Tag Archives: schumann

Looking ahead to March

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march2024First some additional February shows

  • On the 23rd at Harbourfront Centre Art of Time Ensemble are presenting Music from the Weimar Republic.
  • On the 25th VOICEBOX have a concert performance of Verdi’s Ernani at the St. Lawrence Centre.

Opera

  • Opera York are presenting Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts on March 1st and 3rd.
  • March 14th to 17th UoT Opera are doing Massenet’s Cendrillon at a to be determined location.
  • March 20th and 22nd at Koerner Hall, the Glenn Gould School spring opera is Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites.  That one has me excited!

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Ascent

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lipmanascentHaving been impressed by violist Matthew Lipman at the two OPUS IV concerts earlier this week I decided to check out his CD, Ascent, which consists of a number of works for viola and piano with pianist Henry Kramer (currently faculty at Université de Montréal).

There are six pieces on the disk.  The first is York Bowen’s Phantasy for Viola and Piano Op. 54 which dates from 1918.  It’s inventive and colourful and demands great virtuosity, which it gets.  I particularly like the final section which uses dance rhythms to good effect.

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OPUS IV part 1

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stella_chen

Stella Chen

Last night at Trinity St.Paul’s we got the first of two concerts in the fourth iteration of the OPUS Chamber Music series.  Music director and pianist Kevin Ahfat had arranged an impressive group of young string players to join him in a varied and enjoyable programme.

From the United States we had violinist Stella Chen; a Queen Elisabeth Prize winner and Gramophone Young Artist of the Year, and up and coming violist Matthew Lipman.  There was Berlin based cellist Brannon Cho.  The local talent consisted of and violinist Isabella Perron, as well, of course as Kevin himself.

First up were Ahfat and Lipman with Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano of 1919.  It’s quite a substantial piece with more than a hint of Debussy, especially in the piano part.  The first movement is marked “Impetuoso” but it’s nothing like as frenetic as the second movement; “Vivace”, which is really densely scored.  There’s a lovely, lyrical and expressive concluding “Adagio” which culminates in a very involved final section in high romantic style.  Some gorgeous playing and great communication between the musicians here. Continue reading →

Dreams of Home

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04_CC_Dreams_of_HomeTuesday night at Heliconian Hall was the time and place for a concert curated by, and largely performed by, Confluence Concerts’ young associate artists; the KöNG duo.  KöNG consists of two Toronto-Hong Kong percussionists; Bevis Ng and Hoi Tong Keung, pursuing doctoral studies in Toronto.  They were supported on some numbers by Ryan Davis (viola) and Ben Finley (double bass).

The concert was very much in two parts.  The first half was a series of fairly short pieces on the theme of “dreams”.  Perhaps designed to be impressionistic and to leave far from clear memories.  First up was the slightly jazzy, very complex My Missing Harbour by Fish Yu.  It blended tuned percussion and both string instruments in a largely tonal, slightly shimmery sound world.

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dreams-bend

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dreamsbendTo 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.

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Emily D’Angelo with Sophia Muñoz

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DG_EDA_Pressebild_Fullbody_sRGB_©Mark Pillai. Styled by Esther Perbandt.There was never a chance that Emily D’Angelo’s solo recital at Koerner Hall was going to be a steady procession of German lieder and French chansons with the odd Broadway number thrown in and it wasn’t.  It was what D’Angelo fans would expect and (some of us at least) crave; lots of women composers and lots of contemporary music.  There were five sets.

The first linked Hildegard von Bingen, Arnold Schoenberg and Missy Mazzoli.  I’m going to focus on the Mazzoli.  There was “Hello Lord” from Vespers for a New Dark Age and “You Are the Dust” from Songs from the Uproar.  Both of these are stage works scored for chamber ensemble and electronics so they sound very different in piano score.  Emily sang the with great purity and clarity and Sophia accompanied beautifully though there’s just no way one can capture the synth pop inflections of Mazzoli on piano.  That said, it was a great advert for two works a I really admire. Continue reading →

Inspirations

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Toronto Summer Music opened on Thursday night at Koerner Hall with a concert called Inspirations featuring chamber and vocal music drawn from folk influences.  It began with Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style Op. 102 for piano and cello played by Rachael Kerr and Matthew Zalkind.  The folk roots are pretty clear here and since the pieces were written with amateur performance in mind those roots aren’t over elaborated and the result is satisfying.  Not that they got an amateurish performance.  Quite the opposite.

TSM - Opening Night - 7.7.2022 - Photo Caroline Barbier de Reulle

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Two Welshmen in Verbier

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bryn - verbier recitalDeutsche Grammophon has just re-released the recital by Bryn Terfel and Llyr Williams that was recorded live at the Verbier Festival in 2011.  It’s a generous package.  It kicks off with a couple of exquisitely sung Schubert songs which are followed by Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39.  This is gorgeous lieder singing with the voice sounding very fresh, the diction spot on and lovely accompaniment.

After the interval there’s Ibert’s Chansons de Don Quichotte and Quilter’s Three Shakespeare Songs.  These too are beautifully done.  Then it’s on to the lighter stuff that Bryn always seems to throw in on these occasions and which does help making listening to the recording seem more like being at a live concert.  Among other things there’s a lovely Ar Hyd y Nos and The Green Eyed Dragon.  You have to admire a singer who can manage four languages with such clarity and feeling and still be personable and funny.

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To the Distant Beloved

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I’m late to the party on this one.  I had set aside time on Sunday to watch Russell Braun, Carolyn Maule and Miriam Khalil’s recital from Koerner Hall (one of the Mazzoleni Songmasters series) when first broadcast.  For whatever reason I couldn’t get it to mirror onto the big screen in a watchable way so I ended up watching it on my laptop yesterday.  So it goes.

andiefernegeliebte

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