The new musical director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra conducted the closing concert of its first season on Wednesday evening in a very well-filled Grand Théâtre. The program Paris
Some signs are unmistakable. When pre-sales of tickets for the upcoming season reach the usual September levels on May 15, something is happening. After taking your seat at the Grand Théâtre, it doesn’t take long to understand.
Grabbing a microphone, Clemens Schuldt has the art of making you feel at ease and at home. He begins by thanking everyone for this first season. After the break, he will pay a warm tribute (in careful French) to two musicians, one retiring, the other taking a gradual step back. He continues, in homage to them, with a work not planned for the program: the Fanfare of La Peri by Dukas, who, casually, admirably announces the beginning of the Psalm 24 by Lili Boulanger.
Expressiveness
There Symphony No. 31, “Paris”, by Mozart is a spectacle in itself. Conducting without a baton, the conductor struggles on all fronts with very colorful gestures which hide nothing of his musical intentions. His Mozart is exciting, very lively, with a 2e movement which sings like a great opera aria without words. It will be important to continue programming Mozart (or Haydn) to work on the finesse and responsiveness of the orchestra. The result is already more than encouraging.
Second quality of this concert: the programming off the beaten track. In collaboration with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, rare French orchestrated melodies by Massenet and Saint-Saëns were selected. Despite Hélène Guilmette’s pronunciation efforts, it would have been useful to project the words.
The soprano is in excellent vocal form. She demonstrated, in the Gloria also from Poulenc, with subtle nuances and very fine and well-controlled sonorities. We appreciated Clemens Schuldt’s art of accompanying the soloist with diaphanous sounds in Massenet.
In the second part, the chef chose two Psalms of Lili Boulanger, whose heightened expressiveness he underlined, and the Gloria by Poulenc, a work both exhilarating and complex.
Schuldt played contrasts very well, but we adhere more to Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s idea of placing the soprano soloist between the choir and the orchestra so that her voice seems to emanate from the singing community rather than being placed at the foreground as a classical soloist.
There is also reason not to take a break and to follow the movements “Gloria” and “Laudamus Te” together. The work must be sung in one breath. The OSQ Choir is not the most subtle there is, but it has mastered this difficult score well to close in style a season to which we would often have liked to have remote access via the Internet, given what is happening at the OSQ now looks exciting.