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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

Bösendorfer Imperial 290 Klavier

This Day in Music – 1828: Ignaz Bösendorfer Granted Piano-making License

By Weiyu Dang on 25 July 2016 Piano, This Day in Music

This day in music in 1828, Ignaz Bösendorfer was granted a piano-making license. Son of a carpenter, Ignaz Bösendorfer was an Austrian piano maker in the nineteenth century who founded the iconic Bösendorfer Company. Founded in the historically rich center of Vienna, Bösendorfer has an incomparable place in classical music and piano lore. The ornate and sophisticated aesthetic build combined with its innovative mechanical action make a piano that is still a status symbol. Of Bösendorfer’s advocates and ambassadors, Franz Liszt and his rapturous displays of virtuosity stands at the fore. Before finding Bösendorfer, a young Liszt broke all of the pianos…

London Bridge (http://www.hdwallpapers.in/)

The Heckeler: A Good Time to be a Cynic

By Andrew Burn on 24 July 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, La Scena Spotlight

Editor’s Note: La Scena Musicale is pleased to announce our new contributor Andrew Burn. Andrew is a Switzerland-based Historical Bassoonist and Early Music specialist, and he delves into these topics on his blog, The Heckeler. When I am given the opportunity to speak in front of a group of musicians, I usually conduct an exercise or two. One of my most though-provoking involves asking all the participants to write down two rational reasons (or as close to as possible) why they should have a performing career. The only things which they are no allowed to write down are “I can’t imagine doing…

Susanna Eastburn

Daily News Roundup: 22 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 22 July 2016 Contemporary, Daily News Roundup, Musical Theatre, Opera, Piano

Today’s Daily News Roundup responds to the questions “Where have the great composers gone?” Plus presidential operas, Norman Lebrecht’s latest, and more. + Soap opera or operatic tragedy? Schmopera’s Jenna Douglas evaluates the hypothetical operas of the 2016 American Presidential election. + Susanna Eastburn, a chief executive of Sound and Music and a champion of new music, responds to Philip Clark’s editorial “Where have the great composers gone?” “It’s necessary to acknowledge that the world is different from even 10 years ago, let alone the 20th century. We underestimate the disruptive societal impact of digital technology. Most obviously, access to…

Alan Menken

This Day in Music – 1949: Alan Menken is Born

By Weiyu Dang on 22 July 2016 Musical Theatre, This Day in Music

Behind various iconic Disney movies, Alan Menken was born in New York City to a pianist father and an actress-dancer mother, foreshadowing the musical theatre path of Menken’s own career. With precocious composing abilities to immersion in American pop masters as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and the arrival of rock in his teens, Menken grew up in line with major trends of twentieth century music. After graduating from New York University—Steinhardt with a musicology degree, Menken would first find fame with acclaimed playwright Howard Ashman by adapting Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater…

Video of the Day – Duet for French Horn and Chair

By Weiyu Dang on 22 July 2016 Video of the day, Winds

Two men make music with a French Horn and a chair, proving that the expensive multi-thousand-dollar piece of bent metal is potentially no more melodious or emotive as the average adjustable chair. In the video, the French horn plays a rich and bombastic bass line while the adjustable chair, aided by the exemplary wrist technique of its player, delights with graceful responses in a higher register. Of course, the tone quality could be improved, yet as it is an amateur recording, this does not seem to be a valid comment. Of the rhythm, the two instrumentalists attempt to adhere to…

Lebrecht Weekly – F. X. Mozart/Clementi: Piano Concertos (Hyperion)

By Norman Lebrecht on 22 July 2016 Classical, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano

Mozart had a little boy, born four months before he died. Salieri recommended that the kid, Franx Xaver, should stick with the family trade and become a travelling pianist and composer. Trading on the Mozart name, F. X. made a living in places like Lemberg (Lviv), Salzburg and Karlsbad (Karlo Vivary). He died of stomach cancer in 1844, at the age of 53, never having married or settled down, living in awe of the father he never knew. The music he wrote is so little known that the sight of his name on a record sleeve makes you want to…

Eric Dolphy

Video of the Day – Eric Dolphy

By Weiyu Dang on 21 July 2016 Mainstream Jazz, Scena Jazz, Video of the day

A contentious figure of the jazz world, Eric Dolphy, no matter what your affiliation, blows some rather hot solos on a variety of standards on a variety of instruments. Dolphy’s explorative and innovative use of perhaps gimmicky techniques and extreme dissonance may provoke dissent, but undeniably extend the powers of the horns he plays whether a bass clarinet or a saxophone or a flute. In this video, Dolphy plays a legendary solo on the Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn tune, ‘Take the A Train.’ Explorations of the full range of the bass clarinet, reproductions of unexpected sounds and blistering hard…

Daily News Roundup: 21 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 21 July 2016 Canadian Music, Daily News Roundup, Mainstream Jazz, Musical Theatre, Musique populaire, Scena Jazz, Violin

Today’s Daily News Roundup is heading to Broadway. Plus Aretha Franklin and Polaris Music Prize news. + Aretha Franklin will headline a New City Winery Festival in Queens in September. + Video of the Day – Eric Dolphy. + The big Franco snub: Polaris Music Prize voters aren’t showing much love for francophone albums. + This Day in Music – 1920: Isaac Stern was born. + Come from Away, the Canadian musical focusing on the 38 planes and their occupants who were redirected to Gander, Nfld., on Sept. 11, 2001, will be performed at a Shubert theatre on Broadway in February.

Isaac Stern

This Day in Music – 1920: Isaac Stern was born

By Weiyu Dang on 21 July 2016 This Day in Music, Violin

Born in what is now Ukraine, violinist Isaac Stern would immigrate to America at the age of one and go on to become one of the greatest instrumentalists of the twentieth century. His dedication to the arts showed through his dedication of Carnegie Hall as its president and his wide repertoire of recordings. Known for his powerful tone and directness of emotion, Stern proved that virtuosity is not the only way to musicality. As a pedagogue and advocate, Stern fought ardently for arts funding and notably discovered Yo-Yo Ma. Isaac Stern – Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor Op. 64

Valery Gergiev

Daily News Roundup: 20 July 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 20 July 2016 Contemporary, Daily News Roundup, Musique populaire, Opera, Orchestral, Scena Jazz

Today’s Daily News Roundup is wondering where the great British composers went. Plus a new appointment to the NAC, reviews, and more. + Veteran arts manager Heather Gibson has been named the head of the Canadian music series NAC Presents. + Philip Clark asks in The Guardian, “Where have the great [British] composers gone?” “There’s nothing unassuming about the BBC Proms, which launched its 2016 season last week, but the playbill of modern composition on offer again raises questions about where all those composers with real cultural weight, and a corresponding degree of mainstream visibility, might have gone. With all due…

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