In Monday’s (8/13) Gazette (Montreal), Arthur Kaptainis writes, “Even the weather cooperated: muggy and overcast, a perfect Saturday to spend indoors, hearing as many concerts as you can pack into 11 short hours. The OSM was claiming 15,000 tickets sold even before A Cool Classical Journey was over. The day was a success in other ways. People were milling around the concourse of Place des Arts, watching demonstrations, looking at displays, lining up at the box office. Suddenly all that idealistic Kent Nagano talk about community seemed to ring true. … Where to start? Maybe at the top, with a concert by the New Orford Quartet that almost turned the dry acoustics of the Cinquième Salle into an advantage. … The import trio of violinist Christian Tetzlaff, his cellist sister Tanja and the pianist Lars Vogt were making decent work of Dvorak’s Op. 65 in the same space before the pedal mechanism of the PDA Steinway collapsed, requiring Vogt to play the balance of the score à la harpsichord. … I got to two Nagano-led OSM concerts in the Maison symphonique, or at least parts thereof. Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin was relaxed and articulate. If oboe principal Ted Baskin did not get the applause he deserved, this was an inverse tribute to the purity of his playing.”
Posted August 16, 2012
