What better than Mozart to end the year of a chamber ensemble like I Musici? Its new conductor Jean-François Rivest spoke with us about this Thursday evening’s benefit concert, which will feature pianist Louis Lortie, a long-time partner of the ensemble.
“He is an old friend, Louis, I have known him since our childhood in Laval, reveals Mr. Rivest. We even lived together for a year. He and I have always remained very good friends. »
But the presence of Lortie as a soloist is not only due to the friendship with the conductor of I Musici.
In the mid-1980s, the orchestra, newly founded by the couple of Soviet musicians Yuli and Eleonora Turovsky, invited Shostakovich’s grandson to record his grandfather’s piano concertos. However, the artist being detained at the airport, a certain Louis Lortie, who was then in the area, sat down at the piano while waiting. He was then in his mid-twenties and was already distinguishing himself in major international competitions.
It is these two scores, Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414, and Concerto No. 14 in E flat major, K. 449, that the Quebec pianist will perform this Thursday evening at the Salle Pierre-Mercure of the Center Pierre- Peladeau. “For the 40th anniversary of I Musici, the wink was a lot of fun”, admits Jean-François Rivest.
According to the latter, these are concertos “less complex, less dramatic than C minor [no 24] and D minor [no 20], less tender than the A major that everyone loves so much [no 23 ]. But they are two very great concertos all the same”.
For the conductor, there is a clear resemblance between the style of these two works composed respectively in 1782 and 1784 and the contemporary violin sonatas, which he recorded for Analekta.
“It’s kind of the same kind of music, not Mozart’s later, more difficult period. The subject itself is not based on the ideas, but on the grace with which it develops them. The main theme can be completely silly, it goes with that and gives us an extraordinary development, “explains the professor at the Faculty of Music at the University of Montreal.
It is no different for the Divertimento in F major, K. 138, which will be played at the start of this concert which will end with a cocktail on the stage reserved for donors.
“Yeah, the ideas are very underdeveloped, it’s simple, but it’s already great rhetorically, which is how the musical ‘words’ are hooked together to create a speech that convinces,” adds the chef.
The program, which requires few external contributions (only two oboes and two horns are added to the permanent members of the orchestra), could not be more in line with I Musici, in phase with Jean-François’ wish Rivest to return to a suitable repertoire, which is not to displease the musicians.
“When I got hired, it was because the musicians put me pretty high on their wish list. I was quite proud of that, ”confesses the musical director, some of whose former students (in violin or orchestra) find themselves in the formation, in particular Annie Guénette, Dominic Guilbault and Amélie Benoît-Bastien.
“We have great chemistry together, so it was only natural that we continue like this. I Musici is really a gift of life for me, ”summarizes the man who was confirmed at the head of the orchestra in his forties a few months ago after an interim period.
