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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

Seán Dagher. Photo: Marc-Antoine Jean

Previews (April-May 2022)

By LSM Calendar on 11 April 2022 Chamber Music, Opera, Orchestral, This Week in Montreal

Galileo presents two concerts Galileo has been based in Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, southwest of Montreal, since its establishment in October 2010. Comprising 15 to 35 instrumentalists, this chamber orchestra bills itself as the only Canadian orchestra specializing in historically informed performance of symphonic repertoire from approximately 1730 to 1930. On April 19, at Saint-Michel Catholic Church in Vaudreuil-Dorion, the orchestra presents its first concert under the direction of Daniel Constantineau with a program resolutely turned towards modernity: Beethoven’s Great Fugue, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, Webern’s Fünf Sätze (Five Movements) and Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2. On June 3, at the Nativity Catholic Church…

Gustavo Gimeno, Peter Oundjian, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, host Marion Newman, Sir Andrew Davis and Günther Herbig. Photo: Jag Gundu

Review | Toronto Symphony Orchestra Five Maestros Celebration Memorable

By Denise Lai on 10 April 2022 Concert Reviews

In the 100 year history of the TSO, it has been served by 10 music directors. Last night, five of them, Sir Andrew Davis, Günter Herbig, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Peter Oundjian and Gustavo Gimeno, shared the stage in the Celebrate 100: Maestro’s Special Homecoming. Host Marion Newman remarked that the average age of the five conductors was 68.8 years. Each maestro selected pieces that have personal meaning or historical significance to the orchestra’s past. What you missed? Sir Andrew Davis, who has had a nearly 50-year relationship with the TSO as its Conductor Laureate, opened the night with a triumphant rendition…

FTA 2022: Recognizing Change

By Nathalie de Han on 9 April 2022 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Dance, Indigenous, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, Technology, Theatre

After two long years, the new co-artistic directors of the Festival TransAmériques (FTA), Martine Dennewald and Jessie Mill, announced a renewed international festival will be held in Montreal from May 25 to June 9. The two women, who have crossed paths at various festivals for several years, wanted to build on exchange and dialogue. Well-known to Montreal festivalgoers, Jessie Mill worked as artistic and dramaturgical advisor while Martin Faucher was head of the festival. Martine Dennewald, a born Luxembourger, directed the Festival Theaterformen in Brunswick, Lower Saxony (Germany) for six years. “We have to think about where we are today,…

Photo Courtesy of OM

Review | Orchestre Métropolitain’s “Symphonique Waves: Alma & La Mer” Misses the Mark

By EARL ARTHUR LOVE on 9 April 2022 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Vocal

For its April 8, 2022 program, the Orchestre Métropolitain (OM) invited guest conductor Kenosha Watanabe, a young protégé of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to lead a program that included a world premiere and quite possibly an additional premiere for Montrealers—songs composed by Alma Mahler in the Matthews orchestration. In the now seemingly obligatory opening remarks from the stage of any conductor of this orchestra, Watanabe talked briefly about Paola Prestini’s Barcarola, then paid tribute to conductor Boris Brott, one of Canada’s iconic musical forces, who was tragically struck and killed last week by a hit-and-run driver in Hamilton. What you missed? In…

Lebrecht Weekly | Rachmaninov: Sonata #1, Moments musicaux (Hyperion)

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 April 2022 Lebrecht Weekly

Why, people have been asking for about 120 years, is Rachmaninov so popular? The music is morbid to miserable, the melodies are unhummable and mere finger virtuosity does not explain the infallible and inexhaustible attraction. Rachmaninov remains a frontline bestseller. What does he have that Scriabin, say, lacks? We ask the questions (as they say in war films); don’t look for instant answers. But a new release by the introspective Scottish pianist Steven Osborne has set me thinking hard about the hidden irresistibility of the first piano sonata and the shameless populism of the Moments Musicaux. The sonata, dated…

Photo: Dominick Mastrangeo

Review: NACO on Tour–New York Dispatch, Boris Brott Remembered

By Natasha Gauthier on 6 April 2022 Concert Reviews, Ottawa

The National Arts Centre Orchestra’s Carnegie Hall concert on Tuesday night began under a dark cloud, as musicians learned of the horrific hit-and-run death of Orchestre Classique de Montréal and former Hamilton Symphony conductor Boris Brott an hour before going onstage. “I’m still processing it,” soloist James Ehnes said after the concert. “He was the first conductor I ever worked with, in 1987. From the time I was 11, he treated me with respect and gave me confidence that I had something to say that was worth hearing. It’s a tragic loss, both personally and professionally.” Canadian violinist Lara…

Photo : Annette Woloshen

Boris Brott (1944 – 2022)

By Wah Keung Chan on 5 April 2022 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Obituaries, Orchestral

La Scena Musicale is shocked and saddened to learn of Boris Brott’s senseless death by hit and run in Hamilton, Ontario on the morning of April 5, 2022. Boris has been featured in the pages of La Scena Musicale several times. As a tribute, below are some of the featured articles. Boris was also an LSM Ambassador every year, and we thank him for his support. Boris also wrote a tribute to his mother Lotte Brott, which we are publishing in three parts in La Scena Musicale: Part I: Lotte Brott – A Tribute (La Scena Musicale, Feb/Mar 2022) Part II: Lotte…

Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

[Concert review] Verdi’s Don Carlos at the Met: Canadians are stellar in a magnificent performance

By Paul E. Robinson on 4 April 2022 Concert Reviews, Opera

At long last many COVID restrictions have been removed almost entirely across Canada, yet opera lovers are apparently not quite ready to flock back to the Met Live in HD showings at their local theatres. At the theatre I attended—Cineplex VIP Don Mills in Toronto—for Verdi’s Don Carlos on Saturday, March 26, there were fewer than 20 people in attendance. But those who passed up the show missed a great day for Canadian singers. The entire cast led by American tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role was outstanding, but Canadians Etienne Dupuis as Rodrigue and John Relyea as the…

New Releases April 2022

By La Scena Musicale Team on 3 April 2022 Classical Music, Discovery CDs

Vienna 1840 : Romantic Viennese Music Pascal Valois, guitar Analekta AN 29197 Release: Jan. 22, 2022 For the recording of Vienna 1840, Pascal Valois has made it his mission to rediscover this expressive way of interpreting music as it was played in the German-speaking world of the Romantic period. Committed to this quest for authenticity, Valois uses a replica of a Viennese guitar made by the luthier Johann Georg Stauffer (1778-1853) in 1830 to highlight the works of Emilia Giuliani-Guglielmi, Franz Schubert, Giulio Regondi and Johann Kaspar Mertz. Préludes Julia MacLaine, cello Analekta AN 28914 Release: Jan. 28, 2022 With…

Lebrecht Weekly | Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Cello works (Evil Penguin), Piano sonatas 1-3 (Polskie Radio)

By Norman Lebrecht on 1 April 2022 Lebrecht Weekly

Evil Penguin: ***** Polskie Radio: **** When I first came across Weinberg 30 years ago, he was listed as Vainberg in western dictionary and the only music one could hear was on grainy Soviet Melodiya. These days, you’ll find him on major labels in the most impressive orchestral sound, if not always the most penetrative interpretation. When people ask me, ‘where do I start with Weinberg?’, I’ve had no easy answer – until now. Weinberg’s first three piano sonatas were written soon after his escape into Russia from German-occupied Warsaw. I find them altogether fascinating – a ragbag of reminscences of…

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