Older musicians bring depth to festival

Paul Serralheiro

With spring urging people out onto the streets, the festival season begins, and for music lovers, it starts with The Montreal Chamber Music Festival, which runs from May 1 to May 24. “In putting the festival together, I find the best comparison is haute cuisine,” says artistic director Denis Brott. “It’s like putting together a fine meal. A festival isn't just another concert — it has to be an event. There has to be something unusual about it, something special.”

One notable aspect of this 13^th edition is the artistic depth of the senior musicians on the program, the most seasoned of whom are pianists Gary Graffman, 80, Anton Kuerti, 70, and Oliver Jones, 74. “People get older, but not their careers,” says Brott. “When Oliver Jones retired, I said to him, ‘What are you doing, man?’ — and he’s continued playing and playing his best. Music has a renewal quality to it, it has a life force. Look at the program and you’ll see that several artists are past 60, yet listening to them has a rejuvenating quality.”

While the program’s choices are eclectic, with music from classical to contemporary performed by artists at all stages of their careers, Brott points to the quality that experience brings: “As we get older, we get more tolerant, more accepting of our ignorance. We know that we don’t know. There’s also more security in terms of ego. We’re more willing to share our knowledge and are more concerned about the search for the truth and what represents spirituality... A musician is a servant… like an actor whose duty it is to serve the playwright. A musician is at the service of the composer. We try to get across what the composer wants. And we’re better able to do this as we get older.”

The reasons for this ultimately have to do with experience. “Who do you think will have the deeper knowledge, the young musician who’s only played a few pieces by Beethoven, or the older musician who’s already performed all of Beethoven’s work? It’s about depth of understanding. And music keeps us young... like a fountain, and even if you’ve played the piece before and know it very well, there’s always that element of surprise.”

Montreal concert halls are active all through the year, providing fine music-making, but there is a significant difference between the Montreal Chamber Music Festival and other festivals or concerts. Brott maintains that this festival is “like having an affair. There’s that blush of newness, since musicians haven’t played together before. Unlike the usual concert where musicians come for one night, then are gone, it’s not a one-night stand. Our artists come here and get together for about 3 to 4 rehearsals to create a very exciting, intoxicating mix.” Brott himself, a well-respected cellist, will be performing in 4 concerts, and during the Festival’s run will also be making side trips to Quebec City and New York, the second stop with Claude Frank, an 82-year-old Artur Schnabel disciple. How does he find this double-duty of musician and manager? “I don’t think of it as difficult. I think of it as exciting.”

Along with the chamber music that forms the core of the program, jazz has found a place. “For me,” Brott explains, “jazz is chamber music and chamber music has an element of jazz. Jazz is very structured, which allows you to improvise on a note basis. In chamber music a performer is improvising on an emotional and interpretational level. Although in chamber music the whole is greater than the sum of the parts a performer has the ability to impact the whole in the realm of timing, colour, and articulation. The brush is broader in jazz, whereas in chamber music the brush works more on detail. Also, when you look at it, the best jazz musicians are often classically trained.”

For its first 10 years, the Festival was presented at the Chalet on Mount Royal. It has been held at the St. James United Church on St. Catherine Street for the last three years. “Accessibility was a big factor,” Brott explains, “although the mountain was a great locale and I still hope to go back there. But there aren’t the buses, and it was inconvenient if you wanted to go out for dinner before, etc.” The downtown location is not a compromise on acoustics, though — in fact, says Brott, quite the contrary: “All the critics have raved about it. The issue really has been accessibility and I’m hopeful that our audiences will continue to grow.”

The issue of accessibility is also addressed by Brott’s approach to the way the music is presented to the audience: “I give live program notes on stage. We have to think of future audiences. It’s our mission. There’s been an increase of 25% in our under-30 crowd due to cheaper tickets. Young people have come from as far as New York state, Aylmer, Ontario, and Jonquière to attend the festival. This means the festival will be better able to serve its purpose.”

For more details and program information, visit festivalmontreal.org.