The Waterboys in Montreal

Mike Scott brought his latest version of The Waterboys to Montreal last night and I thought it was about time that I saw him again. It's been almost forty years (since 1986 in Dublin's Croke Park) but I've kept up to date with his music, having a particular fondness for his album of Yeats' poems set to music. 

It was an excellent gig and, in a good way, quite the loudest I've been to for a while. This incarnation of the Waterboys is a powerful and tight band, Mike Scott charismatic and witty as always. 

Mike Scott. Picture from my phone

The audience was a real mix, men and women of all ages, most of them familiar with the old songs and ready to listen to the new ones. Fisherman's Blues came up early for a singalong to get everyone going; This is the Sea had some updated and hard-hitting lyrics for the times we live in and was a highlight. Prince's Purple Rain was a surprising and brilliantly performed encore that went down well with the crowd. The last song of the evening, of course, was The Whole of the Moon, and Scott encouraged the crowd as we roared out the lyrics. This song would be in my personal top 10 favourite songs of all time: musically it's joyous, lyrically it's poetry, and I tear up almost every time I hear it. In particular the lyrics in the bridge just get me every time:

I spoke about wings,
You just flew.
I wondered, I guessed, and I tried.
You just knew.
I sighed,
But you swooned.
I saw the crescent,
You saw the whole of the moon.
The whole of the moon

 Twas indeed a lovely September evening in Montreal.

Five go to Hamilton

We're so busy with work and studies that it's become increasingly rare for us to go to events together as a family of five. Consequently, Martine and I are always on the lookout for things that we would all enjoy, then planning them well enough in advance so that we can align our schedules. So a few weeks ago, we had a beautiful evening together at the famous Montreal restaurant Le Mousso, and we're all still marveling about the nine courses of haut cuisine and head chef's witty presentation of each. Then last night we all went to see the musical Hamilton in a stunning production at Place-des-Arts.

Hamilton at PdA (screen grab)

There's not much I can say about Hamilton that hasn't already been said so I don't think I'll try. We were all just blown away by it, the energy from the stage at the high-octane moments, the depth of the feelings at the quieter ones. It was an American cast, and they were all outstanding. Little no-longer-at-all-little Philou and I especially loved the performance of Christian Magby in the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Philou and I used to watch the TV series The Flash together and we remembered him from that - we wouldn't ever have thought of him as a hip hop artist. But wow, he was so charismatic on stage as Lafayette in the first act, delivering a few lines in French to the delight of the Montreal crowd, and then as Jefferson his rap battles with Hamilton in the second act were, literally, mic drop moments.

We had a great evening together. 

Rhiannon Giddens in Ottawa

Last week I finally got to see Gillian Welch, and this weekend I finally got to see Rhiannon Giddens. You wait years for the opportunity to see one of your favourite artists and then you get a week like this! 

Giddens brought one of her (many!) bands, The Old Time Revue, to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, mostly playing banjo and fiddle music from her latest album What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow. It was an unforgettable evening. Giddens is just an incredible musician, singer, composer, historian, and chronicler of injustice, who is equally at home in folk, blues, or opera. The Southam Hall at National Arts Centre was packed, and the audience completely rapt from her first notes. She covered most of the new album which really has to be heard live to fully appreciate it, infused with the energy of her playing and that of long-time musical collaborator Justin Robinson.

She did a few songs from her back catalogue too and I had tears in my eyes at her performance of her song "At the Purchaser's Option", her voice completely inhabiting the story of the enslaved girl who is raped and abused by her "purchaser":

You can take my body 

You can take my bones

You can take my blood

But not my soul

My francophone partner-in-life came with me to the concert and she in turn was brought to tears my Giddens' encore performance of Un Canadien Errant , sung in perfectly-pronounced French:

Un Canadien errant,

Banni de ses foyers,

Parcourait en pleurant

Des pays étrangers.

This is not a well-known song but it's hard to think of a more apt one, considering the themes it shares with many of the other songs she played (themes of forced migration, dispossession) and also considering the politics of this moment in time (an African-American  - albeit one who lives in Ireland these days - coming to Canada and singing a patriotic French-Canadian song). There were a couple of moments where the concert could have veered into capital-P Politics but Rhiannon Giddens is too good an artist for that - she shows you, she makes you feel, she makes you think, but then she lets you draw your own conclusions. 

There are so many sides to her music that I really hope to see her again soon with one of her other projects e.g. her collaboration with The Silk Road Ensemble, or with Franceso Turrisi, or with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, etc. etc. etc.

 

 

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at Carnegie Hall

I've been boycotting many American products these past months in response to the hostile actions of the Trump administration towards Canada. But I bought the tickets for this concert when Kamala still had hope, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let the orange ogre stop me from finally seeing Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Their music has been important to me for at least two decades, and besides, as Gillian sings, "hard times ain't gonna rule my mind".

So Martine and I drove to New York in our not-a-Tesla electric car, taking in this concert on the Wednesday, and a visit to the Metropolitan Opera on the Tuesday (where we saw Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting Salomé - that'll have to be another post!).

Welch and Rawlings were spectacular. Acoustically, Carnegie Hall was perfect for the subtleties of their music. The hall was packed, the audience wildly enthusiastic between songs and hushed during them, and there were two brilliant encores. The whole evening was just one sustained highlight for me that will live long in the memory so it's hard to pick out any one song, but the cover of The Grateful Dead's "China Doll" was unexpected and Rawlings' playing on it was exquisite. The aforementioned "Hard Times", "Revelator", "The Way It Goes", and more, were all hold-your-breath stunning. And the final song of the evening was a raucous cover of "White Rabbit" that had everyone on their feet.

Screen capture from a YouTuber's recording
of their performance of Revelator.
Carnegie Hall, May 7th 2025

I had an exchange with Gillian Welch on Instagram last year where she confirmed that the Woodland tour will eventually come to Canada - so I hope to see them again soon. 

The impact of the unexpected: Elisabeth Brauss

I've seen a lot of really good classical concerts recently. Marc-André Hamelin playing Gershwin's Rhapsody Blue with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra was as good as you'd expect it to be. Shostakovich's 8th symphony with the same orchestra was excellent too.

Last Wednesday I saw a pianist I'd never heard of before playing at a half-full Salle Bourgie. I don't know why my wife bought the tickets, and she couldn't really remember either, but it seemed like a pleasant way of spending a Wednesday evening. Elisabeth Brauss was young, twenty-nine according to the notes, but she looked much younger. The program included works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev. She came out on stage, all smiles, paused for a moment and began to play.

Holy crap.

There was a palpable moment in the hall when everyone came to the same realisation - something special is happening here. Her playing was mesmerising, a scarcely believable combination of energy, lyricism, and precision, with each of those attributes turned up to maximum. And unlike some other artists I've seen recently, the pianist herself seemed to be enjoying every moment of the performance. The audience was so caught up in it that they stopped coughing (!) and the silence between each movement was total, charged with anticipation, almost radioactive. Montreal audiences are always pretty generous with their standing ovations, but the enthusiasm in this one was off the scale. It was the concert of the season for me.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Elisabeth Brauss in concert again, but next time I'll have expectations. This was a one off, the sort of thing that can only happen in a live performance where you have no preconceptions of what you're about to see. 

Anyway, you had to be there, I guess. But here's a video of her playing at the Wigmore Hall in 2022.

Skye Consort with Emma Björling at Le Rucher Boltonnois

I love folk music, especially the traditional music that's rooted in the places where I've lived: Ireland, Sweden, and Quebec. So, when Martine described the band that was playing in the town next to our chalet, well, we just had to be there.

Emma Björling is a folk singer from Östersund and, amongst many other projects, she performs with the Montreal-based folk group Skye Consort. The venue was Le Rucher Boltonnois, a cosy little hall serving craft beers that we've visited four or five times now. They played a variety of songs from each of their traditions, singing in Swedish, French, and English (with some spicy Norwegian and Danish for good measure). They call their genre 'transatlantic chamber folk', a genre with only one member. Their performance was outstanding.

Each of the musicians is a virtuoso of their instrument. Simon Alexandre, also a classical violinist in the Orchestre Philharmonique de Quebec, played a nyckelharpa, a medieval Swedish instrument somewhat like a violin with keys. I'd heard it before on recordings but never live. The harmonic resonances it produced were just gorgeous.

Although she could sing in French, Björling apologised between songs saying that she couldn't really speak in French. But, she said, speaking in English was a fair compromise as we couldn't understand her Swedish songs. I was about to put my hand up to say there was at least one audience member who appreciated her Swedish - but quickly thought better of it!

The band has two albums and lots of performances available on YouTube. Here's the Swedish song that began their concert last Saturday evening.

Eternal Orlando

This production at La Maison Symphonique was an 'adaptation' of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando into a performance that combined spoken word with pieces of classical music played by the Orchestre Métropolitain. I put 'adaptation' in inverted commas because beyond the basic outline of the story of the time-travelling and gender-shifting Orlando there wasn't that much left of Woolf's novel. Firstly, the text was changed into a series of dialogues and speeches in French that were more inspired by the novel that translated from it. Secondly, the story was altered to incorporate other pieces by Woolf, such as her famous essay on the historical treatment of women artists A Room of One's Own. But most annoyingly for me, the adaptation incorporated elements of Woolf's own life. 

It's increasingly common to approach art through the artist's biography and while that can be illuminating it also feels reductive, especially for women artists. So Woolf is always the lesbian who killed herself (and Syliva Plath is always the wronged wife, who killed herself). These are very one-dimensional ways of approaching their art. The final scene of this production showed the Orlando / Woolf character filling her pockets with stones, preparing to walk into the river Ouse. I'd rather engage with her art without always thinking about this, then think of her as the brilliant and original author who created Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and especially, Mrs. Dalloway. 

But the music was beautiful. 

The highlight of the evening for me was the concluding piece, the Canadian premiere of a cello concerto by Nathalie Joachim (who was in the audience) with Seth Parker Woods the soloist. The concerto was spectacular in the first movements, and then incredibly moving in the final movement. I'll be looking out for a recording. The playing by Woods was brilliant and charismatic, inspiring the orchestra and audience. His clothes made quite the statement, apparently inspired by the Black Dandyism movement. He looked like a rock star compared to the sombre orchestra musicians. I hope to hear and see him again.

Seth Parker Woods
(screengrab from YouTube)

An evening with PJ Harvey

I've been a fan of PJ Harvey for a long time. I saw her in concert in Stockholm in 1993, and then in Dublin in (I think) 2004. Last night I saw her in Laval.

The concert started awkwardly as many people hadn't gotten the message that there was no support band. So in the second song 'Autumn Term', when she gestured to each side of the hall and the spotlight followed her, we just saw hundreds of people wandering around trying to find their seats in the dark. The first part of the concert was taken up with her new album 'I Inside The Old Year Dying' which is even stronger live than the recording - and the recording is poetic and gripping and one of the best albums of the past few years. (I told you I'm a fan.) The second half was a selection of songs from her extensive back catalogue. 'Dress' was thrillingly energetic, 'To Bring You My Love' mesmerising as she totally inhabited the character, and the finale with 'White Chalk' held the audience rapt with its intense wistfulness.

The band was super tight, featuring her long-time collaborator John Parish on guitar and keyboards, and the production was carefully choreographed with the stage set out like a living room, giving it an intimate feel despite the size of the hall. But there was no getting away from the fact that Place Bell is an ice-hockey stadium - the sound was quite muddy where I was sitting, the bass and drums reverberating too loudly off the walls and ceiling. 

Another disappointment was that she finished by repeating 'thank you very much' at least a dozen times, but not a single 'merci beaucoup', which showed a bit of a lack of awareness of her mostly francophone audience. 

Last year she presented much the same show in Paris and this recording of that night is stunning: the sound quality is excellent, and voilà, she remembers the 'merci beaucoup.' 

Dehors Novembre

Last Friday Martine and I went to see the show Dehors Novembre about the creation of the celebrated album by Les Colocs (almost twenty-five years ago now) and the too brief life and times of Dédé Fortin (pronounced DayDay and not DeeDee - Martine is a bit frustrated at having to correct my prononciation all the time, and I'm a bit frustrated that she has to).

The show was moving and heart-warming. I had joked beforehand that I'd be the only anglophone in the audience and, sure enough, the couple in the seats beside us were stunned to hear my accented French. (Un anglo icitte? Je ne le crois pas!)

Pretty well everyone in Québec knows the song 'Tassez-vous de d'là' and indeed it was a centre-piece of the show, first just spoken to emphasise the lyrics, and then sung in a boisterous finale. But for me the highlight of the evening was the song 'Le Repondeur' - the lyrics are so poetic, and the actor Hubert Proulx playing the role of Dédé was close to tears as he softly sang them.

J'y ai jamais dit "je t'aime" tout court
J'rajoute toujours quelque chose après
C'comme ça qu'on voit si on est en amour
"Je t'aime beaucoup", ça fait moins vrai

Peut-être qu'y neige, peut-être qu'y pleut
L'hiver est même pas sûr de lui
Yé faite comme moé, yé aussi peureux
Dans l'fond, l'hiver, c'est mon ami

At the end we bought the T-shirts, featuring another line from 'Le Repondeur'.

La vie, c'est court, mais c'est long des p'tits boutes

According to an anecdote told on the night, Vander got that line from a homeless man on St. Laurent boulevard, and whenever Dédé passed the man afterwards he'd always give him twenty bucks for the 'droit d'auteur'.

The original album was written and recorded in a chalet in Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton, the municipality where our own chalet is located. We'll probably try to find the place in the coming months.

Facebook link to Dehors November: au cours de la création de l'album mythique des Colocs

  

 

RIP Sinéad

I wasn't surprised to hear of Sinéad O'Connor's death - she'd seemed so fragile in recent years - but I was shocked. Almost a week later I still have a feeling of great loss.

For many Irish people of her generation, my generation, she wasn't just a brilliant songwriter and singer. She was one of the first to speak and sing the truth about our country: the abusive Catholic chuch and the patriarchy it enabled, the abandonment of children, the lamentable state of mental health services. She sang from anger and hurt, and out of illness, but she sang so that things might change, and she was one of the catalysts behind the wave of changes for the better that have swept across Ireland these past twenty years.

And how she sang. 

The hymn 'Make me a channel of your peace' is known by every Catholic raised in Ireland. But when Sinéad sang it, the prayer of St. Francis, it was like hearing it for the first time. You realised that you'd been saying these lines without thinking about them, whereas she meant every single word. And she wanted us to mean them too.

She sang it on the Late Late Show after having a makeover for charity (in support of refugees from the former Yugoslavia). It was like being visited by an angel.

 

I never had a conversation with her, though I met her a few times. Outside Dún Laoghaire music school, in the passport line at Dublin airport, and most memorably at a birthday party for one of my sons in the Lambert Puppet Theatre.

I've been playing her music in the kitchen these past days and my sons all light up when they hear 'No Man's Woman', a song we used to listen to on the school run. It's how I'd like to remember her: smart and sassy, the woman who was usually right and always right on, and who made a real difference.

Codladh sámh Sinéad.

P.S. This tribute to Sinéad in The Irish Times by Úna Mullally is perfect. And Fintan O'Toole nails it when he writes that her honesty was 'a curse for her but a blessing for us'.

P.P.S. I think Sinéad would have appreciated the candour of this article by Hannah Jane Parkinson in The Guardian: Sinéad O’Connor showed mental illness as it truly is.

Montreal life and music

We were at the symphony orchestra last night. 

On our way in the metro, we sat in the seats reserved for non-able-bodied passengers. That always makes me feel uneasy, even when the carriage is half-empty and no-one needs them. Two teenagers in high spirits stood beside us. When we arrived at Place-des-Arts one of them shouted at Martine as we got off the train. 

'Madame!' 

We were startled. He pointed at the floor under the seat where we'd been sitting. 

'Vous avez oublié quelque chose.' 

There was a grubby sweater on the floor, like something a homeless person might wear. 

'Ce n'est pas à moi' said Martine. We turned away, relieved. 'Merci,' added Martine, just as the doors closed behind us. 

In the Place-des-Arts metro station a figure wearing a white animal mask (a white wolf? a husky?) played Beethoven on a violin. Was it someone well known? I once saw a video of Joshua Bell playing in the New York metro, maybe it was him?  People were hurrying to the concert, no-one had time to stop and listen to the free music, though the figure played really well.

The first piece at the concert inside the Maison Symphonique was atonal and strange. 'Il n'y a pas de mélodie' said the elderly woman beside me under her breath. The last part of it was moving, the violins making a sound like water trickling from melting ice, the violinists bowing rapidly while sliding their fretting fingers up and down the neck of their violins. The second piece was a symphony by Sibelius, which flipped the normal sequence by rushing to a huge crescendo at the end of the third movement, while the final movement slipped away as the violins made a sound like a final breath. The third piece was a Chopin concerto played beautifully by a Chinese-Canadian pianist from Montreal, Bruce Liu. 

Returning to the Place-des-Arts metro station we passed a homeless man sitting on the floor by the metro's ticket booth. He had a wide smile for everyone, and an elderly lady dropped a toony in his paper cup.

Exiting the metro At Villa Maria station we passed an elderly man sitting on the floor at the bottom of the escalator. A young guy passing handed him a small Tim Horton's bag and he took out a chocolate donut. 'Thanks man,' he shouted, beaming toothlessly. 'No problem,' replied the young guy. 

Outside it was chilly, normal for mid-April, but it had been unseasonably warm over the weekend and we'd thought that summer had arrived. It hadn't.

P.S. (May 24th) I've seen the masked violinist several times since and gave him five dollars after taking this photo. I don't think it's Johsua Bell...

Irish songs we learned at school

Well I learned them at school in Dublin, but my sons learned them in the car on the way to their French school in Montreal, thanks to the album by John Spillane. I re-discovered the CD last month as I cleared out the car before selling it, and the boys were filled with nostalgia. They still know lots of the words, pronouncing them almost perfectly in imitation of Spillane's Kerry Gaelic, though they've no idea what they mean. They were stunned to learn that 'An Poc ar Buile' was about an angry goat!

Turn up the volume!

They're young men now, no longer boys. And the VW has left us after sixteen Montreal winters of ice salt and potholes.

My new VW GTi in September 2007

When I sold it in January 2023

I feel those sixteen years too.

The Magnolia Electric Co.

I've only just discovered Jason Molina. I'm too late. He died ten years ago, in March 2013, from the effects of his long-term alcoholism, while his greatest recording, The Magnolia Electric Co., was released twenty years ago in March 2003. But since I first heard it a few months ago I've been playing it over and over. Musically and lyrically it's almost perfect - Molina had a writer's gift for an arresting image and a voice that made sure you saw it and felt it too.

Long dark blues

Through the static and distance

Long dark blues

A farewell transmission

Long dark blues

Listen.

 

Ainadamar, Opéra de Montréal

I went to this opera without any real idea of what to expect, and I was blown away. 

It was all the more surprising because the last two operas I saw were disappointing. I had found the storytelling to be poor, the pace lurching between way too slow and far too fast, and even though the singing was often very good and the sets extraordinary, the overall effect was dissatisfying.

But in Ainadamar the pace is really well judged. It opens quickly and you have to pay attention as it switches from scenes of the Spanish civil war featuring the poet Lorca, to a performance of one of his plays in Uruguay in the 1960's. The connection between these two is the character Marianna / Margarita, a role superbly acted and sung by Emily Dorn. As we get to know the characters the pace slows so we can feel their feelings, and the ending is just exquisite, long lines of melody and heartbreaking singing.  

The music is a highlight. Each scene has a signature rhythm, sometimes flamenco, in one stunning part the sound of gunshots and rifles reloading brings us through a massacre in the war.

The review in La Presse was very enthusiastic too.

I had been thinking of not going to the opera for a while, but maybe I should change my mind.

Salomé Leclerc in Knowlton, Oct 29th 2022

When I was thinking about buying an Epiphone Casino guitar I listened to a lot of musicians who play one. The Beatles, obviously. Thom Yorke in the brilliant garden recording of The Numbers. And Salomé Leclerc who is relatively unknown even in her home province of Québec. She deserves more recognition. Her songs are simple but well-crafted and true, she has a delicate voice, and she plays her guitars with feeling and no little skill.

So when she gave a concert in Knowlton in late October, a short drive from our chalet, we had to be there. 

The crowd at the concert was small but enthusiastic. She was playing a bigger concert in Montreal a few days later so it felt like she was using this gig as a warm-up, but her performance was excellent. Accompanied by just a drummer, José Major, her songs were more alive and powerful than in her recordings, and she introduced them with engaging anecdotes. She's definitely worth seeing live again - and she should seriously consider a live recording.

She toured the exact same concert throughout Québec and France over the past year so this extract from Lyon is a nice reminder of the gig in Knowlton. She's playing her Casino, her one has a Bigsby tremolo which mine doesn't but otherwise they're identical. But I can't quite get the same sound out of mine!

The Brandenburg Concertos

 I'm spoiled. I admit it.

Last night, I was with my partner-in-life at a beautiful old church in downtown Montreal for a performance of Bach's sublime Brandenburg concertos. But, as the music began to resonate around us, my only thought was 'Dammit, the timing is off between the horns and the violins'.

I've been spoiled by regular visits to two of the best symphony orchestras in the world. So now it seems I want perfection every time. 

Thankfully I got over myself by the time we got to the second concerto, and enjoyed listening to some wonderful musicians playing these glorious (and difficult) pieces. 

Appreciating Paul Robeson

 A few weeks ago we went for dinner at Damas. the celebrated Syrian restaurant on Rue Van Horne. All five of us together, which took some advanced planning by my partner-in-life as the tables at Damas have to be reserved months in advance and the boys like to keep their weekends open. But it all worked out. The food was fabulous and the dishes kept coming until we were beyond stuffed. And the conversation around the table was lively of course.

In the minivan on the way home a discussion (in French) broke out amongst the boys about which of them had the deepest voice. The two older ones said that the music teacher at Stanislas had said they were both baritones, but they thought that P's voice would end up deeper than theirs, though we don't think his has fully broken yet. I asked had they ever heard a real bass singing voice and they said they hadn't. So I had my chance to introduce a little culture in to the proceedings.

My Dad's favourite singer was Paul Robeson. Not that he ever put on a record or anything, but if a song came on the radio he'd say 'ah that's glorious'. So through the wonders of the internet I played this song over the van's speakers, and the boys all loved it. It was the perfect end to a great Sunday evening. 

A performance of Ravel's piano concerto in G major

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was at Montreal's Maison Symphonique to see this concerto performed by Hélène Grimaud and the Orchestre Métropolitain with Nézet-Séguin conducting. It was a powerful performance, amplified by how long it had been since any of us had experienced a live performance.

The second movement has been spinning around in my head ever since. I used my memory of the concert in a piece of creative non-fiction, where the narrator is uncovering his feelings about the death of someone to whom he used to be close. It finishes like this:

   She raises her hands above the piano keys and pauses. Time congeals and stops. Then, at the perfect moment that only she has foreseen, she slowly lowers her hands and begins to play, delicately unwinding that long lyrical melody I know so well. Time is liquefied, flowing, meandering back on itself in a long loop. We hear her breathing in the quiet passages of music. It’s only when you’re as close as I am that you appreciate how much physical effort it takes her to play as emotionally as this. I wait for her breath at the end of each phrase, like you do when you’re at the bedside of a dying person, waiting to hear if there will ever be another breath. And then those discordant notes that initially sound so wrong, but as the harmonics linger you realise that they’re so right. My heart is sore. We’ve arrived at a truce, but peace is still a long way off.

    The end of the second movement, a long-drawn-out note, and then there is silence. The air is charged, radioactive, and no one in the hall stirs for a long time. There is not a cough, no sound of a breath, as we await the final movement.

Postscript, September 2025:

A later version of my piece was published in the September 2025 issue of the Canadian magazine Blank Spaces. You can find information and links to all of my writing at www.LaurenceWrites.com. 

A charged moment

Last night I was at the opening concert of the Orchestre Métropolitan's new season, the first concert with a sizeable audience in a long long time. The excitement of the crowd was palpable. The centre piece of the evening was the Ravel piano concerto in G major featuring Hélène Grimaud, and at the end of the wild and jazzy first movement we couldn't contain ourselves, breaking into applause to the obvious pleasure of the musicians. Grimaud paused for a while before beginning the lyrical second movement which was just stunning, lifting us all on waves of music. When that movement concluded there were ten or fifteen seconds of electric silence, not a cough or sniffle to be heard, everyone suspended in an atmosphere that was almost radioactive in intensity. And then the orchestra launched in to the super third movement.

What a evening.

The opening piece of the night was also wonderful, a composition by Barbara Assiginaak, a composer with First Nation's ancestry, evoking the Fleuve St-Laurent as it meandered through this ancient land. It succeeded perfectly.

Biography of a song: Miss Otis Regrets

Cole Porter wrote Miss Otis Regrets in 1934 as a humorous parody of those mournful old folk songs about young girls who've been tricked by an immoral man into "losing their virtue". In the song the eponymous Miss Otis is seduced and defiled, then shoots her seducer dead, is arrested, dragged off by an angry mob, and hanged, all within a single day! The twist in Porter's tale is that Miss Otis is not a poor young girl but a society lady, and it's a butler who communicates her regrets that, due to the unforeseen circumstances of having been hanged, she will be unable to lunch with Madam today.

This clip from the 1946 movie "Night & Day" is the song as Porter wrote it, with Madam clearly not enjoying the bawdy humour.

The song took on a life that Porter could not have imagined. It's been sung as a genuine cowboy ballad (by Lonnie Donegan), as a jazz standard (Ella Fitzgerald), as a tragic torch song (Linda Rondstadt), as an Irish folk song (The Pogues) and as a German cabaret tear-jerker (Marlene Dietrich ... seriously!). Even Édith Piaf has had a go. I listened to more than 20 versions of it on Tidal yesterday, drawing a line only when it came to the Brazilian orchestra doing a Bossa Nova rendition.

It seems to be a song that is infinitely malleable, a precious metal that can be endlessly re-worked into a delicate new bijou. The melody is catchy, the lyrics are striking, but it's the repetition of "Madam" that lends a strange quality to it and allow singers to make it their own, through sideways glances that can be witty, coy, plaintive, heart-rending and more.

Here are the four recordings that I most enjoyed, with my absolute favourite being the one Kirsty MacColl did on the BBC's New Year's Eve show in 1995, accompanied by an army band with bagpipes and drums.

• Ella Fitzgerald
• Édith Piaf
• Marlene Dietrich - who changed the lyrics but the nasty man still gets killed!
• Kirsty: