It is no secret that, as far as music is concerned, Paris’s fabled lights definitely dim when compared to New York’s. I nevertheless managed to come with several exciting musical events to look forward to, and the first one caught me still totally jet-lagged, as Jean-Guihen Queyras’s concert, to which I would have come straight from Charles de Gaulle on a stretcher if necessary, was scheduled for the evening following my arrival. They say it takes you a day per hour difference to recover. New York-Paris, therefore, equals six days. Well, I now hold the secret to the perfect speedy recovery recipe, and it’s not melatonin. All it takes is an evening at the Salle Pleyel in the company of Queyras, Spivakov and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Not as easy to come by as a bottle of pills, sure, but definitely worth the effort.
So, still rather dazed, I met my sweet cousin Nano in a sidewalk café right next to the hall, I was in Paris all right! She was having a delicious looking glass of Pouilly Fumé, but that would have finished me off so I went for the caffeine. It helped, but I wouldn’t have needed it anyway.
Having sipped our respective potions, we made our way to the beautiful art deco hall, which was closed to be entirely refurbished between 2002 and 2006. Our seats in the third row, bought over the Internet, seemed a little too close for comfort – I feared we would be overpowered by the orchestra, but not only did that not happen, by some miracle of acoustics, but what a treat it was, when the moment came, to have the cellist right under our noses, every fingering and bowing perfectly visible.
The program was entirely devoted to Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, as the opening Stravinsky work was composed in celebration of and on themes by the Russian master. I did not know this “divertimento , suite from the ballet The Fairy’s Kiss”, and found it absolutely delightful, although the ballet itself, commissioned by dancer Ida Rubinstein, is reported to have been despised at the time of its creation. The music definitely lacks the usual Stravinsky punch, being a true divertimento and almost square in its structure, being to Tchaikovsky somewhat like Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony is to Haydn.
I, of course, knew the conductor, Vladimir Spivakov, from his Moscow Virtuosi days. I recall being dazzled by a sparkling rendition of Tchaikovsky’s famous Serenade for Strings. When I saw him step out onto the Pleyel stage, nevertheless, the now white-haired figure was much more handsome than I remembered, which confirms the notion that men, contrary to women, often improve with age. He definitely looks the part of the glamorous conductor in a Hollywood movie, but he is also a more mature musician, less panache and more sensitivity than before, and he handled the splendid orchestra effectively and soberly.
Enter Queyras and I am going to start drooling. A few years ago, I first heard and fell in love with his recording of the Haydn concertos, with one of my very favorite ensembles, the Freiburger Barockorchester. Then I was bowled over by his Bach suites. So fasten your seat belts, this review is going sky high. Although I know, from his recording of the Dvorák concerto, how versatile a musician he is , I was very curious to hear his interpretation of the Rococo Variations and I was delighted to see him live, at last.
His performance was everything I expected and much more. Everything I expected, because I knew it could only be technically spotless, imaginative, in style but not oozing with shmaltz, as some cellists insist it needs to be, despite the title and the composer’s source of inspiration, dynamically interesting, with intelligent phrasing served by perfect articulation, wonderfully lyrical and wildly virtuosic depending on which variation was being played. Much more, because to all these musical qualities Queyras added an unusually elegant demeanor, channeling all his energy into the music instead of wasting part of it on facial or body language as, again, many of his colleagues do. His interaction with Spivakov and the orchestra, who did a marvelous job of accompanying him, was more that of a chamber musician than of a soloist, and to me, that says everything. With the audience, he was extremely gracious and went on to play the Sarabande of the first Bach suite, in G major, a jewel of an encore. His treatment of the Suites is very close to what one imagines Bach would have intended, not mechanical at all, but not too loose, and with a perfect (in my opinion at least, although I know the issue is widely open to heated debate) use of vibrato and ornamentation. Some cellists unleash their inner composer at every single repeat and wind up with an excessively Baroque or even Rococo interpretation. I can think of, but will not name, at least two otherwise magnificent cellists who decidedly outBach Bach himself. Others are dry as salted cod, sending a completely wrong message about the meaning and the reach of these pieces. Queyras does them full justice, leaving room for thought and discussion, but never letting one doubt that they are above all musically deeply significant, as are the Art of the Fugue and the Musical Offering.
The concert program was very well constructed, for there was no attempt at introducing any very serious work after the intermission, as if to leave the well-deserved place of honor to the Rococo Variations. Instead, we were treated to an appropriately buoyant rendition of the Swan Lake Suite, alternating delicacy, drama and exhilaration. It is lovely music indeed, oompah-pah and all. And it allows the orchestra sections to shine, the harp, the brasses, the strings all having their special moments. In this case, the musicians were very skilled indeed and the orchestra’s spalla, Hélène Collerette, very impressive in her solos. It is so uplifting to listen to very familiar pieces, one cannot help being carried away and wanting to sing and dance along, making it very hard to sit still. Seat belts would be in order here too!
The proverbial cherry on the sundae: as Nano and I searched for our table at La Lorraine, we spotted Jean-Guihen Queyras having dinner with friends (or family) , and we shamelessly, bobby soxer style, went up to him to give him our warmest congratulations and thanks. I never ask for an autograph as I don’t see much use in collecting signatures, but I may be missing something there. Anyway, the evening’s hero confirmed up close the great warmth and geniality he demonstrates on stage.