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Photo: Marco Borggreve

Jonathan Cohen Brings Many Skills to Les Violons du Roy

By Arthur Kaptainis on 7 February 2020 Chamber Music

Meet Jonathan Cohen, cellist, baroque cellist, classical cellist, orchestral player, chamber musician, Cambridge scholar, pianist, harpsichordist, conductor, recreational sailor, father of one. And most importantly for our purposes, music director of Les Violons du Roy. The native of Manchester and resident of London has held that position since 2017, although a Montreal music fan might be forgiven for supposing that Bernard Labadie was still at the helm. This season alone, the founding conductor of Les Violons has led Handel’s Messiah in the Maison symphonique and is booked to conduct a double-Requiem night (Fauré and Duruflé) on April 4. “I get…

Nadia Labrie: New Recording, New Instrument

By Justin Bernard on 4 February 2020 Chamber Music, Winds

Nadia Labrie launches a new installment of her ongoing series of recordings entitled Flute Passion on Feb. 12. As a follow-up to her previous Analekta album devoted to Schubert, Labrie turns her attention to Bach, a composer she first fell in love with during her student days and whose music she wanted to dedicate a recording to someday. “I had been thinking about doing Bach for my series almost as long as I did about Schubert,” Labrie confides. “I first thought of it when I was 20, and it became an idée fixe. In my spare time, I’d go back…

Orchestre classique de Montréal: A Viennese concert brought down to size

By Arthur Kaptainis on 4 February 2020 Chamber Music

A harmonium you only find in heaven,” Boris Brott said from his earthly lodgings in Montreal. “And even there they get tired of pumping with their feet.” The music director of the Orchestre classique de Montréal was explaining why the Viennese program of Feb. 16 in Victoria Hall in Westmount will involve that least classical of all instruments – a synthesizer. “A synthesizer that sounds like a harmonium,” he clarified. Also known as a pump organ, the harmonium is indeed in short supply, its heyday having passed about a century ago, which is approximately when Arnold Schoenberg and his acolytes…

Elias String Quartet A Big Year for Beethoven

By La Scena Musicale Team on 4 February 2020 Chamber Music

Haydn’s Op. 77 No. 1, Mendelssohn’s Op. 13, Beethoven’s Op. 131: The program is logical enough. After all, the Elias String Quartet takes its name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah – Elias being the German form. Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Sharp Minor Op. 131 is a towering masterpiece, and this is the composer’s 250th anniversary year. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor in 1827, when he was 18, months after Beethoven’s death. The influence of the late string quartets of the master is quite clear in the work of his young admirer. As for Haydn’s String Quartet in G Major Op.…

Daniel Banko, Banko Media

Elisa Citterio: A New Approach to Early Music

By Arthur Kaptainis on 4 February 2020 Chamber Music, Violin

I love Wozzeck,” Elisa Citterio, 43, said in a cozy spot in Trinity-St. Paul’s, the renovated church in Toronto where Tafelmusik presents most of its concerts. “I played it twice. And Lulu.” If operas by Alban Berg seem a curious choice of favourites for the music director of the best-known baroque ensemble of English Canada, they faithfully reflect the upbringing of a violinist who grew up in Brescia, an hour from Milan, and dreamed from youth of playing in the orchestra of La Scala. Citterio realized her dream, after orthodox training as a “modern” violinist, first by serving as concertmaster…

Photo: Courtesy quatuormolinari.qc.ca

Quatuor Molinari celebrates good works of two special women

By Arthur Kaptainis on 1 February 2020 Chamber Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Strings

Never miss a Quatuor Molinari concert. It might end up being a Prix Opus-winning event. Actually, I had a few reasons turn up at the Conservatoire on the final evening of January. One was an opportunity to hear Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 4 – probably the first in Montreal since this enterprising ensemble played a Schoenberg cycle in 2012. One can understand why the Fourth is a less-than-frequent flyer on the standard chamber circuit. Made of 12 tones and multiple time signatures, it poses considerable technical and intellectual challenges, which the Molinaris managed adroitly in this taut reading. The rigour…

Montrose Trio: A Classic Vintage

By Arthur Kaptainis on 2 December 2019 Chamber Music

Something was missing at the inaugural performance of the Montrose Trio on Dec. 7, 2013 in Detroit. Something that is usually conspicuous: the name of the ensemble. “The program listed all three of us individually because we hadn’t come up with a name,” Jon Kimura Parker recalled, referring to violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith as well as himself. “We promised the presenter we would announce it at our opening concert.” Which they did. And celebrated backstage by opening a bottle of Château Montrose, a highly regarded Bordeaux that happens to share a name with the arts district of…

La Chapelle de Québec

By Justin Bernard on 7 November 2019 Chamber Music, Choral

La Chapelle de Québec isn’t performing its first Messiah by Handel – far from it. On this side of the Atlantic, tradition has it that this oratorio is sung during the Christmas season. Each performance seems to bring its share of new experiences. This year, the ensemble will be joined on stage by soloists of international renown, including British countertenor Tim Mead. “Collaborating with such talented artists opens up new interpretive possibilities, such as the choice of arias I can do,” said Bernard Labadie. For the founder and music director of La Chapelle de Québec, it’s essential to keep the…

Ensemble Virtuosos: Musical Fusion from Hungary

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 6 November 2019 Chamber Music

As part of its first tour outside Europe, the Virtuosos ensemble will perform in Canada for the first time. There will be concerts in Montreal on Nov. 15, Ottawa on Nov. 16 and Toronto on Nov. 18. The Hungarian Embassy is supporting the tour. Virtuosos comprise 10 young Hungarians who have taken their native land by storm. These musicians were recruited after their performance in a televised contest. Their mission is to promote classical music and make it accessible to the public, all the while supporting education for young, talented, passionate musicians. “Our goal was to provide a televised and…

Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn at the piano. Photo: Getty

Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn: Cello-piano works (Pentatone)

By Norman Lebrecht on 5 October 2019 Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly, Romantic

The near-symbiotic relationship between Mendelssohn and his older sister, examined in my forthcoming book Genius and Anxiety, was so central to both musicians’ lives that Felix was felled by a stroke on hearing of Fanny’s death and died before the year was out. Fanny, the first to evince musical talent, was silenced by their father as she neared puberty in order not to deflect attention from her genius kid brother. In her 30s she found a publisher and began – to Felix’s chagrin – to produce chamber music. His anger abated on finding that the music was of high quality.…

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