In the early 1960s I heard David Oistrakh play the Tchaikovsky concerto. I was a teenager. The concert was performed at the Capitol Theatre, located on Bank Street (on which my father had his shop) near Queen Street, in downtown Ottawa, the capital’s largest movie palace with 2530 seats.
Teenagers could purchase the cheap seats, which, in those days, included the two front rows of the theatre; so my constant musical friend and I sat in the first row in the two seats immediately left of the centre aisle. In those days concerts were also affordable, for we as students attended dozens of concerts paid for out of allowances our parents gave us.
The Capitol was a magnificent building with a magnificent stage. It was Ottawa’s main concert venue. The orchestral concerts, such as the one with Oistrakh as soloist, were played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which toured regularly for a full season of concerts to Ottawa. This was years before the National Arts Centre was built and a local philharmonic brought into being. The Capitol was demolished in 1970.
There were many fine Capitol theatres, at one time, throughout Canada. I suppose I must allow that it is partly nostalgia that allows me to enjoy Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre, where the Vancouver Symphony plays, so much; and why, at one time I applied (and made the shortlist) to manage the Capitol Theatre that remained, and remains, in Nelson, British Columbia.
How Oistrakh played the opening solo that evening in Ottawa created one of those moments that have endured, for me, as unforgettable and unequalled—not even in his recordings, because music recorded, pace Glenn Gould, is never the same or as immediate as music experienced live. As is, I must add, similarly true for all things in life.
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