Concert by Russian Daniil Trifonov | Cries and whispers at the OSM

Bought a ticket = killed a child : It was with these words written in large print that the spectators of the Orchester symphonique de Montréal were welcomed on Wednesday evening during a concert featuring Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. Inside the room, however, the music triumphed and once again proved its unifying power.

The atmosphere was breathtaking before the event, with a handful of demonstrators holding signs in the windows of the foyer on the floor level. “He can’t listen to music anymore,” said one of them, accompanied by a photo of a victim of the Russian invasion. Another asserted that “Russian culture is a mental occupation”.

The director of programming, Mariane Perron, opened the evening by reading, visibly nervous, a text explaining the meaning of the works on the program in connection with the conflict launched by Vladimir Putin.

The orchestra dedicated its first notes to the bereaved people with the Prayer for Ukrainecomposed by Valentin Silvestrov in the wake of the 2013-2014 protests in the country bordering Russia.

Chained to the tetanizer Concerto for piano and string orchestra by Alfred Schnittke, the piece, imbued with a hovering nostalgia, was a veritable airlock before the surges of the concerto.

From the first notes, Trifonov, who had settled on the keyboard at the start of the concert, grabs us, takes us by the throat. The piano howls under the fingers of the long-haired pianist, as if possessed.

If the work did not require such an investment, one would think that he gives too much. But he also knows how to pick up unsuspected sonorities in the piano nuance, sculpting the resonances of the great Steinway.

Payare brilliantly accompanies

Musical director Rafael Payare, back in Montreal after several months, offers him first-class accompaniment, with an intensity that does not waver and a narrative arc as tight as possible. Result ? A public outburst to thank this exceptional artist.

We will find him with happiness after the intermission in the no less turbulent Concerto No. 1 in D flat major by Prokofiev.

Trifonov has fun, plays with the notes like a cat with a mouse, draws us a thousand shades.

Rafale Payare is not as transcendent, but nevertheless delivers two French symphonic poems with great sensitivity. The perish by Dukas, which finally convinces us that the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice doesn’t get the fame it deserves, and The sea by Debussy show an OSM in great shape.

It can be difficult to fully grasp the architecture of these works, the fragmentation of which is reminiscent of film editing. Payare nevertheless succeeds in giving a certain coherence to these successions of often disparate motifs and themes. But we could hope for a little more contrast.

The start of The sea thus appears somewhat prosaic, a bit too deliberate, like several slow passages of The perish. It’s as if certain fast episodes lacked a hint of anger and the slow passages a tad of relaxation, of tenderness.

Let’s be clear: the whole is generally very satisfactory. The previous reservations, however, mark the difference between a very good performance and an absolute crush.

The concert resumes this Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. and will be webcast on osm.ca from May 10 to 31.