Verve and virtuosity

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This article was published 06/10/2023 (1054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Internationally renowned Canadian violinist Timothy Chooi returned to the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra stage like a beloved musical hero Wednesday night, once more dazzling the audience of 415 with his natural charm and blazing artistry.

The 75-minute program (no intermission), led by music director Anne Manson, featured a half-dozen eclectic works, with the Victoria, B.C.-born artist — who last took the stage here with his equally acclaimed brother, Nikki Chooi, in March 2022 — performing the lion’s share, much to the audience’s delight.

The charismatic soloist’s first two offerings displayed his deeply expressive side, beginning with Dvorak’s Romance in F Minor, Op. 11. After Manson set a brisk tempo for the orchestral introduction, Chooi marked his first entrance, immediately inhabiting the music while caressing sound from his gleaming, 1741 “Titan” Guarneri Del Gesu violin.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade Melancolique, Op. 26, one of the Russian composer’s few works written for solo violin, rang with emotion. Chooi, his eyes often closed in concentration, showed off his full spectrum of timbral colour and intently focused tone, which nonetheless felt forced at times in his uppermost register. More sweetness would have made these long, lyrical lines sing even more, though his rhapsodic rendering of the one-movement work’s expressive theme, including gossamer-light trills that slipped into the ether, rightfully earned a standing ovation.

The night’s showstopper proved to be an arrangement of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20, with a beaming Chooi, boasting a kilowatt smile, unleashing his full arsenal of pyrotechnics in the heavily Gypsy/Romani-inspired work based on actual folk melodies.

The virtuoso held nothing back during his passionate interpretation, his fiddle scaling the heights with lightning-speed runs before plummeting to the depths, as well as one magical moment in which his bow ricocheted up and down his strings, eliciting audible gasps from the enthralled crowd.

He then immediately launched into Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3, once again performed at blistering speed, as he tossed off double stops while maintaining the forward thrust of this driving, percussive work.

For an encore, Chooi treated the audience to a reprise of the Sarasate, which only seemed to have grown in power and might, as he ripped out chords from his violin, garnering another roaring ovation with cries of “bravo.”

The diverse program opened with Italian composer/cellist Giovanni Sollima’s Viaggio in Italia — 1 Federico II as the night’s second barnburner, with Manson driving her string orchestra players hard to create a cauldron of roiling energy. Its syncopated, repetitive riffs were layered throughout; concertmaster Karl Stobbe’s solo of its syncopated theme provided brief reprieve. Kudos to all for their conviction, with only a few ragtag moments heard between sections.

Finally, an arrangement of a work by another Italian composer, Boccherini, whose programmatic, seven-movement String Quintet No. 60 in C Major (G324), a.k.a. La Musica Della Strade Di Madrid, captured the life and colours of a street in the Spanish capital city.

The crowd will likely never forget the sight — and sound — of the full violin section flipping their fiddles to rhythmically strum them like tiny guitars during fifth movement, The Passacaglia of the Blind Singers, adding textural interest while making these players multi-instrumentalists. Another memorable moment was watching the musicians leave the stage one by one during the fading strains of the aptly titled finale, Retreat.

This highly evocative work, inspired by Boccherini’s own concert cello tour to Paris and Madrid in 1769, should be performed again, and soon; it’s as appealing as a hot Spanish paella on a cool autumnal night.

holly.harris@shaw.ca