Les Arts florissants and their chef William Christie, 77, will be guests of choice at the next Festival de Lanaudière, whose program will be officially unveiled on Thursday, learned The duty.
These are four concerts that William Christie and his musicians will offer as part of a celebration that will take place over six weekends, from June 30 to August 7. The coming of Les Arts florissants will be integrated into that of Saturday July 30th.
We had the opportunity to speak earlier this week with the conductor and harpsichordist, whose appearances with his ensemble are extremely rare in Canada. “We gave a concert in Montreal a few years ago, and two or three concerts in and around Toronto,” he confirmed.
A single recent story, therefore, quite minimalist and inconclusive, moreover, that Les Arts florissants millésime 2022 will certainly be eager to make people forget under the direction of their founding chef.
Well-tempered workforce
The great work on the July 30 program at the Fernand-Lindsay amphitheater will be Handel’s pastoral ode L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740). The reason for the choice is very simple: “I try to do as many concerts as possible with things that I like”, says William Christie, who doesn’t want to develop the subject any further. In this score, two allegorical poems by John Milton, The Allegro (happy character) and Il Penseroso (meditative character) are arranged in a kind of “dialogue” by Händel’s librettist, Charles Jennens, who introduces, ultimately, Il Moderatoa conciliator.
The festival will offer a “version reworked by William Christie”, but the arranger remains silent on his adaptation: “It’s a version that travels more easily”. We will understand, after two reminders, that it is “a slightly less full orchestra”, the work not being the subject of any cuts.
The need for modest numbers also explains, for the concert of grand motets by Marc-Antoine Charpentier on 1er August at Joliette Cathedral, the choice of Te Deum H. 147which is not the famous Te Deum of Charpentier, but a more intimate little brother. Would William Christie be ready, if he were to return to Quebec, to present more imposing works by directing a flourishing Arts reinforced by local musicians?
“It’s not in our habits,” says the chef, who has seen little change in his interpretations of Charpentier for several decades: “I have evolved in a style that remains constant and remains faithful to my tastes and my interpretive ideas. Maybe things are easier now. »
The concerts on August 2 and 3 will feature William Christie on harpsichord, associated with violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, then with mezzo Lea Desandre and lutenist Thomas Dunford. The duty was very interested to know how the conductor chose his artists and what previous musical experiences had marked him; he will content himself with telling us that “they are excellent musicians” who have worked with him for many years.
We will therefore appeal to our own memories to warmly evoke the disc Vivaldi of the Jupiter ensemble, which, in 2020, at Alpha, brought together Desandre and Dunford. As for Théotime Langlois de Swarte, it suffices to point out that he is the freshly-brought-up solo violinist of Les Arts florissants and the new star baroque violinist of Harmonia Mundi.
The rest of the program will be unveiled on Thursday. But since the OSM has announced concerts on June 30 and 1er July and went on tour in Korea a few days later with “la 5and Symphony of Mahler, the Violin Concerto noh 1 and the Piano concerto no.oh 3 by Prokofiev, as well as works by Ravel, Bartók and Debussy”, it is a safe bet that enthusiastic musicians will defend this repertoire at the opening of the festival.