines to rise above the bulwark of sound generated by the orchestra. Judging by fan chatter as everyone filed out of the hall, the beautiful heroic strains will be remembered for quite a while.