Romantic - my/maSCENA

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…

Carl Czerny

This Day in Music – 1857: Death of Carl Czerny

By Weiyu Dang on 15 July 2016 Piano, Romantic, This Day in Music

Composer, pedagogue, and Pianist Carl Czerny was known primarily for his immense contributions to the intermediate ranges of piano music. A prodigy, Czerny studied with Beethoven from the age of ten when the young Czerny impressed the old master with renditions of Pathétique and Adelaide. In his own teaching career, Czerny would have as pupil the little-known pianist Franz Liszt who later dedicated his Études d’exécution transcendente. Although his compositions have been considered dry and formulaic by icons as Robert Schumann, his pedagogy is considered the foundation upon which modern piano technique is based. Vladimir Horowitz – “Rode Variations”

Nikki Chooi

Daily News Roundup: 8 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 8 July 2016 Classical Music, Daily News Roundup, Mainstream Jazz, Musical Theatre, Musique populaire, Opera, Romantic, Scena Jazz

+ Canadian violinist and winner of the OSM’s Manulife Competition in 2004, Nikki Chooi has been named the new concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera. + China’s Cultural Revolution made listening to Beethoven a political crime, but half a century later, the relationship between Chinese people and western classical music has evolved in unpredictable ways. “When it comes to ways of listening, the Chinese have long been open to other cultures and to change – not in a revolutionary way, but through a process that builds on its long musical tradition.” + Video of the Day: Lullabies with Alessio Bax on…

Lebrecht Weekly – Felix Mendelssohn: Songs without words (BIS)

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 July 2016 Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

As a general rule, I would rather eat porridge that has been left to stand overnight than listen to music of the romantic era being played on what is supposed to be a period instrument and is actually a modern replica, made the year before last. In this case, a reproduction of an 1830 Paris Pleyel that was manufactured by Paul McNulty in 2010. I mean, why….? Then again, ask any composer if he or she wanted their music to be played on the best possible soundboard or on a washboard and you’ll get an answer far more conclusive than…

Lila Downs. Photo credit: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin, 2016

Daily News Roundup: 6 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 6 July 2016 Choral, Contemporary, Mainstream Jazz, Piano, Romantic, Scena Jazz, World Music

+ Cleveland Classical talks with guitarist Denis Azabagić about winning prizes, his wife and duo partner flautist Eugenia Moliner, and practice philosophy. “I remember when I came to the U.S. more than a decade ago. I opened the yellow pages and found an ad that said, ‘Learn to play the piano without practice.’ I thought, who in the world could put out such an ad? I mean how can you lie like that — because that’s impossible. We would all like to get our things in life the easy way, but music is something that certainly doesn’t happen like that.…

Browsing: Romantic