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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Orchestre classique de Montréal presents Handel's Messiah in Saint Joseph’s Oratory. Photo: Tam Photography

Review | Orchestre classique de Montréal’s Warm & Welcoming Messiah

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By on Baroque and Early, Choral, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Montreal, Vocal

As the holidays approach, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah begins to line concert programs around the world—and so, Orchestre classique de Montréal presents its annual performance of the great oratorio in one of the city’s most fitting venues: Saint Joseph’s Oratory. There, OCM, Filles de L’île women’s choir, Chantres Musiciens men’s choir, and four Canadian soloists presented 44 movements from the original piece under the baton of Israeli-French conductor Roï Azoulay.  Though originally written for Easter, the English oratorio has become synonymous with Christmas. It details the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ despite the fact the majority of…

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Marmen Quartet, Photo: Marco Borggreve

Lebrecht Weekly | Marmen Quartet Excels in Ligeti & Bartok String Quartets

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By on CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly

It’s 30 years since I heard Gyorgy Ligeti explain why he was allowing his first string quartet to be performed after four decades lying in a drawer. The quartet, composed in 1954, was too close to its sources. “It’s Bartok’s seventh,’ said Ligeti, ‘But I’ve now realised that’s not such a bad thing.” Titled Metamorphoses nocturnes, the quartet has buzzing insects, whispering grasses and many things that go bump in the night. In amidst the feral noises there are wistful lines of melody and a macabre sense of humour, blacker by far than Bartok’s Bluebeard. Every now and then, a…

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Kent Nagano conducting Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Photo: Antoine Saito

Review | Experimental OSM Holiday Program Misses the Mark

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By on Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Orchestral

The return of esteemed conductor Kent Nagano marked the first of Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s festive December celebrations. Under the banner Le temps des fêtes avec Nagano (‘Tis the Season with Kent Nagano), the OSM presented a program ranging from cheerful Christmas ballets to dark and biblical storytelling including excerpts from The Nutcracker, a brand new oratorio, and an adaptation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Though Nagano has not served as the OSM’s Music Director since 2020, he has continued to grace the Maison symphonique stage during past holiday seasons, and his presence is always welcome.  The highlights of the evening…

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OM Messiah. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Anna-Sophie Neher, Emily D'Angelo. Photo: François Goupil – Orchestre Métropolitain

Review | Yannick’s Messiah Vibrates Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica

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By on Baroque and Early, Choral, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Montreal, Vocal

Performances of Handel’s Messiah at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica had been an annual tradition of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra up until about 12 years ago when its artistic director Kent Nagano did away with Handel in favour of Bach. Orchestre Métropolitain (OM)’s artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin grew up with this tradition as he announced before the concert from the stage, and this is the second year in a row that OM has presented Messiah at the Basilica to a full house. Nézet-Séguin hinted that this will become a tradition, so hopefully, it will be an annual event. What you missed? Dec.…

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Jan Mráček (soloist) with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Photo: Petra Hajská

Review | Czech Philharmonic: A Rare Treat of Czech Music in Canada

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By on Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto

2024 is the Year of Czech Music. Inaugurated in 1924 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Bedřich Smetana, this tradition occurs every decade in the year ending in 4, which also marks other important milestones in Czech music history: Smetana’s death in 1884, Leoš Janáček’s birth in 1854, and Antonin Dvořák’s death in 1904. How fortunate for us in Toronto that the 129-year-old Czech Philharmonic concluded the 100th anniversary of this celebration with two concerts in our city, as part of its North American tour in which the orchestra also played at Carnegie Hall.  It was even more…

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Czech Philharmonic conducted by Semyon Bychkov at Koerner Hall. Photo: Petra Hajská

Review | Czech Philharmonic Triumphs with Celebratory Program at Toronto’s Koerner Hall

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By on Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto

The Czech Philharmonic’s guest appearance at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Dec. 7 is part of a year-long series of concerts they are presenting the world-over in honour of the year of Czech music. Years that end in 4 often coincide with the anniversaries of the birth, death, or creation of key works of the most prominent Czech composers. 2024 coincides with anniversaries of several great Czech composers including the 200th of Bedřich Smetana’s birth and the 120th Antonín Dvořák’s death. Both were the focus of Dec. 7’s concert led by the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov.  The…

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David Oistrakh

Lebrecht Weekly | David Oistrakh: The Warner Remastered Edition (58CDs, 3DVDs)

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By on Lebrecht Weekly, Violin

Where has my week gone? Much of it was spent plundering a coffin of one of the most captivating violinists that ever lived. David Oistrakh, Odessa born (thus Ukrainian-rather than Russian-Jewish), set the tone for violin playing in the Soviet era. Not just in his own performances but in those of his Moscow students who included Oleg Kagan, Gidon Kremer, Lydia Mordkovich, Nina Belina, Stoika Milanova, Rimma Sushanskaya and many more, not to mention his own distinguished son, Igor. Maintaining a distinctive individualism in an authoritarian state, he taught young musicians to find their own path to the variable meanings…

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Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou. Photo: Luciano Romano
Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou. Photo: Luciano Romano

Review | Barbara Hannigan Pulls Out All the Stops at Toronto’s Koerner Hall

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By on Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Piano, Toronto, Vocal

Canadian soprano and 20/21st-century specialist extraordinaire, Barbara Hannigan, appeared at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Nov. 28 with French pianist Bertrand Chamayou in a program they are currently touring across North America. This uncompromising, tightly-constructed 70 minute recital demonstrated why Hannigan is the current queen of ‘non-traditional’ vocal repertoire.   The evening opened with French composer Olivier Messiaen’s song cycle, Chants de terre et de ciel (1938). The text is the composer’s own and is his customary mix of fervent Catholicism combined with love for family. The opening song, “Bail avec Mi (pour ma femme),” celebrates the contract between husband and wife.…

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Michael Bridge (accordion) with Esprit Orchestra. Photo: Karen Reeves

Review | Accordion Virtuoso Michael Bridge Opens Esprit Orchestra Season

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By on Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Toronto

Esprit Orchestra, conducted by Alex Pauk, presented three works at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Nov. 24th. The first was Gabriella Smith’s f(x)=sin^2x-i/x. This follows the shape of the function dynamically for x=0 to x=2;  so there’s a smallish crescendo, a quieter passage and then a big finish. The first part, using extended strings, winds and percussion, sounds rather like a train accelerating (to its doom?). The piece then goes much quieter and more melodic before the final build up with an almost Brahmsian quality in the brass leading to a very loud, cacophonic finish. Then silence! Bent Sørensen’s It is…

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Kurt Weill

Lebrecht Weekly | Kurt Weill: Symphonies, Seven Deadly Sins (DG)

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By on Lebrecht Weekly

The sound of Berlin in the Weimar years is defined by Kurt Weill. More than any other composer, his music for the Bertolt Brecht shows conjured the jittery, reckless, hopeful, resigned and inventive carousel of a society in perpetual crisis. Weill, son of a Jewish cantor from provincial Dessau, cracked the capital’s musical codes and perpetuated them in songs for his cracked-voice wife, Lotte Lenya. There were also two symphonies, but we don’t talk about those, do we? The first was shunned in 1921 by Weill’s teacher Ferruccio Busoni as excessively expressionist. It is also indebted to Gustav Mahler, especially…

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