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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

Lebrecht Weekly | Franz Schmidt: 4 symphonies (Naxos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 25 October 2024 Lebrecht Weekly

Into every musical life, a little Schmidt must fall. I cannot count the conductors who have tried to persuade me that the Viennese cellist belongs among the ranks of great composers, or the number of hours I have devoted to attempts to understand their devotion. In vain. Once I’m over admiring the brilliance of the scoring, what then? Schmidt played in the Vienna Opera orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic under Gustav Mahler but fell out with his brother-in-law, concertmaster Arnold Rosé, and left on bad terms. He became a conservatory teacher and, eventually, principal of the city’s music academy, spending…

Lebrecht Weekly | Diyang Mei plays Bowen and Walton’s Viola Concertos Like Heifetz on Roller-Skates

By Norman Lebrecht on 18 October 2024 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Strings

It is nothing short of a scandal that not one concerto for viola and orchestra has broken into the standard concerthall repertoire. There are at least fifty violin concertos that get regularly played and half a dozen for cello and orchestra. Yet, among a plethora of viola concertos by good composers – from Arnold to Bartok, Schnittke to John Williams – not one gets as much as a half-chance for public attention. In any other field, this would be considered illegal discrimination. The present release is a dazzling ear-opener. York Bowen, slightly younger than Ralph Vaughan Williams, was a shy chap…

Kyle Ketelsen as Méphistophélès in the Canadian Opera Company’s new production of Faust, 2024. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | COC’s Faust a Devilishly Dazzling New Production

By Denise Lai on 15 October 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto

Few legendary figures have inspired more literary, cinematic, ballet and musical works than Faust. Numerous symphonic and operatic pieces have been written by famous composers such as Berlioz, Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Liszt, Mahler and more. The most famous opera, Faust, was written by Charles Gounod, which is also touted to be the composer’s best operatic work. The Canadian Opera Company has a brand new production that is a pleasure to the eyes and ears. The aging Faust is disillusioned with life and is about the end it with poison. Blaming God for his misery, he sarcastically appeals to Satan for…

Photo: George Garnier

Lebrecht Weekly | Doric String Quartet Strikes a Perfect Balance Between Beethoven’s Early Quartets and Later Milestones

By Norman Lebrecht on 11 October 2024 CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly, Strings

The fashion these days is to remix the 16 Beethoven quartets, selecting one from each period – early, middle and late – in concert and record cycles. It doesn’t always work, but the latest release from the Doric String Quartet, a mid-career UK ensemble, strikes a perfect balance between two of the opus 18 quartets and major milestones from later on. Opus 18/2 in G major is one of Beethoven’s invitations to the dance, a proposition more in the mind than on the floor. Opus 18/5 in A is all in the mind, one of his most self-contemplative works, so…

La Route des concerts: Paving the Way for Regional Presenters

By Justin Bernard on 8 October 2024 Baroque and Early, Interviews, La Scena Spotlight

Established in 2022, La Route des concerts continues to expand. It now welcomes an increasing number of partners into its network of concert halls across the province and has caught the eye of established musical institutions. Chantal Boulanger, organist and project co-ordinator, admits being surprised by this inexhaustible resource. “We have come to realize that there are many small classical music presenters who are unknown,”she says. “I’m still discovering them, even after working in the field for a long time. By bringing them together, we provide more visibility. “Shortly after we started in Estrie, Laurentides, Beauce-Appalaches, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, and Côte-Nord have…

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Nabucco, 2024. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | Nabucco makes a triumphant, belated COC debut

By Denise Lai on 8 October 2024 Concert Reviews, Toronto

The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2024-25 season with Nabucco. It is hard to believe that the opera that launched Giuseppe Verdi’s career has never been staged by the COC in its 74-year history. A Lyric Opera of Chicago production, Nabucco is finally making a long-overdue premiere in Toronto. Nabucco, the tyrannical king of Babylon, is about to invade Judah. Although the Israelites have taken Nabucco’s daughter Fenena hostage, they lose their bargaining chip when she is freed by her captor Ismaele, who is in love with her. The enraged Nabucco goes on a rampage, destroys the Israelites’ temple and…

Renaud Capuçon. Photo: Simon Fowler

Review | Renaud Capuçon plays splendid Mozart with Gimeno & the TSO

By Paul E. Robinson on 7 October 2024 City, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Toronto

French violinist Renaud Capuçon has been a favourite of mine for some years now – especially in the music of Mozart – but this was the first time I had seen and heard him in a live concert. I was not disappointed and neither was the capacity audience at George Weston Recital Hall in North York. With Gustavo Gimeno leading the TSO Capuçon gave us good old-fashioned Mozart with impeccable technique and beautiful tone. Capuçon first played with the TSO way back in 2008 but that was fairly early in his career. He has since gone on to build an…

Photo: Tam Photography

Review | Rhapsody in Blue‘s 100th: Romance and American Jazz with Jean-Philippe Sylvestre

By Amanda Wong on 4 October 2024 Concert Reviews, Jazz, Montreal

George Gershwin was born on September 26, 1898; it was only fitting that his most beloved piece Rhapsody in Blue, written 100 years ago, would be celebrated in Montreal on what would have been his 126th birthday. In a night of romance and American jazz, Montérégie’s very own Jean-Philippe Sylvestre filled Maison Symphonique on Sept. 26h for a solo piano concert that also included Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturnes and Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story. Sylvestre has won many awards worldwide, the First Prize and Audience Prize from the OSM Competition, the esteemed Virginia Parker Prize, and the John…

Photo: Anton Spronk

Lebrecht Weekly | Balagan is A Voyage of Discovery in Open-Mouthed Wonderment (Accentus Music)

By Norman Lebrecht on 4 October 2024 Lebrecht Weekly

There’s more content in this compilation than a reviewer has a right to expect. Coming off the back of a pointless set of Shostakovich symphonies, this chunky bar of trios for clarinet, violin and piano just keeps delivering hi-energy nutrients. First up is a four-part klezmer romp by Paul Schoenfield, an American composer who moved to Jerusalem and died there five months ago. Schoenfield took a hybrid genre of Hasidic celebration modes and moulded it into an eclectic set of wild dance moves, irresistible at best. Claude Vivier’s six-minute piece for violin and clarinet is the same in reverse: an…

Record Reviews

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 1 October 2024 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Scena Jazz

Fresh sounds… AnchorsJason Stein, bass clarinet; Joshua Abrams, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums; guest artist/co-producer Boon. TAO Forms (TAO 16), September 2024 Musicians who dedicate themselves solely to the bass clarinet are not legion. In jazz, it is possible to count them on the fingers of one hand; one thinks mostly of European reedmen, like Rudi Mahall, Thomas Savy, or the late Michel Pilz. Jason Stein is a rare American clarinetist who practises only the bigger horn, but he’s not exactly a newcomer. Twenty years ago, he was already teaming up with Ken Vandermark in the Bridge 61 quartet. The trio on…

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