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Danish String Quartet

Daily News Roundup: 2 August 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 2 August 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Daily News Roundup, Folk, Literature, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

+ The Heckeler’s Andrew Burn takes on Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum & Jubilate with respect to the context around its creation and performance. “I’m not saying that this music shouldn’t be performed, quite the contrary. Its presentation, however, could be better geared to outlining the complex nature of its creation and allow for us to better appreciate our own history through live performance. What I am advocating for is an embrace of the whole truth to a work, even if that means acknowledging certain facts which may run contrary to the intent of its performance.” + The Danish String Quartet…

George Frederic Handel

The Heckeler: Peace and Reconciliation

By Andrew Burn on 1 August 2016 Baroque and Early, La Scena Spotlight

A few weeks ago, myscena.org published a short post on Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum & Jubilate. Two years ago I had the chance to perform that work with the European Union Baroque Orchestra on a tour which was to mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. As an artist within the sphere of Early Music, the political significance of a particular work is just as important in my mind as its performance conditions or practices. While creating a moving entertainment is my first priority, programmatically speaking I believe that stripping work of its context in order to…

London Bridge (http://www.hdwallpapers.in/)

The Heckeler: A Good Time to be a Cynic

By Andrew Burn on 24 July 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, La Scena Spotlight

Editor’s Note: La Scena Musicale is pleased to announce our new contributor Andrew Burn. Andrew is a Switzerland-based Historical Bassoonist and Early Music specialist, and he delves into these topics on his blog, The Heckeler. When I am given the opportunity to speak in front of a group of musicians, I usually conduct an exercise or two. One of my most though-provoking involves asking all the participants to write down two rational reasons (or as close to as possible) why they should have a performing career. The only things which they are no allowed to write down are “I can’t imagine doing…

Henry Purcell

This Day in Music – 1682: Henry Purcell & Chapel Royal

By Weiyu Dang on 14 July 2016 Baroque and Early, This Day in Music

Henry Purcell was the most important British composer of the mid-Baroque era as a cross-genre composer of church, stage, court, and private entertainment music. Son of an esteemed court musician, Purcell also held various royal musical positions through the reigns of Kings James II, William III, and Queen Mary. His most famous works attest to his repute as the apex of British classical music with subject matter all relating to English lore with Dido and Aeneas, King Arthur, and The Fairy Queen. Henry Purcell – Trumpet Tune and Air

Allegory of the Consequences of the Peace of Utrecht (c) Centraal Museum Utrecht

This Day in Music – 1713: Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate premieres

By Weiyu Dang on 7 July 2016 Baroque and Early, This Day in Music

Following the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, George Frederic Handel wrote the sacred choral Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate to commemorate the peace that the treaty brought over Europe in ending the War of Spanish Succession. A five-part chorale with sparing string and horn accompaniment, this piece marked the beginning of Handel’s life in England. The dignified work was premiered on July 7th, 1713 after the treaty proceedings finished. The Netherlands Bach Society – Handel Te Deum HWV 278, Jubilate HWV 279

This Week in Montreal (June 20–26)

By Michele Duguay on 19 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Musical Theatre, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Montréal Baroque, June 23–26 On June 24, the first of four grand concerts, Prospero’s Tempest, combines theatrical music by Purcell and Blow with great lines from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet will join the Montreal Baroque Band as a special guest of the festival. On June 25, the washed-up acrobats of the Nouvel Opera present La veuve Rebel à la foire Ville-Marie. The Montreal Baroque Band returns on June 26 for the grand closing concert featuring four young singers in three cantatas. For the full programmation, visit www.montrealbaroque.com The Producers, June 15 – July 10 Montreal’s Dora Wasserman’s…

This Day in Music – Pleyel

By Michele Duguay on 18 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical, This Day in Music, Video of the day

Austrian-born composer Ignaz Joseph Pleyel was born on June 18 1757. Living in Strasbourg during the Reign of Terror, he avoided the consequences that could have been brought on by his “foreign status” by composing highly patriotic French music. Upon moving to Paris in 1795, he founded a music publishing business and eventually started manufacturing pianos. His son Camille eventually took the reins of Pleyel and Cie, who provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin. Watch a performance of a Chopin waltz on a restored 1848 Pleyel grand piano.

Lebrecht Weekly – Cameron Carpenter: All you need is Bach (Sony)

By Norman Lebrecht on 10 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly

Before we go any further, let me declare once and for all that I am done with three stars. Everywhere else, critics award three stars as a kind of neutral, no-harm-done mark for something they neither love nor hate. Myself, I’ve stopped reviewing that sort of thing. If it doesn’t make you want to laugh or cry (for better or worse), why steal a nanosecond of your readers’ attention by discussing it? So no more three stars on this site. They’d be wasted, anyway, on Cameron Carpenter. The flamboyant American organist, more used to playing in a singlet than a…

Vincent Lauzer, directeur artistique du Festival International Baroque de Lamèque. Photo Emily Ding

Maritime Summer Festival Picks 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Opera

Lamèque Baroque Festival Lamèque NB, July 28-30 For its 41st season, Festival Director Vincent Lauzer has organized three remarkable concerts, all to be performed in the breathtaking Sainte-Cécile Church on Petite-Rivière-de-l’Île. On July 28, Lauzer is joined by Alexa Raine-Wright (traverso and recorder), Daniel Lanthier (oboe), François Viault (bassoon), Amanda Keesmaat (cello), and Mélisande McNabney (harpsichord) for an all-winds concert inspired by the winds of the Acadian Peninsula. The second concert celebrates the French music of Leclair, Rameau, and Montéclair and features the winner to the 2015 Mathieu Duguay Early Music Competition, Quebecois soprano Odéi Bilodeau. Bach’s momentous Mass in…

Lebrecht Weekly – Anonymous: Six concertos (CPO)

By Norman Lebrecht on 27 May 2016 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly

The best fun I’ve had all week is trying to identify the composers of six 18th century concertos that have turned up in the vaults of the Saxon State University library in Dresden. Five of the concertos are for flute, which suggest a possible Frederick the Great connection, the sixth is for cembalo. All are entertaining, accomplished, professional – top-drawer music for a courtly dinner party. But who wrote them? The obvious suspects are the Dresden concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) and the singer and composer Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759). Both turned out music of high quality and near-memorability but,…

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