Orchestral - my/maSCENA

Van Zweden and DSO Raise their Game with Schönberg and Brahms

By Paul E. Robinson on 23 April 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonAs he nears the end of his second season as music director of the Dallas Symphony, Jaap van Zweden has clearly raised the quality of playing in the orchestra. There have not been many personnel changes, but there has been a palpable exploitation of the enormous pool of talent already in the orchestra. A case in point: the trombone section has always been ‘good’ but now it is ‘remarkably good.’ The sureness of intonation, the beauty of tone, the balance between the three instruments and tuba – all these things are on a level of refinement only…

Claudio Abbado’s Grand Tour with his Mozart Orchestra

By La Scena Musicale Team on 8 April 2010 Classical, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Giuseppe PennisiMusic is the best medicine to cure cancer according to Maestro Claudio Abbado. Doctors removed much of his stomach and he can only eat small amounts at a time.“I found a new life, without a stomach,” he states. “I think differently. My senses are different.” His music-making has also changed: “I hear more lines now; I hear sounds I never heard before.”Unfortunately, the therapy has weakened him: it’s now a special occasion when Maestro Abbado conducts. At 77, Abbado has mostly turned away from the kind of grand institutions he once led — La Scala, the Vienna State…

Cette semaine à Montréal (7 à 17 avril) / This Week in Montreal (April 7 – 17)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 6 April 2010 Chamber Music, Choral, Dance, Orchestral, Scena Jazz, Theatre, This Week in Montreal, Visual Arts

Musique / Music Canadian trumpet virtuoso Guy Few (pictured to the left) joins the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal on April 7 to perform a concerto for trumpet and orchestra by the renowned and recently deceased Jacques Hétu. Under the baton of assistant conductor Nathan Brock, the orchestra performs works that include Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1 and Smetana’s The Moldau. 514-842-2112, www.osm.ca — Hannah Rahimi The Trio Fibonacci presents its final concert of the season on April 9 at the Chapelle Saint-Louis. Audiences can experience the wide range of compositions for string trio with a varied programme that begins with Haydn and concludes…

Strauss’s Don Quixote Brought to Life by Bay and Austin Symphony

By Paul E. Robinson on 24 March 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonWhat a revolutionary idea it was to provide surtitles (“translated or transcribed lyrics/dialogue projected above a stage or displayed on a screen”) in the opera house! All of a sudden, people actually understood what was going on. An art form that had been forbidding and impenetrable for millions was transformed into something welcoming and meaningful. Shame on the Karajans and Levines who, for whatever reason, delayed that monumental breakthrough in communication.I believe the concert hall could use the same communication overhaul afforded the opera house. To my mind, vocal works should always have surtitles; most often, they…

Rach 3 Rocks with Nissman and the Austin Symphony!

By Paul E. Robinson on 11 March 2010 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral, Piano

by Paul E. RobinsonLast week, at the Long Center for the Performing Arts, Peter Bay and the Austin Symphony presented an all-Russian program: Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, followed by the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3, and closing with the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, the Russian composer’s most popular symphony.As always, Maestro Bay had prepared well and interpreted the music with assurance and without exaggeration of any kind. In the opening piece, Vocalise, Bay went for a nuanced, understated beauty that suited this slight work very well. Personally, I would like to hear more expansive phrasing in some sections, but then I may…

Two Different Productions of Elektra Enthuse Italian Provincial Opera Houses

By La Scena Musicale Team on 8 March 2010 Concert Reviews, Opera, Orchestral

by Giuseppe PennisiGenerally, Strauss-Hofmannsthal’s “tragedy for music” Elektra is normally performed in comparatively small opera houses in Germany and in a few Central European countries. Most administrators and musical directors are scared by the thought of assembling a 115-piece orchestra, five Wagnerian singers, a large number of soloists in smaller roles and keeping the audience enthralled in their seats for nearly two hours of extreme tension and emotion.Well, this season two different productions of Elektra can be seen in Italian Provincial theatres. They are quite successful and surprisingly attract also a new and younger audience, and they are likely to be revived next season.Italy…

The Odd Couple: Britten and Shostakovich Superb Match Under van Zweden & DSO

By Paul E. Robinson on 26 February 2010 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonThere are plenty of recordings of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 Op. 60 (Leningrad), but one rarely gets a chance to hear it in concert. The same could be said, only more so, for Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto Op. 15. To have them both offered on the same program is a special treat; thus, Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony (DSO) had me excited even before they played the first note of this concert at Morton Myerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas. As it happens, these two works were composed within a few years of each other:…

Cette semaine à Montréal (15 à 21 fév) / This Week in Montreal (Feb. 15 – 21)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 15 February 2010 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Orchestral, Scena Jazz, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Musique, théâtre, et danse à Montréal cette semaineMusic, theatre, and dance in Montreal this weekOrchestral Music: Kent Nagano leads the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in a varied programme on February 15 and 16 at Place des Arts. Austrian pianist Till Fellner (pictured here), a protégé of Alfred Brendel, will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1. Fellner is currently recording all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with Nagano and the OSM. Also on the programme is the world premiere of Gilles Tremblay’s L’Origine, featuring mezzo-soprano Michèle Losier. 514-842-2112, www.osm.ca – Hannah RahimiThéâtre : En février, le Théâtre du Rideau vert met à l’affiche…

The Battle for Berlin’s Heart

By Norman Lebrecht on 19 April 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

The Battle for Berlin’s Heart by Norman Lebrecht / April 19, 2000 THE battlefront has finally reached Berlin. After two decades in which London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome and even Paris have witnessed hand-to-mouth combat over public subsidies, the role of the state in funding the arts is now being fought out in the would-be capital of European culture. Berlin has, for the second time in six months, lost its cultural senator. Christa Thoben had been hauled in from the Construction Ministry to run an iron sliderule over boom-town arts budgets. What she found to her horror was a black-hole deficit…

Why artists have a duty not to ostracise Austria

By Norman Lebrecht on 10 February 2000 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera, Orchestral

Why artists have a duty not to ostracise Austria by Norman Lebrecht / February 10, 2000 TO boycott or not to boycott? That is the burning question. Whether to ostracise Jörg Haider’s Austria until it returns a government we can approve of is one of those conflicts of conscience and self-interest that bring out the best and worst in cultural leadership. Gérard Mortier has led the exodus, resigning this week a year early as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival and precipitating instant withdrawals from a leading sponsor and conductor. More painful is the loss of Betty Freeman, who helped…

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