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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Lebrecht Weekly | Martinu: quartets/Kapralova: songs (Supraphon/Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 26 September 2025 Lebrecht Weekly

It’s not often one gets the opportunity to review two composers who slept together, so I’ll grab this chance with both hands. In 1938, the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu was living in Paris, watching his country disappear. His wife Charlotte, a French seamstress, kept them in food and clothes. Along came a friend’s daughter Vitezslava Kapralova, seeking lessons. She was 22 and already performed by Rafael Kubelik and the Czech Philharmonic. Before long, they became lovers; before much longer she dumped him for a man her own age, the journalist Jiri Mucha. The Martinus made it to America. Kapralova died, aged…

Anne-Marie McDermott with the VSO. Photo: Courtesy of the VSO

Review | Anne-Marie McDermott Dazzles with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

By Kaitlyn Chan on 23 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Piano, Vancouver, West

Update: The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra musicians had yet to issue a strike notice at the time of writing this review. On Monday evening, the Vancouver Musicians’ Association (VMA), Local 145 of the Canadian Federation of Musicians, filed the 72-hour notice on behalf of the orchestra’s more than 70 members. Read more about this job action here. From Sept. 19 to 21, American classical pianist Anne-Marie McDermott joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) to perform Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos. The orchestra also performed Louise Farrenc’s Third Symphony and Mozart’s overture to his comic opera Così fan tutte. While the…

Diana Damrau (Feldmarschalin), Günther Groissböck (Ochs) & Emily Pogorelc (Sophie) in Opernhaus Zürich's Der Roskenkavalier. Photo: Matthias Baus

Review | A new era at Opernhaus Zürich with Der Rosenkavalier

By Denise Wendel-Poray on 23 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera, Vocal

The first new production under Matthias Schulz, freshly installed as Intendant of the Opernhaus Zürich, was an emblematic choice: Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Der Rosenkavalier (seen Sept. 21). Schulz, who comes to Zurich after steering the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, has spoken of generational renewal and balancing tradition with invention. To launch his tenure, he entrusted this cornerstone of the repertoire to two outstanding women at the top of their game: German conductor Joana Mallwitz and American/Austrian director Lydia Steier. It was a signal of intent—musical excellence combined with a contemporary theatrical perspective—and a test of how his house will…

Lebrecht Weekly | Chopin: Mazurkas (Linn)

By Norman Lebrecht on 21 September 2025 Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

I grew up listening to Rubinstein and Horowitz play Chopin, followed by the Russians Richter and Gilels. The next generation included Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy. I reached a mid-life point where I wondered if there was much more to say in Chopin and practically gave up listening. This was not altogether a false perception. Unless you are Polish and buy into national-hero worship, Chopin does not have much more to say in his music beyond a certain introverted sentimentality and post-coital sadness. Or so it seems to me. So I never attended the Chopin Competition in Warsaw…

Magdalena Kožená & Daniel Harding with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at Musikfest Berlin. Photo: Fabian Schellhorn

Report | Musikfest Berlin: Period Beethoven & Italian-tinged Debussy Week 2 Highlights

By Gianmarco Segato on 19 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online

Even though one of the main focuses of Musikfest Berlin is newer music of the 20th and 21st centuries, it also holds a place for works from the opposite end of the timeline. A regular guest is the renowned early music pioneer, Belgian conductor Philippe Herreweghe. This year he brought with him the French authentic-instrument group Orchestre des Champs-Élysées of which he is music director, along with Collegium Vocale Gent which he founded in 1970. They performed Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony (1802/03) and Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor (1815/16) on Sept. 5. The orchestra’s very lean sound takes a little getting…

Franz Welser-Möst & Vienna Philharmonic at BBC Proms (Sept. 8). Photo: Chris Christodoulou

Review | Undercooked Mozart & Tchaikovsky with Welser-Möst & Vienna Philharmonic at BBC Proms

By David Fanning on 15 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

By long-standing tradition, the BBC Proms invite a select number of world-class non-UK orchestras to grace the season. Those orchestras generally bring their A-game, with exciting programs and performances that feed off the sense of occasion generated by the invariably sold-out auditorium. But there are exceptions. For the first of their two appearances on Sept. 9, the Vienna Philharmonic brought Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique”. This being hardly a generous offering in terms of quantity, and not intrinsically as pulse-racing as some, we assumed that quality would compensate, and that Franz Welser-Möst—familiar to London audiences from his unhappy tenure…

Lebrecht Weekly | Arvo Pärt: And I heard a voice (ECM)

By Norman Lebrecht on 12 September 2025 Choral, Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Vocal

Silenced by Communism in his prime, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt delved into a personal religious faith whose musical language pre-dated the Reformation. He turned 90 this week. The vocal works on this birthday album are all devotional, some resembling early Anglican worship, others of a profound personal character. I was amagnetised by Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen, where Pärt explores pre-Christian monodies in a unified world without doctrines and divisions, let alone dialectical materialism. He does unexpected things with voices and echoes, creating a sound that is at once tranquil and haunted. What Pierre Boulez once dismissed as ‘holy minimalism’ proves irresistibly…

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Anja Bihlmaier. Photo: Marlene Pfau

Report | Musikfest Berlin: Week 1 of Europe’s Orchestral Extravaganza with a Modern Twist

By Gianmarco Segato on 8 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Orchestral

Musikfest Berlin has to be one of the premiere orchestra extravaganzas in the Western classical music world. Every year, in late summer, many of the world’s leading large instrumental ensembles, star conductors, renowned soloists and choirs gather in Berlin for a grand kick-off to the new season. Most of the concerts take place at Philharmonie Berlin, the city’s acoustically-blessed hall, opened in 1963 on what were then the far eastern edges of West Berlin. The selection of repertoire goes well beyond a random walk-through of greatest hits, but is instead curated around several carefully-selected themes. This year those include a…

Lebrecht Weekly | Galina Ustvolskaya: Symphonies 1-5 (BIS)

By Norman Lebrecht on 5 September 2025 Lebrecht Weekly

The first thing anyone learns about Galina Ustvolskaya is that her composition teacher, Dmitri Shostakovich, asked to marry her in the early 1950s. She rejected him, saying once that ‘he killed my best feelings’. He remembered her warmly enough, however, to quote a trio of hers in his fifth string quartet, and again in the late Michaelangelo Suite. That was the closest Galina came to a fame she never sought. She taught music for thirty years at the Leningrad Conservatory, lived alone and let no-one into her apartment. Her works were of a religious character, unacceptable to the Soviet authorities.…

Nuée de Ritournelle (GRILL, Rimouski & C-IME, Belgium). Photo: Laurent Orseau

Fall 2025: Focus on Rimouski and Guelph

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 3 September 2025 Jazz, La Scena Online, Région, Scena Jazz

Now that summer is almost over, the loud festival sets digested, the family vacation ended, some of us (maybe still smelling of campfires and bug spray) might want a change of pace—maybe some thought-provoking music instead of the danceable kind found in big, crowded events. From Rimouski, Que., and Guelph, Ont., come some exciting events in the next few months. Fresh sounds from Bas-du Fleuve For two decades now, Rimouski has fostered a remarkable assemblage of forward-looking musicians, revolving around bass player/singer-songwriter/organizer Éric Normand. Not only have Normand and his associates developed a whole school of improvisers (most of them…

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