Take a musical odyssey with Raphaël Pichon

The Concertgebouw Orchestra enjoys both playing baroque music and being able to work with some of the top conductors in the early-music scene. Nikolaus Harnoncourt was a frequent guest In the 1970s. Later orchestral favourites included Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Jan Willem de Vriend and Trevor Pinnock, and more recently Leonardo García Alarcón and Emmanuelle Haïm. And they are eagerly anticipating Raphaël Pichon’s debut.

Pichon and his choir and orchestra Pygmalion have become a phenomenon in the last few years with their adventurous programmes and innovative interpretations. For this concert with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, he’s devised an unconventional programme, with arias and instrumental music from operas by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Christoph Willibald Gluck, as well as the amazing depiction of chaos from Jean-Féry Rebel’s ballet Les Élemens.

‘A random series of short pieces would be too informal,’ Pichon tells us in our monthly magazine Preludium. ‘So I chose to tell a metaphorical story that brings together the human passions and the whims of the gods. To create an effective narrative arc, I used fragments from stage works that link up well dramatically and musically. Along with the orchestra and singers, we’ll fully exploit the dramatic potential of this music.’

The result is a captivating musical story in three contrasting scenes of about 25 minutes each. The first scene takes place in the underworld, where all mortals go after they die. After spending some time in the Elysian Fields, a kind of paradise reserved for the heroes and the blessed, we finally arrive at Mount Olympus, home of the capricious and unpredictable gods. Our guides along the way are baritone Stéphane Degout and soprano Julie Roset, two singers who frequently work with Raphaël Pichon.

Nevertheless, the absolute leading role along this journey is played by the orchestra. ‘Just like with Mozart, the orchestra in Rameau’s operas behaves like a real flesh-and-blood character,’ Pichon emphasises. ‘The orchestra expresses all sorts of passions, sometimes has a premonition of what’s about to happen or conjures up a dance out of thin air.’

Rameau furthermore gives a lot of thought to instrumentation. There are gorgeous solos for the winds, such as a few exquisite solos for our principal flute Emily Beynon!

‘These musicians are extraordinarily inquisitive’, Pichon comments about the Concertgebouw Orchestra members. ‘You can hear the generosity, the openness, and the enthusiasm in their sound as an orchestra. They thirst for discoveries and for works that are new for them. I know I’ll be terribly nervous beforehand, but I’m really looking forward to this encounter.’ And so are we, Maestro Pichon!

The full interview with Raphaël Pichon (in Dutch) will appear in late April in the May issue of Preludium and at preludium.nl.