Rafael Payare is in Montreal to close the season of the Orchester symphonique de Montréal (OSM) with the 9e Symphony by Beethoven. We got to talk to him about the score backstage at the Rady Shell spectacular in San Diego, where the conductor conducted the masterpiece last Friday and Saturday.
If a change of era were to materialize and take musical shape in Montreal, judging by what we have experienced in San Diego in recent days, it will happen between Tuesday and Friday at the Maison symphonique. Kent Nagano had transformed the Ninth in intellectual abstraction, and this week should mark the return of guts and soul.
The soul is what Martha Gilmer, general manager of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, evokes when speaking of Rafael Payare: “He is like an old soul that has a whole tradition, a culture in it. Martha Gilmer is a leader as any orchestra would dream of: a bold visionary, with more than forty years of experience, including three decades at the Chicago Symphony. She has anecdotes about all the great chefs. She has seen them all. But this conductor, “who expects more from the musicians than he asks of them”, has a special place. His regret? “Knowing that I won’t live long enough to see how Rafael’s talent will unfold. »
Do not reason in episodes
When Martha Gilmer accepted the position in San Diego, she needed a leader who accepted the uncertainties and the challenges, to build.
When discussing the Ninth with Rafael Payare, when we talk to him about the 3e movement and we ask him how he balances musicology and the human message, we discuss, here too, with a builder. “Everything stems from the way Beethoven builds. In the end, he just puts words. The 3e movement is a moment of peace in the form of variations. So it all depends on how you want these variations to sound. »
And the conductor continues: “My approach is to think that Beethoven is in no way a guy who reasons in episodes. It always goes from one point to another; a global arch must be preserved. So the approach is to figure out how the varied melody should sing and see how the rest flows from that. It is a process that Brahms and Bruckner will explore in different ways. »
At the beginning of FinalBeethoven composes a sonorous tumult in which the themes of the first three movements reappear. They will literally be “swept away” one after the other. The solution will then emerge, the theme of joy, which will be taken up and amplified by the voice. The big question that arises here is: what to do with the indication attached to the tumult? “According to the character of a recitative, but in time. Thus, 98% of conductors play it as a slowed-down recitative; 2% in time. Payare slows down: “Beethoven puts: “According to a recitative”. I think he’s trying to say something with the orchestra. He searches, he searches and hesitates until he can no longer. It’s an internal fight. But remember 40 minutes earlier [Payare chante les implacables premières mesures] : he must move on, he must find a solution. After a final uproar, this solution will be words. »
Everything flows from the way Beethoven builds. In the end, he just puts words. The 3rd movement is a moment of peace in the form of variations. So it all depends on how you want these variations to sound.
Contrary to Jordi Savall, who believes in a truth of a correct, metronomic tempo, Rafael Payare believes in a kind of sensitive tempo and in strictly logical relationships. “There are tempo relationships everywhere. The last five measures respond to the first. Beethoven indicates 88. Whether you lead faster or slower, the relationship must be the same to keep the logic from the first to the last note. »
The great difficulty that the conductor felt with this work was “this struggle with the tempo”. “People who, like me, admire traditionally directed performances, but then look at what Beethoven wrote, come across people who have habits and ask you why you want to change. »
Sometimes you have to deconstruct before you rebuild. Deconstruct the past in 9e, here, will not be too difficult. We are probably not the only ones who want to turn the page.
Christophe Huss was the guest of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.