Baroque and Early - my/maSCENA

This Day in Music – Pleyel

By Michele Duguay on 18 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical, This Day in Music, Video of the day

Austrian-born composer Ignaz Joseph Pleyel was born on June 18 1757. Living in Strasbourg during the Reign of Terror, he avoided the consequences that could have been brought on by his “foreign status” by composing highly patriotic French music. Upon moving to Paris in 1795, he founded a music publishing business and eventually started manufacturing pianos. His son Camille eventually took the reins of Pleyel and Cie, who provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin. Watch a performance of a Chopin waltz on a restored 1848 Pleyel grand piano.

Lebrecht Weekly – Cameron Carpenter: All you need is Bach (Sony)

By Norman Lebrecht on 10 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly

Before we go any further, let me declare once and for all that I am done with three stars. Everywhere else, critics award three stars as a kind of neutral, no-harm-done mark for something they neither love nor hate. Myself, I’ve stopped reviewing that sort of thing. If it doesn’t make you want to laugh or cry (for better or worse), why steal a nanosecond of your readers’ attention by discussing it? So no more three stars on this site. They’d be wasted, anyway, on Cameron Carpenter. The flamboyant American organist, more used to playing in a singlet than a…

Vincent Lauzer, directeur artistique du Festival International Baroque de Lamèque. Photo Emily Ding

Maritime Summer Festival Picks 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 June 2016 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Opera

Lamèque Baroque Festival Lamèque NB, July 28-30 For its 41st season, Festival Director Vincent Lauzer has organized three remarkable concerts, all to be performed in the breathtaking Sainte-Cécile Church on Petite-Rivière-de-l’Île. On July 28, Lauzer is joined by Alexa Raine-Wright (traverso and recorder), Daniel Lanthier (oboe), François Viault (bassoon), Amanda Keesmaat (cello), and Mélisande McNabney (harpsichord) for an all-winds concert inspired by the winds of the Acadian Peninsula. The second concert celebrates the French music of Leclair, Rameau, and Montéclair and features the winner to the 2015 Mathieu Duguay Early Music Competition, Quebecois soprano Odéi Bilodeau. Bach’s momentous Mass in…

Lebrecht Weekly – Anonymous: Six concertos (CPO)

By Norman Lebrecht on 27 May 2016 Baroque and Early, Lebrecht Weekly

The best fun I’ve had all week is trying to identify the composers of six 18th century concertos that have turned up in the vaults of the Saxon State University library in Dresden. Five of the concertos are for flute, which suggest a possible Frederick the Great connection, the sixth is for cembalo. All are entertaining, accomplished, professional – top-drawer music for a courtly dinner party. But who wrote them? The obvious suspects are the Dresden concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) and the singer and composer Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759). Both turned out music of high quality and near-memorability but,…

Anne Sofie von Otter, photo Ewa-Marie Rundquist

This Week in Montreal (May 16–22)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 16 May 2016 Baroque and Early, Contemporary, Orchestral, Quebec Music, This Week in Montreal

Final concerts in the SMCQ’s John Rea series Directed by Denis Marleau, Walter Boudreau and Plasirs du clavecin perform Le petit livre des Ravalet, an atypical opera composed by Rea. Period instruments, audio, singers, and actors take the stage. Usine C, May 16, 7 pm. www.smcq.qc.ca The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and countertenor Andreas Scholl join San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to celebrate 30 years at the podium for Nicholas McGegan, the orchestra’s conductor and artistic director. On the program: opera arias and duos and Handel oratorios, as well as a work written by Arvo Pärt…

Arion orchestre baroque

This Week in Montreal (May 9–15)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 9 May 2016 Baroque and Early, Orchestral, This Week in Montreal

End of Season at the Chapelle Historique The Chapelle will close its spring season with pianists Kyoko Hashimoto and Ilya Poletaev playing works by Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, and Rachmaninov. May 15, 3 pm. www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/chapellebonpasteur An Awaited Return and a New Face at Arion To mark his return, violinist and guest conductor Stefano Montanari will draw from the singular repertoire of the sinfonia concertante. Concerti alla Montanari comprises works by Sammartini, Boccherini, and Cambini. Soloist: Kate Bennett Wadsworth, cello. Bourgie Hall, April 8 to 10. The first concert in Montreal by the British harpsichordist and conductor Steven Devine will be the…

Audience members circulate among the singers. Photo R. K. Basdeo

Polyphonic Extravagance Wows Audiences at the Gesù

By Rebecca Anne Clark on 19 April 2016 Baroque and Early, Choral, Concert Reviews, Contemporary

Musica Orbium, under the direction of Patrick Wedd, treated audiences to some stunning vocal performances at two performances of their concert “Extravagance Polyphonique” at the Église du Gesù last Sunday, April 17. The program, based around the illustrious motets Spem in alium by Tallis and Ecce beatam lucem by Striggio, also contained lesser-known gems, including works that predate the aforementioned motets such as Johannes Ockeghem’s Deo gratia à 36 and Josquin des Prez’s Qui habitat in adiutorio altissimi for 24 voices, as well as contemporary works including Patrick Wedd’s Nines₂, composed for Musica Orbium’s tenth anniversary, and Gregg Smith’s Sound…

Amadeus Duo

Spring Festivals 2016

By Rebecca Anne Clark on 1 April 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Contemporary, Dance, Multimedia

Montreal Guitar Montréal April 29 – May 1, www.guitaremontreal.com On Friday night at 8 pm, catch the internationally acclaimed Amadeus Duo in concert at Concordia’s DB Clarke Theatre, along with The Montreal Guitar Society and last year’s competition winner, Steve Cowan. Saturday at 8 pm, The Marguerite de Lajemmerais Orchestra performs along with last year’s youth competition winners. Sunday afternoon wraps up the festival with the 2016 Guitar Competition finals. Guitar aficionados can browse the luthiers and vendors at Concordia on Saturday and Sunday, and won’t want to miss a lecture by Dr. Éric Legault on “Guitarist postures and pain”…

This Week in Montreal (March 28–April 3)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 28 March 2016 Baroque and Early, Theatre, This Week in Montreal, Violin

Emerging Musicians with Pro Musica Young violinist Kerson Leong has taken the music world by storm. He won first junior prize at Oslo’s Menhuin Competition and the Tremplin in Quebec. He was named Radio-Canada Révélation winner in 2014-2015. He will play works by Ravel, Poulenc, Debussy, Fauré, Gershwin, and Dompierre. March 30, 3:30 pm. www.promusica.qc.ca/en Camerata Relives the First Viennese School When Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven experimented with the Viennese Classical Style, keyboard instruments changed forever. With Pure Classics, horn players John Zirbel and Catherine Turner will join Musica Camerata Montréal to perform a Haydn Divertimento, Mozart’s arrangement of his…

Airat Ichmouratov

This Week in Montreal (March 21–27)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 21 March 2016 Baroque and Early, Choral, Orchestral, This Week in Montreal

McGill Chamber Orchestra Montreal-based clarinettist and composer Airat Ichmouratov and the Kleztory Ensemble present Chamber Symphony No. 3, Op. 25 by the namesake composer, Clarinet Quintet in A major by Mozart, and miscellaneous klezmer repertoire. March 22, 7:30 pm. www.ocm-mco.org Caractère hébraïque et Monuments Slaves à l’OM In March, OM will taste the Slavic language and perform the powerful Glagolithic Mass by Janáček, a choral masterpiece. Christian Arming, conductor, with the great Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund, mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne, tenor David Pomeroy, bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams, and the Chœur Métropolitain, celebrating 30 years this season. Symphony No. 8 by Dvořák will end the concert.…

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