Yannick Nézet-Séguin resumed on Sunday afternoon, at the Maison symphonique, the Mass in B by Bach, which he conducted without an audience at the 2020 Bach Festival. We expected an amplification of his vision then, but many things have changed.
Paying tribute to Jean R. Dupré, President and CEO of the Orchester Métropolitain, who is retiring after ten years of a mandate marked, according to Yannick Nézet-Séguin, by an increase in the orchestra’s roots in the community and internationally, the conductor underlined the peaceful and friendly transition with the new CEO, Fabienne Voisin, in a musical world “made of sensational departures and intrigues”. That is emptying the heart.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin also underlined the place of Mass in B and, today, its necessity as a message of peace. The work symbolizes a kind of harmony in the world, when war is a more tangible reality than ever, when good climatic intentions take precedence over action and when financial bases are cracking. It is this weight of a crushed world that Sunday’s performance seemed to carry. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes by default.
lead screed
At the end of the 2020 webcast, we concluded our report: “Yannick Nézet-Séguin owes it to all music lovers to resume this work “in real life” next year. It is not possible to miss such a monument in one’s life. Even because of a pandemic. »
Despite draconian sanitary conditions in terms of distancing the musicians, the conductor had managed to communicate an intense sensation of mystical breath. “Hymnic, grand style, timeless” were the three words that we had highlighted and we expected an amplification of this by the return of a “normal” layout, which would have made it possible to increase the general breath by mass effect. Nay!
From the first word Kyrie “, this Mass in B, vintage 2022, appeared crushed under a leaden screed, with a contrite choir, having lost the strength to beg or to appeal to God. Very strange vision, where when the basses sing ” Creed », one has the impression that they are apologizing for believing. Even the ” Thanks » was touched by this sweet and timorous song, the gradation inside the choirs (the return of « and in terra pax in the Gloria) rarely giving rise to expressive exaltation. This lack of affirmation of the believer, of questioning of the Divine, was something astonishing, even staggering.
There was a part of the chef’s vision, which makes two moments of “weight” (” Who tollis ” and ” Agnus Dei ”) the two highlights of his interpretation. But there were also a lot of choral gaps. We were very bored of the Chapelle de Québec listening to this wheezy section of tenors, these heterogeneous sopranos. Agree, for example, with the ” And incarnatus very slow and without consonants, Carlo Maria Giulini style, but when you have the singers to do it, not with such attacks and an organist who raises the sound to preserve the intonation. Finally, another problem of choral culture, when the strings drive nails during the Crucifixusthe choir must do the same with biting entries on “Cru” (from Crucifixus) or “Pa” (from ” Passus “). Anyway, soft starters were the lot of the afternoon.
Small change compared to 2020: the conductor, who had wisely opted for a continuo combining organ and harpsichord, this time deprived himself of the colors of the harpsichord. Finally, the soloists at the time, Kimy McLaren, Rihab Chaieb, David Portillo and John Relyea, were replaced by Erika Baikoff, Karen Cargill, Werner Güra and Nathan Berg. Karen Cargill easily ruled her world (fabulous “ Agnus “), the duet never being made with an honorable soprano, but waddling a lot. Güra’s tight, covered timbre was painful to hear a week after the bright Andrew Haji. As for Berg, his voice is now a little cramped.
Are we now expecting too much from Yannick Nézet-Séguin? Maybe. Unless he wanted to defend a nihilistic version at the head of a choir unable to give life to this vision.