Many cities, in addition to well-funded professional orchestras, boast ensembles that consist of musicians playing at a professional level, but who, for one reason or another, decided to pursue professions outside of music. These ensembles vary greatly in terms of quality (as do “professional” orchestras). One that deserves wider recognition, that produces concerts of a consistently high standard, is Sinfonia de Montréal, which celebrates its 25th Anniversary next year.
Louis Lavigueur, artistic director since its inception, is one of Québec’s most respected and admired musicians. He demonstrated exactly what can be achieved with modest means, thanks to imaginative programming and the weekly dedication of over seventy musicians under his baton. Sinfonia de Montréal’s Apr. 5 concert featured recurring themes of love and youth (perhaps anticipating Spring?), on a relentlessly rainy evening.
The evening leapt to a rousing start with George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, showing off the orchestra in an extended format, with additional percussion and two harpists, as signaled by Lavigueur in his introduction. The piece, written by the composer at age 19, uses Romanian folk songs he’d heard as a child and later transcribed from memory. The woodwind solos (clarinet and oboe) that open the piece were admirably played, as were the chromatically cascading upper strings that followed, admirably anchored by the lower strings, animatedly trading rapid arco and pizzicato passages.
In keeping with the theme of youth, next on the program was 19-year-old violinist Justin Saulnier, a student of Orchestre symphonique de Montréal principal violinist Andrew Wan, displaying his complete mastery of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, op.64. It was positively mesmerizing to watch the total and utter control of the instrument under his command, as well as his deft deployment of dynamics, from the softest whisper to a majestically thundering cadenza. The pacing of the first movement’s cadenza was breathtaking; in the moments of silence between passages, you could hear a pin drop. It’s always a pleasure to watch a young soloist who has it all: natural ability, musicality, emotional understanding of the work at hand, and loads of charisma.
In the Mendelssohn Concerto, the orchestra and Lavigueur showed they’re also fine accompanists, deferring intuitively to help shape the sound and arc of the soloist’s performance, with the strings’ robust precision and adherence to required pianissimi particularly effective. One had the sense that the orchestra were as awestruck as the audience, witnessing the soloist’s joyfully powerful virtuosity.
The second half of the concert started with Respighi’s tone poem Fontane di Roma, an ode focusing on four of the Eternal City’s fountains. In this pictorial piece, Respighi takes us on a tour from dawn to evening, choosing the fountain that suits best the time of day.
Justin Saulnier (violin) with Sinfonia de Montréal. Photo: Nordes Lamarre
As Lavigueur explained in his spoken preface, Ottorini Respighi (1879-1936) is often thought of as Italy’s Debussy; avant-garde, impressionistic, and distinct from contemporaneous Italian composers. Notably, he studied in Russia with master orchestrator Rimsky-Korsakov.
The orchestra features some very fine players who were on full display in the Respighi. Particularly strong here were the woodwinds, brass and percussion.
La fontana di Valle Giulia all’alba starts the tone poem at daybreak, presenting a pastoral scene. Delicately orchestrated, this section has a sensuous feel thanks to a somewhat Middle Eastern tonality evocative of Ancient Rome and Antiquity. The woodwinds played expressively, and toward the end, one appreciated the lovely harp passages.
La fontana del Tritone al meriggio al mattino brought to life naiads and Tritons cavorting, engaging in a joyous dance. The Tritons blow on conch shells, embodied by the French horns, who played majestically here. The percussion section was also particularly effective.
La fontana di Trevi, the most famous, may bring to the minds of contemporary listeners images of Fellini’s 8 1/2. With its fanfares, it has a triumphal character. This segment features intricate brass writing that was performed here with appropriate brio and a full, rich sound.
La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto is the melancholic finale, with the bells of the Angelus tolling (a well-played glockenspiel), birds twittering and leaves rustling. The sunset turns into a silent night. It was lovely to hear piano and celesta in this piece; I’d forgotten those textures in this work, and they aren’t so apparent on recordings.
Sinfonia de Montréal. Photo: Nordes Lamarre
Water is the lifeblood of this tone poem, and as with Debussy’s La Mer, Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan or Rimsky-Korskov’s Scheherazade, water is the ductile instrument of the orchestra Respighi uses to paint his picture. The orchestra sounded alternately powerful and delicate throughout, respecting the dynamics required to conjure Respighi’s vision.
The concert ended with a clin d’oeil to Vienna at its most glorious, during the reign of Maria Theresa (1717-1780) with Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite (1944) which collects the high points of the eponymous opera which premiered in 1911.
In this work, the Sinfonia had the opportunity to show what it is capable of in every regard, and with Lavigueur as their expert navigator, they did not disappoint. Strauss’s music is notorious for its many tricky passages, and this Suite is no exception. But overall this too was an unqualified success, and, importantly, the ensemble was faithful to the spirit of the music.
The Suite opens (as does the full opera), with the lovemaking between the Marschallin and young Octavian (Lavigueur wryly set up the controversial scene in his spoken intro). On full display here is Strauss’s powerfully emotional orchestration, with its achingly gorgeous strings, plaintive woodwinds and commanding brass. The composer deftly inserts magical waltz passages to evoke a dreamlike, bygone era, and these were breathtakingly handled by Lavigueur and his ensemble. As with the other selections chosen for this evening’s program, Rosenkavalier Suite was the perfect vehicle to illustrate an orchestra’s finesse as well as its stamina, and happily this ensemble has both.
I had only heard Sinfonia once before, several years ago in this same hall (Salle Claude Champagne which, incidentally, has pleasing acoustics), for a concert featuring young opera singers. Although that concert was somewhat uneven, I enjoyed it, and it was clear the orchestra was a serious one.
On Apr. 5, each selection showcased the ensemble’s various strengths, making for a musically satisfying evening that clearly held the audience’s attention. If this concert typifies the orchestra’s high standards, I look forward to hearing this fine group again.
For more about Sinfonia de Montréal’s season visit www.sinfoniamtl.com
