New music gets its own Web stream on New York City's WQXR radio site

New York City radio station WQXR, now part of the WNYC family, has a new Web stream linked to the station's nighttime show, Q2 with Terrance McKnight. Among the choices playing this morning is the Manhattan Trilogy by Einojuhani Rautavaara, performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic, under Leif Segerstam.

Starting this week, listeners are being promised a recorded performance from last month by Terry Riley and his collaborators from the hip Greenwich Village music boîte, Le poisson rouge.

Laughter is a fine way to sneak a peek at the magic of a symphony orchestra

The composers may be dead, but not our interest in spreading love of orchestral music to new audiences.

As far as I know, no show has ever overthrown the dominance of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf as a children's introduction to the orchestra. Also great is Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

Not that people haven't tried to do something else.

Americans have been treated to Garrison Keillor's Young Lutheran take and, more recently, a clever Lemony Snicket-inspired mystery story, The Composer is Dead, by the Beaudelaire orphans' creator Daniel Handler and his composer buddy Nathaniel Stookey. It was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, and performed in Toronto two seasons ago.

I love Snicket's call to bows: "Those who want justice should go to the police station. Those who want something a little more interesting, should go to the orchestra."

There's a show running in England currently (live in Liverpool at Philharmonic Hall tonight, fyi) by funnyman Bill Bailey. It's called, appropriately enough, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. My guess is it's probably more suited to adults than children. Not having seen the show, I wonder how the comedian, who is at his sharpest when he isn't allowed to ramble, manages to sustain this over an evening.

I mention it, because it's being released on DVD and Blu-Ray today in the U.K.

Here is a promotional trailer, made last year at Royal Albert Hall.

Bailey is pretty nimble on a keyboard. Here's an old sketch of his, about the influence of Cockney music on classical composers:

Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström dead, aged 82

The vocal world lost one of its greats on Friday, when Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström died on Friday, following complications from a stroke. She was 82.

The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini has a nice obituary in today's New York City edition of the Times (it was published on the website yesterday).

Alan Blyth also wrote well of the soprano in today's Guardian. It comes with a personal recollection by John Amis, which includes:

Elisabeth giggled and laughed a lot, but that only seemed to complement the essential seriousness of her devotion to her art. Sometimes she would point out to people who implied that a singer's life was an easy one, how hard it could be. "Sweat, phlegm and dirty feet is often what its about," she would say. "What do we do all day when not rehearsing? We memorise and that takes up a lot of time, all part of the job. And so is winding down after a performance."

Söderström was a periodic visitor to Toronto.

One working instance was as artistic advisor to the Canadian Opera Company in its January, 1989, premiere production of The Makropulos Case by Leos Janácek. She was hired by then-general director Lotfi Mansouri to help coach the singers on the intricacies of singing Janácek, as well as provide them with background on an opera she knew well. She had first sung the title role in 1964.

As she told the Star's then music critic William Littler in 1989: "All the other singers who were asked to study the role gave it back. So, when they finally ran out of dramatic sopranos, they gave it to me. I was so fascinated with the destiny of that woman I said yes."

It spoke of modesty, professionalism and a commitment to character, not just vocal production.

Here is Söderström, doing not too badly at age 58, singing Dvorák's Song to the Moon (from Rusalka) at a Viennese gala concert in 1986. She is introduced on the TV broadcast by Beverly Sills:

Here's the Quintet from Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame, where we see Söderström in her final role at the Metropolitan Opera, as the Countess, 10 years ago. Her companions on stage include Placido Dominco and Dmitri Hvorostovsky:

New recording of Schubert piano music proves that small moments really can be life-changing

If I say that a new disc changed my life yesterday, it sounds pretty dramatic. It's really a teeny-tiny little shift in the bigger scheme of things -- but no less meaningful for me.

As a piano student, I was expected to learn a broad range of pieces. The expected range was Baroque to World War I -- except if there was an imposed need to learn something from later in the 20th century. Some composers wrote pieces that came very easily to me. I didn't have to work too hard to make them sound fine. They were by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Fauré, to name the biggies.

Then there were the problem composers, whose music refused to shape itself for the lazy pianist: J.S. Bach, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann and Debussy. Each of these men presented his own set of challenges. Over the years, I've managed to sort them out, often with the help of a recording that really impressed me, that changed the way I saw and heard the notes.

It's not necessarily that these discs represent the "correct" interpretation for me, but that they unlocked possibilities the way nothing else had been able to do.

For Bach, it was Angela Hewitt.

For Haydn, it was Marc-André Hamelin.

For Schumann, is was the late, oh so great Alicia De Larrocha.

For Debussy, it was Vanessa Wagner.

I had my Schubert moment -- more precisely Moment Musical -- yesterday, thanks to French pianist David Fray. After a very impressive début recording of works by J.S. Bach last year, he's back with a disc of Franz Schubert's Six Moments Musicaux (D. 780), four Op. 90 Impromptus (D. 899), and the C-minor Allegretto (D. 915) on Virgin Classics (click on the disc image for details).

I came home yesterday from the last interview for a big feature I'm preparing for next week's paper. I was exhausted, my head swimming with names, faces, words, issues and the complexity of the task of condensing all of this into a readable article. I wanted peace and quiet, but also wanted to clear my head, so I stuck Fray's new disc -- which had dropped into my mailbox earlier in the day -- into the player.

I was mesmerized from the opening chords. Here was a quiet delicacy that did justice to the early 19th century salon. Yet here also was the emotional content of the Young Romantic. Fray plays most of these well-known pieces on the slow side, accounting for each turn of phrase with a deceptively understated intensity.

My mother sang a lot of Schubert when I was growing up. As her at-home accompanist, I found the songs pretty much shaped themselves in the interweaving of the inseparable vocal and piano lines. But the solo piano pieces were different. Schubert repeats himself endlessly, insisting that the pianist dig deep to find a way to make each re-statement worth listening to. I'm not sure I ever figured it out, even after the patient sit-down sessions with my favourite piano teacher, where we could spend half-an-hour looking at the possibilities of four identical chords in a four-beat measure, and how emphasizing each one differently would affect the larger piece.

Often, I would practise the Impromptus and find myself bored silly, not finding enough in the music to invest my full attention.

That is, until David Fray opened my ears yesterday. Wow. The music suddenly made sense. I might choose to play some of it a bit more forcefully, but I am envious of his fluidity, of his unforced way of highlighting Schubert's mood-linked harmonics and choices of key without even drawing attention to himself as the interpreter.

In the hours since I first tore the cellophane off the CD case, I've listened to the disc several times, and I haven't been bored for a millisecond.

I found Fray's promotional video for the disc, which was released in France earlier this fall. I think it's worth watching even if you don't speak French. The nearly 11 minutes will give you a good taste of these magical interpretations. 

I laughed when, about 3 minutes in, he says he hopes that his interpretations will change someone's life.

Mission accomplished. My coverless, dog-eared Peters edition of the Impromptus will be back on the music stand pretty soon, I think.

Chance to hear Takács String Quartet live today from the Louvre museum

There's a wonderful series of chamber music concerts presented under the glass pyramid at the Louvre museum every season. Most of these are now broadcast live on France Musique radio, the Louvre's own website and on Medici.tv. 

There's a special treat today, as the fabulous Takács String Quartet performs Beethoven's Op. 131 String Quartet, from 1826, as well as the world premiere of a new work by incredibly prolific 57-year-old German composer Wolfgang Rihm, commissioned for this concert.

The concert begins at 8 p.m., Paris time, which is 2 p.m. in Toronto. The webstream guarantees crisp, high-definition audio and video. Medici.tv wants you to register with them if you want to watch for more than 2 minutes. It's a quick and painless process, but you may want to get that out of the way before the performance starts.

The France Musique broadcast is scheduled for Dec. 4.

Still available for streaming from the Louvre series is hot young thing Jean-Frédéric Neuberger's piano recital from Oct. 21.

I've heard a handful of chamber pieces by Rihm, and they all have a characteristically intense sound and feel (not one that attracts me, but that's a matter of taste).

Here's an example, in the opening section of String Quartet No. 5 (which Rihm marks as "Untitled"), from 1983. I don't know who the performers are:

Composer-organist Maurice Duruflé a 20th century man of all musical eras

There is a magnetic power to the music of Maurice Duruflé. The French organist and composer, who died 23 years ago (at age 84), somehow managed to include the whole scope of Western music traditions -- from Medieval plainsong to the 20th century's rejection of a fixed tonal anchor -- in his work.

To go with today's interview with young Ontario organist Ryan William Jackson.

Here is Duruflé performing the Prélude to his 1932 Organ Suite in 1966, at St. Thomas's Church on 5th Ave. in New York City. That organ is similar in sound to the mighty Casavant at Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, where Jackson will play.

Here is Duruflé playing his transcription of a Charles Tournemire improvisation on the Cavaillé-Coll gallery organ at the gorgeous 16th century Parisian church of St. Étienne-du-Mont, also in 1932, where he was the titular organist from 1929 until his death (the organist had the organ substantially altered and renovated in the 1950s).

Star Wars' C3PO actor gives me a slap in the face, and I'm thankful

Gosh... even more. And again.And again.

I am still thrilled to be part of Star Wars -In Concert, as we share the spectacle across America. I'm learning more about the depths of the Star Wars saga and the depths of John Williams' compositions as well. I may become a fan!

These are the words I saw on the home page of British actor Anthony Daniels' website. I was doing some background reading. I wanted to have an intelligent conversation with the man who played C3PO in George Lucas's Star Wars film series during the 15 minutes of phone time that had been allotted to me yesterday.

Daniels is the narrator for Star Wars in Concert, a two-hour giant-screen-and-symphony-orchestra spectacular that is currently touring North America. The show arrives at the Air Canada Centre on Nov. 26. This was a writing assignment I wasn't particularly looking forward to, given that I haven't seen all the Star Wars movies. 

So, preparing for the interview was all the more important. But I was distracted by Daniels' words (written Oct. 25), that said he might even become a fan of composer John Williams's scores.

Aha! I thought. Daniels doesn't think much of the music and he may even secretly resent the fact that so much of his acting career has been taken up with the Star Wars franchise.

So I started my 15 minutes with a flip comment about his homepage and Williams's music. This immediately sent Daniels into high dudgeon (an old-fashioned expression for outrage that seems appropriate here). He was especially cutting about snobby and closed-minded critics who don't understand the power or value of film music.

Fortunately for the journalist, Daniels was eloquent in his anger, so it gave me something I can put into an article next week.

But however busy my right hand was in scribbling down Daniels' words, I could feel my face burning. I had committed my profession's cardinal sin: of taking on a subject with prejudice. As much as possible, I try to approach any interview or any performance with as open a mind as I possibly can. Yet here I was doing exactly what I would shake my head at if I saw, heard or read someone else doing it. In the process, I had belittled Daniels' livelihood and, in the case of a prolonged, intense tour, very hard work. Shame on me.

Why this public confession? I feel I need to have witnesses to my resolve to not do this again. I also hope that someone will verbally slap me in the face again, should I forget.

Here is a fan interview with Daniels from last year, when he was promoting a Star Wars science exhibition:

Full of Glee, my heart sings again to see artsy-geeky kids getting the spotlight on TV

I was one of those high school kids who lived for band practice, choir practice and drama group. Life began after 3:30 p.m., as far as I was concerned. (I think back on everything I did, including piano lessons and, in my senior year, taking on organist duties at church, and I wonder how the day managed to have so many hours back then.)

My TV heroes were the kids on Fame. Their hopes and fears felt like a mirror of my own roiling teenage hormones.

So it's no surprise that I've joined the legions of fans of the new TV series Glee. Much of the adult stuff is way more cynical than anything I would've seen way back when, but the teenage angst -- and ability to channel it and overcome it through music and movement -- is exactly the same.

Just as Fame helped validate my decidedly unpopular artsy cravings, there's a whole new generation of musical drama queens who can gain strength and comfort from realising that there are so many more like-minded souls out there.

There's a nice little story in The New York Times on how the theatre community has been drawn to Glee, like Neil Patrick Harris to an awards show.

Here, to cap my little burst of nostalgia, is Valerie Landsburg (who is 51 now) singing her stuff in Fame:

Review: Antonio Vivaldi is a musical man for all seasons, but leaves are turning on Nigel Kennedy's blockbuster album

Here are two very different takes on Vivaldi -- one new, one 20 years old. I'll start with the old one, because it's a biggie:

NIGEL KENNEDY & THE ENGLISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, 20th Anniversary Edition CD & DVD (EMI)

*** (Out of 4)

If you're 35 or older, chances are pretty good that you've heard at least snippets of Nigel Kennedy's recording of The Four Seasons, an undyingly popular four-violin-concerto suite by Baroque-era mastermind Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). Released in 1989, Kennedy's recording with the English Chamber Orchestra has sold more than 3 million copies. It was everywhere. It made Vivaldi a star again. It also made Kennedy into a star -- something he took way too personally (but that's another story).

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, EMI has re-released that album with a companion DVD (from a 1990 TV special), where Kennedy introduces each concerto before playing it. (Click on the album image for details)

If you've never bought your own copy of The Four Seasons, this is a fine place to start, but you can do better. Kennedy's playing is fiery, assured. He goes for dramatic emphasis wherever he can. The little orchestra sounds nice. But, two decades on, after just about every modern-instrument string orchestra has adopted some of the spikier bowing techniques from period-instrument groups, parts of this recording are sounding dated, lacking a larger-scale bounce and the sonic texture that the best period-instrument players can muster. 

If you want to support local talent, you can't go wrong with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra's 1992 recording. If you want extra-spicy period instruments, there's Il giardino armonico's version, of the same vintage.

My favourite modern-instrument recording is a three-year-old effort by with Cho-Liang Lin and New York ensemble Sejong. It's more engaging than Kennedy's, there's more listening, including the amazingly dramatic "Storm at Sea" Violin Concerto, and, because it's from budget label Naxos, it's cheaper.

Here's Kennedy playing the "Allegro" from "Winter," which has some of the recording's finest work:

BENOIT LOISELLE & VINCENT BOUCHER

Vivaldi, Sonate e concerti (ATMA Classique)

*** (out of 4)

Two great Québécois soloists -- cellist Bernard Loiselle and organist Vincent Boucher -- team up for a satisfying selection of seven popular works adapted for organ and cello (Vivaldi didn't write for this specific combination). There are two of the Cello Sonatas, two keyboard concertos, the opening movement to his setting of the Stabat Mater and "Domine Deus" from the Gloria. (Click on the album image for details.)

Loiselle's velvet-wrapped cello playing is an expressive and technical treat, while Boucher gets some very nice sounds out of a grand tracker organ built by Karl Wilhelm for St. Matthias Church in Westmount, one of Montreal's many musical treasures. (I frequently sang with the men-and-boys choir in that Anglican church while I was a student at McGill.)

The two performers are a beautiful match. My only reservation about this otherwise excellent album is the sound balance between the organ and cello. It often sounds as if they were recorded on two separate tracks, even though they probably weren't. It's the challenge of miking two very different kinds of instruments in a large, acoustically live space.

Metropolitan Opera scores triumph with Modernist journey into the heart of darkness

There were roars of approval on Thursday night over the Metropolitan Opera premiere of a new production of Leos Janácek's last opera, From the House of the Dead. It's a co-production first seen in Vienna in 2007. It continues on to La Scala next year. (The pictures you see are by New York Times photographer Sara Kulwitch.)

Making their Met débuts were director Patrice Chéreau and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. For a background interview, click here.

A particularly interesting first was having the surtitles projected onto the set, rather than running them across the top of the stage. It's a brilliant idea (as long as you have enough contrast with whatever set material is bearing the words), because it puts the translation into the audience's direct line of sight. No more up-and-down with the eyeballs (or, if you're an older patron at the Met, where you can see the surtitles on seatbacks, switching between the reading glasses and the opera glasses).

There were two other things I thought about while reading the glowing reviews:

The first was how people were so quick to react when the season-opening-night audience booed Tosca earlier this fall. The newswire services pounced, spreading the word on how Met general director Peter Gelb had stumbled badly in his attempt to modernize the company's productions. But where are the headlines trumpeting a Met triumph, not only with a modern production, but one for an opera set in a concentration camp?

Great art doesn't happen without great risk. When you don't know where your next subscription or donation dollar is coming from, it's easy to fall back on traditionally staged Butterflys, Bohèmes and Don Giovannis. It takes courage to say, let's incarcerate our patrons in wintry Siberia and rattle their emotional cores for a couple of hours.

Which brings me to my second thought, of how even people who prefer to leave an auditorium humming a pretty tune are willing to listen, appreciate and be elevated by works that offer no hummable tunes whatsoever. Rather than escape into entertainment, many performing arts patrons enjoy the challenge -- if it's performed well, and presented in a thoughtful way.

Here is "Skuratov's Tale" (of how he shot the fiancé of his love, Luisa, at her wedding) from a recording of Chéreau's production of From the House of the Dead made during the first set of performances of this production in 2007, conducted by Pierre Boulez. (He conducted in Vienna, Amsterdam and at the festival in Aix-en-Provence -- and I'm not sure when this clip was recorded.)