It’s a celebration for the Maison symphonique organ this week as part of the end of season of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which also marks the return of Rafael Payare to the metropolis. Four organists took turns at the console of the Casavant inaugurated 10 years ago in a – long! – program taking advantage of its vast palette of colors. The Press attended the second of three performances on Wednesday evening.
Only this type of concert allows us to hear several practitioners of the same instrument one after the other with an orchestra. We were thus able to find the two soloists from the 2014 inauguration concert, Jean-Willy Kunz, organist in residence, and Olivier Latry, emeritus organist and designer of the organ in collaboration with the organ builder from Saint-Hyacinthe. In addition, two women were involved: the Quebecer Isabelle Demers and the Franco-Korean Shin-Young Lee, wife and former student of Latry.
The orchestra has chosen two of the best-known scores for organ and orchestra, the Symphony no 3 in C minor, op. 78, by Saint-Saëns, and the Concert Symphony by the Belgian Joseph Jongen, as well as the Toccata festival by Barber and Jubilate!a creation by Quebecer Denis Gougeon.
Let us underline the modesty of Olivier Latry, who, despite his stature, is “content” with the Symphony by Saint-Saëns, which is neither a concerto nor a demonstration of virtuosity, and leaves to his wife the demonstrative Toccata festivalwhich he recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which had premiered it in 1960.
Mme Lee nonetheless makes a splash in this extremely demanding work, particularly in the stunning pedal cadence. We also notice his expressiveness: never during the rest of the evening will Casavant sing as much as under his fingers.
Isabelle Demers then takes charge of the no less virtuoso Concert Symphony by Jongen. For those who don’t know her, the musician is probably the most brilliant Quebec organist of the last 50 years, since Raymond Daveluy, let’s say. A graduate of the Juilliard School in New York, she now teaches the organ class at McGill University.
If Demers impresses with her means (she is also the only one to play by heart, which is not an easy task given the numerous changes of registrations – the mixtures of sounds of the organ), she is less convincing in terms of musical. Everything is perfectly equal, too perfect. She does not relish harmonic surprises and does not “play” (in the literal sense) with the text in rapid passages.
After the intermission, Gougeon’s creation has a beautiful effect under the fingers of Jean-Willy Kunz, who we would have liked to be more fanciful. The alternations of major and minor, the sometimes Halloweenesque climate (we think of Sokolović), sometimes Glassian (a passage in the middle clearly evokes the pope of American minimalism), the lyricism of the strings… everything contributes to keeping one’s attention constantly awake.
The great moment of the evening nevertheless remains the Symphony by Saint-Saëns, conducted in one breath by Rafael Payare, with Olivier Latry at the mechanical traction console (the one located in the heights of the Maison symphonique).
The continuity maintained by the leader does not at all prevent the contrasts between the different parts, with a Allegro moderato imperious, Beethovenian initial, and a Poco adagio ecstatic (this color of the strings!). We will remember it for a long time.
The same program is given again this Thursday evening, at 7:30 p.m.