For Valentine’s Day, Les Violons du Roy presented a program full of pathos at Montreal’s Bourgie Hall. On the program were iconic excerpts from J.S Bach’s religious choral works, as well as the rip-roaring premiere of Found in Lostness, a piece for solo violin and string orchestra by Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy.
Bach and Murphy couldn’t be more different; the disparateness of their music was tied together with two Mendelssohn pieces. Mendelssohn’s earliest piece, the Symphonia for Strings composed when he was 14 years old, started off the concert. His last complete work, String Quartet no. 6 in F minor, finished it off.
What you missed?
Les Violons du Roy have a very unified, crisp and clear sound. The Mendelssohn Symphonia was not only very tight but had very strong dynamics throughout. The ensemble particularly shines when playing this type of simple string symphonia. While there are many quartets and full orchestras out there, there aren’t many string orchestras at the level of Les Violons du Roy. They play orchestral string music like no one else.
The Bach chorales were very well accomplished, and conductor Nicolas Ellis managed to sustain the harmonic tension without letting the music drag. The famous aria “Erbarme dich mein Gott” from the Saint Matthew Passion was the sublimest moment of the concert.
The original alto solo was played on viola, and soloist Jean-Louis Blouin offered a beautifully rich, mellow tone on the instrument. His sound and on-stage demeanor certainly contrasted with Kerson Leong’s fiery, almost folk-like violin sound. Yet Leong performed the role of solo accompanist very well. While his playing never obfuscated the solo, it did add a certain zeal to the overall performance.
My only gripe about Leong was that I didn’t get to hear him play for longer. He performed Murphy’s piece with flawless technique, intricately artful phrasing and a lush, yet fiery tone. Leong’s violin sound is quite unique, and it is difficult to describe. It is at once mellow and volcanic, warm and sparkling. It is at times like a bottle of champagne, at other times like mulled Christmas wine.
Les Violons du Roy did well in commissioning a piece from Murphy, as her string writing is superb. Many interweaving melodies were cleverly and adeptly passed from soloist to orchestra and back again, which reminded me of the writing in Stravinsky’s violin concerto. The dramatic rhythmicity of many sections was reminiscent of a Shostakovich string quartet, and the piece, overall, proved quite entertaining.
Kerson Leong (violin) with Les Violons du Roy conducted by Nicolas Ellis. Photo: Florence Geneau
Gripes:
While Murphy’s piece was very well constructed, it didn’t quite have the heart of a truly original piece. I did not sense the presence of a mysterious muse in the background of the work, but the well-studied presence of many composers of the past. Ideally, a piece will have both: craftsmanship and inspired originality.
I am also not certain about the success of this concert’s program. Mendelssohn took up the great bulk of this program, and his presence carried too much conceptual weight. Ellis explained that Mendelssohn was a great admirer of Bach, and was also responsible for reviving and disseminating a lot of Bach’s music in his own time.
Yet there was so little Bach on the program that this connection seemed more like a musicological anecdote than something one could hear and understand through the music. Perhaps Murphy’s piece could have been placed in another concert to allow for more Bach to have been programmed into this one. Perhaps then the Bach-Mendelssohn connection which Ellis spoke of could have been experienced more viscerally.
Les Violons du Roy’s next set of concerts entitled Mozart et l’amitié will be presented in Quebec City and Montreal on Feb. 27 & 28. www.violonsduroy.com
