Gold-medal performance by Rotterdam Philharmonic Montreal conductor owns the podium as he introduces us to his new orchestra Canadians may not own the Olympic podium. But, for those who prefer classical music, a Canadian was in spectacularly golden possession of the podium at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday night. Montrealer Yannick Nézet-Séguin brought the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet to town as part of his North American debut tour as music director of the Dutch ensemble. Together, they presented a spectacular evening of music shaped by deep convictions and propelled by prodigious life force. Nézet-Séguin, who turns 35 this year, has so far rarely picked up a piece of orchestral writing that he can't turn into a great musical narrative. But he had a head start for the Toronto program, which featured Les offrandes oubliées, a piece French composer Olivier Messiaen finished in 1930 (when he was 22), Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, a year younger than Messiaen's piece, and Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), written in 1899 by Richard Strauss. Between Thibaudet and Nézet-Séguin, the Ravel concerto alternated between a shimmering elegance and steel-edged force. The difficult piano part, written for Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost the use of his right hand, is difficult to shape, but Thibaudet attacked it confidently and with panache. The conductor was in the same mood, maintaining a steady rhythmic clarity that drew connections to Ravel's popular Boléro. The Messiaen piece showed how nicely balanced the Rotterdam Philharmonic sounds, and how subtly the violins can express themselves. These two pieces made for a fantastic buildup to the evening's climax. In Strauss's work, "hero" of the title is the composer himself. The piece, divided loosely into four movements, is an opera without words, with the concertmaster's violin playing the prima donna assoluta. The Rotterdam Philharmonic's Igor Gruppman was more than up for the spotlight. Nézet-Séguin shaped Strauss's cleverly constructed, lushly orchestrated interplay of musical motives like an old master, infusing the music with a deep voluptuousness that blocked out the senses' ability to pick up anything else but this glorious sound. The Canadian maestro has not even entered the prime of his career, and is already showing that he can master many different styles of music – both symphonic and operatic. He is also proving that he knows how to set up a concert program. With those two skills, he promises to own whichever podium he happens to be standing on for a long time to come.
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