Classical Music - my/maSCENA

Cette semaine à Montréal (15 à 21 fév) / This Week in Montreal (Feb. 15 – 21)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 15 February 2010 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Orchestral, Scena Jazz, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Musique, théâtre, et danse à Montréal cette semaineMusic, theatre, and dance in Montreal this weekOrchestral Music: Kent Nagano leads the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in a varied programme on February 15 and 16 at Place des Arts. Austrian pianist Till Fellner (pictured here), a protégé of Alfred Brendel, will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1. Fellner is currently recording all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with Nagano and the OSM. Also on the programme is the world premiere of Gilles Tremblay’s L’Origine, featuring mezzo-soprano Michèle Losier. 514-842-2112, www.osm.ca – Hannah RahimiThéâtre : En février, le Théâtre du Rideau vert met à l’affiche…

Pianist Anton Kuerti’s Beethoven Mesmerizes UT Austin Audience

By Paul E. Robinson on 11 February 2010 Concert Reviews, Piano

by Paul E. RobinsonAnton Kuerti arrived in Canada in 1965, and Toronto has been his home base ever since. In that span of 45 years, this extraordinary artist has demonstrated time and again that he has no peer in the performance of the piano music of Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. In Canada, Kuerti is a national treasure; in the United States, he has had an illustrious career, stemming from his student days in Cleveland and Philadelphia, to his now regular concertizing in America’s major cities. Those fortunate enough to be in McCullough Hall at the University of Texas (Austin) last…

Italy still needs its operatic saviour

By Norman Lebrecht on 13 December 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera, Vocal

Next month is the centenary of Verdi’s death. Italy is planning lavish celebrations – but is ducking the uncomfortable questions they raise. IT was Milan that set the ball rolling, kicking off the Anno Verdi with (as Rupert Christiansen reported in these pages on Monday) an all-Italian Il Trovatore, which is several times rarer than an all-Italian Serie A football team. It is commonly bewailed that Italy has lost the art of breeding big voices. At the most symbolic national moment since the last World Cup, La Scala struck a swaggering chord of self-belief. Forlorn ideals: Giuseppe Verdi, ‘the man,…

The Battle for Berlin’s Heart

By Norman Lebrecht on 19 April 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

The Battle for Berlin’s Heart by Norman Lebrecht / April 19, 2000 THE battlefront has finally reached Berlin. After two decades in which London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome and even Paris have witnessed hand-to-mouth combat over public subsidies, the role of the state in funding the arts is now being fought out in the would-be capital of European culture. Berlin has, for the second time in six months, lost its cultural senator. Christa Thoben had been hauled in from the Construction Ministry to run an iron sliderule over boom-town arts budgets. What she found to her horror was a black-hole deficit…

Pierre Boulez – Playing with Propaganda

By Norman Lebrecht on 22 March 2000 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly

Playing with Propaganda by Norman Lebrecht / March 22, 2000 IT would be easy to imagine, amid the hoo-ha and the hype, that the man born in Montbrison (Loire) 75 years ago this weekend was some kind of musical saviour. The birthday of Pierre Boulez is being serenaded on a scale that even Richard Wagner might have found embarrassing. The London Symphony Orchestra have been trailing his vapour since January, from the Barbican Centre to Carnegie Hall. Through the spring, Boulez is accepting bouquets at the South Bank (this weekend), the Parisian Cité de la Musique, Brussels, Cologne and beyond.…

The demon drink

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 March 2000 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

The demon drink by Norman Lebrecht / March 8, 2000 MUCH to report from behind the baton. Paris is abuzz over its next two conductors, Myung-Whun Chung and Kurt Masur. Chung, who left the Opéra six years ago with a nine-million-franc payoff, is back this week at the head of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Can’t wait to read the severance clause in his new contract. Masur, who is saying a long goodbye to the New York Philharmonic, is about to sign up with the Orchestre National de France. This may explain why his title with the London Philharmonic has been…

Not resisting but gesturing

By Norman Lebrecht on 1 March 2000 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

Not resisting but gesturing by Norman Lebrecht / March 1, 2000 THE return of Gérard Mortier to the Salzburg Festival poses more problems than it resolves. Mortier, who announced three weeks ago that he was quitting a year early as artistic director in protest at the neo-nationalist Vienna coalition, has now changed his mind. In view of “the impressive stand taken by Austrian citizens” in recent anti-government demonstrations, Mortier has decided to lend his “fullest artistic support” to the “resistance” against Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party. He also pledged to make next year’s festival a melting pot of multiculturalism, and to…

New contender in the battle of the upper shelves

By Norman Lebrecht on 23 February 2000 Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

New contender in the battle of the upper shelves by Norman Lebrecht / February 23, 2000 MORE trouble between the sheets. Word leaks from New Grove, the once and future bible of musical lexicography, that its esteemed editor, Stanley Sadie, has left his desk. All perfectly amicable, it seems. Dr Sadie, who made such a fine job of the 1980 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that Macmillan entrusted him with the next edition, was given a whole week to clear his drawers rather than the customary hour. “I’m 69, you know,” says Sadie, “and it’s a good thing…

Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu – The Singing World’s Golden Couple?

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 February 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera

The Singing World’s Golden Couple# ##by Norman Lebrecht / February 16, 2000 THE Alagnas are splitting up, one hears. Word of their separation has been spreading like greenfly on the musical grapevine. My date to see the celebrated lovebirds gets changed at the last minute to separate interviews, two months apart. Angela Gheorghiu sits alone before Christmas on a sofa in Chelsea, Roberto Alagna confronts me in February across a Mayfair coffee table. A less prudent ornithologist might be tempted to give credence to the rumours of a rift. Totally false, of course. For the record, Angela Gheorghiu, 34, and…

Why artists have a duty not to ostracise Austria

By Norman Lebrecht on 10 February 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera, Orchestral

Why artists have a duty not to ostracise Austria by Norman Lebrecht / February 10, 2000 TO boycott or not to boycott? That is the burning question. Whether to ostracise Jörg Haider’s Austria until it returns a government we can approve of is one of those conflicts of conscience and self-interest that bring out the best and worst in cultural leadership. Gérard Mortier has led the exodus, resigning this week a year early as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival and precipitating instant withdrawals from a leading sponsor and conductor. More painful is the loss of Betty Freeman, who helped…

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