A Reassuring Return

 Last night I attended the season-opening concert of our local chamber music society, something I haven't done for two years. It was reassuring in its normalcy: back in the usual hall, mask-free, most of the usual faces and with a young Canadian violinist onstage.

A couple of years ago I wrote somewhere that it seemed as if the music world, the classical music world in particular, would never recover from the severe blows it sustained as a result of the Covid pandemic. We seemed uniquely vulnerable with our concert life nearly eliminated. But as I see the small, local concert series revive, seemingly unaffected (my string quartet premiere in Vancouver, our local chamber music series and a host of others), it seems as if those fears were overblown.

What does not seem to be recovering and indeed seems to be worsening day by day, is the fate of the world outside of music.  A new European war supported by US and NATO arms and training, a new UK prime minister with an economic recovery plan similar to those launched by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan scuppered in a couple of weeks by the negative reaction of economists, central bankers and let's not forget, "markets," meaning more economic "experts." Oh yes, and the price of energy and most other things going through the roof because of really lunatic policies by yet more echelons of experts. There is a long list of other things that seem to be going wrong with shocking frequency.

Quoting from today's Wall Street Journal:

The International Monetary Fund says the world economy is headed for “stormy waters.” Ray Dalio, who founded the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, thinks we’ll see five years of “negative or poor real returns.” JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon says stocks could fall another 20%. Is that negative enough? It’s a start, given that few said these words a year ago.

But let's put all that to one side and enjoy our small return to normalcy. It was a delight to sink into my seat, not wearing a mask, and enjoy a very normal chamber music program. The artist was Jessica Tong, violin, accompanied by Michael Sheppard, piano. The program was works by Franz Schubert, Francis Poulenc, George Gershwin and Richard Strauss

I did not get the opportunity to go backstage to meet the artists, as I often do, so I can't tell you much about them. Jessica Tong is Canadian, but her professional bio, as is typical, refuses to share important information such as what part of Canada she is from, or even where she studied or with whom, citing only a laundry list of collaborations. The biography of Michael Sheppard is a bit more revealing: he studied with Leon Fleisher at Peabody and is a composer as well as a performer.

From the opening notes it was evident that the artists, particularly Jessica Tong, were fine musicians. She captured the charm and intimacy of an early violin sonata by Schubert, written when he was still a teenager (but an accomplished composer already). The Poulenc sonata, the only one he wrote, was full of acerbic gestures and biting humor--with an absolutely lovely middle movement. The first half ended with Jascha Heifetz' arrangement of three preludes by George Gershwin played with dash and elan.

I have to admit I drifted off a bit during the second half, consisting of the early 1887 violin sonata by Richard Strauss (he does tend to go on), but I fully returned to consciousness for the encore. This was something I have never seen in a concert before and I have attended thousands of concerts. The artists played an encore in which the leading performer, played on a different instrument than she did during the concert! Yes, very odd. The encore was a short piece by Schubert for piano four hands in which Jessica Tong played the upper part. And very well indeed.

Here is a sample clip of Jessica Tong playing Sibelius: