The Orchester Métropolitain gave Wednesday evening, in the Saint-Laurent borough, the first of four performances of the “Songe à l’italienne” program conducted by Ariane Matiakh, which will take it to the Maison symphonique on Sunday afternoon.
The program for “Songe à l’italienne” starts from a good idea: Richard Strauss’s debt to Mozart (the same goes, moreover, for Tchaikovsky). This musical dialogue is in fact closely maintained in the three concerts in the districts, more than during the apotheosis at the Maison symphonique, Sunday afternoon, where Juliette Hurel will play the flute concerto The wing of dreams (2001), by Kaija Saariaho.
Elegance
Since we are talking about the soloist, flautist Juliette Hurel is the big breath of fresh air in the concert, which takes place, on a symphonic level, rather under tension. This artist, as we have seen many times, also on record, is the embodiment of elegance in all its forms.
With Juliette Hurel, there are no effects, neither interpretive nor instrumental: the music flows with great equality, pure logic and beauty. The musician played as an encore Banter of the 2e Following by Bach, stoic in front of a spectator from 3e or 4e row in front of her who held up her phone to film her, despite all the bans in force for many years. A little reminder on how to behave during a show could be useful because, moreover, in a generally exemplary room, we were still quite surprised by the number of hushed discussions of various sources while the music was in full swing. Hurel, herself, was a victim, in the 1er movement of his concerto, of these stupidities.
It is very difficult to extrapolate, from this concert, what exactly the result will be in the symphonic works at the end of the run at the Maison symphonique, the generous acoustics of the Saint-Sixte church seeming to “inflate” the sound. That said, some intangible parameters are clear.
The first is that too much is the enemy of good. The presence of the opening of Marriage of Figaro at the start of 2e part, before Aus Italian is superfluous. The second is the professionalism of Ariane Matiakh, who frames the music well, whether it is the unity of the entries in Don Juan or the entire program. Size and impact dominate in a concert which is not played with unforgettable subtlety or sensitivity, but which has its effect.
The third is that the appeal of the concert will largely depend on your affinities with the works on the program. As far as we are concerned, if there are certainly two works by Richard Strauss that we would like to condemn to damnation, they would be Aus Italian and the Sinfonia Domestica. We are therefore hardly able to rejoice in the sunny exuberance of Final of this first symphonic poem by Strauss, so much does this “sound and musical spread” put us off. Admirable commitment from OM.
The challenge of the following concerts will be the increasing refinement in the palette of nuances and, therefore, the expressiveness of the musical message. Instinctively and from experience, we would be inclined to say that, for those who like the menu, it’s off to a good start for Sunday.