David Jalbert | Demanding Prokofiev

“I was finally able to bring in the tuner, because I had three broken piano strings, and then this morning I broke two more! “, launches the pianist David Jalbert on the phone. Welcome to Prokofiev, whose Ottawa pianist will play the famous Concerto n^oh 3 Friday with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchester Métropolitain.

“It’s my favorite concerto forever! When I first heard it I was 11 or 12 and I really fell in love with it. Prokofiev’s music motivated me as a child to become a pianist, like other more normal people are motivated by Chopin and Beethoven,” laughs the musician from Rimouski.

David Jalbert began to learn the Concerto n^oh 3 in C majoropus 26, by Prokofiev as a teenager under the supervision of Sister Pauline Charron, a nun from her hometown who trained two or three generations of pianists and organists in eastern Quebec.

Then the doors of the great schools opened, up to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with a pupil of William Kapell, who himself recorded one of the reference versions of the concerto.

The pianist, who has been teaching at the University of Ottawa since 2008, is however far from being a monomaniac. He notably recorded the Goldberg Variations of Bach and the Seven Last Words of Christ by Haydn. Its integral Nocturnes de Fauré won France Musique’s Tribune des Critiques de Records in front of specialists like Jean-Philippe Collard. His latest disc, released during the pandemic by ATMA, is nevertheless devoted to Prokofiev, the first milestone in a complete set of nine sonatas by the Ukrainian composer.

A “stiff” concerto

If he didn’t play the Concerto n^oh 3 in public for 12 years, David Jalbert has nevertheless given the first two in the meantime. He regrets that “unfortunately artists are not often interested” in the other two.

” THE Second is clearly the most difficult. In fact, it is perhaps the most difficult concerto in the entire repertoire. It really is a filth, but a magnificent filth! THE Third is very difficult, but not as much as the Second. You can still have fun playing it. THE First is left to death, but it is shorter. It lasts 16 minutes instead of around thirty for the other two”, sums up the pianist.

” THE Third still starts steep, he concedes. It’s not a concerto that allows us to settle down quietly, there are very few relaxed passages. The codas of the second and third movements are very difficult. It’s really big piano! »

Musically, the challenge is, according to him, to properly convey the “slightly industrial revolution” aspect of his music, but also its “Mozartian” side, “neo-classical”. Because Prokofiev is not just about manhandling the piano strings.

Created in Chicago in 1921 with the composer at the piano, the work quickly won the favor of the greatest pianists. Jalbert learned it with the mythical version of Martha Argerich and Claudio Abbado in his ear.

“I only listen to her. If we only kept one piece of Argerich for posterity or to send to extraterrestrials, it would be his Third Concerto of Prokofiev”, laughs the pianist.

On Friday, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, whom we haven’t heard from in Montreal since December, will be on the podium. In addition to the concerto, he will conduct the ballad for orchestra of Coleridge-Taylor and the Symphony n^oh 5 by Sibelius. “I’m very happy to work with him again, he’s the best chef in the world for me! concludes Jalbert.

A Russian pays homage to Ukraine at the Good Shepherd

The historic chapel of the Good Shepherd, which usually presents mainly artists from here, made a big splash by inviting Boris Berman, one of the great representatives of the Russian school of piano. This will be an opportunity to hear a substantial set of pieces by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, in addition to three sets of variations by Brahms.

Philip Glass, Pieta style

Philip Glass has always had a natural affinity with writing for strings, a repertoire that also goes without saying for Angèle Dubeau’s La Pietà ensemble. The female orchestra, in its series of portrait concerts, devotes an entire evening to the American composer on Thursday. Bourgie Hall will resound to the sound of excerpts from his quartets and symphonies, as well as film music such as The Hours Or The Secret Agent.

And there was light !

The 11^e edition of the Montreal/New Music Festival, which runs until March 5 under the theme “Music and spirituality”, will conclude Sunday at 3 p.m., at the Pierre-Mercure hall, with a program that is out of the ordinary. The Orchester Classique de Montréal and conductor Alain Trudel will accompany the excellent soprano Magali Simard-Galdès in the Illuminations by Britten, in addition to performing a work of the same name for solo strings by Montrealer Brian Cherney. Another big piece: the Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridgewhich Britten wrote in honor of his master.

Vivier, more alive than ever

We cannot celebrate enough the work of Claude Vivier, probably the most original of Quebec composers. The aptly named organization Le Vivier is organizing 10 days of conferences and concerts to highlight the 75^e anniversary of his birth. Of particular note is the opening concert on March 7, at 7:30 p.m., 40 years to the day after the tragic disappearance of the Montreal artist in Paris. Given by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt and Belgian soprano Katrien Baerts, the program will obviously feature the music of Vivier, in addition to a Tomb of Vivier by Serbian Marko Nikodijevic.

Next station: Maison symphonique

Some spectators of the last Symphonic Spree were able to watch the short film blacksmith malec by Buster Keaton at the Maison symphonique with the improvised accompaniment of resident organist Jean-Willy Kunz. On March 23, at 7:30 p.m., it’s the magnum opus of the man with the boater, The General’s mechanicwhich will be presented on the big screen, while the American-British organist James Kennerley will heat the furnace of the large Casavant organs.