Osmo Vänskä returned to the OSM for the first time since 1998. The concert, which we listened to during Thursday’s resumption, gives hope that the Finnish conductor could become a regular guest of the orchestra.
What 5th Symphony by Beethoven! We sometimes wonder what a leader is for. All those who ask themselves the question should have been able to experience this week’s concert with Osmo Vänskä at the head of the OSM. The answer was accessible to everyone, since we have already heard our orchestra play this well-known work many times. But not like this…
The music, according to Vänskä, seems to be scrutinized with the sharpness of a laser beam. The differences with what we usually hear are in no way interpretive gestures or pranks. Everything goes in the direction of the music. Vänskä operates with a large orchestra like Paavo Järvi with the Deutsche Kanmmerphilharmonie: when a note is sometimes strongsometimes fortissimoyou have to hear the difference or when, in a balance, a nuance must make an instrument stand out, you have to perceive it.
If we schematize by saying (in an outrageous and erroneous way) that the work is conducted by the violins and the brass, we could affirm that the “Vänskä bonus” is to make heard constantly all that there is between the two . The image is deliberately exaggerated, but allows you to get an idea.
Dramaturgy
This orchestral processing, extremely attentive to the sharpness and tone of the entries, as well as to the dynamics, makes it possible to manage gradations by implementing all the desks (no violist needs to go to the gym this week: the physical work is accomplished !), but also to create a spectacular dramaturgy, especially in the 2nd and 3rd movements, real moments of suspense.
Because what Osmo Vänskä is looking for is life through bubbling music. But well beyond the concert by a guest conductor, there was something very moving on Thursday evening: the perception – subjective, you might say – of the birth of the “OSM de Payare”. Indeed, we saw the musicians struggling like the devils for this conductor who asked so much of them. This generosity is what the new musical director asks for. She’s the one who gave us the history 2nd by Mahler at the start of the season.
And there, suddenly, we remembered the concerts of the selection process and this little uneasiness felt by observing this same group in front of leaders demiurges (Altinoglu, Payare) and by noting a partial reserve, at least of a part of the orchestra, which in no way “let go” in this way. Beyond Vânskä’s performance, this Fifth was moving for that.
Beethoven was preceded by a very beautiful atmospheric work by Kaija Saariaho rising gradually with a lot of luminosity. As for the first part, the traffic jams in Montreal made us miss bits of it. Regarding the most important part, the performance of Su Yeon Kim, winner of the 2021 Montreal International Music Competition, things are crystal clear: she is a confident, agile and tasteful pianist (she does not pour out in the 2nd movement), but whose bland sound production remains limited to the forearms instead of arising from the pelvis and the entire upper body. The sound is therefore mechanical and not “organic” which means that the dynamic contrasts, in the Final for example, lack build. Honorable performance, presentable, but without tomorrow.