Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie played Thursday evening The art of running away at the Bourgie Hall as part of the Bach Festival and in a transcription by the Quebec conductor. A fascinating evening.
Enigmatic The art of running away. You might as well start this account with a confession. Teenager and beginner music lover, I was convinced that The art of running away was an orchestral work by Bach, quite simply because it appeared in a Bach set of LPs conducted by Neville Marriner, the flagship of my first Christmas as a budding discophile. A collection of letters from the conductor Hermann Scherchen made me discover very quickly that there was another orchestration, signed by the Swiss Emile Vuataz.
The anecdote is obviously not intended to tell about my personal life. It has utility as an edifying example. First, the initial angle of view on a musical work is that which the chances of life offer us. We then walk with this work and its performers, this path being often fascinating. Next, The art of running away in the orchestra is potentially a very interesting entry point for taming this complex score.
At the conjunction of these two teachings, there are two considerations. First, there is no such thing as a “truth” or an “order of things” which would be The art of running away as a work for keyboard (harpsichord or piano), the rest being avatar or dilution, orchestration being the ultimate form of renouncing intellectual purity.
Second, so it is quite possible to take The art of running away “Upside down”, through the prism of the orchestra and instrumental diversity. It then even becomes fascinating to make this diversity, and therefore the various orchestrations, a field of study, which turns out to be almost inexhaustible.
A journey through time
Before Marriner, there was not only Vuataz, defended by Scherchen, but a certain Isaacs who had concocted a version directed by the famous Karl Munchinger. The art of running away was then a slow ceremony and spread a little in the spirit of the compunction of the Passion according to Saint Matthew by Otto Klemperer.
All this to say that the work of Marriner, assisted by Andrew Davis, in the mid-1970s was invigorating. If we mention him, it is also because we have always had the impression that he opened the way to that of Bernard Labadie by introducing the idea of entrusting the organ or the harpsichord (Christopher Hogwood in the recording Marriner) segments, sort of returns to a musical core, after which the orchestra could again unfold.
If the English chef did not give up the woods. Twenty-five years after Marriner, Bernard Labadie proposed an adaptation for strings, the barrels being assumed by a positive or a small organ. Some counterpoints are played by small ensembles.
The music lover can now compare on demand listening platforms the Labadie version with those, in particular, of Jordi Savall (with wind instruments), Ottavio Dantone and the Accademia Byzantina and the Akademie für Alte Musik, so many erudite and exciting versions. Each listening is a new beginning, because each performer reveals himself deeply through fundamental choices, including tempos, down to the smallest twists.
Intense concentration
Just take the Contrapunctus V. It is cheerful with Labadie and Dantone, solemn and serious with Savall and Marriner (as with the pianist Gorini recently or with Albert Cano Smit on Tuesday here). The art of the fugue is that: an edifice that changes every time. Bernard Labadie remained faithful to the choices of his Dorian recording of 2000. During two thirds of the work, the appearance of the tutti of strings is mainly done by very tonic interventions (Contrapunctus V and VI, then VII and IX) which There followed moments of high-quality musical concentration in small groups (trio Thouin, Chalk, Loiselle in the Contrapunctus VIII).
Compared to the recording, the Canon à l’Octave with Jean-Willy Kunz on the organ continuo was a little bogged down and especially the idea of putting in the Contrapunctus XIII the variants of the Rectus and the inversus makes us hear the same thing too many times and lengthens the “bridge” to the final Contrapunctus XIV too much. As the duo of the 2 organs was charming, it was enough here to keep only the two variants with two keyboards.
In such a setting, the idea of offering a conclusion to the final fugue is excellent and the direction of Labadie according to Davitt Moroney is quite convincing. Compliments could accumulate, both towards the audience, of absolute silence and fascinated concentration, and towards the musicians, all potential soloists (the quartet in Rectus XIIa was better and more balanced than the Cremona Quartet at the Ladies’Morning!) and of the conductor who has, moreover, found the right number, with 4 violins I, 4 Violins II, 4 violas, 2 cellos and 1 double bass.
The unity of the group was impeccable and the circulation of the motifs clear, as was the construction of the fugues according to the meaning that the conductor and transcriptionist saw in them: construction from violins II, violas, cellos then violins I, but which varied by example in the French style (Contrapunctus VI), lighter and therefore launched by the violins, or the final Contrapunctus, dark, therefore placed on the bass base.
Whatever the medium, a The art of running away who convinces is a The art of running away that enlightens the mind and touches the heart. It did. Great evening, therefore, and tour de force.