Synchronicity

A tyrant stormed the Centennial Concert Hall as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra presented rock royalty Stewart Copeland’s Tyrant’s Crush during its final Thursday Classics offering.

Stewart Copeland and Beethoven, an 85-minute (no intermission) program, was also the first time maestro Daniel Raiskin has shared the stage locally with his drummer son Ilia Rayskin, proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

As featured soloist, the younger musician, currently pursuing graduate studies at New York City’s the New School, was flanked by an additional four WSO percussionists during Copeland’s 27-minute concerto for trap set and orchestra.

The concert also launched the WSO’s three-day, mini-Stewart Copeland residency, which includes Copeland delivering a “fireside chat” at the Desautels Concert Hall tonight, hosted by Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti, and winds up with his performance with the orchestra during Saturday’s Live at the WSO finale, Stewart Copeland: Police Deranged for Orchestra (sold out).

It’s a safe bet that many in the mid-week crowd of 1,258 came of age during the heady days of Copeland’s English rock band the Police. The Russian-born Raiskin — who described himself as a “super fan” and said his his son became one by osmosis — welcomed the artist to the hall as “the person I have idolized since the crumbling years of the Soviet Union.”

The Police’s iconic hits — including Roxanne, Message in a Bottle and Synchronocity II — as immortalized by the trio of Sting (lead vocals/bass/songwriter), Andy Summers (guitar), and Copeland (drums/percussion) — served as the soundtrack for scores of fans throughout the world during the late 1970s to mid-’80s.

Their unique style was propelled by latter’s imaginative, idiosyncratic style, which he has since parlayed into a post-Police compositional career, including symphonic works, opera and film scores.

His loosely programmatic concerto chronicles the rise and fall of a dictatorship, unfolding as three colourfully described movements: Poltroons in Paradise; Monster Just Needed Love (but ate the children anyway); and Over the Wall (or up against it).

The piece is intended to show the hell-bent spiral dive of a demon into further corruption — a fascinating premise that never grows old. However, in this case, Copeland’s tyrant proved to be a swinging, even sassy antagonist who grooves out on jazzy licks and riffs, with a penchant for underpinning the entire orchestra with bold, propulsive backbeats, delivered throughout with assured confidence and virtuosic aplomb by Rayskin.

While every WSO première deserves a second hearing, the often surprisingly tonal (for a tyrant), multi-layered piece with plentiful repeated motifs proved most compelling during its isolated percussion sections.

This underscoring, or even celebrating, the locomotive power of “rhythm” in the orchestra — including an unusual triangle trio during the first movement — was enthralling. Rayskin was the fulcrum among his fellow percussionists, their battery including bongos, congas, glockenspiel, vibraphones, tom-toms, cymbals and timpani.

Giving the musician pride of place — downstage in front of the orchestra in the customary positioning for a concerto soloist — would have further heightened the overall sonic experience, while creating a greater antiphonal effect.

However, Copeland’s thirst for musical adventure includes several “aha” moments and textural effects, including harp and drum kit playing off each other, bone-rattling rim shots and woozy trombone glissandi, and a series of short solos skilfully executed by WSO concertmaster Karl Stobbe.

Other effective touches were slide whistle interpolations and Rayskin’s splash cymbals, punctuating a kaleidoscopic score that sometimes lost its own mooring.

Part of any concerto’s DNA is its eagerly anticipated cadenza, which typically caps the work with full-bore virtuosity, performed exclusively by the featured soloist. Spotlighting Rayskin and his virtuosic chops would have created a more satisfying experience, with the player, situated on an upstage riser, often subsumed within the texture of the orchestra itself, both visually and aurally.

However, Raiskin and Rayskin are to be commended for bringing their musical hero’s vision to life, with all players performing with noteworthy conviction. It’s not every day a revered maestro performs with his own offspring; their final bows, arm in arm — joined by Copeland, who elicited cheers and whoops from the audience — added a touching grace note to the evening.

The second half of the program featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, last performed here in 2016.

Raiskin leading the players solely with his hands — he shared during the post-show Q&A session that he had inadvertently left his baton backstage — instilled a greater intimacy into the performance, allowing audience members to see the clear articulation of his fingers as he tightly cued the players, beginning with the opening movement, Poco sostenuto — Vivace.

This was especially effective during the plaintive Allegretto movement, infused with requisite pathos, as the maestro sculpted its cresting themes and interwoven counter-melodies like a balletic dancer. The penultimate Presto, which saw the violins fighting against the beat, led to a blistering finale Allegro con brio, although its lightning-speed tempo sometimes prevented the strings’ quicksilver passagework from being heard, despite all noble attempts at clarity.

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