Rafael Payare was back at the head of the OSM for a Tchaikovsky-Sibelius program so attractive that it was picked up by Radio-Canada cameras. The chef let himself go to his enthusiasm. That of pianist Inon Barnatan was overflowing.
Access to the OSM concert on Wednesday evening had the air of passing through customs at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport, since the ticket control queue went well beyond the distance of the Maison symphonique at the exit of the metro. When the vaccine passports are checked at the Salon Rouge, before the tickets are checked, the flow is decidedly better distributed than when, as in the present case, the bottleneck is reduced to the Maison symphonique alone.
Redundancy
Once in the square (the concert started 15 minutes late, fortunately), we noticed the presence of Radio-Canada cameras, including a giraffe. We had already asked the OSM to warn the public in advance of concerts that would turn into filming sessions so that music lovers could knowingly decide to attend or not. The problem here was not the inconspicuous cameras, but the ghastly continuous hum of the projector transformers.
Since we are to consider the capture, which we can only rejoice, hoping that the music will not be sausage during the broadcast by advertisements between each movement, it should all the same be noted that, apart from shows with Fred Pellerin , Radio-Canada has turned, from memory, in 14 years of Kent Nagano, a Messiah, a movement of 9th by Beethoven with acrobats, a Mendelssohn-Schumann concert for his farewells and… a 1st Tchaikovsky Concerto with Lang Lang, “the” top world star.
Rafael Payare arrives and we “enrich” the video library by … a 1st Concerto by Tchaikovsky with Inon Barnatan. Without even talking about the hopeless lack of originality, what are we trying to document? A loss of status?
The concert was not filmed in its entirety: at the time of the 1st Symphony from Sibelius the cameramen were absent. Moreover, the Classical symphony of Prokofiev had been added to the menu. According to the OSM website, it will not be performed during the Saturday concerts. Does that mean that only this evening was filmed?
Sense of plume
Main subject of the capture, the 1st Concerto of Tchaikovsky was thunderous, full of brilliance, even outrageous. The most beautiful moment was the 2nd movement, because the tempo was judiciously fluid and the pianistic qualities of Inon Barnatan allowed him to make a real digression. prestissimoleggiero. This very difficult passage makes it possible to distinguish “those who can” from “those who cannot”.
We will not deny Barnatan the sense of panache. He seeks to impress him, for example in the 1st movement by chaining cascades of chords on a tempo even faster than that to which the orchestra brings it. It’s completely free, useless, makes him erase the slow motion at the end of the section and leads him to brutalize the transition with the musical idea that follows. But it is pianistically solid, like the very large majority of these personal foucades. On the other hand, in passages to which Barnatan has not decided to reserve a fate, there slips and approximations. There are also from the outset respecting the indications of the composer.
We dream, in this type of partitions (this is equally true for the Concerto for cello de Dvorak), that the soloists just respect what is written. We especially dream of hearing again, now that they are in their careers, Nareh Arghamanyan and Beatrice Rana whose interpretations during the 2008 and 2011 musical competitions have not been exceeded for a decade.
But make no mistake: all this had technicality and tone (we are far above what we have heard many times), with, also in the orchestra, a little sloppy , the funniest incident being the timpani which should arrive in a crescendo, “boom”, at the start of the final piano cavalcade and which had finished its small business 1 or 2 bars before.
On the symphonic side, after a slight initial inertia (woodwind), the Classical symphony went better and better with an excellent Final, the latter being distinguished by lines which burst through the musical line a little like lightning streaks a summer sky. Rafael Payare relayed this effect well.
About the 1st Symphony by Sibelius, faced with the meticulous construction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Payare has opted for a more bloody reading, especially in the last movement of very great sonic generosity on the part of the orchestra. However, the conductor did not manage to create the atmospheres of the 2nd movement, methodical and respectful, but cold.
What we dream of now are deep and long series of immersion and work by Payare at the OSM so that, little by little, but not too slowly, the finish is up to the level of enthusiasm and good will.