The Contemporary Music Society of Quebec inaugurates with Travel diary, by Simon Bertrand, a series of concert-portraits of our composers. Sunday evening has certainly become a webcast, but all means have been mobilized to do full justice to the musical subject.
The formula was worth trying. Contemporary concerts generally tend to multiply experiences and composers, both to give the public a vast panorama of creation and, “internally”, to honor as many members and colleagues as possible.
By refocusing on a composer, we start from the point of view of the public alone, who can, without having to scrounge everywhere, have a clear idea of a style and a language.
The first usefulness, in the case of a composer like Simon Bertrand, is to see that the creative process is not random. Travel diary is, here, a well-chosen theme, because the music sometimes comes from elsewhere and evokes elsewhere, like the Japan of Claire Marchand’s solo flute in A prayer for Zipangu (name given to Japan by Marco Polo), piece composed after the 2011 disaster.
The art of arrangement
From the outset, a key element, very disturbing during the opening concert of the season, the question of the sprawling presence of attention-grabbing images, is much better resolved here. The staging and the projections support the music (A prayer for Zipangu) or go hand in hand with it (Perpetual variations, with Louise Bessette). The musical dramaturgy is skilfully put together. Thus, a striking work, sun salutation, for flute and harp (2016, 22), is a logical continuation of the flute solo and the piano solo.
The arrival of the Trio Fibonacci brings the concert into a second phase. Konna yume wo mita, it’s Japan again, in the form of brief linked episodes, inspired by the eight paintings (or short films) constituting dreams, from Kurosawa. The trio remain on stage for a striking contrast with War and peace, universal diptych, inspired by Picasso (the visual framework is found here), but very Middle Eastern in its musical connotations. Listening to this composition from 2016, we understand that Simon Bertrand is one of those creators who, without denying the modernity of language, seek to say, to evoke or to make people think. War and peace is after sun salutation, a second major discovery.
It is natural that the third section opens with melodies on poems by Hélène Dorion, where the music relays the word, and ends with a brief Concerto for viola, composed in 2011, of which we will particularly remember the scintillating and dreamlike conclusion (which includes, alas, a failure of the soloist Brian Bacon at a rather strategic moment). This musical monograph ends with St. Adolphe Blues, a short creation for two distanced clarinets, a nod to the Covid period, the ring gong echoing the opening piece.
Mission perfectly accomplished. Michel Longtin and Jean Lesage will be the next to benefit from the formula.