Browsing: 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…

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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…

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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.…

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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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Leon Fleisher Live Vol. 1. Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Boston Symphony/Pierre Monteux, July 20, 1958). Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Boston Symphony/Pierre Monteux, Aug 11, 1962). Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 (Musica Aeterna Orchestra/Frederic Waldman, Nov 23, 1964). Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 (Berlin Philharmonic/George Szell, Aug 3, 1957). DOREMI DHR-8158/9 (2 CDs) Leon Fleisher Live Vol. 2 Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Concertgebouw Orchestra/Pierre Monteux, May 14, 1962). Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 (Los Angeles Philharmonic/Bruno Walter, June 12, 1949.) DOREMI DHR-8160. These new releases constitute an absolute treasure trove of live performances by the late American pianist…

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Jewelry You simply can’t go wrong by offering a loved one some jewelry for Valentine’s Day, so here are a few spoils for the occasion, and with a nice musical twist at that: earrings in the shape of inverted treble clefs available from BBS Jewelry Shop for $45; silver or gold rings in the shape of musical clefs made by Heavenly Golden for $50 and up; Victorian-style pieces made out of recycled guitar strings created by Heartstrings Jewelry Shop for prices starting at $100. Music Boxes Handmade music jewelry box by MusicWood at $131 that can be personalized on special…

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Gabriel Pierné: Feuillet d’albumAntoine Laporte, pianoSelf-produced with the support of CALQ (2021) The unique repertoire of this double album is reason enough to recommend it. It plunges us into the little-known musical universe of Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937), a French composer contemporary of Claude Debussy and Gabriel Fauré. The title Feuillet d’album, which appears on the cover of the box set, is also taken from Pierné’s Fifteen Pieces for the Piano. We remain in awe of the composer’s inventiveness, moving from fluid writing to more square writing, from lyricism or an almost aquatic atmosphere to a funeral atmosphere. The last piece…

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Bruce Liu: Chopin Bruce Liu, piano Deutsche Grammophon, 2021 Following his resounding victory at the 18th Chopin Competition last October, Montreal pianist Bruce Liu received honors from the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. It has released a live recording of some of its performances from the Philharmonic Concert Hall in Warsaw (Poland). The opportunity to live or relive this event that marked musical life on a planetary scale, in a world still struggling with the pandemic. It all begins with the Andante Spianato in G major in an interpretation full of grace and elegance. Bruce Liu creates a feeling of comfort…

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CLEVELAND – On Nov. 8, the American authorities decided it was safe to let Canadians enter their country by car. The next day I drove down from Toronto and crossed the border at Lewiston, New York and continued on to Cleveland. A few days later I attended a memorable concert by the Cleveland Orchestra. For someone who had been driving to Cleveland regularly since his teenage years to hear the likes of George Szell, Robert Shaw, Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez and Christoph von Dohnanyi leading this great orchestra, it was a welcome and overdue return to normalcy. For the record,…

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The appearance of oboist Albrecht Mayer and pianist Fabian Müller had to be rescheduled because of the pandemic. Now that health measures allow the public to attend events and make possible the return of international artists, this pair will open the concert society’s new season. “Pieces for piano solo and others specifically for oboe or wind instrument such as Schumann’s Fantasiestücke will be played in turn, and there will also be transcriptions,’ explains Marie Fortin, executive and artistic director of the Club musical de Québec since 2013. “Two sonatas for violin and piano, by Mozart and Beethoven, will be played…

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