The Canadian conductor, Bernard Labadie, is one of Québec's most active musicians. He studied recorder and voice before devoting himself to choral and orchestral conducting. He is a graduate of the School of Music of Laval University in Québec City, where he conducted his first concerts, including Purcell's Dido and Æneas, which he directed at the age of nineteen. He also directed the Québec premiere of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea in 1984. He took honours in harmony and counterpoint at the Québec and Montréal Conservatoires, and was recipient of bursaries from the Ministry of Culture of Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. He has studied Gregorian Chant with the renowned Dom Jean Claire at the Abbaye Saint-Pierre-de-Solesmes, and conducting with Simon Streatfeild, Pierre Dervaux and John Eliot Gardiner.

Bernard is particularly renowned in Canada and Europe for his work with two ensembles he founded: Les Violons du Roy (1984) and the professional choir La Chapelle de Québec (1985). He is frequently invited to direct symphony and chamber orchestras in Canada and abroad. Since 1989, he has also been the choral director of the Orchestra symphonique de Québec. In 1995, he made his debut with the Nihon Shinsei Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo conducting Bach's St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244). He was nominated as the Artistic and Musical Director of the Opéra de Québec in July 1994; he conducted Mignon by Ambroise Thomas and Nabucco by Verdi during 1994-1995 season. In 2002 he was nominated at L'Opéra de Montréal.
 

It is appropriate to open the final concert of the season with a tribute to Haydn, ‘Father of the Symphony’, in the year when the 200^th anniversary of his death is being celebrated.

As concertmaster at the great estate at Esterhaza, in rural Hungary, it was part of Haydn’s duties to compose, prepare and perform music for great occasions: from welcoming fanfares to theatrical productions, concerts, music to dance to and ‘background’ music for great banquets.

The ‘great occasion’ to which Symphony No. 48 related was the visit of the Empress Maria Theresa in 1773. In the evening one of Haydn’s operas was performed, followed by a masked ball in the hall of the castle. She was then taken to the Chinese pavilion

‘whose mirror-covered walls reflected countless lanterns and chandeliers flooding the room with light. On a platform sat the princely orchestra in gala attire and [they] played under Haydn’s direction his new symphony ‘Maria Theresa’ as well as other music’. 

 The Empress retired, but the masked ball continued until dawn. The next day a great banquet took place during which the virtuosi of the orchestra displayed their skills. Another Haydn opera was performed during the afternoon in the marionette theatre and a souper, fireworks and singing and dancing by 1000 peasants brought the day to a close.

The next morning, the Empress left ‘after distributing costly presents. Haydn received a gold snuffbox filled with coins. He was proud to have impressed Her Majesty not merely as a musician, for during her stay he succeeded in killing three grouse with one shot that were graciously accepted for the Empress’s table’. 

The ‘new’ symphony was probably not written specifically for the visit of the Empress, but it was certainly performed, hence the nickname. 

I Allegro – the key in which the symphony is written (C major) was, for Haydn, a key of festivity, brilliance and pomp. So without the hindrance of a slow introduction, the music plunges straight into a fanfare theme for brass, woodwind and drums. Darker music is present but only for a while before the initial mood returns.

II Adagio – this simple movement is laced with melody and, unusually, uses muted violins.

III Menuetto – described as a sturdy minuet closer to the waltz than the traditional minuet. The trio section wanders into a darker minor key.

IV Allegro – this is the lightest of the four movements, breezy and non-stop in its energy. There is little in the way of contrast and Haydn ends the whole work with the full festivity of horns, trumpets and drums.
 

During a visit to Berlin in the winter of 1718-19 Bach performed for the Margrave of Brandenburg who asked Bach to send him some of his compositions. Two and a half years later, something must have nudged the composer’s memory as he chose six concertos from his collection at Cothen, accumulated during the years 1718-1721, copied them out in his best writing and sent them to the Margrave with a suitably florid dedication.

‘I noticed that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music . . . Your Highness deigned to honour me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition . . . begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigour of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works…’ 

Apparently these works lay unused for thirteen years until the death of the Margrave, where they became lumped together in a miscellaneous job lot of ‘concertos by various masters’ and were sold for a paltry sum. It is a miracle that the ’Brandenburgs’ were not lost there and then. 

I  In common with many of Bach’s manuscripts, there is no indication of tempo – Bach assumed that performers would know how first movements ought to go. The whole of this first movement is based on a three-note rhythm but what vitality is created in its treatment.

II   the ‘slow’ movement consists of one bar. Chords are indicated and it is left to the performers to improvise a link to the final movement

III  Bach chooses a ‘gigue’ that begins with 12 quick notes that are taken up by all the instruments in turn. The stream of notes is hardly interrupted from start to finish. 

No. 3 is scored for 3 violins, three violas and 3 cellos and a continuo (harpsichord or string bass line).
 

Rameau was born in Dijon, a close contemporary of Telemann, Handel and Bach, and his career falls nicely into two halves. In the first part of his musical life he was known for his keyboard music and publications on the theoretical aspects of music. When he was 50 he launched himself into the world of opera, and over the next 30 years wrote some 30 ‘theatrical entertainments’. In 1749 his works so dominated the Paris Opera that a ruling was made that the company could only perform two of his works in a year ‘for fear of discouraging other composers’.

As operas Rameau’s works have more or less dropped out of the repertoire but, as was the custom in Rameau’s time, suites of the ballet music are performed in concerts. 

‘Dardanus’ was the son of the nymph Electra by Zeus and husband of King Teucers’ daughter, Iphise. Dardanus became king when Teucers died and he called his kingdom Dardania; its capital was named Troy. The opera was first performed in Paris on 19^th November 1739 and received 26 performances, mainly due to the support from Rameau’s followers in the ongoing long-running dispute between Rameau and Lully. It has been staged in London as recently as 2006.

© Barry Sharkey 2008