One year earlier, the Toronto Chamber Music Collective had made its debut, a quartet that gave performances on Baroque instruments. Now, the organizers of the TCMC – oboist/recorder player Ken Solway and bassoonist Susan Graves – had put together a small Baroque orchestra called Tafelmusik, after Georg Philipp Telemann’s 1733 suites of dinner music.

The group consisted of about a dozen like-minded local musicians, plus the America harpsichordist Scott Ross, who was coaxed to Toronto as a guest artist. The program was an all-Bach feast – including his "Wedding Cantata," sung by soprano Rosemary Landry. The newly enlarged group crossed its collective fingers, hoping this would be the first of many such concerts.

"This was a one-off Baroque orchestra concert, to see if this kind of thing could fly," recalls conductor Ivars Taurins, who played viola in the concert. "I would say that optimism was our key word – optimism, and a real love and energy for what we were doing. We had a new way of playing and listening to music that we wanted to share with audiences."

The event was a success, and proved there was a demand for "authentic" (to use the buzzword of the day) Baroque orchestra concerts in Toronto. Now, a quarter century later, Tafelmusik has an annual budget of about $3-million, an orchestra of 19 full-time professional players, augmented when necessary, and a chorus with a core of paid singers. With more than 60 recordings to its name, the ensemble has propelled its home city into an enviable position in early music circles: "New York City, twice the size of Toronto and crawling with period instrument players and fans, has nothing of the kind," observed Early Music America magazine a few years ago. "Even Europe has nothing quite like it."

How did this small band of musicians transform themselves into the world famous Tafelmusik of today? There’s been plenty of hard work, of course, and perhaps a few lucky breaks along the way; but in great measure, the group’s strength lies in its unswerving artistic vision, and a sense of dedication to a cause. The commitment that emanates from Tafelmusik’s musicians – some of whom have been with the organization for more than two decades – is a palpable force that illuminates and empowers everything they do. Unlike a modern symphony orchestra, Tafelmusik does not enjoy the status of a civic necessity. A North American city the size of Toronto is "supposed" to have a symphony orchestra, but there’s no widespread expectation of a Baroque ensemble. Tafelmusik had to will itself into existence.

As well, Tafelmusik had history on its side (in more ways than one), and was carried forward on the rising tide of the early music movement. Some musicologists place the beginnings of this movement as far back as 1829, when Felix Mendelssohn led a performance of Bach’s long-forgotten St. Matthew Passion. But Tafelmusik traces its roots back to the 1970s, when the idea of historically informed performance found a welcome home in the counter-culture of the era. At that time, Holland emerged as a leading centre for early music – and performers such as harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, cellist Anner Bylsma and recorder-player Franz Brüggen attracted students from all over the world.

One of these was a Jean Lamon, a young violinist from New York, who studied Baroque performance practice with violinist Sigiswald Kuijken in Amsterdam before returning to the U.S. in 1973. Settling in Boston, she performed as a guest artist with numerous period-instrument groups in North America, including Tafelmusik. Impressed with her performance and leadership skills, in 1981 the fledgling ensemble asked her to move to Toronto and join the group on a permanent basis. She said yes, packed her bags and became Tafelmusik’s first – and only – music director.

"I felt being on the road all the time didn’t suit me," she explains, looking back on her decision. "I wanted to build, and the only way to do that was to have a regular group, to develop a sound and a musical language together. In Toronto, it seemed like it could work." In her new home, Lamon encountered much enthusiasm for period-instrument performance – but also some consternation. "The traditional musicians really frowned upon it. And the critics were not always sympathetic: every review was about the original instruments, not the group."

In its formative years, Tafelmusik forged ahead in many directions, the players dividing their time between rehearsals and administrative tasks (something that’s still done). The year before Lamon’s permanent arrival, the ensemble moved its concerts to Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church on Bloor Street, which to this day serves as the group’s base of operations. In 1981, the Tafelmusik Choir was established, under the co-direction of Taurins and David Fallis, so that cantatas, oratorios and other vocal works could be added to the repertoire. (Fallis now directs the Toronto Consort; Taurins remains the conductor of the Tafelmusik Choir.) And also in 1981, the ensemble undertook its first tour, including an appearance at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. As well, the early years saw a brief flirtation with period costumes, which were quickly discarded.

Other developments soon followed: Collegium Records brought out the group’s first recording, "Popular Masterpieces of the Baroque"; a Baroque organ was purchased. But all this rapid expansion was not without its growing pains, and by 1984 Solway and Graves found themselves at odds with others in the organization. "We found our vision for Tafelmusik and that of Lamon and the board to be very different," remarked Solway in the pages of Music magazine. The couple left the ensemble they had created to go into organic farming. Lamon remained, with big plans.

The first of these was European touring. Thanks to the relatively small size of the ensemble, the costs of sending Tafelmusik across the Atlantic have always been much lower than they would be for a large orchestra. And since its first tour, in 1984, Tafelmusik has probably given more concerts in Europe – in halls such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein and London’s Barbican Centre – than all other Canadian orchestras combined. As well, there have been tours to Israel, Latin America and the Far East – and, since 1993, annual visits to Bavaria’s Klang und Raum festival. Just about wherever they’ve performed, the reviews have sounded more like love-letters than critiques. "Every moment displays the vibrancy and urgency of Tafelmusik’s playing," praised The Times of London. "Tafelmusik lived up to its reputation as one of the world’s leading period-instrument orchestras," declared the Washington Post. "Why is the fabulous Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra so rare a guest in Berlin?" the Berliner Morgenpost asked rhetorically.

Tafelmusik’s next big step would address the Berlin critic’s complaint, if only indirectly. In 1986, general manager Ottie Lockey worked out a deal with Wolf Erichson, a producer for BMG Classics, to record six compact discs. And when Erichson moved over to the Sony Classical label in 1990, Tafelmusik followed. The group’s first contract with Sony called for about two dozen recordings over a two-year period, transforming the already-busy ensemble into a virtual CD-producing factory. Thanks to Sony’s distribution network, the Baroque orchestra from Toronto was heard around the world. Fans could enjoy Tafelmusik from Berlin to Brisbane.

The ensemble’s recordings were showered with honours: a Cannes Classical Music Award, several Diapasons d’Or, a Disc of the Month from CD Review and a Critic’s Choice from BBC Music – not to mention five Juno awards in the 1990s. But even as Tafelmusik CDs garnered rave reviews, the recording industry began to implode. "CD sales leveled off in the 1990s," remarks Lamon, "and all the companies dropped their contracts. It was the death of many orchestras. Our contract with Sony lasted until 1997 or 1998, then we had lean years, and had to find replacement income for our musicians."

The halcyon days of recording had come to an end, but since then Tafelmusik has expanded its relationships with other labels, notably CBC Records and Montreal’s Analekta. As well, the ensemble recently appeared in a television documentary, "Le Mozart Noir" (about the Black 18th-century composer Joseph Boulogne le Chevalier de Saint-Georges), produced by Toronto’s Media Headquarters. Says Lamon, "We’ve found ways around the problem. We perform more, we tour, we teach, we do school concerts, we have family matinee concerts. But we’ll never turn to pops, or anything like that." (While not quite a pops concert, Tafelmusik’s Sing-Along Messiah has become an annual Christmas tradition. Led by Taurins – dressed up as "Herr Handel" in a wig and waistcoat – the show packs Toronto’s Massey Hall every December with 2,000 voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus.)

After 25 years, the Tafelmusik musicians – once the "beatniks" of the classical musical world – now find themselves respected performers in one of Canada’s most respectable ensembles. And what has become of the traditionalists who once opposed them? It’s tempting to pronounce their hostility a thing of the past, but every now and then it rears its head. Three years ago, Pinchas Zukerman, the celebrated violinist and conductor of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, declared in an interview with the Globe and Mail that the early music movement was "complete rubbish."

Lamon countered with a lengthy letter to the editor, proposing a kind of musical duel in which both orchestras would appear on stage. Zukerman declined to respond, but CBC radio producer Mark Steinmetz took up the challenge, broadcasting two recordings of the "Spring" movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons back to back: one by the NACO and the other by Tafelmusik. When he invited listeners to vote for their favourite version, Tafelmusik won by a two-to-one margin.

Yet perhaps it’s understandable that some musicians remain suspicious of the early music movement. After all, when the early music people call their performances "authentic" or – in more current language – "historically informed," what does that implicitly say about other performances? Are they "inauthentic" and "historically ignorant"? Yet Lamon rejects the idea that the early music movement’s ideals were ever used as a stick to beat other musicians with. As she sees it, Tafelmusik was the object of scorn, not its source.

"People were opposed to us because we were perceived as a threat," she suggests. "Perhaps they were hearing us say, ‘The way you’re playing this music is wrong, and the way we play it is right. Therefore we’re going to take that music away from you. And we’re going to play it right– so why don’t you just not play it any more?’ But the difference between the instruments is not the big thing; the difference is between the playing."

With this philosophy in mind, Tafelmusik launched its Summer Baroque Institute two years ago: a two-week training programme for musicians who want to know more about period styles. The institute, which offers hands-on workshops, masterclasses and performances, has attracted students from as far away as Japan. As well, both Lamon and Taurins have worked extensively with orchestras across Canada, teaching Baroque techniques to performers of modern instruments.

Also of late, the orchestra that built its reputation on Baroque music has been expanding into the Classical era: this fall, Tafelmusik gave performances of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Surprisingly, the ensemble has performed more classical repertoire in Europe than it has in Toronto, much of it under the baton of Bruno Weil, director of the Klang und Raum festival. "We’ve performed and recorded all the Beethoven piano concertos," Lamon points out. "And we’ve done his symphonies at the summer festival in Bavaria. Some of our players said we should do this repertoire at home."

But, as Lamon explains, for a period-instrument orchestra, there’s a lot more involved in switching from Bach to Beethoven than putting a new score up on the music stand. "The wind players use different instruments. The string players use different bows. The pitch is different. It’s a real change of gears. We try to look at Beethoven as new music, rather than old music, and if you approach it from ‘behind,’ it feels like you’re stretching the instruments to their absolute limit. On modern instruments, you don’t get the same sense of stretching the boundaries."

After Beethoven, what’s next? Will Torontonians soon be treated to a period performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique? "I would absolutely not exclude that," replies Lamon without hesitation, "at some time in the future."

Tafelmusik has always been a forward-looking organization. But silver anniversaries are a time for reflection, and Taurins remembers a moment 25 years ago that had a profound influence on his life as a musician. "I took part in a summer Baroque course in Austria. Maria Leonhardt, the wife of Gustav, was the violin teacher, and I was very excited about being in Europe, and becoming part of what was there. I said how much I’d like to stay in Europe, and she said, ‘My advice to you is to go home, and start something on your own. It’s much more exciting to be a pioneer.’ I was taken aback by the abruptness of her advice, but those words are gold to me now. I give that advice to my students: Don’t be a hanger-on; start something on your own."

© Copyright Colin Eatock 2003

• Writing About Music 

• Home