Schmaltz and Pepper were back at Walter Hall on Wednesday night as part of Toronto Summer Music. It was a generous two hour programme featuring some of the music on their recently released CD; like “Mozart the Mensch” and “I’m Sorry Mama” plus plenty of new stuff.
British soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Roger Vignoles gave a recital of French chansons in Walter Hall on Monday night. The concept was that the songs were paired; one being a setting of Baudelaire by a male composer and the other song by a female composer of the the same period. With two exceptions all the composers were French and with one exception from roughly the fin de siècle. So Duparc, Déodat de Séverac, Fauré Debussy and de Bréville were paired variously with the predictable; les sœurs Boulanger and Pauline Viardot, and less predictable; Mel Bonis, Marguerite Canal, Amy Beach (American) and Jeanne Landry (Canadian and much later).
My review of Midori Marsh’s Women’s Musical Club of Toronto’s “sisterhood” themed recital with Frances Armstrong, Alex Hetherington and Rachel Szabo at Walter Hall on Thursday is now published at myscena.org.
Saturday night Toronto Summer Music closed out with a final concert in Walter Hall showcasing the many and various aspects of the festival. It’s a pretty good solution to the problem of how to wrap up such a diverse set of programmes.
So, we got a few numbers from the Community Choir. There was some nicely sung Vivaldi and Brahms and an arrangement by Kathleen Allan of “Come and I Will Sing You” that was firmly in the more fun to sing than to listen to genre.
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.
Schmaltz and Pepper is a comparatively newly formed band (November 2023) but it contains quite a few familiar faces; Rebekah Wolkstein (vocals, violin) and Drew Jurecka (vocals and assorted instruments) from Payadora, Eric Abramowitz (clarinet) from the TSO plus multitalented Jeremy Ledbetter (piano) and Michael Herring (double bass). Between them they have backgrounds in classical, klezmer, tango, calypso, Yiddish swing, jazz and much more. The focus of the new band appears to be klezmer and Yiddish swing but since most of their material is original there are lots of influences.
Monday night’s Toronto Summer Music concert in Walter Hall was a cross-cultural exploration of Nature, Heartbeat and Breathing. It featured an instrumental ensemble of Persian and Western instruments and two Indigenous vocalist/drummers; one Mi’kmaq, one Inuit.
This year’s art song mentors for Toronto Summer Music; Dame Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton, gave the traditional recital in Walter Hall on Tuesday evening. Those who braved flooded streets and spotty TTC service enjoyed a treat. It was a carefully curated and beautifully performed collection of songs.
Monday night in Walter Hall Toronto Summer Music continued with a concert by the new Orford Quartet (Jonathan Crow and Andrew Wan – violins, Sharon Wei – viola, Brian Manker – cello). I was there primarily to hear the première of Ian Cusson’s Dreams which was bookended on the programme by “Death and the Maiden” themed quartets in D minor by Mozart and Schubert.
The string sextet is an unusual combination of instruments and there aren’t that many works for it. But one, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, has almost cult status and is performed fairly often. It does though need a companion to make up a concert programme. On Friday night at Toronto Summer Music in Walter Hall the chosen accompanying piece was Brahms’ Sextet No.2 in G Major, Op. 36.
operaramblings 