Romantic - my/maSCENA

View on the mountains from the Combins terrace, Photo: Nicolas Brodard

Review: The Verbier Festival (July 26–29, 2016)

By Xenia Hanusiak on 8 August 2016 Chamber Music, Classical, Concert Reviews, Piano, Romantic, Violin

Verbier, Switzerland July 22 – August 7, 2016 For 23 years, Artistic Director Martin T:son Engstroem has curated the Verbier Festival with a dedicated commitment to intergenerational music making, encouraging the precocious energy of youth to collaborate alongside the cultivated gravitas of the some of the most respected musicians on the roster today. The famed Academy hosts young musicians and singers from across the globe assembling for orchestral, chamber music, and opera performances with the A-list. In the case of the 2016 edition the long-list red carpet roll out includes conductors Charles Dutoit and Gabor Takács-Nagy, pianist András Schiff, violinist…

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…

Orchestre de la Francophonie, Photo: Michel Pinault

Review: Orchestre de la Francophonie (July 28)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 2 August 2016 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral, Quebec Music, Romantic

For their 15th anniversary season, the Orchestre de la Francophonie participated in Les Concerts Populaires for a celebration of French music that placed foundational Quebec composers in a lineage extending from Ravel to Claude Champagne, Saint-Saëns to Pierre Mercure. The evening of July 28 marked the first Thursday of the season that was not interrupted by the Jeux du Québec, which increased competition for venues at the Parc Olympique from July 17 to 25. The concert, a veritable kaleidoscope – even with its French roots – began with a piece of the same name by Mercure, a constantly-shifting ternary form…

Franz Liszt

Daily News Roundup: 29 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 29 July 2016 Contemporary, Daily News Roundup, Opera, Romantic

+ This is one the world has been waiting for: Norman Lebrecht reviews the Minnesota Orchestra’s final disc of their Sibelius cycle. + Shanghai Opera brings Thunderstorm to London. Read a review by the Financial Times here. + A recent biography about Liszt by Oliver Hilmes might simply be unnecessary. Read a review of the book here. “The weight of biographical commentary on Liszt is simply colossal. People have been writing full-length accounts of him since he was in his early 20s, and touring 1830s Europe. The first biographies written with the declared aim of stripping away accumulated myths appeared…

This Day in Music – 1856: Death of Robert Schumann

By Weiyu Dang on 29 July 2016 Piano, Romantic, This Day in Music

Romantic composer Robert Schuman died of pneumonia on this day in music in 1856. The young Schumann wasn’t the most technically gifted pianist, but had immense promise as a composer. In what was perhaps an immediately tragic accident, Schumann injured his hand and his chances at being a successful show pianist. Yet, in the long run, this injury diverted his attention to composition. In this earlier period, Schumann would produce classics as the piano cycles, Papillons and Carnaval, influential works still regularly pored over in conservatories. Around the same time, Schumann would also co-found one of the most influential music…

Lebrecht Weekly – Jean Sibelius: Symphonies 3, 6 and 7 (BIS)

By Norman Lebrecht on 29 July 2016 Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral, Romantic

This is one the world has been waiting for. The Minnesota Orchestra’s partnership with the Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä is a treasure of our times, especially when they play music of the frozen north. Minnesota is sufficiently remote from the rest of musical America to maintain its own sound and Vänskä, ever the iconoclast, has his own particular way of refreshing familiar scores. The start of their Sibelius cycle hit the decks with a whoosh five years ago. Then, disaster. A hardline board, allied to an inept English manager, got into a wage dispute with the orchestra and locked them…

Trio Alba

Video of the Day – Trio Alba

By Weiyu Dang on 28 July 2016 Chamber Music, Romantic, Video of the day

One of the most promising young piano trios on the international concert circuit, Trio Alba begins their first international tour today at the Ottawa Chamberfest where they will perform the first Canadian rendition of Helmut Jaspar’s “Fugitive Pieces” along with Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15, and Schubert’s Piano Trio in B flat major, D. 898. The three musicians—the Chinese pianist Chengcheng Zhao, Austrian cellist Philipp Comploi, and German violinist Livia Sellin—display great flair and style while exuding emotional mastery with symbiotic cohesion. They perform today at the Ottawa Chamberfest sponsored by the Embassy of Austria and the…

Daily News Roundup: 27 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 27 July 2016 Chamber Music, Daily News Roundup, Opera, Piano, Romantic

+ Read a review of the Carmel Bach festival by Richard S. Ginell. + Schmopera asks, “What else are singers great at?” “What do singers do well? Sing, obviously. But the career comes with plenty of extra skill-building opportunities. Not everyone is a master chef or a DIY pro, but working singers know that making sound with their throat is the tip of the iceberg.” + Lara St. John plays at the Ottawa Chamberfest tonight. Watch her performs songs from Shiksa on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts as today’s Video of the Day. + This Day in Music July 27, 1877,…

Ernő Dohnányi

This Day in Music – 1877: Ernő Dohnányi Born

By Weiyu Dang on 27 July 2016 Piano, Romantic, This Day in Music

Probably the most famous Hungarian pianist not named Franz, Pozsony’s Ernő Dohnányi would carve out a prolific career full of virtuosic renown and panache. The young Dohnanyi entered the Budapest conservatory at seventeen to study piano and composition with a student of Liszt and a disciple of Brahms before making his debut a year later. His transcendent keyboard skills would quickly garner him renown in the music world with an elderly Brahms organizing the Vienna Premiere of Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet Opus No. 1. After the conservatory Dohnányi would be greeted with rapturous crowds, almost on par with Liszt’s famously riotous…

Amarok Ensemble, Bryan Holt, cello, Lisa Tahara, piano, and Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh, violin.

Video of the Day – Amarok Ensemble

By Weiyu Dang on 25 July 2016 Chamber Music, Romantic, Video of the day

Performing tonight at the Ottawa Chamberfest, the Amarok Ensemble is comprised of three of Canada’s finest young musicians: Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh on violin, Bryan Holt on cello, and Lisa Tahara on piano. The group, formed in 2014, has performed at events as the 2015 St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar International Showcase in Stanford, CA, the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto and the Health Arts Society of Ontario concert series. Playing as part of the Chamberfest’s “Generation Next” concert heading, the ensemble is also part of the festival’s new Career Development Residency. Amarok will first present the making of a great…

Browsing: Romantic