The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was in Montreal on Saturday afternoon. But who was really the star of this concert: soloist Emily D’Angelo or the Orchestra’s new conductor, Gustavo Gimeno?
The arrival of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) at the Maison symphonique attracted the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, for this 50e anniversary of exchanges between the OSM and the TSO. The minister came to the microphone to highlight the excellence of the organizations and their understanding.
The curiosity was to see Gustavo Gimeno, a 48-year-old Spanish conductor, former percussionist at the Concertgebouw (2002), converted to conducting in the early 2010s, appointed to the Luxembourg Philharmonic in 2015, then from the 2020 season -2021 at the TSO. In Toronto, the selection process had stretched to the point that the late Andrew Davis had to be called upon to take on an interim role. Gimeno, who came to lead in one go in February 2018, was immediately appointed. In November 2022, it was extended until 2030.
Disappointment
We therefore expected that the very ordinary impressions left by his CDs would be swept away in concert by the spark or the evidence of a genius that we had not perceived, anesthetized during the recording process. Nay!
Gustavo Gimeno deserves the credit for having positioned the orchestra well on stage, the cello and double bass axis on the left giving more depth to the bass. He also delivered an opening Coriolanus well kept, traditional, with a 2e theme (that of the wife) a little slowed down, but not too much. Finally, at the end of the 1re of Brahms, he does not slow down the brass chorale and generally leads this coda in an energetic, intense and effective manner.
But its 1D Symphony of Brahms is based on a precept, let’s say, a little candid or outdated, which we have hardly heard here for twenty years: when it becomes piano, it slows down, and when it gets loud, it speeds up. Without making a Toronto-Montreal arbitration (nor with the 1st of Nagano nor with that of Payare), it suffices to say that we quickly become nostalgic for the thundering and luminous intellectual and musical intransigence of Alexander Shelley with his National Arts Center orchestra.
We obviously pass on the “details”, such as keeping tempo in the development of 1er movement, metering of the trumpets several times, etc. These details are not, obviously: if Brahms changes the dynamics (not underlined) of the timpani at D and K of the score in the Finale it is to propel the idea ofanimato at this moment.
Skillful process
It is therefore the soloist Emily D’Angelo who we will remember from the visit this time. The Canadian mezzo who, unless I’m mistaken, had not visited us since her final of the Concours Musical in 2018 made the most of her disconcerting first record Deutsche Grammophon Enargeia by transforming selected pieces into Following of 10 stages orchestrated by Jarkko Riihimäki.
The journey begins with a brief instrumental overture, leads to Hildegard von Bingen stated on a bass pedal and ends with an interlude bringing in Bingen arranged with piano. Missy Mazzoli and Sarah Kirkland Snider take the lion’s share in this cycle aimed at sweeping aside Spinoza’s “sad passions” to celebrate Aristotelian “force in action”.
How to mourn death? Missy Mazzoli immerses us well, and the trick of the arrangement is to organize the journey by organically linking the episodes. We move to a more “pop” color with Kirkland Snider (but D’Angelo, unlike the majority of his fellow opera singers, is excellent in the style), the transition between “ Dear Friend ” And ” Lotus Eaters » being the key to the cycle. Alas, right at that moment, and with the phrase “At the back of the room, men dream”, a sort of rehearsal for a coughing competition in a sanatorium was taking place, at the back of the room, row U. The most magical moment therefore dispersed and evaporated to the rhythm of the aerosol projections.
It would be good if, after having made her “all music is equal” type postulate, which fits so well the narrative and the marketing aims of her record publisher, Emily D’Angelo now endeavors to rekindle the flame of the sublime Neruda Songs by Peter Lieberson, our Last four songs of the 21ste century. Not only does she have the ideal voice for this, but it would also be a shame if we missed the creation of a true lasting classical repertoire of our time.
