Rafael Payare and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra began the institution’s 90th season on Tuesday evening by presenting the Glagolitic mass by Leoš Janáček and The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. What we experienced in The coronation goes beyond comprehension and is inscribed once again, like the 2nd Symphony by Mahler, on the same occasion last year, among the great pages in the history of the OSM.
During one of the most fascinating documentaries about music in the making: a rehearsal of The Moldau filmed in 1960, and easily found on YouTube, the great Hungarian chef Ferenc Fricsay, carried away by the music, exclaims: “How beautiful it is to live”!
Fricsay was then in remission from cancer which would take his life some time later, during a recurrence. It is this phrase and this repetition that revolved in our mind while listening to the ritual of Rite of Spring dug out of the ground by Rafael Payare. Do we really grasp the privilege of living to be there and share that? Do we understand the amount of work and vision to get there?
When music reaches this level of vision and commitment, it’s a bit like The Orfeo by Leonardo Garcia Alarcón. We remain in disbelief, because we don’t really expect it.
References
Concert music necessarily suffers, in the ears of music lovers, from comparison with recordings, that is to say from the infinite reproduction of a sound object manufactured in artificial conditions which allow it to aim for a form of perfection. Chef Antal Dorati had thought about this phenomenon. An outstanding technician and perfectionist, he had also mastered it by recording a number of reference discs, including The Rite of Spring in 1959 in Minneapolis for Mercury.
We all have, according to our various experiences, our “references”. There is one, particularly impressive, where the young Leonard Bernstein, in 1958, pushes, at the end of the first part of this Rite of Spring, the New York Philharmonic in its final limits. Listen and replay “The Dance of the Earth” while wondering: How do they do it?
So, when the OSM under the influence of Rafael Payare begins to make the powder speak by increasing in intensity in “Rondes springinières” (the transition towards the vivowith the two flute calls), then resumes the pattern of increasing power in a “Cortège du Sage” which almost borders on sonic delirium, to finish with a “Dance of the earth” which almost makes the famous Bernstein version pale, we can’t believe our ears.
The Rite of Spring de Payare is much more than brute force: these are admirable timbres from the start, with the bassoon or the bass clarinet; instrumental alloys, such as the flute and solo violin at the start of the 2nd part; formidable ideas, like the crescendo of timpani which leads to the “Glorification of the Chosen”; a frenzied commitment from all, with horns not hesitating to play high bells and which can be perfectly distinguished in the “Sacral Dance”. A small blunder in the coordination of the brass instruments in this “Sacral Dance” does not matter: with this commitment and this risk-taking, a small accident does not matter.
Rafael Payare really makes the OSM “play” and when the OSM plays at this point and this level we almost can’t believe what we hear. The experience reconnects with the great concert emotions that Evgeny Svetlanov could give us with his Russian State Orchestra or, I imagine, in the past, Charles Munch.
We wondered one day if Rafael Payare would be able to renew the “Zubin Mehta effect” in Montreal. He’s only been here for 1 year and we’re already on par or above and in the 2nd And 3rd of Mahler, the Sacred…even for a fan of Zubin Mehta from the 70s. I am not a specialist in games of chance and lotteries: but this chef is the Jackpot, the golden ball and “high life” combined.
Variable distribution
For the Glagolitic massPayare had the excellent idea of choosing the definitive version of the score and not one of the recent pseudo-musicological rants which only dilute the musical message.
Among the performers two protagonists stood out. First the choir, admirable, clear in its pronunciation, impeccable in its entries, even in delicate moments (Crucifixion) and almost heroic in having remained in tune with the intonation in the Sanctus after a rather floating intervention by the soloists. Then the tenor Ladislav Elgr who, even if he showed a certain fatigue in Sanctus and Agnus, had, from his first intervention, reframed the aesthetic sense of the work and in particular of the solo interventions, facing the renowned soprano, Camilla Tilling , who either sang someone else’s interpretation or thought they were at a Grieg party.
There Glagolitic these are not stories of swans or water lilies: the attacks are strong and sharp and we enter the Svet (Sanctus) strong (it’s marked) like a knife blade in a loaf of bread and not with a wave mezzo piano that we amplify. Tiilling did this to us all evening, starting by weighing down the Kyrie by slowing down a passage (the Christe), marked “ a poco piu mosso » (so more lively and not less). Elgr’s entry into the Gloria really put the performance back on track with energy, directness and poise.
The only thing not to do in the Glagolitic mass it’s simpering, decorative singing and beating around the bush. We still have the right to sing in time which represents a challenge for Matthew Rose whose voice is however exactly the right one, just like that of Rose Naggar-Tremblay in her brief interventions.
Great vision from Rafael Payare, who will be able to go a little more directly to the point, especially in Kyrie and Gloria (fugato too careful). Also, in the Agnus, there is no reason to constrain the tempo of the soloists’ intervention. Jean-Willy Kunz sought to juxtapose sound demonstration and virtuosity. He therefore held back the beginning of his solo a little to “give sound” but deployed the ultimate acceleration which adds salt to the piece.
Obviously go and experience all of this during one of the two occasions.