Nicolas Ellis conducted the Orchester Métropolitain (OM) on Saturday evening at the Maison symphonique, while Yannick Nézet-Séguin was present in the afternoon on cinema screens in Don Carlos live from the Met in New York. The duty chose to follow the Montreal musicians in an arduous program, very well mastered by the young artistic collaborator of OM.
The concert market has definitely been a little sluggish lately. We can imagine that if Michael Tilson Thomas and the OSM had trouble filling the room with the 9and Symphony of Schubert, OM and Nicolas Ellis have “rowed” somewhat with a program associating the Violin Concerto by Nielsen, featuring the orchestra’s concertmaster, Yukari Cousineau, and the concerto for orchestra by Bartok. But the same is true for all organisms right now.
In this case, can we really blame the public? Who really wants to stick around Violin Concerto by Carl Nielsen? Even as a keen fan of his six Symphoniesof Masquerade or its sequel Aladdin we are entitled to wonder if the Dane had not, when composing his Violin Concertoate some adulterated smørrebrød (local sandwich), whose toxins would have caused him a creative paralysis.
Of the four sections, there is roughly only the light but long Final anti-climactic which looks like something (and still…), while the rest is lost in endless meanders, whose only goal seems to be to lay traps for the soloist, in particular the Allegro cavalleresco, Yukari Cousineau doing the best so as not to let it show too much.
Bartók with generosity
In the name of the juxtaposition of the two “Nordic geniuses”, Sibelius and Nielsen, this work has found in the disc a sort of justification for its existence. At the concert, we had never experienced it and we hope that it will be like this again until the end of our days.
In search of little played 20th century violin concertos, one can turn to Britten, Stravinsky, both of Szymanowski and, to go into more obscure areas, Luis de Freitas Branco, Einar Englund or Michael Daugherty, even William Bolcom .
The performers made the most of the pensum and threw themselves with relish into the concerto for orchestra by Bartok. We have heard very few great Bartók in Montreal in recent years, Bluebeard’s Castle by Yannick Nézet-Séguin winning hands down.
The young conductor Nicolas Ellis has shown a good grip on the score and on the orchestra, itself very generous. Proof of this is the high quality performances, in particular the bassoons and trumpets in “Jeux de couples” (2and movement). As with Kent Nagano, even if Ellis is more attentive, it is nevertheless the characterization of this movement which remains a little on this side. If we consider that the “allegretto” is more in the spirit than in the tempo, we could further push the contrasts of nuances and the dynamic bellows, especially in the first half of the movement.
But the spirit of the whole was there, the difficulties mastered, the orchestra sustained, happy and sounding good. On the other hand, the season will continue in the same somewhat disappointing fashion. The next concert will bring us yet another disappointment: on April 8, Speranza Scappucci, eagerly awaited in The sea de Debussy, also directed by Rafael Payare this season at the OSM, will not come and will be replaced by Kensho Watanabe.