The Montreal Chamber Music Festival invited the Jerusalem Quartet on Monday, accompanied by Pinchas Zukerman and his cellist wife Amanda Forsyth. The ensemble made a strong impression in Dvořák and Brahms.
The Jerusalem Quartet came to Pollack Hall in March 2018, invited by the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club. We then qualified his performance as “stratospheric”.
The addition of Pinchas Zukerman, violist in Dvořák and first violin in Brahms, and Amanda Forsyth made it possible on Monday to offer two sextets. The object of this article is not to comment on the outfit or the attitude of the wife of the violinist who played second cello and behaved as if she were some star kissing everyone on stage after the Brahms. . We will simply note that the spirit of chamber music is “all equal” and “everyone in their place”. We will stop there.
Means intact
Regarding these additions to the Jerusalem Quartet, the case of Pinchas Zukerman is interesting, since the presence of this highly notorious 73-year-old violinist followed by a week the fragile performance, here, by Gidon Kremer, 74. The exercise to which Pinchas Zukerman complied exposed him less in Dvořák on the viola, but at least as much as Kremer in Brahms, since he was in the lead. It is clear that Zukerman’s violin skills are much less eroded than those of his colleague. Hats off for this outfit.
Admittedly, in Brahms, Zukermann induces a slight deficit in sound intensity compared, in particular, to the two violists, but the accuracy is very honorable. In Brahms Sextet No. 1, the power of violas and cellos has its merits. It gives a lot of tone to the contrasts of the 1st movement. The violas are exceptional in the slow movement and the group spirit of the 3rd movement is remarkable. Only the Finale is somewhat below, especially in cohesion and in the musical revival.
Dvořák’s Sextet, led by the first violin of the Jerusalem Quartet, totally bore the signature of this group, with exceptional ardor and a breathtaking 3rd movement. In the Final, the performers have chosen a fairly clear cut between the variations, but without deconstructing the movement.
The Montreal Chamber Music Festival is now held in the fall in a non-festival format, since the five concerts are not gathered in a restricted period, but scattered between October 18 and December 7. As such, Emanuel Ax will end, on December 7, with a Chopin concert at the 2021 edition, the 23rd.
The originality of the Festival was to launch on October 18 with a free concert by the Young Virtuosos of Montreal, an ensemble of 15 students who had previously brought music to several boroughs of Montreal. As for paying concerts, this one and Emmanuel Ax’s recital are “Prestige concerts”, at the “festival” price of 98 dollars and dust. Let fans of the genre in search of more affordable outings know that it will cost around half (44 and 50 dollars respectively) to see the formidable Dover next Tuesday in the same place and the Quartet of Cremona at the Ladies’ Morning this Sunday.
Before the concert, Denis Brott, artistic director of the Festival, who almost became one of the first victims of COVID-19 in Quebec, was named one of the faces of the Fondation du CHUM’s Christmas fundraiser.