Labadie reaches Jupiter with Handel and Haydn

Labadie in action.

When I first heard French-Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie a few years back, I wrote, "Remember that name -  and if you get a chance to hear him . . . by all means take it."

Well, since then a lot of people have had that chance, and as a result Labadie's career has exploded, with debuts at the Met, Tanglewood, and all over the map.  He returned to the Hub last weekend in a concert with Handel and Haydn that might have been dubbed "Mozart in Context" - and quickly demonstrated that he's still got it going on, and how; his closing rendering of the "Jupiter" Symphony, conducted from memory, was the kind of home-run that brings a crowd immediately to its feet, shouting and stamping.   In fact, I admit I have a serious musical man-crush on this guy.  Smarts, sympathy, superb control and command - Labadie's got it all, plus he does what I call "full-body" conducting: the musical cues seem to ripple through every fiber of his being, so his connection with the orchestra is dramatically palpable.  With Labadie conducting, a concert is also a show.

Of course, this was also a wonderful musical statement, thoughtfully programmed and exquisitely interpreted.  The idea was clearly to compare and contrast the evening's warhorse, the "Jupiter" (No. 41) - the one H&H could count on to draw a crowd - with obscurities by the forgotten Henri-Joseph Rigel and Joseph Martin Kraus, as well as a minor Haydn symphony, No. 26 ("Lamentatione") - all three variants of what has been dubbed the "Sturm und Drang" Germanic school (with, in the case of Rigel, a lovely French largo sandwiched between two Teutonic allegros).

This is where the curation of the concert did run into an intriguing set of cross-currents, it seemed to me.  Rigel, Kraus, and Haydn seemed to be speaking to each other as much as to Mozart; or perhaps Haydn was speaking to them (although the final movement of the Kraus at least clearly counts as proto-Mozart).  And certainly both Rigel and Kraus intrigued as demonstrations of just how alluring great craft can be - I was much taken with the second and third movements of the Rigel in particular - still, did either have a unique "voice"?  It seemed that Haydn turned that corner rather early for the form; the flowing second movement of Lamentatione (partly derived from an Easter chant) exudes a depth that Rigel and Kraus lack, and the third movement abounds in that sense of subtle, almost conversational surprise that typifies this great composer.

Perhaps simply ordering the concert by composition date might have clarified all this.  At any rate, under Labadie's attentive eye, the orchestra performed all three with sensitive passion, and a pleasing sense of forward momentum - but it wasn't until the "Jupiter" that everything came together. Which is indeed appropriate, as the "Jupiter" seems to pull its entire period together and then kick it up a notch. The symphony is a landmark for many reasons; its simple size and grandeur (hence its nickname), the unprecedented complexity and inspiration of its textures, the way in which it shifts the emphasis of the form to the final movements (which here conclude with a truly stunning fugue) - all these perfections still stun audiences today.  And Labadie and his players seemed in complete command of every facet of the piece; Mozart's memorable motifs seemed to expand and intertwine just as they should, and then coalesced at the finale with a truly thrilling force.  Sometimes Labadie seemed about to levitate, in fact, as the momentum built; the strings were exquisitely supple, the winds superlative - it was the kind of performance that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.  What can I say?  If you get a chance to hear Bernard Labadie conduct - by all means take it!

Hammering it home

The belly of the beast: inside a fortepiano.

What does a player do when his piano breaks?  Onstage, during performance?

Well, if he's the unflappable Robert Levin, the pianist simply opens up the instrument, pulls out the action, and begins fiddling around with its hammers until everything is under control.

And that's what happened during the Handel and Haydn Society concert in Symphony Hall last Friday night, halfway through Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. Conductor Bernard Labadie, the whole orchestra, and about 1500 audience members watched in anxiety as the intrepid Mr. Levin tinkered and poked, before finally giving a thumbs-up, and squeezed the whole contraption back together again by pushing the chassis against his gut.

In a way, that hands-on, how-is-this-thing-put-together aspect of early music is part of what I love about it.  And whatever Levin did, it worked - at least for a while (we learned later that even after his ministrations, the F# hammer remained skittish).  The second movement was exquisitely haunting - and it was clear why Levin had insisted on this particular (and particularly fragile) instrument: it's one of the few fortepianos in the world that can get as piano as Beethoven wanted, as its "soft" pedal mutes things down from three strings to one.  And indeed, in the concerto's melancholy Andante, the strings seemed to be echoing from some great distance - perhaps from some other, silvery dimension - giving a whole new meaning to Beethoven's celebrated sense of "musical space."  Elsewhere, Levin scampered and danced just where he should - and the self-dramatizing swoons of earlier appearances with H&H were held in check; this performance was a thoroughly charming one, and boasted a keen sense of dialogue with the orchestra, too.  But when it came time for the cadenzas, perhaps due to that troubling F#, the air seemed to slip from Levin's sails a bit, and things sounded impacted and tentative.  Which was understandable, but really too bad.



Ah, well - fortunately for us, the orchestra was in fine form throughout, as it was being conducted by Canadian Bernard Labadie (above left).  Remember that name - and trust me, if you get a chance to hear him, particularly conducting the baroque repertoire, by all means take it.  Mr. Labadie has an intelligently commanding style that drew a handsome magnificence from the two Haydn symphonies on offer - the "Hen" (No. 83) and the "Surprise" (No. 94), which of course is by now so familiar that its name counts as a misnomer.  Here was Haydn not as the witty raconteur we know so well, but as Beethoven's true forbear, with the great Ludwig van's sense of grandeur latent in the old master's more-intimate, smaller scale.

I always enjoy a program that has a thesis, and I felt that Labadie more than proved his - that Haydn's sense of musical development did prefigure, and perhaps even model, Beethoven's huge architectures (although actually, maybe the Fourth Piano Concerto isn't the best demonstration of their correspondence).  At any rate, beyond its "argument," Labadie's performance was marvelous in purely sensual terms - the strings were as finely etched as we've come to expect from H&H in recent concerts, but this time the winds were exquisite, too. To give you a taste of Labadie's magic, below is the first movement of Beethoven's third piano concerto, with Labadie conducting his home team, Les Violons du Roy. The pianist is the great Marc-André Hamelin. Enjoy.