Classical Music - my/maSCENA

Wagner at the Welsh National Opera

By La Scena Musicale Team on 7 July 2010 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

By Frank Cadenhead Wagner as compelling dramatist? Who knew? The wordy, inflated and repetitive tales we are so accustomed to were nowhere to be seen in the new and revelatory production by Richard Jones of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürenburg with Cardiff’s Welsh National Opera. This Meistersinger boasted an enjoyable cast that would be envied in Vienna, New York, Berlin, London or Paris, led by the grand Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs. Terfel only seems to grow as an artist. After his definitive Don Giovanni at the Verbier Festival last July, his Hans Sachs could be a model…

Round Top, Texas: The Impossible Dream?

By Paul E. Robinson on 5 July 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonSummer FestivalsRound Top Festival Institute, 2010Never underestimate the dreams of a concert pianist – especially those of an adopted son of Texas! Van Cliburn, you say? Yes, he had an impossible dream and realized it when he won the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958, but there is another, lesser-known, Texas pianist who dreamed big and succeeded; James Dick, who was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, attended the University of Texas, and has lived in Texas ever since, built his own concert hall and music festival, in one of the least likely places – Round Top,…

Mahler Resurrection a Dallas Symphony Specialty!

By Paul E. Robinson on 6 June 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonI try to get to Dallas as often as I can to bask in the glory of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, one of the world’s great concert halls. After listening to concerts in other venues, it is always a shock to experience the Meyerson. To hear every instrument in the orchestra as it was meant to be heard, and to hear the perfectly blended sound of a fine orchestra, with a presence that is palpable, is satisfaction beyond words. Simply put, as the saying goes: “You had to be there!”Of course, the Meyerson is simply…

Cette semaine à Montréal / This Week in Montreal May 31 – June 6

By La Scena Musicale Team on 31 May 2010 Classical Music, Dance, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Photo : Gunther Gampe9e Édition du concours musical international de montréal (CMIM)Débutée le 25 mai avec les épreuves quart de finale et demi-finale, l’édition Violon 2010 du CMIM se poursuit les 1er et 2 juin au Théâtre Maisonneuve. L’Orchestre Métropolitain sera dirigé par Jean-Philippe Tremblay. Le programme de l’épreuve finale consiste à interpréter un concerto en entier tiré de la liste officielle du Concours. C’est à l’issue de cette épreuve que le président du jury proclamera les lauréats qui se partageront plus de 150 000 $, dont un Premier Prix de 30 000 $, un programme de développement de carrière…

Austin Symphony Shines Again in Mahler

By Paul E. Robinson on 31 May 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonThe 100th anniversary of Mahler’s death is in 2011, but conductors and orchestras are already programming his music at every opportunity – Symphony No. 2 with Jaap van Zweden in Dallas at the end of May, for example; and more recently, Symphony No. 1 with Peter Bay leading the Austin Symphony.Mahler’s Long Lost Blumine Blossoms on its OwnMaestro Bay opened the evening’s programme with Blumine, which began its life as part of the Symphony No. 1 until Mahler decided it didn’t belong there after all.At the first three performances of the Symphony No. 1 in the 19th…

Conspirare and Craig Hella Johnson Give Voice to Passions From Bach to Lang!

By Paul E. Robinson on 24 May 2010 Baroque and Early, Choral, Concert Reviews

by Paul E. RobinsonBach’s St. Matthew Passion is one of the great masterpieces of Christian music; its music is sublime and inspiring, and its structure is one of its great strengths. Crowd reaction to Christ’s suffering is built into the telling of the story, and chorales in which the congregation is expected to participate, are also integral to the piece. A few years ago, American composer David Lang appropriated this structure as the inspiration for a work of his own, The Little Match Girl Passion, based on the well-known story by Hans Christian Andersen. Conspirare’s superb Company of Voices recently…

Cette semaine à Montréal / This Week in Montreal 17-23 mai

By La Scena Musicale Team on 17 May 2010 Chamber Music, Scena Jazz, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

THEATREPhoto: Jean Francois Gratton / Une communication orangetango Pierre LebeauEt Vian ! dans la gueuleUne version modifiée d’un spectacle – à l’origine signé par le Groupe Audubon – dont on avait apprécié l’humour et la virtuosité en 1995. Le metteur en scène Carl Béchard y reprend donc sa plongée ludique dans l’univers fantaisiste de Boris Vian avec un collage de textes et de chansons parodiant l’institution militaire. Ils seront servis ici par des interprètes de première force, tels Pierre Lebeau, Sylvie Drapeau et Pascale Montpetit. Du 27 avril au 22 mai, au Théâtre du Nouveau MondeBuffet chinoisDepuis 20 ans, d’Œstrus…

Eschenbach, Lang Lang and the SHFO Give Austin a Show to Remember!

By Paul E. Robinson on 27 April 2010 Concert Reviews, Piano

by Paul E. RobinsonThere is no one hotter in the world of classical music today than Chinese pianist Lang Lang. What a coup for Maestro Christoph Eschenbach and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra (SHFO) that he agreed to be the featured soloist on their first North American tour! In this extraordinarily long tour of twenty-three concerts in thirty-two days, Lang Lang played concertos by Prokofiev, Mozart and Beethoven, with Eschenbach at the podium. I caught up with this remarkable road show at the Long Center in Austin, Texas.An Intimate Destination for Music Festival ConnoisseursThe Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival is based in Salzau…

Van Zweden and DSO Raise their Game with Schönberg and Brahms

By Paul E. Robinson on 23 April 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonAs he nears the end of his second season as music director of the Dallas Symphony, Jaap van Zweden has clearly raised the quality of playing in the orchestra. There have not been many personnel changes, but there has been a palpable exploitation of the enormous pool of talent already in the orchestra. A case in point: the trombone section has always been ‘good’ but now it is ‘remarkably good.’ The sureness of intonation, the beauty of tone, the balance between the three instruments and tuba – all these things are on a level of refinement only…

Claudio Abbado’s Grand Tour with his Mozart Orchestra

By La Scena Musicale Team on 8 April 2010 Classical, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Giuseppe PennisiMusic is the best medicine to cure cancer according to Maestro Claudio Abbado. Doctors removed much of his stomach and he can only eat small amounts at a time.“I found a new life, without a stomach,” he states. “I think differently. My senses are different.” His music-making has also changed: “I hear more lines now; I hear sounds I never heard before.”Unfortunately, the therapy has weakened him: it’s now a special occasion when Maestro Abbado conducts. At 77, Abbado has mostly turned away from the kind of grand institutions he once led — La Scala, the Vienna State…

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