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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 | Maurice Ravel: Complete solo piano music (Chandos), Complete songs (Signum)

By Norman Lebrecht on 21 March 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

Both double-album titles left me feeling uncomfortable. Ravel is a miniaturist, a maker of exquisite small things that drop into your consciousness like olive oil into a bowl of rice. Each drop is an object entire. Pour them freely and the uniqueness dissolves. It speaks volumes for both of these projects that they manage to avoid that danger, most of the time anyway. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet takes a chronological route, starting with a Serenade grotesque written in 1892 when Ravel was 17 and concluding with that monstrously grotesque caricature of morbid Vienna known as La Valse (and more often heard in…

Gustavo Gimeno conducts the TSO. Photo: Jae Yang/Courtesy of the TSO

Review | TSO Offers a Sunny Mahler 4th and Vocal Drama from Anna Prohaska

By John Gilks on 21 March 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto, Vocal

It seems like there is always a surprise at Roy Thomson Hall these days. On March 20, the concert was preceded by the investiture of Music Director Gustavo Gimeno as a Commander of the Order of Civil Merit of Spain by the ambassador of that nation who used the occasion to make a speech including a very obvious reference to Canada as an independent country. It was followed by the playing of the national anthems of both countries in case anyone missed the point. And so to the published program … Rufus Wainwright’s A Woman’s Face (Sonnet 20) starts with…

Fauré Quartett. Photo: Tim Kloecker

Review | Chamber Music with the Fauré Quartett

By Amanda Wong on 20 March 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Piano, Strings

Despite the lack of works by Gabriel Fauré on the program, the Fauré Quartett (aptly named for the French composer) impressed with their remarkable playing in a well-balanced recital for the Montreal Ladies’ Morning Musical Club on March 16. This German quartet has been performing together for 30 years with the same founding members from 1995. The group consists of typical piano quartet instruments: piano (Dirk Mommertz), violin (Erika Geldsetzer), viola (Sascha Frömbling), and cello (Konstantin Heidrich). What you missed The Fauré Quartett’s repertoire has developed a “visionary, experimental” style as per the program notes, with the group playing many…

VSO and Otto Tausk at Roy Thomson Hall. Photos: Jae Yang

Review | The Twain Shall Meet: Vancouver Symphony Delights in its Return to Toronto

By Michelle Assay on 18 March 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto

Years ago, after a Paris performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth symphony, I heard the composer’s widow, comparing the work to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “Because it’s always fresh?” I asked enthusiastically, trying to impress the great lady. “No, because it’s performed all the time,” came the dry response. There’s definitely something in that off-the-cuff remark, but I like to think there’s also some truth in mine. I confess to being on my guard when attending a live performance of this emotional roller-coaster, fearing either staleness or mannerism. But it turns out that with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, I needn’t have worried. This…

Byron Stripling with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Madeline Boldt

Review | Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Rhythms of Harlem

By Madeline Boldt on 17 March 2025 Concert Reviews, Dance, Jazz, Orchestral, Vancouver, Vocal Jazz, West

With Uptown Nights (seen March 8), the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to the world of jazz as it was founded on the talents of Harlem era musicians. The rise of jazz coincided with the emergence of incredible musicians like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. As it became increasingly popular throughout the Roaring Twenties, jazz served as an outlet for expression and freedom, with its unpredictability and syncopation resonating with audiences for generations to come. Beyond all else, jazz is a living, breathing thing, and trumpeter Byron Stripling embodies this. Stripling has a presence like no other, with…

Lebrecht Weekly | Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Under Bernard Haitink

By Norman Lebrecht on 14 March 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his last symphony with left hand alone. A heart attack in 1966, followed by several falls and fractures, left him heavily disabled. His solution was to train one hand to do the work of two and economising on physical effort. This may explain the expanses of blank staves in some pages of his fifteenth symphony, as if he lacked strength to fill in instrumental detail. Maxim Shostakovich, who conducted the 1972 premiere, called the work his father’s ‘birth-to-death autobiography’. That, too, is only a partial view. The symphony opens with a holiday funfair and a blast of…

Alberta Ballet’s Francesco Ventriglia: “Alexey Shor’s Music is Perfect For A Thousand Tales Ballet”

By A Thousand Tales Press Office on 14 March 2025 Classical Music, Dance, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral, West

Sponsored Article by A Thousand Tales Press Office Transporting audiences to a fantastical world filled with fairytale magic, A Thousand Tales ballet will make its much-awaited return for a third edition in the GCC region at the architectural marvel that is Dubai Opera on April 4 and 5, 2025. The enchanting ballet, beautifully written and directed by famous Italian choreographer Francesco Ventriglia to music by Alexey Shor, is all set to take viewers on a nostalgic journey through their childhood favourites. The production features an outstanding cast, with each world-class artist carefully selected from Alberta Ballet, one of Canada’s premier…

(L to R): Roberta Mameli; Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu.

Review | Roberta Mameli Breathes New Life Into Hamlet’s Ghosts

By Heather Weinreb on 11 March 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Opera, Orchestral, Vocal

On March 8 and 9, French Baroque orchestra Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu and Italian soprano Roberta Mameli were invited by Arion Baroque Orchestra to present Ghosts of Hamlet at Montreal’s Bourgie Hall. In the 18th century, Italian composers Domenico Scarlatti, Francesco Gasparini (whose opera includes various arias by Handel), and Giuseppe Carcani each composed an operatic version of Ambleto (Hamlet). Their versions were not based on Shakespeare’s play, but on a libretto by Apostolo Zeno. Both Shakespeare’s play and Zeno’s libretto were based on the legend of Amleth found in the Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes). This concert…

Lebrecht Weekly | Zlatomir Fung’s Fantasies & Stephen Sondheim’s Chamber music

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 March 2025 CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Strings

I love artists who attempt the impossible. Within reason, that is. I’d draw the line at someone playing the 32 Beethoven sonatas one-handed, or the 15 Shostakovich quartets without a bathroom break. But any artist who takes a piece of music beyond the limits of what I’d heard in it before gets my vote. The American cellist Zlatomir Fung has composed a fantasy on Janacek’s opera Jenufa, a feat that defies credibility. The tunes and rhythms of Jenufa are rooted in Czech speech patterns. Erase the voice, and what’s left? An X-ray. Fung and his pianist Richard Fu present fifteen…

Soloist Paul Merkelo, conductor Adam Johnson, and the OCM. Photo: Tam Lan Truong

Review | OCM Unable to Swing for Stellar Jazz Soloists

By Heather Weinreb on 28 February 2025 Concert Reviews, Jazz, Montreal, Orchestral, Piano

On Feb. 25, Orchestre Classique de Montréal (OCM) presented Jazz & Jeans in Montreal’s Pierre Mercure Hall. A program of great symphonic jazz repertoire—from Gershwin to Ellington to arrangements by Miles Davis—was played by an orchestra of jeaned musicians. Jeans are worn on casual days at work. For many, especially classically trained musicians, jazz is thought to be a more casual, laid-back style of music. Yet jazz has its own set of rules. Chord changes, swinging eighth notes, improvisation … the aspects that distinguish jazz from classical music demand serious study. Though they may have worn jeans, soloists Paul Merkelo…

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