MONTREAL — Born and bred in Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin began his career largely as a three-B conductor — or four, if we add Bruckner to the traditional triumvirate. On June 14, the artistic director for life of the Orchestre Métropolitain tested the cross-border appeal of some of the American composers he has come to know over the past decade, with surprisingly positive results.
I say surprisingly because I presumed the legacy of Florence Price (1887-1953) had been fully explored — not least by Nézet-Séguin, who won a Grammy with his Philadelphia Orchestra recording on Deutsche Grammophon of the composer’s First and Third Symphonies. Yet here we encountered what was presumably the Canadian premiere of Song of Hope, a 10-minute cantata found in 2009 among other manuscripts in the attic of Price’s abandoned summer home south of Chicago. There is a recording by the Malmö Opera Chorus under John Jeter, but the work’s progress otherwise has been slow.
It will probably gain adherents with time. Frankly but never cloyingly melodious, the score is animated by sweeping strings and prophetic blasts from the lower brass, all fortified by a rich organ foundation. Blue notes are expressive rather than decorative. The 89-strong Choeur Métropolitain (prepared by Julie Dufresne and Pierre Tourville) sounded fully invested in Price’s devotional poetry, as did the soloists, who were stationed with the choir in the loft of the Maison symphonique. “I dare look up” goes the refrain, a defiantly optimistic outlook for a female composer of any race in 1930.
This got the concert off to a rousing start. The beat went on in Gershwin’s Concerto in F with Hélène Grimaud as soloist. The French pianist (like Nézet-Séguin, a DG recording artist) overworked the rubato in her sultry entry but snapped to attention as the music became more intensely rhythmic. Nézet-Séguin gave the orchestra free rein in the big-city-lights sequences. Grimaud responded in kind. The overall impression was of a joyous competition. Not a bad metaphor for America in the 1920s.
In the second half we heard The Montgomery Variations (1964), a seven-movement reflection on the civil rights struggle by Price’s best-known acolyte, Margaret Bonds (1913-72). In his comments to the crowd, Nézet-Séguin spoke favorably about the orchestration of this score, which has become something of a counter-canon standard. The OM players made good on his promise with an array of well-played solos, including a trombone eruption that reminded me a bit of its famous counterpart in Ravel’s Bolero. All the same, the theme (“I Want Jesus To Walk With Me”) was not treated with enough harmonic variety to sustain a running time of more than 20 minutes. Admirable intentions are not always enough.
Last came Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (1965), a score that makes a forthright impression with its alternately soft and stirring choruses and exuberant writing for strings, brass, and percussion. The choir sounded confident in Hebrew, and the boy treble Laurier D’Amours-Poirier sang with appropriately modest sweetness in Psalm 23. Dressed in an uncharacteristically subdued grey suit, Nézet-Séguin clearly identified with a score Bernstein described as “simple and tonal and tuneful and as pure B-flat as any piece you can think of.” The OM strings have never sounded better.
The concert was titled Chants d’Espoir — Songs of Hope — the thematic point of the afternoon being not so much to celebrate America (the semiquincentennial of which went unmentioned in the program) as to stress the role of music in reconciling divided communities. Nézet-Séguin drew a round of applause with a speech to this effect — delivered in French only.
The concert was filmed for broadcast on the Medici.tv streaming service and Mezzo television network. There were onstage ceremonies before the music began and after it ended, the former to recognize young winners of the OM’s OMNI prizes, the latter to pay tribute to a pair of retiring players, violinist Claudio Ricignuolo and tuba player Alain Cazes. There were flowers for both. No reconciliation needed in the OM. This orchestra is a family.
