As far as the concertos were concerned, Mehta proved a mensch, putting his soloists first. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman was slow to warm up Thursday in the Violin Concerto, with nuance coming more easily than tone quality. He was joined by the impressive cellist Amanda Forsyth on Saturday for a dramatic reading of the Double Concerto, which proceeded the Fourth Symphony.
Read MoreZubin Mehta & Israel Philharmonic – The Mumbai Concerts – with Forsyth, Matsuev, Zukerman [Accentus; DVD] /
The three Concertos, conducted from memory, are a bag of mixed chemistries. Zuckerman's autumnal Beethoven does everything right, yet in its meditation and carefulness loses energy, sounding more held back than others sharing its (relatively quick) forty-five-minute span. The fire burns low. In the Brahms Double (playing from music) he's joined by his South African-born Canadian wife Amanda Forsyth, a latter-day protégé of William Pleeth. Musically (and visually) it's an oddly old-fashioned encounter, neither protagonist entirely comfortable with each other or the nature of Brahms's duo writing, Mehta driving a forceful, even belligerent, account in between.
Read MoreAmanda Forsyth returns to the NAC to premiere a new cello concerto /
Amanda Forsyth has been travelling the world since she left the principal cello chair with the National Arts Centre Orchestra some three years ago.
From Seoul to Sydney; St. Petersburg to Sao Paolo, she’s lugged her cello Carlo to concert halls across the globe as a soloist or as a member of the Zukerman Trio with her partner Pinchas Zukerman and pianist Angela Cheng.
Now she’s about to step back on the Southam Hall stage as a soloist for the first time since she left to pursue a career in the wider world.
She will perform a concerto written for her by the Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich, who has more than 70 works to his credit and has won several major awards including the 2010 JUNO for Best Classical Composition of the Year.
Read MoreIn Perfect Harmony /
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Radiant beauty and delight from the Jerusalem Quartet and friends /
It is rare to have a full concert of string sextets, and it is rare indeed to find playing as beautiful as that provided by the Jerusalem Quartet and their two exalted collaborators, violist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth. Radiant warmth and feeling flowed everywhere in this concert, starting from Richard Strauss’s lovely Sextet from Capriccio and ending with the energy and romantic ardour of Tchaikovsky’s late sextet ‘Souvenir de Florence’. In between was Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht , also painted in luxuriant colours, though here some sharper, more distilled contours might not have been out of place. It was a particular joy to see the Jerusalem Quartet in its fullest splendour: the Vancouver Recital Society sponsored the ensemble literally from its birth-pangs two decades ago.
Read MorePinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth with The Jerusalem Quartet at Symphony Center /
As part of the Symphony Center Presents chamber music series, renowned husband and wife duo Pinchas Zukerman, viola, and Amanda Forsyth, cello, along with the acclaimed Jerusalem Quartet presented a program of lush, fully developed works at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago on October 7, 2018.
Read MoreCellist Amanda Forsyth returns to Calgary with Zukerman Trio /
This probably shouldn’t be taken as an invitation to behave badly at a classical music concert. But Amanda Forsyth says she wouldn’t mind it if you behaved badly at a classical music concert.
“I think they should do what they want,” says the cellist, on the line from her home in New York City. “The whole problem with classical music is that everyone thinks they have to behave. What has to happen is the music fills their bodies and makes them feel something, whatever it is they want to feel.”
Read MoreAnd so the final curtain: Forsyth takes a bow as a soloist with NACO /
In the crowded dressing room that she and Pinchas Zukerman share backstage, Amanda Forsyth was tidying up the pieces of her last solo concert as a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
It was a night of significance for the institution and for the principal cellist of NACO, who will leave the ensemble at the end of this season.
Forsyth has been a “presence” with NACO for 17 years. Call it star power or charisma, when she is on stage people watch her.
Thursday night she gave them something more to look at and, in an interview later, to think about.
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