Baroque and Early - my/maSCENA

Photo: Robert Etcheverry

Les Idées heureuses at 30: Geneviève Soly & Graupner

By Hassan Laghcha on 9 November 2017 Baroque and Early, Classical Music

To mark the 30th anniversary of the ensemble Les Idées heureuses, which she founded in 1987, Geneviève Soly is tackling her favourite project once more: bringing the virtuoso harpsichordist and composer Christoph Graupner, one of the great contemporaries of J.S. Bach, out of obscurity. November 19 at Bourgie Hall, 30 years to the day that the ensemble performed their first concert, Les Idées heureuses will celebrate their anniversary with a benefit concert that pairs Johann Sebastian Bach and Christoph Graupner. These composers are the backbone of the ensemble’s repertoire and the particular favourites of its director, the harpsichordist and musicologist…

Photo Pierre Arsenault

Montreal Bach Festival 2017: An Emotional Connection to the Sublime

By Xenia Hanusiak on 9 November 2017 Baroque and Early, Choral, Classical Music, Vocal

The Montreal Bach Festival opens on November 17 at the Maison Symphonique with a performance of Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor by Collegium 1704, an acclaimed early-music group based in Prague. The Mass summons a month of performances devoted to Bach and his catalogue, his contemporaries, and his influence on the composers of our time. Collegium 1704’s Montreal appearance — the Canadian debut of this élite fifty-member choir and instrumental ensemble — is intended in part as a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. This Canadian performance, which has been years in the making,…

Collegium 1704: A Small Ensemble to Sing Great Choral Works

By Xenia Hanusiak on 9 November 2017 Baroque and Early

When the Prague-based orchestra and vocal ensemble Collegium 1704 opens the Bach Festival of Montreal with Bach’s Mass in B Minor on November 17, its founder and artistic director Václav Luks believes that audiences should expect something different. Luks says that “listeners are accustomed to hearing performances of the B Minor Mass which are reflections of the choral practice of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bach wanted neither a choir of a hundred voices nor one singer per part. Instead, his ideal was 2–4 singers per part.” The vocal ensemble of Collegium 1704 counts only 19 members. Bach’s Mass in…

Against the Grain Theatre #GoForBaroque in 2017/2018 season

By Newswire on 27 September 2017 Baroque and Early, Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

A Handel mash-up and an international co-production comprise AtG’s most expansive season to date TORONTO – Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) returns in its eighth season with BOUND, a pastiche workshop of new interpretations of Handel’s music, and a groundbreaking new production of Berlioz’s arrangement of Glück’s Orphée. AtG’s acclaimed #OperaPub nights return as a monthly fixture at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club, and the company collaborates with Canadian baroque-pop artist Kyrie Kristmanson at the Alliance Française in Toronto. In addition, AtG enters its second season as company-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company (COC). This December, Artistic Director Joel Ivany and Music Director…

Tafelmusik to Release Complete Beethoven Symphonies  on September 22, 2017

By Newswire on 8 September 2017 Arts Industry, Baroque and Early, Classical, Newswire, Orchestral

“Weil and his [Tafelmusik] players convince us that Beethoven can sound as radical in the 21st century as he must have done in the 19th” — Gramophone Magazine Toronto, September 7, 2017 – Tafelmusik is thrilled to present its recordings of the complete Beethoven symphonies, six CDs packaged in a striking box set. Recorded under the direction of guest conductor Bruno Weil over a twelve-year period, Tafelmusik’s cycle marks the first time a North American orchestra has recorded all nine Beethoven symphonies on period instruments. Tafelmusik’s complete Beethoven symphonies will be released on CD on the Tafelmusik Media label starting September…

Alma Oppressa: Arias by Vivaldi and Handel

By Paul E. Robinson on 1 September 2017 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Opera

Julie Boulianne, mezzo-soprano; Clavecin en Concert; Luc Beauséjour Analekta AN2 8780, 59 min. Canadian singer Julie Boulianne has quickly become an international star. She performs regularly at the Met, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and throughout Europe. She has an extraordinarily wide repertoire from Bach to Adès. In her latest recording she shows us what she can do in Vivaldi and Handel. For this CD she is joined by long-time collaborators, harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour and his small period instrument group, Ensemble Clavecin en Concert. Much of the music is pretty obscure but it is performed with enthusiasm and…

La Rentrée Baroque and Early Music

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 1 September 2017 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral

The first half of the 2017-18 season offers an ample selection for Early and Baroque Music lovers. Here are our must-see concerts. Arte Musica The distinguished ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, in collaboration with the Club musical de Québec, will present Mantova, the second chapter of a trilogy devoted to the madrigals of Monteverdi. Conducted by Paul Agnew, the group will perform excerpts from Books IV, V, and VI, which embody the composer’s mature period. The ensemble will take the stage at Palais Montcalm on October 3, and at Bourgie Hall on October 4. www.mbam.qc.ca Under its new musical director, Jonathan…

Roth Costanzo, Photo: Jill Steinberg

Aci, Galatea e Polifemo – Handel’s Italian Masterpiece at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust

By Charles Geyer on 29 July 2017 Baroque and Early, Concert Reviews, Opera

REVIEW: George Frideric Handel’s 1708 cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, starring Ambur Braid, Anthony Roth Costanzo and Davóne Tines, directed by Christopher Alden. His operas, oratorios and triumphalist orchestral works are British national treasures. George Frideric Handel, the man behind Messiah and the Water Music and a certain anthem (“Zadok the Priest”) used to crown every British monarch since 1727, may well be counted – along with a dynasty of royals and, of course, Victoria’s cherished prince consort – as among the happiest of the sceptered isle’s German imports. So who knew that this reliable golden-boy…

Lebrecht Weekly – Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli: Sonate da Camera, 1-6 (Delphian)

By Norman Lebrecht on 20 June 2017 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly, Violin

Never heard of Carbonelli? Don’t feel too bad about it. The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot writes that he ‘has remained unknown, even to specialists’. Listen to the music, though, and you will wonder how work of such quality and intricacy could vanish so comprehensively into the mists of history. Carbonelli was a star violinist in London during Handel’s time. Born in Livorno in 1694 and possibly half-French, he becomes concertmaster at Drury Lane Theatre at the age of 25 and a much sought-after soloist. The Duke of Rutland paid for the publication of 12 sonatas and Carbonelli seemed well set…

Lebrecht Weekly – Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli: Sonate da Camera, 1-6 (Delphian)

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 June 2017 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

Never heard of Carbonelli? Don’t feel too bad about it. The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot writes that he “has remained unknown, even to specialists.” Listen to the music, though, and you will wonder how work of such quality and intricacy could vanish so comprehensively into the mists of history. Carbonelli was a star violinist in London during Handel’s time. Born in Livorno in 1694 and possibly half-French, he becomes concertmaster at Drury Lane Theatre at the age of 25 and a much sought-after soloist. The Duke of Rutland paid for the publication of 12 sonatas and Carbonelli seemed well set…

Browsing: Baroque and Early

Les Idées heureuses at 30: Geneviève Soly & Graupner

Montreal Bach Festival 2017: An Emotional Connection to the Sublime

Collegium 1704: A Small Ensemble to Sing Great Choral Works

Against the Grain Theatre #GoForBaroque in 2017/2018 season

Tafelmusik to Release Complete Beethoven Symphonies  on September 22, 2017

Alma Oppressa: Arias by Vivaldi and Handel

La Rentrée Baroque and Early Music

Aci, Galatea e Polifemo – Handel’s Italian Masterpiece at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust

Lebrecht Weekly – Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli: Sonate da Camera, 1-6 (Delphian)

Lebrecht Weekly – Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli: Sonate da Camera, 1-6 (Delphian)

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