While Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier next door shook to the metal-symphonic sound waves of Voivod and the OSM, the Maison symphonique, the usual refuge of Rafael Payare’s musicians, vibrated to the thousand and one colours of musical tales from China and Russia.
At the start of the programme, the Orchestre FILMharmonique, conducted by Francis Choinière, welcomed soloist Liu Fang, master of the Chinese pipa, an instrument in the lute family, in the creation of a new concerto for her instrument by Quebecer Christian Thomas. In 2023, Thomas gave us his Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d’été (Solemn Mass for a Full-Moon Night), an opera based on the work of Quebec author Michel Tremblay, which was well received by audiences and critics alike. Much more romantic in its idiom than the Mass, the Pipa Concerto, nicknamed Dragon, allowed Ms Liu to show the full extent of her technical talent, despite some occasional hiccups in the first movement. I wrote about this concerto in a review elsewhere on the site (read it HERE), so I won’t go into that again, but I will say that the four-movement piece struck me as even more accomplished than when I first listened to it on digital files. This is a sign that listening to it is enough to sustain prolonged and repeated attention. In any case, the largely East Asian audience that packed the hall seemed to appreciate and enjoy the performance. It is to be hoped that other Quebec orchestras will programme this concert, giving fellow Quebecer (Chinese born) Liu the chance to tour as much in Quebec as she does internationally, hopefully.
The second piece on the programme was the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto with soloist and Opus Prize 2023 Discovery of the Year Guillaume Villeneuve. Villeneuve’s twirling, scintillating performance gave a superb breath of life to this Chinese Romeo and Juliet, whose original title is the Romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The concerto, written in 1959 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, is one of the first works of its kind in Chinese musical literature. The style and language are hyper-romantic, as if Tchaikovsky had lived in Beijing rather than St Petersburg, but the soloist has to achieve several effects that are clearly inspired by the traditional techniques of the erhu, a Chinese instrument that is similar to the Western violin. It’s a musical bonanza, with endearing, memorable melodies and abundant colour, especially in the woodwinds.
Francis Choinière had chosen to conclude the evening with another evocative piece of music, Stravinsky’s The Firebird. A judicious choice, which allowed us to return to the more usual Western repertoire while remaining true to the enchanting spirit of the evening. The orchestra, made up of many young musicians, probably fresh out of Quebec schools, performed well, and the conductor’s direction was committed. A few technical imperfections in Kastchei’s dance did not detract from the energy that Choinière wished to infuse into the ensemble, which ended in a successful climax.
An evening that clearly delighted a very mixed and diverse audience. If that was one of the objectives, it was achieved.
