Romantic - my/maSCENA

CD Review | Néo-Romance (Secret City Records, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 31 July 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Piano, Romantic

Néo-Romance Secret City Records, 2023 Alexandra Stréliski, piano and organ; Natalia Kotarba, violin; Fayçal Cheboub, viola; Julia Kotarba, cello; Pierre-Olivier Rioux, double-bass Although Néo-Romance plays with the romantic genre in inventive ways, the musical fidelity is overshadowed by a glaring audio quality issue. The works on this album are initially reminiscent of slow, meditative, romantic solo piano repertoire until The first kiss surprises the listener with the addition of cello and violin. These bring a great deal of emotional weight and dynamism to the album. In Air de famille, however, listeners may begin hearing the felt striking the piano’s strings…

CD Review | Around Baermann (Leaf music, 2023)

By Justin Bernard on 29 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Romantic, Winds

Around Baermann Maryse Legault, clarinet; Gili Loftus, fortepiano Leaf music, 2023 Upcoming clarinetist Maryse Legault is specialized in period instruments. She released her first album, Around Baermann, on the Leaf Music label. The album is “a love letter to the tumultuous music of the early nineteenth century,” she wrote on her website. According to Legault, the album is the culmination of years of research and a testimony of her unshakeable desire to perform recitals that feature period instruments. Pianist Gili Loftus, Legault’s friend and collaborator for over 10 years, has joined her on this recording, playing the fortepiano. The album…

Newswire | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Announces 2023/2024 Season

By Newswire on 29 March 2023 Choral, Newswire, Romantic

Toronto, March 29th, 2023 – The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is delighted to announce their 2023/2024 season under the artistic direction of Jean-Sébastien Vallée. Highlights of the upcoming season include two major choral masterworks: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, which features the TMChoir with a full orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, and Verdi’s haunting Requiem at both Koerner Hall and George Weston Recital Hall. In addition to these major performances, the TMChoir also returns with their annual holiday celebration, the Festival of Carols, at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. This season will also feature two performances with the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the TMChoir’s …

CD Review | The Handel Project (Deutsche Grammophon, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 28 March 2023 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Piano, Romantic

The Handel Project / Handel: 3 Suites; Brahms: Handel Variations Seong-Jin Cho, piano Deutsche Grammophon, 2023 The new CD by pianist Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 2015 Warsaw Chopin Competition, revolves around Handel. The disc contains three Suites by the composer; the Variations on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, by Johannes Brahms; the Sarabande from the Suite in B-flat major, HWV 440; and the arrangement by Wilhelm Kempff of the Minuet from the Suite in B-flat major, HWV 434. The CD opens with the Adagio from the Suite in F major, HWV 427, which Cho interprets with balance in…

Lebrecht Weekly | Beethoven/Ravel: Concertos (Avanticlassic)

By Norman Lebrecht on 24 March 2023 Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

Did anyone know that Pablo Casals had a kid brother who wrote him a concerto? Enrique Casals, 16 years younger, was a violinist and conductor. His cello concerto came to light three years ago and the enterprising Jan Vogler has made a captivating world premiere recording of it on Sony. It was sitting on my deck destined to be named album of the week when, as so often happens, an unforeseen astonishment dropped through the letterbox and took pride of place. Let’s not get all wokey and egalitarian about this: the best is, always and forever, the enemy of even the…

Review | Rarities Galore Grace TSO’s Buffet of Cultural Delights

By Andrea Rush on 24 March 2023 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic, Strings, Toronto

Brian Harman : Madrigal – Celebration Prelude – premiere, commissioned by the TSO As the TSO celebrates its 100th anniversary, the premiere commissioned from Canadian Brian Harman provided a fitting regal tone to open the evening. The joyful fanfare of this tonal, contemporary work is light and uplifting. Harman counts among his influences Prof. Brian Cherney, of McGill, with whom he studied during his PhD degree in composition. The hall bubbled with enthusiasm as Harman took a bow on stage following the TSO performance. Jean-Guihen Queyras: cellist As an additional, rare treat, solo cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras performed two concerti. The…

The Songs of Jules Massenet: An Under-Appreciated Repertoire

By Justin Bernard on 4 February 2023 Art Song, Romantic

From a historical perspective, Jules Massenet’s art songs have been given short shrift compared with his larger-scale operatic undertakings like Manon, Werther and Cendrillon. Baritone Pierre Bernac (1899-1979), in a work dealing with the interpretation of French art songs, is unequivocal in his assessment of Massenet; he viewed him as being a gifted melodist who wrote tunes wrapped in sugar-coated sentimentalism. If only a few pieces survive now as tokens of that repertoire, it may be due in part to the composer’s reluctance to deal with the subject. Jacques Hétu, in his liner notes to the recently issued box set…

CD Review | Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music (Analekta, 2022)

By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Romantic, Strings

Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music Pascal Valois, guitar Analekta, 2022 Johann Kaspar Mertz, for whom no exploration of Viennese Romantic music would be complete without his compositions, dominates the album Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music. Guitarist Pascal Valois tackles Mertz’s Barden-Klänge, Op. 13 in a series of five highly expressive and technically demanding tempo rubato works. Valois’s virtuosic talent is on full display in the latter half of Tarentelle: Più Allegro, and in the entirety of Fingals-Hohle: Maestoso—the transitions between chord-playing and fingerpicking are made imperceptible through careful arpeggiation, and his ostinato is never dull. In line with the Romantic…

Radu Lupu, the Piano Wizard (1945 – 2022)

By Lucie Renaud on 19 April 2022 Classical Music, Piano, Romantic

Romanian pianist Radu Lupu passed away on April 17, 2022. We pay tribute to him by reprinting a cover profile written by the late Lucie Renaud, published in the December 2007 issue of La Scena Musicale. Unclassifiable, incomparable, unforgettable, Radu Lupu has been thrilling audiences around the world for over 40 years with music making that is anchored at one and the same time in the depths of the instrument and in the soul of the composer, with an exceptional musical sensitivity, an unsettling yet discretely presented technical facility, a rarefied inwardness and a sure gift for painting sonic landscapes.…

Sorel-Tracy: a double anniversary

By Justin Bernard on 4 April 2022 Arts Industry, Piano, Romantic

The next few months are very busy for the Maison de la musique in Sorel-Tracy. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, there will be five major concerts and, in total, nine performances from April 10 to June 4, including the complete Rachmaninoff works for piano on April 22 and 23, and a concert dedicated to Tárrega’s guitar pieces on May 1. In addition, there’s the 20th annual classical music provincial competition, which Rachel Doyon, artistic and general director, established in 2003 while she was director of Sorel-Tracy’s Chamber of Commerce. From the oldest to the youngest “Oliver Jones, Michel Donato, André…

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