Monti - Brahms - Wiener - Tchaikovsky - Bartók
David Lively (piano)
Orchestre de Chambre National de Toulouse
Gilles Colliard (violin)
There nearly wasn't a blog tonight. Five minutes before we were due to leave for the venue (about 30 minutes away), the skies opened, and what looked like three months' worth of rainfall poured down in five minutes flat. The prospect of going out in those monsoon-like conditions was not appealing. It calmed down enough, eventually, for us to take to the road and just reach our destination on time, but it was a close thing. And I have to say that it was touch and go as to whether it was actually worth coming out in the first place, because this was a) a very short concert, and b) a very uneven one.
The OCNT, founded in 1953, is a modulable chamber orchestra that performs in multiple formations, from the standard type of Classical chamber orchestra down to small chamber groups. The small band of string players (ten, plus their director) seen tonight is often called upon in the summer festivals, as they can fit into places that would not normally be able to accommodate an orchestra of any reasonable size, and thereby permit a significant extension of programming to such organisations. I've heard them a few times over the years, and this, on the whole, was one of their less impressive showings.
The programme began with what was clearly meant to be a bang, the ever-popular Monti's Czardas, and that was where the first problem became immediately apparent. While Gilles Colliard is a perfectly competent violinist, he lacks the presence - both in his playing, and in his person - of the true virtuoso soloist, for whom this piece is designed. There's an element of charisma that is integral to this type of presentation, and Colliard doesn't have it.
The selection of Brahms's Hungarian Dances that followed struck me as poorly adapted for the small group present. Thick sounding strings, heavy bass occasionally drowning out the solo violin, messy articulation in all the little turns and twists of ornamentation that give the music so much of its flavour, all combined to weigh down the music.
Jean Wiener was a contemporary of Poulenc and Milhaud, and best known for the vast number of film scores to his credit, and for the piano duo partnership he formed with Clément Doucet, which graced the cabarets of Europe between the wars with a witty combination of classical music and jazz. His Franco-American Concerto was written in 1923, and presents a rather typical (for the period) mix of Stravinsky-meets-Gershwin, without, alas, the genius of either to really lift the piece beyond the predictable. That said, it's entertaining enough, crisp, slightly pompous outer movements in a very obvious neo-classical style that is promptly undermined by the piano sidling off into jazz-spiced reflections on the themes, and a quite pretty, if overlong, bluesy central movement, nicely played by David Lively. It was followed by the Meditation from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher, which had originally been planned as the slow movement of the Violin Concerto. This worked well for the forces present, and was delivered with an appropriately suave melancholy.
After the somewhat kitschy items preceding, the astringency of Bartók's Romanian Dances made for a welcome contrast. Like the Brahms, these too have been arranged for just about every combination imaginable - the last time I heard them live, it was by Taraf de Haïdouks, so you can just imagine the wild ride that was! This was rather tamer, but good for the most part, until the last Fast Dance, where the group's articulation once again let them down, disappointingly. This was very much a case of "Could do better".
[Next : 12th August]
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