Review: Leonie Rettig and SNS

Leonie Rettig and Symphony Nova Scotia performed masterpieces by Beethoven and Ravel, Thursday, March 10, 2016 at the Cohn.

Leonie Rettig is a very brave twenty-something. Imagine travelling to Canada from Germany to perform for the very first time under the baton of a maestro (Bernhard Gueller) who has watched you grow up musically since you were a teenager. You practice, you travel, you check in to your hotel, you rehearse with the orchestra. All is ready. You get your concert clothes on, you go to the hall, and, so cruelly that it’s hard to even remember, five minutes before you go onstage, inexplicably the lights go out in the concert hall.

Yes, it happened.

You offer to play by candlelight, play in the dark, play a solo recital, but sadly, the audience and the players are sent home, and so are you. Such was the sad true story last October, when Rettig tried to make her Canadian debut in Halifax.

But she made up for all that this past week (although 2^nd time around, someone stole her passport at the airport, causing her to miss her flight and one rehearsal) with her beautiful playing of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.

Don’t think you know that concerto? It’s the one that’s a theme song on CBC – first one to name the show gets a gold star. It’s got that crazy sounding E-flat clarinet part in the first movement, and opens with a cracking “whip.”

Ms. Rettig never left the character of this concerto for a second, making the jazzy Gershwinesque runs in the first movement sound dead easy. Her lovely tone on the Steinway concert grand (on loan to SNS from Dr. Piano) was especially delicious in the 2^nd movement, allowing for all kinds of picture painting and dreams of spring. Beautiful English Horn playing from Brian James deserves a special mention also.

As much as this music seems ideal for Ms. Rettig, I can’t wait for her to come back and hear what else she’ll bring us.

The concert opened with Chinese Canadian Chan Ka Nin’s Ecstasy, commissioned by the Esprit Orchestra of Toronto. The composer has written that “the first inspiration of the piece came as a feeling of rushing jubilation. Later, other aspects such as the quiet feeling of ecstasy one might feel in communion with nature came to mind and these too are reflected in the music.” Kind of how we felt in the audience to actually get Leonie Rettig onstage again five months later, with the lights on, and then relaxing into her sensitive playing and the equally sensitive SNS right there with her.

The second half was all orchestra, with a stirring Beethoven 2, so commandingly led by Maestro Gueller that I again think he really can’t be leaving us after the next two seasons. I think we should kidnap him or at the very least, steal his passport.