ONCT (live streaming), 14/11/2020

Saint-Saëns : Piano Concerto No. 2 (Bertrand Chamayou, piano)
Ravel : La Valse
Rouseel : Bacchus et Ariane - Suite No. 2

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse

Fabien Gabel

Concerts these days are short, by necessity, so in compensation, one seeks an increased level of intensity, something to really draw you into the music.  This all-French concert by the Toulouse Capitole orchestra, at just 65 minutes of actual music (with a 10-minute break to remove the piano and rearrange the seating) did pretty much exactly that.

The Saint-Saëns 2nd Piano Concerto is the one once described as "from Bach to Offenbach", so striking is the contrast between its portentous, declamatory first movement, and the bouncing ebullient scherzo 2nd movement.  Bertrand Chamayou is the ideal interpreter of this music, easily negotiating the mercurial changes of mood, not entirely technically perfect, but Saint-Saëns's piano writing is hugely demanding, and it's well-nigh impossible to deliver a faultless reading in a live performance.  At any rate, the imperfections were minor, and the vivacity of the reading was undeniable, well supported by fine-textured playing from the orchestra.  This was a hugely enjoyable reading, vivacious and concentrated.

As music, though, the Saint-Saëns does pale somewhat in comparison to the dark glitter of Ravel's La Valse, and Gabel and the orchestra seized that mood instantly, from the first, brooding bars.  The inexorable pulse, the scene emerging from the shadows, the desperate, deadly whirlwind of the climax, it was all there, beautifully delineated.

The same clarity was brought to the 2nd Suite of Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane ballet score.  Heavily influenced by Ravel's Daphins et Chloé, Roussel yet infused it with his own voice, it can't be mistaken for Ravel.  The ballet itself seems to have disappeared, I've certainly never heard of a performance in modern times of this Lifar-choreographed work, and it seems a pity, because the music is very fine indeed.  The Second Suite is, to all intents and purposes, the second act of the ballet, in which, having attempted to throw herself off a cliff in despair at being abandoned by Theseus, Ariadne awakes to find herself in the arms of Bacchus, who woos her both playfully and seductively, until the act concludes in a joyous, orgiastic bacchanale as he carries her off to the heavens to become a goddess at his side.  It's rich, lush music, with a strong rhythmic base, and like La Valse was most persuasively rendered by Gabel and the orchestra, the pulse of the dance omnipresent, heady and abandoned, but never uncontrolled.

[Next : 26th November]