If you drive up the St. Lawrence a couple of hours from Quebec City, you'll witness some of North America's most spectacular scenery: miles and miles of unspoiled landscape and panoramic views of a river so wide you often can't see across it; and rarely on the entire continent will you make such a dramatic, breathtaking geographical encounter as the descent from the heights of Le Massif down to Baie-St-Paul, a little city idyllically nestled in a protected cove, carved with a seemingly artful eye by ancient glaciers. And if you go as far as Baie-Ste-Catherine, where the Saguenay River meets the St. Lawrence, you can see whales and sea birds visiting from the North Atlantic. One weekend last fall I traveled part of that route to see and hear another of Quebec's wonders: Les Violons du Roy, Canada's premier chamber orchestra and one of the world's top Baroque ensembles. With founder/director Bernard Labadie and the Dorian recording team, the orchestra was in temporary residence at Le Domaine Forget, a summer music and dance academy whose lovely campus sits high above the river and whose Françoys-Bernier Concert Hall is one of Canada's finest. It's also an ideal recording venue, and on this September weekend, the orchestra was in the middle of sessions for Labadie's new arrangement/transcription of Bach's Goldberg Variations for strings and continuo, a recording that was released this spring to rave reviews.

The reviews are not only deserved but are part of a process of dedicated effort and the unrelenting force of exceptional talent that began with Les Violons' birth in 1984. Anyone who still may question the world-class stature of this 15-plus-or-minus-member group of young musicians, the majority of whom are string players, need only listen. This orchestra, which uniquely and successfully weds modern stringed instruments with period bows and performance practice, is the real thing, and its conductor is one of today's most promising musical leaders, not only in Baroque repertoire, but also in music of the Classical and Romantic periods and in genres such as choral music and opera. Each of Les Violons' seven recordings for Dorian shows a performance standard second to none, and recording values that consistently show up companies with far more money and marketing clout.

Les Violons du Roy (the name comes from the famous court orchestra of the French kings) not only boasts some of the planet's finest ensemble players, but several are virtuoso soloists, notably violinists Nicole Trotier and Pascale Giguère and cellists Carla Antoun and Nathalie Giguère, who during a performance switch back and forth from solo to ensemble with perfect ease. The Goldbergs project drew heavily on the soloistic credentials of the orchestra's principals as many of the variations feature only two, three, or four players. Labadie admittedly is "very picky" about choosing even the occasional players needed to fill out the ensemble for works requiring a special instrument--theorbo (a kind of lute), for instance--or larger than normal forces. And for these sessions the theorbo is manned by one of the best, Sylvain Bergeron, who, like a jazz player who "knows the charts" offers stylistically appropriate, tasteful punctuation and harmonic support.

The Goldberg sessions also are an example of the results achieved from dedicated, personal involvement of an artistic and technical team for whom quality of performance and product is a way of life. No detail is left to chance. Everything, from the selection and preparation of the venue to obvious tasks such as setting microphones and adjusting players' position for optimal acoustic balance is treated with equal care. After initial sound checks, session producer/engineer Craig Dory wasn't quite satisfied--so he brought in dozens of heavy, 4'-by-8' sheets of plywood to line the walls of the hall's wrap-around balcony--all of this laborious effort to perfect acoustics that to these ears already were pretty near ideal. Obsessive? Overkill? Some might think so, but who said engineers weren't allowed such "luxuries"? And when you set such a high standard for recording as Dorian did from the beginning, and when your reputation has been built on consistency as well as for well-chosen repertoire and performing quality, you're pretty much obligated to attend to such details every time out.

The same could be said for Les Violons--and if you want to be convinced, just listen to any of the group's recordings--or better yet, hear the orchestra live, in Bach or Handel or Vivaldi, or even as the pit orchestra in a Mozart opera (as they undertook this summer in The Magic Flute with Quebec City Opera, in a fanciful and engaging production whose costumes were designed by Quebec schoolchildren).

Labadie's motivation for arranging Bach's Goldberg Variations for strings and continuo came from a long-held desire to experience the creative freedom enjoyed by composers 250 years ago--to approach this music "the way an 18th century musician would have," Labadie explains, "without the restrictions placed on our interpretation of Baroque music by today's trends in performance practice, which essentially say that we cannot touch this music anymore. Today it's forbidden to tamper with an original version of early music, even though different versions by the same composer may exist, or despite the fact that their contemporaries often borrowed and/or rearranged their music."

This doesn't mean that Labadie has rewritten or rearranged Bach's score beyond recognition. In fact, although he has in essence created a new work, all of Bach's notes are preserved and listeners will easily recognize the familiar keyboard piece. The differences--and there are many--are in the details, necessitated by the requirements of scoring for multiple stringed instruments, observing their respective ranges, and the need to fill in Bach's implied harmonies and to make consistent melodic sense out of lines that on the keyboard are often interrupted or shared between two crossing hands. "If you just divide up the parts [as they appear in the keyboard score]," Labadie explains, "you end up with lines that no Baroque composer would have written."

So, guided by the principles of transcription used in Bach's time, and adhering to the 18th-century notion of "creating something that sounds natural and makes contextual sense" rather than just strictly following the text, Labadie proceeded. Although he thoroughly and clearly explains his rationale and adaptation process in the disc's liner notes, it's best if you listen first and then read. When you hear the opening Aria, played by just solo violin, viola, cello, and theorbo, you'll likely be surprised by the sound--the sparseness, the highly exposed solo lines, and the wonderful congeniality of it. You think how much this "opening up" of Bach's two-handed, 10-fingered lines so effectively enlivens what sometimes can be dry when played on a single instrument. Yes, it is a new piece, but it's still Bach.

The challenges of arranging the Goldberg Variations are infinitely greater than, say, preparing a performance of Bach's The Art of Fugue, which Les Violons will be recording next year. "In The Art of Fugue all you have to do is give every voice to an instrument," Labadie explains. "And since there's nothing really idiomatic regarding any particular type of instrument--it's not keyboard-ish, or string-ish, or wind-ish--you just have to choose who will play what. In the Goldberg Variations much of the challenge is to create idiomatic string writing out of some very idiomatic keyboard music."

More than 90 percent of Labadie's orchestra comes from Montreal and Quebec City, which is an impressive tribute to the world-class musical training available in the province. Conservatories of Music in Montreal and Quebec, McGill University, and the Université de Montréal all turn out excellent string players. Among those who audition for Les Violons, Labadie looks for "very strong instrumentalists, players who are very flexible and very open minded, and who can adapt to different ways of playing, because this orchestra also plays Romantic music, using modern bows in a totally different style." The result of Labadie's uncompromising performing standards for prospective full-time players is that several chairs remain without permanent members, waiting for just the right person. More noticeable is the fact that the vast majority of the orchestra's permanent players are women. Because auditions are conducted as in most North American orchestras, with the auditioner behind a curtain, and because all of the professional Quebec orchestras are similarly populated, this female phenomenon can be the result of neither coincidence nor sexism. Labadie has a very simple explanation: "To be a very good string player, you have to be very serious between the ages of 9 and 16, and this is not the time when boys are known to be at their most serious. They usually calm down a little later and then become oboe players or trombone players or trumpet players. In countries where there is a very strong tradition of string playing, such as Germany or Austria, this phenomenon is not as obvious."

The more you talk to Labadie, the more you realize how his orchestra--its versatility, its virtuosity, its vibrancy--reflect its director's personality and musical passions. Among these passions are his regular performances with his choir, La Chapelle de Quebec, with which he performs a highly anticipated Messiah each year, and with whom he delivered one of the all time great St. Matthew Passion performances last spring, with concerts in Quebec and Toronto. His interpretation of a huge masterpiece like the St. Matthew is both personal and the result of considerable study and careful thought, exemplified in his explanation for how he arrived at the tempo of the monumental opening chorus (ideally placed between Klemperer's magnificent slow-motion epic and the antsy scampering versions preferred by many recent period performance advocates). "I don't like the idea that this should be played as a dance," he explains. "It's not a dance, but a procession. There has to be a feeling of movement to it, but it has to stay on the ground." Paradoxically, his St. Matthew was so well paced and so artfully shaped and intelligently ordered that it conveyed the effect of being both firmly grounded and free from earthly constraints all at once.

Projects Labadie would like to see happen are recordings of the Handel Concerti grossi and Haydn symphonies. Although these works may be among the greatest ever written, for some reason record buyers don't seem to care as much for them as they do Beethoven or Bach or Mozart. When prompted with the suggestion that some of Haydn is better than Mozart, Labadie is quick to agree. "Of course Mozart wrote some great symphonies, but starting around maybe number 29 or 30. Among the 104 by Haydn there are about 75 or 80 of the highest quality. These include many from the Sturm und Drang period--which are the ones that suit Les Violons best because usually they are for a small string group with two oboes and two horns, or two English horns and two French horns, or something similar." And if you have the chance to hear the orchestra play these pieces in concert, you'll certainly agree with Labadie when he says, "I think we play them extremely well." I would go further and say, "as well or better than anyone."

For now, we'll just get to savor the group's Goldberg Variations and seven other recordings for Dorian--and look forward to future projects, including Bach's Art of Fugue. Meanwhile, don't miss a chance to hear Labadie and Les Violons du Roy live. For this orchestra, even a drive a few hundred miles up the St. Lawrence to the top of a cliff is more than worth the effort.

David Vernier

LES VIOLONS DU ROY/DORIAN DISCOGRAPHY

J.S. BACH: Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (Arr. Labadie)
(90281)

VIVALDI CONCERTI FOR STRINGS
(90255)

MUSIC OF BACH'S SONS--includes C.P.E. Bach: Symphony Wq 179; W.F. Bach: Ouverture in G minor and Sinfonia F. 67; J.C.F. Bach: Sinfonia in D minor; J.C. Bach: Symphony Op. 6 No. 6
(90239)

J.S. BACH: Secular Cantatas--includes Durchlauchster Leopold BWV 173a; Coffee Cantata BWV 211; Peasant Cantata BWV 212/with Dorothea Röschmann (soprano) and Kevin McMillan (baritone)
(90199)

J.S. BACH: Secular Cantatas Vol. II--includes BWV 210 & BWV 204/with Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)
(90207)

PERGOLESI: Stabat Mater/VIVALDI: Stabat Mater; Motet "In furore giustissimae irae"/with Dorothea Röschmann (soprano) and Catherine Robbin (mezzo-soprano)
(90196)

SIMPHONIES DES NOËLS--A Treasury of Baroque Christmas Concerti
(90180)

ENCORE! (contains new and previously released selections)
(90012)

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