Montreal Symphony Orchestra | Puffy direction and invigorating soloist

The Orchester symphonique de Montréal gave its first program of the year on Wednesday and Thursday. The Press attended the last concert.

Those who hoped to see Nikolaj Skeps-Znaider conduct the OSM again were disappointed, the conductor – and former violinist – having canceled with a few days notice for health reasons. To replace him, the organization has called on the Russian Andrey Boreyko, a 65-year-old conductor who has held various positions (including that of Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in the early 2000s) and is now at the head of the venerable Warsaw Philharmonic.

It must be said that there are not hundreds of chefs who master The little Mermaid (Die Seejungfrau in German) by Zemlinsky, on the program for the second half of the evening. Boreyko has made it one of his signature pieces, which he wears around the world.

The score, a sort of symphonic poem in three movements, was last performed at the OSM in 2019 by the young Lorenzo Viotti. Inspired by Andersen’s famous tale, it was created when the composer was going through an intense heartbreak after being rejected by Alma Schindler, Gustav Mahler’s future wife. Schoenberg’s brother-in-law, Zemlinsky distils in it a postromantic language as close to The transfigured night of the first than of the great symphonic poems of Richard Strauss.

It is an understatement to say that the interpretation of Boreyko did not enthuse us. There is a strange phenomenon that makes the perception that a performer has of his own playing is not the same as that of the public. In the case of the guest from the OSM, we have more the impression of a conductor who indulges himself, getting drunk on the orchestral material, at the expense of the overall direction.

This is evident from the opening of Tannhauser, which opened the evening. Its propensity for blistering does not bother you right away, even if Wagner specifies “without dragging, in a going movement”, in addition to the main indication andante maestoso. But when the Allegro arrives, the “bacchic” part, things don’t go well at all. There is a tension in this work, between voluptuousness and repentance, an ambivalence which one must feel from the opening. Here, everything is smooth from start to finish. Each note weighs a ton.

It is no different in The little Mermaid. Boreyko sculpts each bar as if his life depended on it, but the overall direction is totally lost. Like an actor reciting a text by accentuating each syllable. Orchestrally, it sounds very good (magnificent solos from concertmaster Andrew Wan), but what a bore…

The hero of the evening is more his compatriot, the violinist Maxim Vengerov, a regular at the OSM. His Concerto n^oh 1 in G minor, opus 26, by Max Bruch was a real breath of fresh air. Good healthy and invigorating violin. He doesn’t split hairs, unlike the conductor, who delivers the main theme of the famous sausage finale… Why repeat the basic cell of the theme three times in the same way?

As a reminder, Vengerov offered us (“if you have the time”, he launched in French) the adagio de la Violin Sonata n^oh 1 in G minorBWV 1001, by Bach, in an interpretation that is a bit romantic, but sincere as anything.