Toronto Symphony Orchestra scales new heights in impressive return to Carnegie Hall, ‘Everest of classical music’

NEW YORK, N.Y.— To paraphrase a song lyric from the late Fred Ebb about this city that never sleeps: if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. The same could be said about Carnegie Hall, the hallowed performance hall in the heart of Manhattan where some of the greatest instrumentalists and ensembles have performed.

It’s the mecca of the classical music world; make it there and you have made it.

But the Toronto Symphony Orchestra wasn’t merely content with showing up at Carnegie Hall. Instead, the ensemble proved its mettle Monday evening with a thoughtful program of works that showcased Canadian flavours and the orchestra’s impressive skill.

The concert marked the TSO’s first appearance at the venue since 2011 and the second stop of a three-city North American tour. It was a significant performance in more ways than one, not the least of which is that for many in the orchestra, including music director Gustavo Gimeno, this marked their Carnegie Hall debut.

“Playing at Carnegie Hall is really important for us to do,” concertmaster Jonathan Crow said in an interview before the tour. “It’s kind of like the Everest of classical music and it’s something that, as an orchestra, we need to do to challenge ourselves to be in the big leagues.”

Indeed, the TSO mounted a strong case to be considered among the major players with its concert Monday. (For reference, the Big Five orchestras in North America, generally considered to be the cream of the crop, are the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra.)

In a program of strong works, it was Édouard Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” that stood out. Spanish violinist María Dueñas delivered a ferocious interpretation of the showpiece, threatening to blow the roof off Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium. It’s impossible to fathom that she’s just 20 years old.

“She sounds so mature musically, so passionate, so refined, so beautiful, but she also has so much personality,” said fellow countryman Gimeno, in a separate interview before the tour. “She’s already a star.”

She clearly demonstrated all those traits on Monday. Right from her virtuosic entrance in the first movement, she fiendishly attacked each note, drawing out the fiery Spanish rhythms with a full-bodied tone. In the second movement, she modulated this intensity but was still supremely expressive, offering a sly and playful rendition of the scherzo. Under Gimeno’s confident direction, the orchestra matched her energy every step of the way.

Watching Dueñas onstage is thrilling, even hypnotizing. She pushes her instrument to the very limit of its sonic capabilities, only rarely compromising on sound quality.

It’s only recently that I’ve begun following Dueñas’s career. She burst onto the scene after winning the 2021 Yehudi Menuhin Competition, appropriately nicknamed “The Olympics of the Violin.”

In the past, I’ve felt that her scorching style can sometimes affect her musical phrasing, particularly in moments of extended lyricism. But Dueñas’s musicality has matured, as evident Monday. Take the fifth movement rondo, for example, in which she sculpted the tuneful melodies with joyful bravura.

After a rousing ovation, Dueñas concluded with an arrangement of Francisco Tárrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” for violin, showcasing yet again her astonishing technical prowess and proving that she will be a name to watch for years to come.

(After performing with the TSO in Chicago on Valentine’s Day, Dueñas will return to Toronto with the TSO Friday for a concert at Massey Hall featuring Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1.”)

Preceding “Symphonie Espagnole” was Canadian composer Samy Moussa’s “Symphony No. 2,” a TSO commission that premiered to great acclaim less than a year ago. As far as Canadian content goes, Moussa’s work is a solid choice.

A dense and sinewy composition, it contains few memorable melodies. Rather, it paints a ravishing soundscape through its compelling exploration of form and harmony, while also drawing on more classical qualities. The chords, of which there are many, are dense and complex; passages of striking dissonance give way to moments of consonance.

Perhaps most intriguing, however, is Moussa’s choice of instrumentation. Trumpets are replaced with flugelhorns, while a variety of pitched instruments — glockenspiel, xylophone and vibraphones, for example — make up the percussion. The result is a clear and bright sound, wonderfully conveyed by the orchestra. And how wonderful, too, that Moussa was on hand to soak in the applause following the performance.

After intermission, the TSO performed Sergei Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” in a new suite compiled by Gimeno that draws on movements from all three of the Russian composer’s original suites from his ballet, while reordering them to recreate a narrative through-line — splendidly programmed for the eve of Valentine’s Day.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give the TSO is that after listening to their performance, I was compelled to revisit scenes from William Shakespeare’s original text. Such was the emotional intensity of their interpretation: introspective moments shimmered brilliantly, while the sweeping themes of the first and sixth movements (“Montagues and Capulets” and “Death of Tybalt”) were thunderously rendered, making full use of Carnegie Hall’s incredible acoustics.

The performance was so warmly received that it prompted two encore pieces. The first: Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Lyric Waltz from Ballet Suite No. 1.” And the second: a wistful interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from his “West Side Story Suite.”

The latter was the perfect choice to cap off the evening. “West Side Story,” of course, is set mere blocks away from Carnegie Hall and was inspired by Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” like Prokofiev’s ballet. And who can say no to Bernstein?

As the violin melody soared above the accompaniment, Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics came to mind: “There’s a place for us / Somewhere a place for us …” Well for the TSO, they’ve proved their place at Carnegie Hall.