Volume 21 Issue 3 - November 2015

DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED
DAVID OLDS
When the Orchestre symphonique de
Montréal moved into its new home,
the Maison symphonique in the Place
des Arts in 2011, the reviews were enthusiastic
for both the aesthetics and acoustics of
the hall. In May 2014 the crown jewel of the
edifice, Le Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique, was
unveiled in concerts which included the Saint-
Saëns “Organ” Symphony No.3 and new
works by Montreal-born Samy Moussa and Finnish composer Kaija
Saariaho. Kent Nagano was at the helm of the orchestra and the soloists
were OSM organist emeritus Olivier Latry in the Saint-Saëns
and Saariaho and current organist-in-residence Jean-Willy Kunz in
the Moussa. The stunning performances were captured in exquisite
recordings that can be found on a recent Analekta CD (AN 2 8779).
In earlier years the OSM made many of its recordings in Église de
St. Eustache which offered a good acoustic and a fine organ. As the
sound on this new CD attests there is no longer any reason for the
OSM to leave home to make a recording, and the arrival of the new
organ by Casavant Frères is the icing on the cake. The organ was
designed in collaboration with the hall’s architects Diamond Schmitt
+ Ædifica to specifications developed by Latry (now organist at the
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris). It comprises four mechanical action
keyboards, with electrical assistance, 109 registers, 83 stops, 116 ranks
and 6,489 pipes.
The Saint-Saëns, the benchmark against which all other works in
the genre must be measured, is well enough known that I will not go
into details here. It will suffice to say that orchestra, soloist and instrument
are all in splendid form and under Nagano’s direction it’s hard to
imagine a finer performance. The new works, both commissioned by
the OSM (in conjunction with Orchestre national de Lyon and
London’s Southbank Centre in the case of the Saariaho), are dark
works that explore the sound/colour spectrum available through the
combination of full orchestra and the vast resources of the “King of
Instruments.” Moussa, is a 30-year-old with a flourishing career in
Quebec and in Germany. His A Globe Itself Infolding is a one-movement
work that slowly unfolds, gradually combining dense textures
with only moments of punctuation and no real melodic development
but is effective and compelling. It is conceived as a stand-alone piece
but also as the prelude to a possible future full-length concerto.
Saariaho’s Maan Varjot (Earth’s Shadows) is in three movements. The
first, Misterioso ma intenso, is just that, mysterious and intense
without much development. This is followed by a Lento calmo in
which prominent, if sparse, trumpet phrases are echoed and embellished
by the organ. The final Energico opens with a blasting cadenza
from the organ which is taken up and sustained by the orchestra,
eventually giving way to quiet bass drum “footsteps” and a high, soft
organ chord that gradually dies away. Although she has not written
extensively for the instrument, Saariaho was an organist in her
student years and her understanding of the medium is displayed in an
effective work that brings this excellent disc to a close.
I first met Erkki-Sven Tüür at the quadrennial
Estonian World Festival which was held
in Toronto in 1984. At just 25 years old, he was
a young composer emerging from the world
of rock and roll where he was something of
a star. I have followed his development in the
three decades since then, both through recordings
and live performances, as he has become a
fully mature contemporary composer.
Tõnu Kaljuste, who conducted a work of Tüür’s a few years ago in
Toronto for Soundstreams, was the instigator of a recent recording
which features Tüür and Australian composer Brett Dean. The title
Gesualdo (ECM New Series 2452) refers to the Italian Renaissance
composer and prince, Carlo Gesualdo, best known for his intensely
expressive chromatic madrigals and for brutally murdering his
first wife and her lover after finding them in flagrante delicto. The
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber
Orchestra perform under the direction of Kaljuste, who transcribed
the opening track, Gesualdo’s Moro lasso, for string orchestra. Dean’s
Carlo for choir and strings begins with a quotation from Moro lasso
and other Gesualdo motives in the choir which are gradually displaced
by the orchestra as we are led into a 20th-century sound world.
Toward the end of the piece, in the composer’s words, “Gesualdo’s
madrigals are eventually reduced to mere whispers of his texts and
nervous breathing sounds. These eventually also grow in dramatic
intensity into what may be seen as an orchestral echo of that fateful
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