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I’m not entirely clear on the definition of Brutalist as an architectural term. I know it comes from béton brut, but like many things has taken on other meanings depending on who is speaking. Anyhows, I saw this photo essay on Brutalist buildings in Montreal which only dealt with the low hanging fruit, made me think that I could start taking some snapshots of the lesser known ones. And here you go.
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So do you know what a retable is? As a good Jew and a card carrying squarehead and bloke, I had no freaking clue what so ever. But after seeing the exhibit by Claude Tousignant at Art Mûr and then looking the words up on Wikipedia, Google and a couple of other places just to make sure, it all made sense. I could kind of muddle through “périphériques.” Ditch the accents, modify the “ques” to an “als” and even the most stubborn monolingual Francophobe can get an idea of what Claude Tousignant meant, but the second part of the title is a little bit more obscure, Especially if you were born after the Quiet Revolution. Although to be honest, the paintings look to me, more along the lines of Devices and Altarpieces and not quite Periphials and Retables, slightly less precise terms leave a lot more room for interpretation of the art.
If you weren’t aware, Claude Tousignant is one of the heavy hitters of contemporary Quebecois art. He is, along with Françoise Sullivan, Armand Vaillancourt, Fernand Leduc, Jacques Hurtubise and Marcel Barbeau kind of like the really, really old guard. Still working away and making things (although I am not certain if M. Leduc is still making things, and I wonder why M. Barbeau hasn’t received a prix Borduas yet, but I digress…). The people who signed manifestos and who actually caused change here. Although I have never met him, I imagine he is a very nice person. Or at least one of his daughters is. I got to know Isa Tousignant via her sweetie and the local across the street from Zeke’s Gallery where a bunch of us would have a glass or two of beer after work.
One of the things that caught my eye, was how Art Mûr did not print any prices on the wall tags. Normally, when something like that happens, it is the super-secret-art-world-insider-code for “too rich for your type.” But in this case I am not so certain, because upstairs they were exhibiting a sculpture with a price tag of $160,000 clearly marked. And despite how many times I buy a 6/49 ticket, $160K is too rich for my type. Maybe M. Tousignant is not only a very nice guy, but a private one as well, and isn’t quite comfortable with something potentially as crass as cash money. I don’t think I have ever seen a painting of his go up for auction, and if my memory is correct the prints of his that I’ve seen have gone for something like a couple of thousand dollars. So it is quite possible that the Périphériques and Retables weren’t outrageously expensive, merely a lot of money. If anybody knows what the prices were don’t hesitate to pipe up.
But enough about the background, what about the paintings themselves? They are variations on a theme. The two Retables are each three canvases attached side to side to side, with the middle canvas being slightly higher than the ones on the sides. Number One uses canvases 4′ 2″ square, Number Two has two canvases of 5′ square and one of 5′ 2″ square. For lack of a Pantone chart, Number One consists of a white, a blue and an red canvas, while Number Two’s canvases are green, purple and orange. I presume that the date and M. Tousignant’s signature is on the back. Overall they are quite stately and imposing. I preferred Number Two, although that might just be because it was the first one I saw and has a much more significant placement within the gallery. Now I could go completely off on abstract painting, post-painterly abstraction, color fields and minimalism, but I won’t. I’m fairly certain that if you want to, you can find someone or someplace that will expound upon them to your heart’s content.
Obviously made to be hung in the front of a church, I’m not entirely certain what denomination of Catholicism would be appropriate. Despite the fact that I refuse to use a flash, it’s still possible to tell from the crappy pictures I took that Number Two is the three secondary colors. The closest I can get to figuring out the color theory behind Number One is that M. Tousignant took the Russian flag and turned it on its side. The Périphériques are where the fun kicks in. There are four of them exhibited, but as the largest number in the titles is thirteen (they are all part of a series, which I presume is numbered consecutively), there are at least nine others kicking around someplace. All marked as “variable dimensions,” that incredibly useful phrase to hide (or ignore) all sorts of details. Each consists of a collection of smallish square canvases painted one color. These canvases are then arrayed on the wall in a way that on first glance looks like some sort of cubic solar system or a three dimensional still from one of those trippy-dippy animated films that the NFB made in the sixties.
With the Périphériques, the big deal is how M. Tousignant uses the wall as part of the installation. His instructions for installing them are shown in the inside front page of the magazine that Art Mûr publishes, and I was very surprised to see that the dimensions are in inches (and in certain cases sixteenths of an inch) nor does it appear that there is any theory behind how they are hung. It’d be kind of neat to see what M. Tousignant could do if he got rid of the canvases and started painting directly on the wall. Not quite Sol Lewitt, but kind of. I’m certain that if I studied each one close enough, I could possibly knock together some kind of color/size theory on how they were created. But I instead, decided just to try and get a sense of what M. Tousignant was getting at. Trying to get into his frame of mind by proxy if you will. Where the Retables come across as heavy and domineering, like one of those chords on an organ, the Périphériques are much more recorder like, similar to one of those renaissance songs with the typos and the musicians in all sorts of puffy clothing.
It’s extremely heartening to see an artist of M. Tousignant’s caliber exhibiting in a gallery such as Art Mûr, it obviously speaks highly of Rhéal Olivier Lanthier and François St-Jacques, the two guys who run it. The one slight negative thing I would have to say, is just I wish that they were capable of getting M. Tousignant’s work noticed on an international level. There is not a single museum outside of Canada listed on his CV in the Art Mûr magazine. Which is a glaring hole, but to be expected with how Quebecois Art is viewed (or not viewed) in the rest of the world.
If I had any theories about Contemporary Abstract Art made in Quebec, this would be the place to state them. But I don’t, I just kind of look at it, wonder why it doesn’t get better recognition in the rest of the world and then go look at it some more, M. Tousignant’s work to my mind, is on a par, if not better than any other living artist in the world today (including such folks as Gerhard Richter, Peter Doig and David Hockney) if Art Mûr is in fact charging millions of dollars for M. Tousignant’s work, then I am completely and utterly astonished and will gladly take back everything I have ever said about Contemporary Quebecois Art not getting the fiscal respect (and all other types of respect that go along with it) that it deserves. Baring that, M. Tousigant’s work makes me hope that I can make as effective, entertaining, interesting and kick-ass work when I am 80 years-old.
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Created in 2000 by Jean-François Gavoty and Guerric Péré in recognition of 20 years of cooperation between Lyon and Montreal.
There is also a mont Ernest Laforce. Although trying to discover who he was is not an easy task on the internet. According to teh Commission de toponymie he was “a journalist, lecturer, parliamentary correspondent and agent of the federal government” among other things, and the Saint Jean Baptiste society thought he was important enough to be commemorated with a place in 1995.
Sculpture on sticks is always fun and exciting. The city’s file on the garden is here
Continue reading Jardin de Lyon by Jean-François Gavoty and Guerric Péré
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Since I’m on the topic of sellable art, I should mention that I also went to see the East vs. West exhibit at Three Monkeys. I don’t think anyone has ever done a study on it, but I would venture a guess that if you own a store, putting art up on the walls and hosting exhibits is a cheap and effective way to market and promote the store. On the other hand, wall space is valuable real estate for merchandising, and if it was truly effective than there probably would be more stores that did it, right?
Anyhow, either way by presenting the show, it succeeded in getting me into a clothing store, which is no mean feat. According to the folderol that they put out on Facebook and Twitter
We got together with @aydengallery & @LFTMCollective to bring you a great event! EAST vs. WEST | In-Store Art Exhibit http://t.co/ylOS0P1u
— Mike Casali (@Mike_Casali) May 15, 2012
the show was organized with the help of the Ayden Gallery in Vancouver and some clothing company called Lifetime Collective. My guess would be that the folk at Ayden put some art in the mail, and the folk at Lifetime sent a check – but I could be wrong. The large majority of it is arranged grid-like on the back wall of the store. There are a couple of other places as well where they have managed to hang some stuff, but as it really and truly is a clothing store, the art is not quite as front and center as I would have preferred.
It’s a fairly large group of artists, thirteen to be exact, six from Vancouver and nine Montrealers (Peter Ricq was identified as being from both Montreal and Vancouver). Other than the geography, there isn’t really anything linking the art together which depending on where you sit could be a good thing or a bad thing. Bad in that anytime you try to start making links between art it is unlikely to work as well as you think, and there is a strong chance that someone like me will come along and question just about everything. Good in that it does give the viewer some kind of hook on which they can hang their hat. The geography thing does work as the hook in this case.
But since there was nothing on the tags to identify who came from where, and I didn’t really go from one end of the store to the other to double check against the list that was written by the door, I didn’t really get any sense of regional identity for any of the artists. It was much more like, “here it is, look at it.”
So I did. The quality of the work was uniformly pretty good, there wasn’t anything that really jumped out a beat me over the head with how great it was. The closest would have been the double exposure portrait by Andrew Young, either because it was centered on the back wall, it was a larger piece, because of its unusual canvas, or more likely all three.
Another piece I quite liked was the group piece on the bottom of one column in the store, judging by their facebook photo album it was done by at least Mr. Ricq and Guillaume Blackburn. probably due to them copying the En Masse style.
Overall, as you might have guessed, I’m quite fond of shows like this. A sort of pop-up gallery if you will, furthering the idea that art should be an inegral part of everyone’s life. It especially helps that there wasn’t any heavy theory behind it, and that the quality of all the work was above average. I hope that the people who attended the vernissage bought some clothes as well as some art, so that more exhibits like this can be done.
If you want to take a gander at it, Three Monkeys is on the Metcalfe side of Les Cours Mont Royal right next to the fountain, and the show itself is up until the end of the month.
Description of show
Highlights
Mention of NYTimes article
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Back in 2004 I saw a show by Henri Venne at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, I wasn’t impressed. I have a vague memory of large blue paintings of the sky, or something similar. Filed him away as a decent Quebecois artists whose work I wasn’t particularly fond of, kind of like Pierre Lalonde or Boom Desjardins. Someone kind of faceless in the crowd, who is required in order to have a crowd.
I don’t think I particularly noticed when he got a show at the Musee d’art de Joliette (and shouldn’t an artist with a career that’s going places first have a show in Joliette and then in Montreal? And not the other way around?) nor was I expecting to see his work when I went to Art Mûr – I had trucked up there ostensibly to see something else, more on that later. Anyhows, I was quite impressed.
One of the sensations I kind of remember from his show in 2004 was some kind of meditative spin on things, him trying to paint (I think they were paintings) the space in between dozing off and a full sleep. That kind of trance you can end up in if you repeat the same word, gesture or action over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (ain’t copy/paste grand?!). As far as I can tell there are lots of people out there who believe that those trances are good. I’m not one of them, which is why I probably lumped him in the same space as Boom Desjardins.
This time however I was very impressed at the shininess of his current work. Where the work of his in my memory was kind of flat with a subtle texture (again, I think) from the brush. Which kind of aided to at least understand the Zen-like sensations I felt I was supposed to feel. These photographs are shiny to the point where if they were laid on the floor, you could almost dive right in. All of them are photographs roughly two feet by three feet that are mounted underneath a very thick piece of plexiglass.
I accidentally forgot my measuring tape in my other pants when I visited Art Mûr so I can’t tell you if it’s ¼” or ½” or something even thicker. But great gosh-a’mighty that plexiglass made them shiny as all get go. Now I kind of have this hate/hate relationship with shiny contemporary art. I tend to look at it as a extremely facile and simplistic method to make otherwise unremarkable art extremely sellable. Normally it’s done with multiple layers of varnish which requires some (not much) skill – as an aside it’s because of the varnishing that here in Quebec we call an art opening a Vernissage. Back in the good old days, once a painter finished some paintings for a an exhibition, he’d invite his friends over to help him varnish them so that they would be suitable for display. Since varnishing a painting is a fairly tedious job, he’d (back in the good old days 99% of your professional artists were men) have to bribe them with bottles of wine to keep them happy. As a consequence, these varnishing parties could get quite boisterous, and it was only a matter of time before a vernissage became synonymous with the opening of an exhibit. But I digress…
M. Venne’s work in this show is eight nearly monochromatic, nearly featureless, photographs (there are only seven pieces of art, because one of the pieces, I’ll Keep You There… So Long is a diptych). As simple as rain on a window, the most prevalent feature of these photographs is the color. They are for the most part gradients of primary color (gradiented primary color? Primary color gradients?) – there is one that is orange – and look pretty much like what I would imagine the world looks like if you were severely myopic.
Extremely simple in concept and form, it’s the sort of thing which makes me gnash my teeth. Instead of using new and improved tools to make new and improved art. M. Venne uses new and improved tools (in this case a fancy-ass digital camera, and fancy-ass digital printer, and a fancy-ass laminator) to make the same old, same old. While I probably should applaud him for being consistent with his art, I can’t help but feel a little bit cheated, because the picture itself is meaningless. Without a title and the title of the show itself all they are are shiny contemporary versions of medium sized colorfields. They aren’t breaking any new ground nor they aren’t earth-shattering, and while all art doesn’t have to be ground-breaking or earth-shattering, when you are using current technologies it helps, a lot. Because if your art isn’t ground-breaking and earth-shattering then it runs the risk of being mundane. Being mundane isn’t a good thing.
It’s the kind of work that I am used to seeing from artists at Galerie de Bellefeuille or Simon Blais. While I am not against the commercialization of art, there are certain times when it hits me that something “art-like” is much closer to being a commodity, and this is one of those times, right down to the fact that he does not bother to mention to size of the print run for each of the pictures.
Despite the bafflegab and gobbledy-gook in Art Mûr’s magazine about pensiveness, and reflection, to me M. Venne’s work is all about sellability. There are some times when shopping can cause a sensation of bliss, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. So I really shouldn’t be raining on anyone’s parade. Especially, since I think that M. Venne’s work is incredibly sellable. They’re priced appropriately, in that region that will make the buyer instantaneously recognize that the work is serious, while at the same time not being outrageous. Or if you prefer, about 57¢/cm2 a pop or $3.59/in2. (66¢/cm2 with taxes. If you’re buying Quebecois art, you can save some serious change by having it shipped either out of province or out of the country).
At that price, don’t forget that it probably would help immensely to bring both a swatch from your couch and a paint chip from your wall color so as to make sure that they match the picture.
Henri Venne: Somewhere in Between was exhibited at Art Mûr from April 26 until June 16, 2012
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As per usual I have no details as to when it was stolen, where in Quebec it was stolen (if in fact it was stolen in Quebec), who it was stolen from or how it was stolen, or how much it is worth. Nor can I even tell you what it was made out of, because all they say is “mixed media.” So it could be anything. They say it was made in 1985 which not only means that she made it while she was a student at l’Université du Québec à Montréal, but also it’s too far back to even appear on her CV. More information on Ms. Landry can be found here, and as usual, if you happen to see the work, call 911.
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For what it is worth, these are the places I’m going to try to make it to see this weekend.
Dil Hildebrand at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain
East vs. West at Three Monkeys
Presence at Wilder & Davis
Cal Lane at Art Mûr
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Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but yesterday I noticed that they are tearing up the travertine inside Westmount Square. As far as I could tell, it was just the entry on Greene Avenue, and I have no idea if they are going to replace it once whatever repairs have been made.
Then, to further the fiasco that is Ontario street in between Jeanne Mance and Saint Urbain, I also noticed that they city has created a second bicycle path along Ontario that parallels the one along de Maisonneuve, because the Quartier des Spectacles refuses to allow bikes. I wonder how much it cost, and who was the bright wag that signed off on the bike path through the QdS in the first place? Again, apologies for the lack of pictures, but you’re just going to have to take my word.
And finally, the Ed Burtynsky Oil exhibit made it to London and got reviewed in the London Review of Books. Tony Wood‘s review isn’t quite as harsh as mine was, but is none the less still a good read.
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I don’t know what it is, but Charles Daudelin isn’t getting much respect these days. Beyond the fiasco that is Square Viger, there’s also Allégrocube. Completed in 1973 as part of the 1% art integration law for the building of the Palais de Justice two sides initially moved on hinges, opening and closing like a clam-shell. But they have been busted for at least a dozen years, if not more. It’s made of something called Muntz Metal which is like brass and made of 60% copper, 40% zinc with a trace of iron.
Initially, when a friend told me that it was supposed to move, I thought that they were pulling my leg. But nope, the city just let it break and then decided not to fix it.
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It must’ve been a pretty big thing. Three of the six daily newspapers in town did preview articles about the Brahms Cycle (Symphony 1, Symphony 2, Symphony 3, Symphony 4) that Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain performed over the weekend (one, two, three). What with everything else happening in town at the same time, I’m impressed that it got that much coverage. After the fact, it got some as well in La Presse, Le Devoir, The Gazette, La Scena Musicale and someplace called Bachtrack. I bring this up, because I was invited by the orchestra to watch them play as well, and while I’m not certain I would have classified it as a big deal, it was fun.
It was my first visit inside the Maison Symphonique which still is not completed (anyone want to take bets on when it will be done?) I will continue to wait to comment on the building until it is finished. But that’s not going to stop me from commenting about the concerts. The first one, on Saturday evening was of Symphonies One and Two. Then on Sunday afternoon they performed Symphonies Three and Four along with Brahms’ Violin Concerto. For the most part I’ve been concentrating on the Symphonies. No slight intended to Benjamin Beilman, he was very good, but the majority of this piece is not going to be about him. It was also my first time in a long time, something like two or three years, seeing an orchestra. For whatever reasons I’ve been concentrating on chamber music recently. After seeing the Orchestre Métropolitain, I’m going to have to get back into the habit again.
It appears that Maestro Nézet-Séguin is on some kind of Brahms streak right now. In going back over his concerts since September 2006, he performed Brahms’ symphonies eight times with four different orchestras prior to May of this year. Then from May 11 to August 31 of this year (as far in advance as the calendar on his website goes) he will be performing them fourteen times with all three orchestras that he directs! Although we are lucky here as we are the only city to get to hear the third symphony. Rotterdam is getting One and Two, and Philadelphia is getting One and Four. In doing the research for this article both the Rotterdams Philharmonisch and the Orchestre Métropolitain made promo videos (I guess the Philadelphia Orchestra isn’t quite in a position to be able to afford to make promo videos just yet).
The Rotterdam promo
And the Orchestre Métropolitain promo
All nice enough, nothing terribly earth shattering, although it’s kind of cool that Maestro Nézet-Séguin has a favorite conductor. Also, as long as I am talking about the stuff in advance of the concert, I must, respectfully take exception to what Arthur Kaptainis wrote. While his logic was reasonable, he was completely and thoroughly wrong. None of the symphonies Maestro Nézet-Séguin conducted were particularly slow. I would also presume that the performances with the different orchestras will be as different as the orchestras themselves.
I also came across this interview with him from twelve years ago. I wonder how long it is going to take for him to shake the “young conductor” label. I know that when I was 37, I certainly didn’t think of myself as a youngster.
But enough of the rambling. I really should get to the meat of the matter. For the first concert we were seated right beside (if slightly above) the orchestra. They were definitely entertaining seats, as we had a clear view of Maestro Nézet-Séguin conducting and were almost on top of Jean-Guy Plante. I can remember one other time being that close to an orchestra, and while I can understand the allure of being further back so that the sound (theoretically) is better, given that a concert is a live performance, being that close gives you a lot of things to look at. As I said, highly entertaining. Being that close also enabled me to see my favorite violinist and viola players, Celine Arcand and Jean Rene. I wasn’t close enough to make out their playing individually, but I know that they were great.
Maestro Nézet-Séguin mentioned that the set up of the orchestra was Viennese, which as he pointed out meant that the Double Basses were behind the brass section, however the trumpet players were also using rotary-valve trumpets which is particular to the Vienna Philharmonic. My ear isn’t good enough to know if they tuned to A443 or if they used any other techniques, specific instruments or ideas from the Vienna Philharmonic, but I would venture a guess as to yes. It would be interesting to see if he got his other two orchestras to do the same when they do their Brahms gigs.
As I mentioned earlier, Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s tempos weren’t particularly slow. I was able to get my hands on a bunch of different recordings and for the First Symphony it sounded to me as if he was leading them at pretty much the same tempo as Antal Doráti‘s recordings from the late 50s and early 60s. While it would have been nice if I could have identified the tempos of the other symphonies, my sense of timing is not quite as good as my sense of tone, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
The one thing that I was able to pick up on was that in comparison to the recordings that I heard, the Orchestre Métropolitain did not have as much of a dynamic range. However I do not know if that was due to where I was sitting or if it was in fact due to the orchestra. Given that they were a small bunch to start with (about 58 musicians onstage) it might have been a case of not being large enough to get really loud, and therefore the quieter parts didn’t sound as dramatically different.
In the first concert I completely missed the First Symphony’s transition from the third to fourth movement, and then when paying particularly close attention during the Second Symphony understood why. In the Second Symphony the pause was incredibly short, barely enough time for the musicians to turn the page in their scores. I would imagine that it was similar in the First Symphony as well – or perhaps I just fell asleep at the wrong time.
The music itself was very nice. In my notes I refer to it not being syrupy at all, and in certain parts being extremely fluid. If you’re really interested, when I have finished Walter Frisch‘s book Brahms: The Four Symphonies I’ll be in a much better position to describe what was happening as the music was playing, but for the time being you’re going to have to put up with things like “it sounds like they are skipping through a field,” and “kind of like suspended in amber.”
I couldn’t understand, nor did I really like or appreciate that during the intermission there were some children sawing their way through Vivaldi right beside the bar. Afterwards I discovered that there had been some kind of community outreach by the orchestra and Maestro Nézet-Séguin to a local high school. That’s all fine and dandy, but playing inappropriate background music where there really shouldn’t be any is not the way to do it. Working with musicians from the orchestra and being conducted (is that the proper way to say it?) by Maestro Nézet-Séguin definitely fits the bill, and as long as I am at it, I also think they should have been invited to both concerts, not just one. After the intermission, it was back to our seats for Symphony Number Two. In the program they mentioned how “Brahms’s Concerto for Violin displays features that make it almost a companion piece to his Symphony No. 2.” Which made me wonder why they didn’t play them on the same night.
Of the four symphonies I heard them play, the second was, to my ears the weakest. Which is not to say it wasn’t good, just that the other three were better. Specifically in the third movement where they seemed to be alternating between being sloppy and being sludgy. Of the four it was the one that sounded the least emotional to me. Not robotic or mechanical, but more “rote” than “with feeling.” I don’t know where the thought came from, but it occurred to me that it might a=have been a case of not having enough practice time. Maestro Nézet-Séguin tweeted that they only did seven rehearsals which means that one of the symphonies only got one rehearsal. If that was the case, my money is on the second.
On Sunday we returned to the still unfinished Maison Symphonique. This time our seats were one row back and on the other side of the orchestra. I definitely know that being one row further back is not a good thing, but I’m undecided as to which side is better. Ultimately when given a gift of tickets, it’s exceedingly difficult to request specific seats. Although I was able to see Mr. Kaptainis from the Gazette sitting fairly far back, on the floor, towards the left. In your standard issue critic’s seats. I think that maybe the ones directly behind the orchestra might be pretty cool. But at some point (once they have completed the building) I’m going to have to try out a variety of different seats to see which ones sound best – after all they have been touting about how great the acoustics are in the building.
The usher in our section wasn’t particularly well trained. We had accidentally entered on the wrong side of the stage and were making our way through the seats to get to the other side, when he stopped us and tried to make us go the opposite way through a large crowd of people walking through a small doorway. Kind of like swimming upstream through quicksand. We didn’t pay him any attention, and hopefully someone will give him some training on how to seat people properly. Then also in looking around at the crowd, the Orchestre Métropolitain really needs to do some work on getting people with different colored skin to show up to their concerts. It was quite easy to see how they had made very good progress in getting a younger crowd to come see them. But I was able to count on my fingers and toes the number of people in the audience whose skin was darker than mine. Next year when they tour the island of Montreal they only play in one neighborhood with a significant recent immigrant population. If anyone is interested, I’d suggest that they play in Montreal North and St. Michel as often as they play in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Saint Laurent and Pierrefonds.
The Third Symphony seemed to me to be slower than that of the Dorati version I had been listening to. And I think that I made a mistake in listening to it before the concert. Instead of using the concert as my baseline/benchmark and comparing everything I heard to it. I ended up with the Dorati version being the baseline/benchmark and unfortunately comparing the concert to the recording instead of the other way around. Overall it was very light, in a good way. I noted that at various points it almost seemed as if Maestro Nézet-Séguin let the musicians themselves set the pace, which to my ears seemed like a good thing.
We then got the Violin Concerto, and Mr. Beilman acquitted himself very well. I can’t find anything on YouTube of him playing any Brahms, and after all the reading and listening I did for the symphonies, I just wasn’t able to find the time to get to the Violin Concerto, sorry.
The Fourth Symphony started out like a large boat cruising down an even larger river, at various points it sounded to me like some graceful nymphs, tip toeing and very lyrical. But the thing that most impressed me was the fourth movement, where I was incapable of writing one word down – I was just that riveted by the music. While the third movement of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony is the famous one and always reminds me of some B-movie western from the 50s in technicaolor
What Maestro Nézet-Séguin did with the fourth movement was better than particularly nice, it was downright gorgeous and very pretty (I should also point out that Marie-Andrée Benny did an awesome job as well). If I could make it down to Saratoga in August to hear him perform it with the Philadelphia Orchestra I would. If you can, you should. And don’t forget that Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain will be playing Brahms’ First Symphony again on July 22 at the Domain Forget and are playing two free concerts at Theatre de Verdure on July 20 and August 4.
Then to wrap things up (this has become rather large) I noticed in the program that Maestro Nézet-Séguin donated more than $50,000 to the Orchestre Métropolitain. Which confused the heck out of me, wouldn’t it just be simpler to reduce his salary? It’s quite the gesture and should be done by many more people, but made me realize that conductors are a little bit like NASCAR drivers. The way they earn their money is vary opaque and coming from a variety of very different sources, and as a consequence isn’t exactly clear. Overall though I’m very happy to see that he is making enough money to donate such a large chunk of change.
Overall I’d have to say I was quite pleased with how things turned out. I’m not sure I’d always be interested in doing a sort of marathon of music devoted to on composer, but this one worked out well. Whatever the reason, it was very good to see an orchestra again, and finally get to see Maestro Nézet-Séguin in action. I’m looking forward to the next time. And then lastly (if you’re still reading this far) you should take this quick, easy and very silly test.