It was the gift that kept right on giving.
Conductor Claude Lapalme received a beefed-up orchestra of 70 musicians, one of Canada’s best sopranos — Karina Gauvin, and a heavyweight concert program that included a Gustav Mahler symphony, as a “present” to mark his 20th anniversary with the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra.
It sure beat a gold watch, as far as Saturday night’s concert crowd was concerned at the Red Deer College Arts Centre.
For Lapalme, Gauvin, and the supersized orchestra delivered an evening of heavenly music to close out a memorable 24th anniversary season for the RDSO — and the audience loved every moment of it.
The concert began with Maurice Ravel’s Shéhérazade.
While not as well known as the same-titled work by Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel’s piece is more tranquil and dream-like than spirited, and features poetic lyrics that were beautifully sung by Gauvin.
The soprano, considered one of Canada’s operatic superstars, is regularly lauded for her rich vocal range, which she showcased to great effect on Saturday in delivering three fantasy verses by French poet Tristan Klingsor.
Shéhérazade unites Ravel’s music with poems that pay tribute to the exotic charms of Asia, the moving songs of a flute, and an indifferent stranger who makes a seductive impression before sauntering away.
Gauvin delivered all the pathos and wonderment of the lilting piece.
Her pure, resonant voice swelled with joy and ebbed with sadness, capturing the subtle nuances of the 1903 work that’s infrequently performed, despite its descriptive nature.
Shéhérazade was such a crowd pleaser, the RDSO just might have to play it again someday — hopefully featuring a soprano that’s as rarely gifted as Gauvin.
A longer pleasure was Mahler’s difficult Symphony No. 4. While the hour-long symphony lacks the bombast that’s often associated with Mahler, it contains cinemascoptic elements that paint vivid pictures in the minds of listeners.
The first movement starts with sleighbells.
If it had a story, the bouncy melody could be about carefree children playing games in the countryside.
As musical tension builds to a crash of cymbals, a tumultuous storm might break before dark clouds dispersed and games resumed again.
The second movement is also tuneful on the surface, but contains some buried “grotesque” sounds created by a violin that’s tuned too tightly.
Lapalme said the disquieting movement was inspired by a German forkloric character called Freund Hein — a fiddling skeleton who lures unsuspecting people to their deaths.
Violinist Naomi Delafield changed instruments to pluck at over-stretched violin strings with her fingers and to give them an occasional slash with her bow to create the unsettling undercurrent.
The third transcendent movement is the heart of the piece, according to Lapalme.
It creates a mood of sadness or loneliness, but not despair. The lush, peaceful melody was gorgeously played by the orchestra and its extra players — who then moved into the final movement, which involved Gauvin singing a verse that represents a poor child’s view of heaven.
The text from the German folk poems The Magic Horn, mentions apples, pears, baked bread and meals of fish and lamb — all things a poor child can only dream of.
Lapalme said the movement about heaven ends so gently “you get the feeling the child is already halfway there.”
The full-house audience sprang to its collective feet to deliver a prolonged standing ovation at the end of this fantastic performance — and another terrific and inspired RDSO season.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com