Saturday was the heart of the Classical Spree organized for ten years by the Orchester symphonique de Montréal, a mini-festival that got underway on Friday evening and will end this Sunday afternoon. La Presse attended four of the fourteen paying concerts offered on Saturday at various locations in Place des Arts.
It was heartwarming to see the large crowd come to listen to the free concerts offered in the main hall of Place des Arts and at Complexe Desjardins. But the other concerts were no less popular, especially the first one we had the chance to hear, which was sold out.
Plus a ticket to hear string chamber music? Music lovers, gathered in the early afternoon in this ideal space that is the stage of the Théâtre Maisonneuve, were able to hear members of the OSM play excerpts from the Commedia dell’arte, a work for string quartet composed there about ten years ago by the Montrealer Ana Sokolović, and the sextet Souvenir de Florence, op. 70, by Tchaikovsky.
If the first work charms with its unexpected sounds, going from jazz to music box, with stunning instrumental effects (playing on the bridge or on the fingerboard, harmonics, etc.), the second, a masterpiece of the music of room little played because of its fairly unusual numbers, breathtaking by the commitment of the six musicians led by the OSM’s concertmaster Andrew Wan, who is moving in his various solo interventions, notably in the splendid Adagio cantabile.
We then change the stage to that of Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, where even more spectators are crammed. But the menu this time is poles apart. Literally.
Shame on us for having ignored this national treasure that is Giri Kedaton (“Mount Royal” in Indonesian), Balinese music orchestra in residence at the University of Montreal since the end of the last century. The ensemble plays on a gamelan (a set of percussion instruments) courtesy of the Indonesian government.
An hour of extremely dense music (Debussy said that Palestrina would have blushed hearing the complexity of Balinese music), played mainly by heart, with sounds from another world…unforgettable!
We stay close (at the Piano Nobile) for the recital of German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, one of the stars of this edition of La Virée, which offers three milestones in the repertoire for solo cello: the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 , by Bach, the Three Stanzas on the Name of Sacher by Dutilleux and the Sonata for Solo Cello by Kodály.
We are speechless in front of the refinement of the musician’s playing, barely disturbed by the fall of his electronic tablet in the first piece of Bach’s Suite. It would take several listenings to grasp all the nuances (dynamic, but not only) that emanate from his instrument.
But all this is a bit haughty perfection. The Dutilleux, for example, would have benefited from an amplification of the effects, and the Bach from a slightly wider tempo, in particular the prelude, of which we feel little French solemnity. Fortunately, the sarabande redeemed everything with its immaterial beauty.
We finally leave (unfortunately missing Kodály’s wonderful Sonata) to arrive on the stage of the Théâtre Maisonneuve in time for another unusual concert, this time given by a quartet of horn players from the OSM, a formation that we hear too rarely.
Very pleasant moment with generally brief works, especially transcriptions, apart from the interesting Suite for four horns in F by Eugène Bozza, a composer specializing in brass instruments who always knows how to make them sound good. In addition, a skilful transcription of the famous Prelude in G minor, op. 23 no 5, by Rachmaninoff, which pushes the quartet to its limits.
The Classical Spree ends this Sunday with seven concerts, including Orff’s Carmina Burana, Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Virgin and Fauré’s Requiem.
