The coming year will mark the 90th anniversary of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM). On this occasion, and from the concerts of January 16 and 17 with Rafael Payare, the orchestra will offer 90 gifts to spectators drawn at random. This is an opportunity for us to go through and recall the stages of this history and to look at the challenges that now face the orchestra.
As the brief history of the OSM summarized by the orchestra itself recalls, several phalanxes succeeded one another before the current OSM. A first orchestra, active between 1894 and 1896, was founded by the composer Guillaume Couture. A second had a much longer life (1898-1920), under the leadership of violinist and conductor Joseph-Jean Goulet, a third initiative, of clarinetist and conductor Jean-Josaphat Gagnier covering the years 1927 to 1929.
On November 16, 1934, what we know as the OSM was founded, which was then called the Société des concerts symphoniques de Montréal. The name Montreal Symphony Orchestra will be in effect twenty years later, in 1954.
“Our concerts are a prodigious success”, Antonia Nantel to her son Paul. In December 1935
A technology pioneer
The first concert was given at the Le Plateau auditorium on January 14, 1935, under the direction of Rosario Bourdon. The name of this violinist, cellist, arranger and conductor, born in Longueuil in 1885, remains known to some fans of famous voices from a hundred years ago, because he was promoted to co-musical director of the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1920, after having been a regular musical accompanist since 1911. Countless recordings of singing legends (even Caruso!) are accompanied or conducted by Rosario Bourdon, a pioneer of world phonography, who, from the 1930s, worked in the cinema industry.
If the inaugural concert was entrusted to Bourdon, it was Wilfrid Pelletier who fell to the musical direction of this orchestra founded by himself, Athanase David, secretary of the province of Quebec, and his wife Antonia Nantel. Mme Nantel had served on the board of directors of the Montreal Orchestra founded in 1930 and directed by Douglas Clarke. She protested at the lack of space given to French-speaking conductors and soloists in the programming. Letters from Antonia Nantel attest to the instant success of the initiatives of the Société des concerts symphoniques de Montréal: Matinées for youth, the Montreal Festival or popular concerts at the Mont-Royal chalet. In December 1935, Antonia wrote to her son Paul: “Our concerts are a prodigious success. At the children’s last concert, there were 300 people standing and at least 500 were turned away at the door. »
While Wilfrid Pelletier was the first musical director (1935-1941), general direction was entrusted to Pierre Béique. From 1939 to 1970, the latter led the destiny of an orchestra whose perspectives he internationalized. As Claude Gingras noted in his book Notes, in the chapter “Beginnings in America”: “It was in Montreal that some of the most important musicians of our time made their debut in America. At least five big names immediately come to mind: conductors Rafael Kubelík, Josef Krips and Igor Markevitch, and pianists Wilhelm Kempff and Alfred Brendel. At the Plateau, the future OSM received Kubelík on 1er and November 2, 1949, Krips on February 10 and 11, 1953, and Markevitch on February 22 and 23, 1955. Kubelík was then 35 years old, Krips was 50 and Markevitch, 42.”
The Indian shock
The mention of Markevitch is important since he was the third musical director (1957-1961) of an orchestra now called OSM. Succeeding the Belgian Désiré Defauw, Markevitch brought to the OSM The Rite of Spring, whose creation he directed in Canada during the 1956-1957 season. The end of the 1950s also saw a change in the status of musicians who obtained annual contracts replacing their freelance status. The number of concerts increased, and a series of four $1 concerts at the Forum began in the fall of 1959.
While Markevitch’s attendance was wavering, it was during one of his popular concerts, on October 25, 1960, that a 24-year-old conductor of Indian origin, Zubin Mehta, began. This young unknown was recommended to Pierre Béique by Charles Munch and Josef Krips. “The impression he created led to his immediate nomination to succeed Markevitch,” writes Claude Gingras.
Zubin Mehta will inaugurate the new hall at Place des Arts on September 21, 1963, which will bear the name of Wilfrid-Pelletier from 1966. He will lead the OSM on tour for the first time in Europe in 1962. Appointed to Los Angeles and recognized all over the world, Zubin Mehta will leave Montreal after Expo 67, while keeping the city in his heart.
Mehta’s successor will be the German Franz-Paul Decker, whose end of mandate will be marked by an unprecedented financial crisis, followed by Rafael Frühbeck from Burgos who will stay for one season. His resignation will lead to the arrival of Charles Dutoit.
Disc recognition
When he arrived in 1977, Dutoit was 40 years old. The mandate of the Swiss conductor is that of international recognition of the OSM. Conductor and orchestra are linked by contract between 1980 and 2002 to the record publisher Decca, a key period in the history of recording since it corresponds to the replacement of the analog catalog by digital recordings and the compact disc.
In this technological movement, the Dutoit-OSM tandem has the particular mission of reproducing what Dutoit’s mentor, the Swiss Ernest Ansermet, had achieved for Decca with his Orchester de la Suisse Romande twenty years earlier upon the arrival of stereophony: representing, within the Decca catalog, “know-how in French music”. This positioning, also extended notably to Stravinsky, works very well from the first disc, Daphnis and Chloe by Ravel, internationally awarded, and lastingly marks the image of the orchestra, an image from which Kent Nagano will benefit.
Even if Charles Dutoit’s successor, appointed in 2004 and in office from 2006, tries to impose the OSM as a more “universal” (Beethoven, Mahler) and less “specialist” orchestra, the repertoire requested on tour is tirelessly the same as in previous decades. Kent Nagano will nevertheless succeed in imposing the 7e Then 5e Symphony of Mahler during concerts abroad.
Kent Nagano’s mandate is primarily marked by the realization of a highly anticipated project: the creation of the Maison symphonique. Its acoustics, better adapted than a multifunctional room (the Wilfrid-Pelletier room), make listening more pleasant, precise and also allow the orchestra to progress.
Current challenges
An undeniably recognized and popular figure, Kent Nagano further anchors the orchestra in the city with the Classical Spree, appearances at the Bell Center and daring projects aimed at diversifying the audience.
While the administration offered him what would likely have been one mandate too many, Kent Nagano had the immense wisdom to decline the offer. The two years that followed were marked by a fascinating “succession race” which did not say its name, but whose protagonists were chosen with rare foresight. Alain Altinoglu, Rafael Payare and François-Xavier Roth were the ones who stood out during the “test concerts”, while Vassili Petrenko, Juanjo Mena and Juraj Valčuha started the race in the lead.
After the 2e test concert by Rafael Payare, The duty headlined “The OSM faced with the Payare effect” and wrote: “Payare presents the opportunity to reconnect with what we could call “the Zubin moment”, an allusion to that day in 1960 when the very young Zubin Mehta came to direct the OSM before becoming its musical director. Everything in the international history of the OSM started from there. The “Zubin moment” is visceral and not reasoned. Where would this new trigger lead? »
The moment has happened and the path charted seems marvelous. After a first pandemic season, orchestra and conductor began to find their feet. Rafael Payare trusts, is flexible, takes risks, lets the musicians play, where Kent Nagano framed everything.
We make the great mistake of seeing our new leader through prefabricated images linked to his nationality. We would like him to jump on his podium directing South American music. But that’s not what he’s going to bring us. His entire “musical being” breathes Mahler, Strauss and Shostakovich. He is a musician of the guts and viscera, but on the basis of a very solid, almost Germanic reason. The watchwords now are freedom and self-improvement. The challenge will be French music, Ravel and Debussy in particular. We hope that this fascinating musician, who settled in Montreal with his family and who learned French in record time, will lead us towards the centenary by having big surprises in store for us.