Soberly and aptly hosted by André Robitaille on the Esplanade du Parc Olympique in front of a mass audience, the kick-off to the OSM’s 11th Virée classique was another opportunity to open up to a planetary conception of classical music, at the very least a Mediterranean one. Bringing together in the same program Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Hector Berlioz, Ottorini Respighi and Joseph Tawadros, the great oud soloist and contemporary composer of Arab classical music, was another sign of the times and a further illustration of the inclusive globalization of classical music according to the OSM and Rafael Payare.
First, the tragic loves of Francesca da Rimini, a 13th-century Italian woman immortalized in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and who inspired the Russian composer in a work written in 1876. Does this symphonic fantasy include elements of Mediterranean culture? In the novelistic inspiration, certainly, but it’s not really out of keeping with the Tchaikovskian style, whose genius we appreciate once again. This vigorous work, with its rockets of strings and woodwinds, its fireworks of brass and virtuoso circonvolutions of strings, was served up with brilliance, passion and high virtuosity.
At the center of the program was the Ouverture du Carnaval romain (1844), a vigorous work based on themes from his opera Benvenuto Cellini. The impression of compositional genius is less strong here, but the execution is more than adequate.
Second and fourth on the program, oud player Joseph Tawadros, born in Cairo but raised in Australia, gave us a few hints of his hybridization of Arab classical music in a Western symphonic version. Originally dressed in a pink shirt, oriental bonnet and stylized moustache and beard, the virtuoso instrumentalist took to the stage in two compositions for oud and orchestra. The oud is a string instrument very similar to the lute, and a forerunner of plucked string instruments such as the guitar, and has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Tawadros’ symphonic works on this program are not of profound harmonic singularity and complexity, but rather an extrapolation of their melodies and specific oud parts. Permission to Evapore evokes the death of the composer’s parents.
As its title suggests, Constantinople takes us to the frontiers of East and West, where orchestral constructions are relatively limited harmonically, as they are primarily at the service of melody and rhythm, as is the case with classical Arabic music, which until recently has eschewed polyphony. For these reasons, one may have the impression of instrumental pop rather than great music, but this is an illusion, for the qualities of these works lie elsewhere, notably in that virtuoso line exquisitely executed in unison by Tawadros and Andrew Wan, OSM concertmaster.
Last but not least, we were treated to music composed in 1924, the second symphonic poem in a trilogy dedicated to Rome. Exactly a century ago, Ottorino Respighi was expressing the grandeur of Rome in music, and Pini di Roma is a fine example of this. The modernity of some of the orchestral harmonies developed at the turn of the 20th century is evident. A blend of post-romanticism and modernity, this symphonic poem includes various elements of popular music, including a march that we would describe as legionary in the conclusion, preceded by the superimposition of pre-recorded birdsong, as Respighi had intended. A visionary of his time, you say? A fitting conclusion to this Voyage méditerranéen, which precedes several other sound experiments inspired in one way or another by Mediterranean musical culture.
