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Grand scores, gestures mark Komatsu's farewell concerts

By Colleen Johnston
FOR THE RECORD
Chosei Komatsu has brought free music to K-W Symphony audiences for the past six years. Conductor and music director of both the KWS and the Canadian Chamber Ensemble during this time, Komatsu's tenure closed triumphantly with this past weekend's concerts.

On Friday, the Centre in the Square was close to full as the departing conductor presented a KWS Masterpiece Series program called Chosei's Favourites. And what did he choose as favourites, but the music of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) whose music he knows and loves.

Two of Rachmaninoff's most seething, popular works - the Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, with classy American soloist Jeffrey Biegel, and the Second Symphony. in E.Minor made up the entire program.

From the initial grave statements of the concerto to the victorious conclusion of the symphonic Opus, Komatsu, Biegel and the KWS wrung every last ounce of volume and raw passion from these turbulent scores. When prolonged applause, ovations and hurrahs roared through the hall following both performances, this was surely due as much to the gushing waves of tenderness in the gorgeous lyrical sections as the rock-hard unity and purpose and shape of the whole of each work.

Rachmaninoff has been maligned for his unabashed sentimentality. But this is only because his style, however much imitated in popular media, defies duplication. Pretenders caught up with Rachmaninoff's lush lyricism never quite grasp his impeccable orchestral ear. Most of all, the copycats, focusing on the page and the sound, lack the soul and utmost sincerity so integral to Rachmaninoff's creativity.

Unlike many other Rachmaninoff interpreters, Komatsu seems in a way closer to the music, because he is so deepdown sentimental. Conducting on Friday, with grand gestures, he resembled a figure at the prow of a galleon at full sail, navigating the scores with a sharp eye to the elements and a keen grasp of the potential dangers to come.

Tempos were skillfully chosen and executed; sonorities throbbed; phrases swelled and fell with natural gracefulness. Juxtapositions of timbre and rhythm and metre and the sheer force of the volume made these Rachrnaninoff works come to life.

Concerning piano soloist Biegel, what can anyone say about a musician who respects his calling and audience enough to not just deliver a completely viable and technically honest concerto (no mean feat), but repay his delighted listeners with a fabulous piano arrangement of Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz?

Ever-so-tender, Biegel's perfect blend of toss-off elegance and urbane waggishness in this arrangement (by, one guesses, a contemporary Polish composer) blended easy listening with mesmerizing craft.

And what a giddy roller-coaster ride this was; even the onstage musicians were smiling as Biegel regaled one of the lilting choruses with a whiff of boozy swagger. Yet, when Biegel returned where he had begun, with the Cherished tune set in filigreed ripples, it's a bit of a shame. For no one who's heard Biegel's Blue Danube will ever listen to the original orchestral setting without yearning for this glistening rendition.

Komatsu, the KWS and Biegel kicked derriere on Friday with Rachmaninoff's scores. Komatsu, after much applause, offered Canadian Srul Irving Glick's moving Suite Hebraique No. 1 (1961) as a finale.

Farewell Chosei, and thanks.

The Record (Kitchener, Ontario) November 8, 1999