The OSM organized a weekend around the 10th anniversary of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique, the highlight of which was the evening of improvisation on silent films by the new star of the organ, the Frenchman Thomas Ospital. We would have liked such great talent to be used for an even more ambitious project.
The great organizer of the festivities and organist in residence of the OSM, Jean-Willy Kunz, had many good words in the columns of Duty Saturday, on the artistic journey accomplished with the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique in 10 years and on the weekend of festivities marking this anniversary.
Jean-Willy Kunz cannot be blamed for preaching for his parish. It is also possible to have an certainly optimistic, but a little more measured, look at the contribution of the organ in the overall programming of the OSM, which “occupies” the organ, but has not brought it to bring a real touch of originality to orchestral programs.
During an interview at Duty entitled “The organ rebuilds a repertoire” in 2020, Olivier Latry, emeritus organist, qualified the 3e Organ concerto by Thierry Escaich, recently created, equivalent to 3e Concerto by Rachmaninov in his repertoire. We hope to discover it, and it is the kind of desire to dig into a particular organ-orchestra repertoire, beyond a vital minimum, that we expect to see develop further.
Fascinating exercise
As for the composer and organist Thierry Escaish, he came in 2016, then in 2018 for a stunning improvisation experience on Nosferatu the vampire. We haven’t seen him since. Pandemic or not, six years is a long time. To hear Jean-Willy Kunz tell us about the improvising talents of Thomas Ospital, 34 years old, already one of the great stars of the world organ, we could expect an alter ego from Escaish.
Ospital is very clever and inventive, and basically uses the same principles, particularly on the dramatic construction of a long-term sequence or scene to the detriment of a one-off event. The awareness of “where this scene will take us” is the foundation of the art of Thomas Ospital as the best artisans of this fascinating exercise of musical and creative art. Ospital starts from a cell, which he develops in volume, rhythms and colors through registration, and he does it brilliantly.
A perfect exercise for this discipline is Neighbors, by Norman McLaren. Oscar for short film in 1952, this caustic parody of the Cold War brought to a crescendo is very strikingly topical. His excitement was perfectly managed by the organist, who had impeccably synchronized the Dance of Death by Saint-Saëns on Spook Sports from the same filmmaker. Of the two new short films, sparked by the collaboration with Kino Montréal, it is The singer, by David Couture, who most inspired the organist, a clever film, a nice homage to silent cinema where a singer dreams of becoming a charming singer.
In Tea Immigrant by Chaplin, Ospital begins with a transfer of Rite of Spring, since we have a ship of Russian exiles. The music of the 2e part is based largely on variations on the American anthem. Things are skillfully measured and mixed.
But the question here is also that of the organization’s self-satisfaction with the modesty of things. As long as we bring in Thomas Ospital and celebrate the organ’s tenth anniversary, should we make a 25-minute Chaplin medium-length film shot in 1917 an anniversary event? Is there really not a more ambitious project to develop?
The silent catalog is so rich with masterpieces, many of which have recently been restored. And Doctor Mabuse, And Dawn (by Murnau) and the mutes of Lubitsch, or even, amusing subject, Hoffmann’s tales by Max Neufeld (1923, restored in 4K) or the Carmen dumb? We are not asking to delve into the Nibelungen by Fritz Lang, a river film in two parts of more than 2 hours each. But all this does not live up to the claims.