Tag Archives: trinity st. pauls

The Play of Daniel

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The Play of Daniel (Danielis ludus) is a 12th or 13th century Latin liturgical play from Beauvais in nothern France.  It appears in the liturgy for January 1st, The Feast of the Circumcision, and appears to have been an attempt to channel the traditional post Christmas disorder into more acceptable channels.  It was probably performed by the sub deacons of the Cathedral; young men in minor orders.  Alex and David Fallis have run with this setting and tried to create a piece that would evoke the same sort of reactions from a 21st century audience as the original did for those who saw it in Beauvais.  That’s a huge ask but, to my mind, they succeeded admirably.

Belshazzar - Olivier Laquerre (l) Noble – Bud Roach (r)

Belshazzar – Olivier Laquerre (l) Noble – Bud Roach (r)

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Song for Athene

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johntavenerLast night’s Soundstreams concert at Trinity St. Paul’s was devoted to works by John Tavener and people who were close to him.  The principal performers were soprano Patricia Rozario, Choir 21 and the Toronto Children’s Chorus joined, as needed by Christopher Dawes on piano and organ and Erica Goodman on harp.  Conducting duties were split between Elise Bradley and David Fallis.  There was plenty of explanatory material from artistic director Lawrence Cherney plus some from Ms. Rozario as well as taped comments from Tavener to set up the pieces.

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On a Darkling Plain

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Joel-Allison

Joel Allison

The Talisker Players latest offering is a concert titled On a Darkling Plain.  It’s an ambitious program of 20th and 21st century music interspersed, in the Talisker manner, with selected texts read (very expressively) by Stewart Arnott.

It kicks off with Samuel Barber’s 1931 setting of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.  It’s a dark and evocative piece for a 21 year old and was sensitively performed by baritone Joel Allison supported by violinists Michelle Ordorico and Andrew Chung, Talisker music director Mary McGeer on viola and Laura Jones on cello.  Allison is very young and hasn’t been seen much in Toronto but he seems to have the hallmarks of a lieder singer.  He’s expressive and attentive to the text, has an attractive voice but can summon up a surprising amount of volume when he needs it.  I was impressed.

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First we take Manhattan

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Irving-BerlinYesterday the Talisker Players ventured into new territory for them with a program of Irving Berlin songs entitled Puttin’ on the Ritz.  I’m no expert on Broadway in general or Tin Pan Alley in particular but, I suppose like most people, I’ve been exposed to a lot of this music through TV and films.  The Talisker presentation was interesting and unusual in that they employed a string quartet and two classically trained singers rather than a dance band or a pianist and voices from a different tradition.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah

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Alex Dobson_spring 2014The final show of the season for the Talisker Players, at Trinity St. Paul’s last night, was titled A Poet’s Love and featured baritone Alexander Dobson and actor Stewart Arnott in the usual Talisker format of alternating music and readings on a theme.  The first musical piece was John Beckwith’s Love Lines which took five pieces ranging from Handel’s Where’er you walk to Gershwin’s Blah, Blah, Blah and presented them with the vocal line cleaving straightforwardly to the melody with the accompaniment “deconstructed” into “fragments” for violin, viola, cello and double bass.  It’s a rather disturbing piece, especially when one knows the source material well.  I’d like to hear it again.  It was given an honest and engaging presentation by Dobson and the strings.

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The Toronto Consort’s Giasone

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giasoneCavalli’s Giasone is a bit of a peculiar piece,  It’s based on parts of the Jason/Medea/Golden Fleece story but it’s at heart a comedy.  It was wildly popular in the 17th century then pretty much lapsed into obscurity though there is one recording available on DVD.  It provides quite a lot of opportunity for sight gags and spectacle so one had to wonder how well it would play in a concert version as presented by the Toronto Consort last night.  Actually they did quite well with it but let’s take a step back to talk about the piece for a minute. Continue reading →