At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, on the evening of Wednesday, March 6th, I had the great pleasure of attending a superior concert performed by the outstanding musicians of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, brilliantly led by its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

 

The program began memorably with a New York premiere, an impressive account of Cris Derksen’s bewitching, impressively scored Controlled Burn from last year, featuring the composer on cello. An unusually promising soloist, Tony Siqi Yun, then entered the stage for a marvelous account of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s enchanting, enormously popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18. The initial Moderato movement opens solemnly and Romantically with a beautiful Russian-sounding melody, which leads before long to a gorgeous lyrical theme. The Adagio sostenuto that follows is meditative but also song-like in character, with another exquisite melody as its main theme; it concludes quietly and delicately. The Allegro scherzando finale is grand, virtuosic, propulsive, and often moody; it also has the passionate quality to be found in the other movements as well as some inward moments, and ends triumphantly. Enthusiastic applause was rewarded with a wonderful encore: the same composer’s Prelude in B-flat Major, Op. 23, No. 2.

 

The second half of the event was even stronger: an extraordinary reading of Jean Sibelius’s glorious Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43. The captivating, initial Allegretto movement starts majestically, although with tragic inflections; at its finish, the music fades into silence. The ensuing slow movement—marked Tempo andante, ma rubato—is more mysterious, with a brooding quality, but it acquires a more agitated character. The succeeding Vivacissimo is suspenseful, almost frenetic, while—contrastingly—its Trio is relatively serene. The Finale—an Allegro moderato—is almost incomparably thrilling—frequently mystical, at times eccentric, with some emotional passages. Abundant applause elicited another fabulous encore: Edvard Grieg’s lovely "The Last Spring" from Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34, No. 2.