Métaboles concert at the Musée d'Orsay - So many angels came today - Review
To open its 2023-24 season, the Auditorium of the Musée d'Orsay is offering a midday concert linked to one of its exhibitions, as is customary. To celebrate Louis Janmot (1814-1892), the very mystical painter from Lyon to whom a retrospective is currently devoted, it was logical to propose a religious program, and as his canvases are literally teeming with angels, the ensemble Les Métaboles came interpret the content of his disc The Angels recorded in 2019 and released in 2021. But as the CD lasts barely three-quarters of an hour, a few pieces were added to reach the usual duration of concerts at the Musée d'Orsay.
In relation to the disc, three composers therefore make their entry: Britten, his compatriot John Tavener (1944-2013) and the Estonian Arvo Pärt, the only one still alive. However, the language of Shakespeare remains dominant, Pärt having set to music the modern English translation of an old Gaelic prayer. This reinforcement of works from the 20th and 21st centuries has the effect of isolating a little more the works of Byrd, Purcell and especially Palestrina, the latter's Stabat Mater belonging decidedly to a completely different aesthetic universe, while the two British artists of the 17th century are easier to relate to Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) who dominates the program. The exhibition notably brings William Blake closer to Janmot, both having been painters and poets, the presence of Blake's poem "The Lamb" set to music by Tavener is thus justified. A Hymn to the Virgin by a sixteen-year-old Britten hardly allows us to detect the strong musical personality that would assert itself a few years later.
In other words, even if it is The Deer’s Cry by Arvo Pärt that Les Métaboles will cover as an encore at the end of the concert, Jonathan Harvey remains the undisputed king of this program. His works prove to anyone who doubts that it is still possible in our time to compose music of religious inspiration which is absolutely not outdated. “Come Holy Ghost” begins by taking up the Gregorian melody of Veni creator, but this is to better distort it, to diffract it between the sixteen voices which form the whole. Harvey tackled liturgical texts as well as modern poems, with always astonishing and beautiful results. Léo Warynski guides his troops with a sure hand through the twists and turns of these scores, and can count on the members of the choir to change into soloists at will when the music requires it, with in the first place the very recognizable timbre of the soprano Anne-Claire Baconnais to name but one.
The Musée d'Orsay thus gives a superb start to a musical season placed under the sign of spirituality, in relation to The Poem of the Soul by Louis Janmot.