CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

Summer Reading Suggestion | House Concert (Polity Books, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 30 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Piano

House Concert by Igor Levit and Florian Zinnecker Polity Books, 2023 ISBN 978-1509553556 With his debut at Carnegie Hall postponed indefinitely by COVID, virtuoso Russian-German pianist Igor Levit didn’t have anywhere to perform. So he made his own stage at home, in Berlin. In House Concert, journalist and Die Zeit deputy desk manager Florian Zinnecker explores the transformation of Levit’s career during the pandemic. His livestreams—a series of house concerts broadcast from his living room on Twitter—kept the musician sane, but they also encouraged him to break out of classical performance traditions and carve his own musical journey. Combined with…

Summer Reading Suggestion | Every Good Boy Does Fine (Random House, 2022)

By Paul E. Robinson on 30 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Piano

Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk Random House, 2022 ISBN 978-0812995985 Last year, in Calgary, I heard a remarkable recital by American pianist Jeremy Denk. A wonderfully gifted pianist equipped with a fabulous technique, a refreshing approach to programming and an insatiable curiosity, Denk likes to address the audience at his concerts and always has something interesting to say. As readers of his blog Think Denk or his occasional New Yorker articles know by now, he is a brilliant writer, too. His first book—Every Good Boy Does Fine—is subtitled A Love Story, in Music Lessons. Basically, it’s a…

Summer Reading Suggestion | Opera: The Definitive Illustrated Story (DK Publishing, 2022)

By Zenith Wolfe on 30 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews

Opera: The Definitive Illustrated Story by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding DK Publishing, 2022 ISBN 978-0744056310 No single book could ever encapsulate opera’s entire history in a short 350 pages, authors Alan Riding and Leslie Dunton-Downer explain in the introduction to Opera: The Definitive Illustrated Story, so they have instead chosen to highlight 180 of the most famous compositions by musicians from the 17th century to the present. Each opera includes a legend describing the principal roles that helps readers navigate operas with complex stories or many characters, as well as fun facts that keep the book entertaining. The chronological…

Duo Oriana: How Like a Golden Dream

By Andrea Rush on 29 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews

The new release by Leaf Music, Duo Oriana’s How Like a Golden Dream, features the combination of lute and voice: Jonathan Stuchbery, a lutenist trained on classical guitar, and Sinéad White, a vocalist trained as an operatic soprano. Both studied early music and received music degrees from McGill University, and White is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Toronto. Stuchbery and White began working as a duo during the pandemic on Zoom and have continued to collaborate since 2021, as the clouds over live music performance lifted. They set out to portray, in music,…

CD Review | Montréal Musica (Centrediscs, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 29 May 2023 Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Piano, Scena Jazz

Montréal Musica Marc Bourdeau, piano Centrediscs, 2023 Marc Bourdeau’s new project features piano music by Montreal composers. The innovative project, conceived during the pandemic, includes a CD containing 22 tracks and eight short films and music videos. Among the composers, there are names of yesterday and today who’ve made Montreal famous in the music world: piano star Marc-André Hamelin; “Canadian Mozart” André Mathieu; jazz monument Oscar Peterson, composers and pedagogues François Morel, Claude Champagne, Jacques Hétu, John Rea and Denis Gougeon; and organist Rachel Laurin. The CD, whose repertoire spans a century (1918-2017), offers the image of a city with…

CD Review | Around Baermann (Leaf music, 2023)

By Justin Bernard on 29 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Romantic, Winds

Around Baermann Maryse Legault, clarinet; Gili Loftus, fortepiano Leaf music, 2023 Upcoming clarinetist Maryse Legault is specialized in period instruments. She released her first album, Around Baermann, on the Leaf Music label. The album is “a love letter to the tumultuous music of the early nineteenth century,” she wrote on her website. According to Legault, the album is the culmination of years of research and a testimony of her unshakeable desire to perform recitals that feature period instruments. Pianist Gili Loftus, Legault’s friend and collaborator for over 10 years, has joined her on this recording, playing the fortepiano. The album…

CD Review | Vagues et ombres (Alpha Classics, 2023)

By Justin Bernard on 29 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Classical Music

Vagues et ombres Collectif9 : Chloé Chabanole, John Corban, Robert Margaryan, TJ Skinner, violins; Scott Chancey, Xavier Lepage-Brault, violas; Jérémie Cloutier, Andrea Stewart, cellos; Thibault Bertin-Maghit, double bass Alpha Classics, 2023 Vagues et ombres is the third Collectif9 album. Following No Time for Chamber Music in 2021, Vagues et ombres is the second album released by Alpha Classics. It features a work specifically written for Collectif9 by Canadian American composer Luna Pearl Woolf, and many Debussy works arranged for nine string instruments by Thibault Bertin-Maghit, including La mer. The recording adventure began with this work originally written for full orchestra, said…

CD Review | Vejpoesi (Self-produced, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 May 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Scena Jazz

Vejpoesi Stephen Fearing, vocals and acoustic guitar; MC Hansen, vocals and electric guitar; Nikolaj Wolf, electric and upright bass; Jacob Chano, vocal, drums, and percussion Self-produced, 2023 Rather than toiling away at nothing when COVID pushed concerts online, roots guitarist and singer-songwriter Stephen Fearing kept himself busy creating his 11th album, the unique and intimate Vejpoesi. The first detail to stand out is the intentionally inconsistent audio quality between songs. The first five songs were recorded in 2018 at a concert hall in Hamilton, Ont., with a more controlled, isolated studio quality that results in strong reverb and clear lyrical…

CD Review | Nuages (KNS Classical, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 29 May 2023 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Piano

Nuages Duo Cavatine: Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello; Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, piano KNS Classical, 2023 Like a rolling cloud, the 2019 recording for Nuages drifted for years along the ever-changing winds of the pandemic. Now, its thunderous sound is here to shock listeners. The album’s 2023 release makes it Duo Cavatine’s second published album, after 2022’s CellOpéra. But the choice of compositions still reflects its earlier recording date—it feels like the musicians are establishing themselves as a duo for the first time. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, Fp. 143 features a call-and-response motif and a tense, fragmented tune that both urges…

CD Review | Bruce Liu/Bach: French Suite No. 5 (Deutsche Grammophon, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 29 May 2023 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Piano

Bruce Liu/Bach: French Suite No. 5, BWV 816 Bruce Liu, piano Deutsche Grammophon, 2023 The new album by Bruce Liu, winner of the last Chopin Competition in Warsaw and former student of the Université de Montréal, revolves around Bach. Specifically, French Suite No. 5 in G major. In general, the interpretation is balanced and expressive; the listener will appreciate Liu’s best quality: his sound, always rich and warm. Nevertheless, what is sometimes missing is greater sharpness, both in touch and in the choice of tempi. The Allemande, which opens the Suite, showcases Liu’s cantabile, touching and intimate, as well as…

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