Over the decades, Yannick Nézet-Séguin has transformed his Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal into an extension of his musical instincts: flexible, alert and fully engaged. Tonight’s performance was a showcase for Nézet-Séguin’s charismatic leadership and the extraordinary responsiveness of his music companion.
Ravel‘s La Valse opened like a massive sonic engine revving into motion. Nézet-Séguin unleashed the work’s latent violence with uncanny theatricality: the piece shimmered with elegance at first, but quickly warped into something ominous and surreal. What emerged was a soundscape less reminiscent of a Viennese ballroom than a Kubrickian hallucination – hyper-real, yet unsettlingly hollow beneath the surface. The orchestra responded with near-mechanical precision: strings glided like polished steel, while brass and percussion tore through the texture with menacing force. The conductor drove this colossal sound machine with such physical intensity that by the end, his soaked shirt clung visibly to his back. The effect was riveting, breathless.
Inspired by the Saint Lawrence River, Canadian composer Barbara Assiginaak’s Eko-Bmijwang followed as a five-minute interlude of intimate contrast. The piece evoked a dreamlike journey through fog and awakening nature. Subtle instrumental tremors and percussion flickered through the orchestral texture like the breath of a forest.
Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto offered a platform for Alexandre Kantorow’s unique brand of virtuosity – one defined by control, suppleness, and depth. The Bach-tinged opening fantasia was projected with clarity and nobility, which set a refined tone for the entire performance. Throughout, Kantorow navigated even the most treacherous technical demands with apparent ease. What astonished, however, was the freshness he brought to material that can easily feel dated: phrases often dismissed as 19th-century formulas emerged here as spontaneous, even poetic. The rapport with the orchestra was seamless, like chamber music on a grand scale – an interpretive triumph built on mutual alertness.
As an encore, Kantorow offered a hushed, inward reading of Wagner’s Isoldes Liebestod in the solo piano transcription by Zoltán Kocsis. His tone was restrained, almost translucent, allowing the music to hover between radiance and resignation.
The second half brought Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, a work often weighed down by its emotional baggage. Here, Nézet-Séguin approached it from a structural angle, emphasizing its long and gradual escalations. At times, the performance leaned toward Bruckner in its pacing and scale, a slow-burn intensity that made the climaxes feel inevitable. The second movement’s asymmetric dance lilt was rendered with unaffected grace, while the scherzo built with a kind of sideways momentum that briefly convinced the audience the piece had reached its heroic conclusion. The final movement returned to stillness, with long phrases that ebbed away rather than concluded. By the end, the long silence in the hall was absolute and contemplative.
At the end, Nézet-Séguin walked across the stage and knelt on one knee before each principal player, as a gesture of gratitude. It would be hard to imagine a more heartfelt expression of mutual trust and respect, built over years of shared craft. As listeners, we were fortunate to witness the full bloom of that partnership.
