It was in black shorts and pink sports shoes that Yannick Nézet-Séguin served the 5th of Beethoven from every angle to an enthusiastic audience gathered at the foot of Mount Royal, on a beautiful summer evening.
On Tuesday evening, the Metropolitan Orchestra (OM) invited the people of Montreal to its big annual free concert at the foot of Mount Royal. Cramped at the Chalet de la montagne, where he refused ten thousand spectators in the last years before the Covid, OM had the good idea to install a marquee at the corner of avenue du Parc and Avenue des Pins. For the first and last concert of its kind, in 2019, the orchestra had attracted 35,000 spectators. According to estimates from the city of Montreal and the OM teams, communicated at the end of the evening, the crowd for 2022 was approaching 50,000 spectators.
A surprise reminder
OM were blessed by the weather, but somewhat harmed by the wind which blew into the microphones strong enough to disturb the sound until the start of the Fifth by Beethoven. Yannick Nézet-Séguin had chosen to start the evening with the opening Cosmopolitan city Montrealer Airat Ichmouratov’s lively work celebrates in his eyes the life, vitality and diversity of Montreal. In his unexpected soccer referee attire, the chef also made a giant selfie intended for social networks with his orchestra and then the public. But, as far as the deviations from the marked trails are concerned, all this was nothing compared to the encore, started after the 5th Symphony of Beethoven: this same Fifth in Walter Murphy’s disco version of the 70s, to the great joy and surprise of those present.
If the orchestral experience can agree, for a wider audience, with joy, pleasure and relaxation while preserving the essentials at the right time, it doesn’t matter. Because the essentials have been largely preserved: a Fifth biting and high quality Beethoven, in which the conductor transposes to the large orchestra the “ball of energy” of his recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (DG). Hats off to the amplification, excellent, and to the timpani, right on target for the transition between the 3rd and 4th movements.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin also presented works that are dear to him: the last two movements of the 3rd Symphony of Louise Farrenc and the strange universes ofAs long as the river flows by Barbara Assiginaak, a First Nations composer. The program therefore in no way compromised on the values that the conductor seeks to defend and those that a symphony orchestra must cultivate.
To those who, therefore, are tempted to cry out loud over the juxtaposition of a true and false Beethoven and the four minutes of Walter Murphy, we will simply remind you that the great “symphonic” concert for the 375th anniversary of Montreal, which would supposedly highlight our orchestras, was an evening formatted for television where the latter, OM and OSM brought together for the first and only time in their existence, served as foils for singing stars! We must never forget that, that is to say never forget that the scandal, the quintessence of the abdication of all values, was concentrated that evening.