CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

Review | CellOpéra! (October 2022)

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By Justin Bernard on 6 October 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Opera, Piano

CellOpéra! Duo Cavatine : Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello; Michel-Alexandre Broekaert, piano. Label: unknown (October 2022) Duo Cavatine’s name could never have been better suited than for this recording. Cellist Noémie Raymond-Friset and pianist Michel-Alexandre Broekaert have issued a sparkling collection of operatic arias all rearranged for this album. Given the cello’s range and timbral overlap with the human voice, it only seems natural to entrust it with the vocal parts. Such effects as vibrato and glissando translate well to stringed instruments like the cello. Whereas everything is dependent on interpretation, lyricism and repertoire choices, some pieces in this collection are bound…

Review | The Cello according to Dall’Abaco (Passacaille, 2022)

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By Justin Bernard on 28 September 2022 CD and Book Reviews

The Cello according to Dall’Abaco Elinor Frey and Catherine Jones, cellos; Michele Pasotti, theorbo; Federica Bianchi, harpsichord Passacaille (Sept. 2022) On the heels of her debut recording devoted to the cellist and composer Joseph Marie Clément Dall’Abaco (1710-1805), Elinor Frey is back with three more sonatas of that composer and three more works written for two cellos. Having compiled a multiple-volume edition of 35 annotated Dall’Abaco sonatas published by Edition Wahlhall, Frey has penned insightful notes to this album that give added bearing on the life and music of this much overlooked figure. Particularly moving is the Sonata in e…

Minna Re Shin

Review | Sonate Tableaux (co-produced with ombú productions, 2022)

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By Justin Bernard on 2 September 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Contemporary

Sonate Tableaux Minna Re Shin, piano Co-produced with ombú productions (June 2022) On June 15 this year, pianist Minna Re Shin launched her album at a recital held at the Gora art gallery in downtown Montreal. The album centrepiece, entitled Sonate Tableaux, consists of two excerpts from a larger work of the same name, written in 1988 by composer Alain Payette. The pianist tackled the first movement before giving way to a video clip based on the four and last movement, directed by Carlos Ferrand. Since the June launch, Sonate Tableaux : Mouvement 1, the first of four to be…

Review | Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 (Deutsche Grammophon, 2022)

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By Paul E. Robinson on 2 September 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music

Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 Siobhan Stagg, soprano; Ekaterina Gubanova, alto; Werner Güra, tenor; Florian Boesch, bass. Accentus Chamber Choir. Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Deutsche Grammophon, July 2022 In addition to his major posts in Montreal, New York and Philadelphia, Yannick Nézet-Séguin has had a long-term relationship with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE). They meet for several weeks every summer for concerts and recordings. To date they have recorded many of the Mozart operas and the complete symphonies of Mendelssohn and Schumann. This summer they concentrated on Brahms and a complete symphony set will be issued next year by Deutsche…

Review | Stradivarius, je me souviens − Alexandre Da Costa and the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil

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By Pierre Chénier on 15 August 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music

This recently published Musicor album is pulled from the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil’s “Les Balcons symphoniques” tour, during which they played well-known music outside medical centers at the height of the pandemic to deliver moments of peace and emotional release to residents and personnel; a form of “spiritual medicine and vaccination,” according to the orchestra. To appreciate the disc, it’s important to keep in mind this human gesture undertaken by the orchestra during such a crisis. The disc is comprised of instrumental versions of well-known, magnificent works loved by the public. Some featured Quebecois songs include J’t’aime comme un fou,…

CD Review | Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music (Analekta, 2022)

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By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Romantic, Strings

Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music Pascal Valois, guitar Analekta, 2022 Johann Kaspar Mertz, for whom no exploration of Viennese Romantic music would be complete without his compositions, dominates the album Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music. Guitarist Pascal Valois tackles Mertz’s Barden-Klänge, Op. 13 in a series of five highly expressive and technically demanding tempo rubato works. Valois’s virtuosic talent is on full display in the latter half of Tarentelle: Più Allegro, and in the entirety of Fingals-Hohle: Maestoso—the transitions between chord-playing and fingerpicking are made imperceptible through careful arpeggiation, and his ostinato is never dull. In line with the Romantic…

CD Review | Elle (Analekta, 2022)

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By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Indigenous, Piano, Strings, Violin

Elle Angèle Dubeau, solo violin; Valérie Milot and Antoine Mallette-Chénier, harp; Lydia Etok and Nina Segalowitz, throat singing; La Pietà Analekta, 2022 Angèle Dubeau, solo violinist and conductor for the string ensemble La Pietà, has decided to use the ensemble’s 25th anniversary album, Elle, to showcase a variety of contemporary female composers. The result? A thrilling experience where the listeners never gets too comfortable with one style. Just as they come to understand the cool and brooding nature of Rebecca Dale’s Winter, for example, they’re surprised by the fiery Inuit throat singing of Katia Makdissi-Warren’s Mémoire. The album is filled with…

CD Review | À ses derniers pas, entrant dans la boue (Centrediscs, 2022)

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By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Piano

À ses derniers pas, entrant dans la boue Aleks Schürmer, piano; Grégoire Blanc, theremin Centrediscs, 2022 There’s something to the theremin, a no-contact electromagnetic instrument invented in the early 20th century, that makes it impossible not to smile upon hearing one, and composer Aleks Schürmer is acutely aware of this in his album À ses derniers pas, entrant dans la boue. By contrasting the goofiness of the theremin against a grim piano performance, Schürmer squares 20th-century peoples’ visions of a utopic technological future against our dystopic 21st-century reality. In Ils se sont trouvés sur Tinder, Blanc reaches into the depths…

CD Review | Body in motion (Centrediscs, 2022)

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By Justin Bernard on 26 July 2022 Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music

Body in motion Daniel Janke, piano and composition; Adele Armin, Mark Fewer, Aaron Schwebel, violin; Rory McLeod, alto; Amahl Arulanandam, Richard Armin, cello; Alan Hetherington, percussion Centrediscs, 2022 “Body in Motion is an homage to choreographers and dancers of the world. They are the hardest workers in the peforming arts. They are an inspiration.” This is what Canadian composer Daniel Janke had to say about his new Centredisques album. After Songs of Small Resistance in 2021, he has returned with three chamber music works and a solo piano work. We can only recommend this album. Listeners are charmed in the…

CD Review | Glass: Complete String Quartets – String Quartets Nos. 1-4 (Vol. 1) (ATMA Classique, 2022)

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By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Orchestral, Strings

Glass: Complete String Quartets – String Quartets Nos. 1-4 (Vol. 1) Olga Ranzenhofer and Antoine Bareil, violin; Frédéric Lambert, alto; Pierre-Alain Bouvrette, cello ATMA Classique, 2022 This four-work album is an excellent start to Quatuor Molinari’s series on the string ensemble compositions of Philip Glass. Mishima, originally composed as the soundtrack for a film by the same name, is the most well-known of the works on the album, and the only one that tells a story. Quatuor Molinari’s violinists effortlessly transition between different melodies in Award Montage, which makes the listener feel like a storyteller is interweaving several narratives. After…

Browsing: CD and Book Reviews

Review | CellOpéra! (October 2022)

Review | The Cello according to Dall’Abaco (Passacaille, 2022)

Review | Sonate Tableaux (co-produced with ombú productions, 2022)

Review | Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 (Deutsche Grammophon, 2022)

Review | Stradivarius, je me souviens − Alexandre Da Costa and the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil

CD Review | Vienna 1840: Romantic Viennese Music (Analekta, 2022)

CD Review | Elle (Analekta, 2022)

CD Review | À ses derniers pas, entrant dans la boue (Centrediscs, 2022)

CD Review | Body in motion (Centrediscs, 2022)

CD Review | Glass: Complete String Quartets – String Quartets Nos. 1-4 (Vol. 1) (ATMA Classique, 2022)

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