Thursday lunchtime in Walter Hall saw the 2024 edition of the annual recital by the winners of the Norcop Prize in Song and the Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying. This year’s winners are mezzo-soprano Nicole Percifield and pianist Minira Najafzade.
Wednesday’s lunchtime recital in the RBA was given by Jane Archibald and Liz Upchurch. It was a programme of songs by the Schumanns (Robert and Clara) and their protegé Johannes Brahms, in celebration of their relationship which extended well beyond Robert’s premature death.
Monday’s concert in the RBA was made up of two song cycles for four voices with one piano played by four hands. The first piece was the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes Op.52 which sets eighteen short folk songs and love poems from Georg Friedrich Daumer’s collection Polydora. The second was John Greer’s 2001 piece Liebeslied-Lieder Op.20 which sets various playful texts exploring the foibles of love and romance by Dorothy Parker and others.
I attended the second of two performances of their season opener by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir at Roy Thomson Hall last night. It was an enjoyable and well constructed programme. It opened with two pieces by composer in residence Tracy Wong. Patah – Tumbuh (Broken – Renewed), for choir and children’s choir (Toronto Children’s Chorus) riffs off Malaysian proverbs and gamelan. It’s an upbeat, rhythmic piece that got a really nice performance, especially from the children. Then they got their own place in the sun for a medley of Malaysian folksongs; which was also fun. Was this the first time Malaysian music has been performed at Roy Thomson?
Sondra Radvanovsky was due to give a recital in Koerner Hall on Thursday night but she cancelled due to illness. Toronto Summer Music did extremely well to find a replacement of the calibre of American mezzo J’nai Bridges at such short notice. While many people turned their tickets in for refunds and others, it seems, just didn’t show up, those who did were treated to a performance by Ms. Bridges, accompanied by the ever reliable Rachel Kerr, that most certainly did not disappoint.
Wednesday’s lunchtime’s concert in the RBA was a recital by baritone Önay Köse, currently singing Banquo at the COC, accompanied by pianist Stephen Hargreaves..There were three sets of four songs; the Ibert Quatre chansons de Don Quichotte. four pieces from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and the Brahms Vier Ernste Gesänge.
To the intimate (i.e. tiny) Array Space last night for a concert by the Happenstancers who, in this iteration, consisted of Brad Cherwin – clarinet, Madlen Breckbill – viola and Micah Behr – piano. and, in the first number, viola.
Part 1 of the programme was called Dream Images and was intended to evoke the discontinuous and illogical. It began with Du Yun’s dreams-bend for taped speech, two violas and clarinet as a sort of intro to the main event. This consisted of Schumann’s Fairy Tale Narrations and Kurtág’s Hommage à R. Schumann; these being two of the very few works for clarinet, viola and piano. Added to these was a new work; Abstractions by Nahre Sol. The pieces were played with the movements in the right order but with the composers mixed up so, for example, the first four movements went Kurtág, Sol, Schumann, Kurtág and so on. I like this approach. The styles contrast. The Kurtág is spikey and dissonant, the Schumann structured and Romantic and the Sol playful, tonal (mostly) and rhythmically varied. Listening to them interspersed somehow focusses attention on their particular qualities and has a kind of focus that the conventional way of doing things doesn’t.
My review of the NACO’s visit to Toronto on Saturday, including the new Jake Heggie/Margaret Atwood song cycle Songs for Murdered Sisters is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo credit: Curtis Perry
Interruption; the first concert of this year’s West End Micro Music Festival, happened last night at the season venue; Redeemer Lutheran Church on Bloor West. It was a clarinet quintet concert with a twist or two that was illuminated for me by a chat with clarinettist Brad Cherwin after the show.
Almost six years to the day since his last appearance Bryn, now Sir Bryn, Terfel made it back to Koerner hall for a much anticipated recital; this time accompanied by Annabel Thwaite. The first set, partly setting up a Shakespeare theme for the evening, consisted of four songs by Schubert including “Trinklied” and “An Silvia”. It was followed by three of the the Quilter Shakespeare settings; “Come Away, Come Away, Death”, “O Mistress Mine” and “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind”. The first half concluded with the Vier ernste Gesänge of Brahms. I think it’s fair to say that what we were hearing was not the Bryn that his considerable following in the hall expected. The artistry of interpretation was still there but something was up with the voice. It didn’t have the bloom I remembered and in places, especially with high notes, it just wasn’t happening. Was he a bit under the weather or was it the toll of the years and lots of Wagner? I don’t know but I really hope it was the former.
operaramblings 