The Quebec Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Clemens Schuldt received cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras on Thursday for the Cello Concerto by Antonín Dvořák. The sensitive, skin-deep reading of the cellist and the orchestra will long be remembered.
There are so many lessons to be learned from this concert at the Grand Théâtre de Québec that it’s difficult to know where to start. So, the institution first. With its new chef Clemens Schuldt, who began his second season a week ago, the OSQ is undeniably on the rise. This can be seen on both sides of the stage, through the extreme attention and magnetism aroused by the conductor, on the part of the musicians and the public. Schuldt succeeds in imposing an atmosphere that is both concentrated and relaxed.
Don’t forget
In the form of the concert, this inventive conductor brought back to the profession an interesting achievement of the pandemic that everyone seems to have forgotten: the musically nourishing concert but without pause. Intermezzo of Notre Dame by Schmidt, The sea, Cello Concerto by Dvořák: it was a very beautiful musical evening, ended in apotheosis and, by 9 p.m., everything was packed. Basically, going to a concert is not an activity “for whoever can be as tired as possible the next morning” and if it is feasible like that, it could interest some of the clientele.
On a musical level, the analyzes and ambitions of the German conductor for the OSQ were well stated in our recent interview published in Duty a few weeks ago. As such, we can imagine that theIntermezzo of Notre Dame by Schmidt was not just a sound appetizer, but a way of working on the material of the strings, the power and the roundness that will have to be improved over time.
Among the lessons of the evening, there is also the fact that this orchestra is definitely in good hands. In a work as emblematic of the French orchestral spirit and style as The seaClemens Schuldt is not wrong. The passages that could become grandiloquent, he brushes them off at tempo in a unitary breath, while thematic or atmospheric transitions, where, with Debussy, it is often necessary to “give in a little”, are approached with remarkable sensitivity.
Here too, we wish Clemens Schuldt and the OSQ many years together, because, in the 1er movement in particular, we decode the conductor’s gestures as that of an interpretation even more bubbling, vigorous and daring than the one we hear. It is true that in such a score we still perceive the difference between an orchestra of 60 members and an orchestra of 90. Could the OSQ, in these cases, benefit from a sort of tutoring with young musicians? a bit like Jordi Savall did by expanding his orchestra for his Symphonies by Beethoven?
The other cello
With Jean-Guihen Queyras we were also waiting to hear the famous cello loaned by the Canimex foundation and patron Roger Dubois. We finally heard another one, a Stradivarius from the same Foundation! Whichever one Jean-Guihen Queyras will focus on, the instrument from which his musicality emanated, Thursday, was “his voice”. The sound is not big and fat, nor is it woody. Acoustically, it has the characteristics of the Maison symphonique, with a sharp treble and midrange, intense light, and a warm but never sycophantic tone.
This is also the style of Queyras, whose interpretation will remain in our memory like those, formerly of Piano Concertos No. 1 And 3 of Beethoven by Radu Lupu in concert. In his prime, Radu Lupu had a way of attacking his slow movements with a whisper, a unique touch that belonged only to him.
These are the moments on the edge of silence, but never mannered that we had; unique moments, a listening experience where paralyzed listeners seem to be looking at a painting that comes to life. This is the essence of the music’s deepest beauty and mystery, balancing on a wire, with an orchestra enveloping this poetry with respect and attention.
Christophe Huss was the guest of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra.