Johannes Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111 (First movement)
Johan Halvorsen: Passacaglia for Violin and Viola
Ernest Chausson: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 21
Charlotte Chahuneau: Violin
Nathanaël Gouin: Piano
Florian Holbé: Violin
Raphaël Jacob: Violin
Sarah Jacob: Cello
Jérémy Pasquier: Viola
Stéphanie Réthoré: Viola
The Journées Musicales de Dieulefit and the Festival Mozart having come to an end for this year, the time had come to move on and indulge in new musical revelries, and fortunately enough, that’s just when Les musicales du Poët-Laval (The Musical Events of Le Poët-Laval) happened to be scheduled, as if to seamlessly take over fulfilling local music lovers’ insatiable needs with two exciting evenings for the 10th summer in a row.
Therefore, last Monday evening, after a quiet and restorative weekend, my mom and I went to the nearby medieval hillside village of Le Poët-Laval, a rightful member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The most beautiful villages of France) association, whose miniature size is home to an impressively high number of historical and cultural treasures, from its predominant castle that regularly doubles as an exhibit space to various restaurants, boutiques and art galleries.
And it was in fact in one of those, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Roche Colombe to be exact, that our next musical event was going to take place. The smallish but smartly designed three-level center boasts a cute outdoors theater with a panoramic view, an amazing modern Italian-made spiral staircase, and a tastefully eclectic and acoustically satisfactory performance space complete with its own majestic Steinway piano on the lower level.
And all we had to do to get there was to complete the near-impossible mission consisting in finding an elusive spot in the parking lot packed with out-of-town license plates, and then venture down perilous cobbled pathways and stairs to find ourselves in the eventually packed and increasingly stuffy (I am talking about the air, not the people) room, where we were happy to bump into a couple of familiar faces from Dieulefit.
Before the official program got underway, Stéphanie Réthoré, the founder and director of Les musicales du Poët-Laval, introduced the concert, and then surprised us with a heart-warming little treat that entailed cellist Sarah Jacob, one member of Trio Jacob, and her two young children performing one of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Five Pieces with laudable talent and dedication, assertively proving there might be a positive side to nepo babies after all.
And then we kicked off the expected play list, starting with the first movement of Mozart’s String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor, one of his popular “viola quintets”, which pretty soon filled the entire space with beautiful melancholy. There is no doubt that having two violas stimulated Mozart’s creative juices even more than usual, and on Monday evening we all benefitted from the end result as we were basking in a remarkably wide range of sounds. When the too often neglected violas are played by experts such as Stéphanie Réthoré, a decidedly multi-talented woman, and Jérémy Pasquier, another member of Trio Jacob, the outcome could only be memorable, and it was.
After Mozart’s elegant classicism, we were ready to indulge in lush romanticism with the first movement of Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, which was incidentally supposed to be his swan song but in the end was not. As unequivocally exhilarating and gorgeously melodic as could be hoped from a composer at the top of his game and musicians in full command of their craft, this Allegro non troppo, ma con brio reached for the sky, and effortlessly got there to stay.
The sweltering heat and humidity becoming slowly but surely problematic for the audience, the musicians and, maybe even most importantly, the instruments, we took a very short break, and then turned our undivided attention to Norwegian composer, conductor, violinist and teacher Johan Halvorsen and his terrific extrapolation of Handel’s Passacaglia with violinist Florian Holbé and violist Jérémy Pasquier, whose blazingly virtuosic performance of it made us all temporarily forget our less than ideal environment and just marvel at their extraordinary tour de force.
After having cooled off during the official intermission, at which point the AC was finally turned on, we all gathered together again for the program’s main piece, Chausson’s boldly rhapsodic Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Minor, an ambitious hybrid of concerto and chamber music full of inventiveness, grandeur and introspection, some brilliant interplay between the instruments, and a healthy dose of intense lyricism that would have made Brahms proud.
On Monday evening, it did not take us long to notice that while violin and piano are equal partners on paper, the former was by all accounts physically and musically center stage, its gorgeous soaring lines frequently underlined by intricate arpeggios from unassuming piano rising star Nathanaël Gouin, who was almost unnoticeable, but certainly not unnoticed, behind the fired-up string ensemble. That said, when the violin is played by Raphaël Jacob, the last but not least member of Trio Jacob and Sarah’s brother, all one can do is shut up and enjoy it until the very last note. And that’s just what we did.
Although the ovation was huge, the mild but nevertheless better-than-nothing AC having done wonders for everybody’s energy level, there was no encore, probably because the hour was getting late, the air was still uncomfortably sticky, and we had gotten an unexpected little extra at the beginning of the concert.
Stéphanie Réthoré appeared on the stage again though, first to invite us to come back on Tuesday for a recital by the very same Nathanaël Gouin we had just heard, and also to let us know that the art center being for sale, this year may be the last year of Les musicales du Poët-Laval. So it was with fingers solidly crossed for a better denouement on one hand and a steady flash light turned on to show us the way in the other hand that we negotiated the even more perilous cobbled pathways and stairs in the now pitch dark village.
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