lsmX-1 ml1 - La Scena Musicale

ing. Compact discs get to Europe, he reasoned.
He was not quite prepared to expose himself
to natural-horn specialists.
Back in North America, and specifically
Montreal, where he lives with his actress
wife Julie Daoust, Marsolais has developed a
balanced musical life. Yes, solo gigs are spotty,
but he will be playing Bach’s Christmas
Oratorio with Bernard Labadie and Les
Violons du Roy in Carnegie Hall in December
and touring the Atlantic provinces with
soprano Marianne Fiset and pianist Michael
McMahon in March (a few months after
making a CD for ATMA with the same
artists). Pentaèdre offers a cinema-theme
program on Nov. 22 with the silent-film
piano accompanist Gabriel Thibaudeau. And
as the new co-principal (with Pierre Savoie)
of the Orchestre Métropolitain, Marsolais
will maintain his love-hate relationship with
the symphonic repertoire.
As for the solo problem, Marsolais can
only do battle against horn-prejudice. “It’s a
cultural thing,” he said about the lack of
horn opportunity. “If we were in Germany, it
would be a whole different thing. Horn players
are heroes over there. Every orchestra
programs horn concertos. Here we have
people thinking of it as an unreliable instrument,
a frustrating instrument to hear,
because they hear it in an imperfect way.
Maybe we just have to change the way people
think about the instrument.” ■
MARSOLAIS IN CONCERT:
» With Pentaèdre and the pianist Gabriel
Thibaudeau, Nov. 22 (7 p.m.).
» Bach’s The Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Haydn’s
Symphony No. 103, “Drum Roll,” Schumann’s
Symphonie No. 2. With the Orchestre
Métropolitain, Nov. 9 (7:30 p.m.).
» Poulenc’s Concerto for Piano, Schmitt’s The
Tragedy of Salome, Ravel’s Mother Goose. With
the Orchestre Métropolitain, Nov. 22 (4 p.m.).
IF WE WERE IN GERMANY, IT
WOULD BE A WHOLE DIFFER-
ENT THING. HORN PLAYERS
ARE HEROES OVER THERE...
MAYBE WE JUST HAVE TO
CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE
THINK ABOUT THE INSTRU-
MENT.”
MARSOLAIS
Novembre 2009 November 17