Elisabeth St-Gelais at Walter Hall

Tuesday night’s Toronto Summer Music concert in Walter Hall featured Quebec soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais with Louise Pelletier on piano.  The first part of the concert consisted of songs by Brahms and Strauss.  I’m not a huge fan of Brahm’s Zigeunerlieder, Op.103 which are very much an example of Germans misunderstanding just about everything about Hungarian folk music let alone gypsies.  The texts are cliché ridden and the music isn’t much better.  Ms. St-Gelais sang then with a full pleasant tone and some attention to the text but she really needs to work on her German diction.

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Anne Sofie von Otter and Angela Hewitt at Koerner Hall

hewittI don’t usually give colloborative pianists headline billing but last night’s packed Koerner Hall recital certainly had an element of “They came for Ms. von Otter but stayed for Ms. Hewitt”.  Hewitt was phenomenal in a program that interspersed solo piano pieces with sets of songs.  In the songs she was simultaneously an individual voice and supportive of her colleague while the solo piano pieces were breathtaking; elegant Scubert and Brahms before the interval, staggeringly virtuosic Chabrier after.  She’s also fascinating to watch.   Continue reading