Concert tribute to Boris Brott | The clearer and the decipherer

No one would have imagined, just a month ago, that the concert handel forever of the Orchester Classique de Montréal would be given without its musical director Boris Brott, who suddenly disappeared in Hamilton on April 5 after being mowed down by a motorist. Placed under the direction of Matthias Maute, the evening was not however up to the height of this outstanding personality of the Montreal cultural milieu.

Music lovers were greeted by a huge portrait of the maestro projected onto the stage of the Salle Pierre-Mercure. Board Chair Deborah Corber and General Manager Taras Kulish paid a heartfelt tribute to her at the start of the concert.

The latter told us, during a telephone conversation earlier this week, how much he had developed a “rare” friendship with Boris Brott since his arrival at the OCM 10 years ago. “Even though he was 78, we thought he was going to stay forever,” he said.

“We have lost a truly incredible person. This orchestra, which is 82 years old all the same, is a jewel, a jewel for us in Montreal, and I believe that the members of the Orchestra, the Board and myself are all really stimulated at this time to continue its radiation,” he added.

Prepared a year ago, the concert, “oddly, reflects well who Boris was. Even if it was not a “baroque”, he liked Handel very much, in addition to having an attachment for the new composers”, specified the administrator, himself a musician.

Matthias Maute, he is a baroque. So we expected him to be like a duck to water in the Water Music of Handel. However, we have the overall impression of a deciphering made by someone who seems to have recently improvised as a conductor.

Since his beat too often lacks rebound, the musicians often do not really know where to put themselves, thus creating a general vagueness where one does not take advantage of the music, always fearing the next mess.

Fortunately, we are dealing with professional musicians who have seen others. The terribly efficient solo violinist Marc Djokic is therefore the real hero of the evening, compensating for the shortcomings of the master on board by his ascendancy over the other musicians.

Difficult to talk about music with a conductor who multiplies useless side effects (musicians who get up while playing, contest of skill between the soprano Karina Gauvin and the excellent trumpeter Alexis Basque in the air “Let the bright Seraphim” of Samson, etc.). Histrionics don’t make an interpretation.

L’Arabesque by Alexander Brott (Boris’ father), a short piece bringing the solo cellist Chloé Dominguez into dialogue with the orchestra, seems to contain several interesting ideas, but it feels more like deciphering. Same with the Concerto Antico: “through a smoked mirror”a charming creation by Dutch-Canadian Jaap Nico Hamburger, whose build evokes Handel, but with harmonies more reminiscent of Hindemith.

Karina Gauvin’s class

Soprano Karina Gauvin, one of the great Handelians of the 21st century^and century, nevertheless brings a certain class to the concert, even if the voice of the singer, who celebrates her 56th birthday this year, is no longer in her prime.

She obviously always enchants with her usual presence and her warm medium. But the treble, especially the most powerful, show a certain tremolo accompanied by a disturbing tremor of the jaw.

However, we only see fire when the singer lightens her treble, as in the perilous air “Sweet bird, that shun’st the noise of folly” taken from the ode L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderatoagain by Handel, where she dialogues effectively with the recorder player Sophie Larivière.

The concert, finally, was first and foremost a tribute to one of the “exceptional women” celebrated this year by the orchestra, the former minister and professor Monique Bégin, who expressed her thanks by video.