In unveiling its 201-12 season earlier today, Tafelmusik showed how it is continuing to look for innovative ways to program music and offer more performances at Koerner Hall while also expanding its touring plans.
Orchestra music director Jeanne Lamon celebrates her 30th anniversary with Tafelmusik next season, as does the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir under its leader, Ivars Taurins.
The orchestra will present more concerts in Koerner Hall next season: Opera Atelier co-artistic director Marshall Pynkoski's staged performances of George Frideric Handel's not-quite-an-opera Hercules (he called it a musical drama), which had its premiere as a concert piece in 1744; four performances of Handel's Messiah before Christmas; and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the "Eroica," under regular visiting conductor Bruno Weil.
Tafelmusik also announced that it will make its touring début in Australia in 2012, with performances of the Galileo Project.
The new House of Dreams project, masterminded by longtime Tafelmusik double-bassist Alison MacKay and co-produced with the Banff Centre, will, like the Galileo Project, offer a multimedia experience of Baroque-era visual art mixed with music of the period -- all memorized by the musicians.
You'll find all the details here, and an at-a-glance concert summary here.
It's time to add Mozart to the Necessary 100 list, and to give ourselves advance warning of a free lunchtime concert tomorrow.
Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio The young singers present a free, all-Mozart opera hour tomorrow at noon, in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. This should be worth standing in line for.
Mozart on the Necessary 100 I bolded Don Giovanni in Larry Beckwith's list of 100 works. I have to admit that any one of Mozart's later operas deserves a place in the musical pantheon, but Don Giovanni is, I would like to believe, the finest blend of drama and comedy, dark and light, and arresting beauty and driving plot. It has also been able to withstand just about any sort of staging and any musical fad.
So much -- if not all -- of Mozart's music is about singing, be it an actual voice, a violin, a fortepiano or a clarinet. You don't have to know anything about harmony or counterpoint. You don't have to know an English horn from an oboe. All you have to do is sit and listen -- and the more you listen, the more you begin to admire the composer's imagination.
To try and show the elasticity of the music, here are four snippets, the first two featuring the legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, the first of the Overture being played by the Vienna Philharmonic, the second is the Commendatore scene from the 1954 Salzburg Festival (with Cesare Siepi as the Don and Dezsö Ernster as the Commendatore). The third is the second-act sextet from the Met in the mid-1990s (featuring an all-star cast: Renée Fleming, Kiri Te Kanawa, Hei-Kyung Hong, Bryn Terfel, Julien Robbins and Herry Hadley). I'm closing with Rodney Gilfry and Liliana Nikiteanu singing "La ci darem la mano" in a recent Zurich Opera production conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt:
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Besides Don Giovanni, I would like to nominate these pieces for the Necessary 100 list:
Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491 Mozart wrote this, one of only two piano concertos in a minor key, for his Vienna subscription series in 1785/1786. The orchestration is particularly rich, and the music overflows with drama and struggle and experimentation.
Here's André Previn's version, from, I'm guessing, the mid-1980s:
Serenade for Strings in G Major, K. 525, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" I've again found myself choosing something over-familiar because it's such a beautiful encapsulation of everything that makes Mozart's music so engaging. He happened to write the Serenade while working on Don Giovanni.
Here are the Swingle Singers doing their impersonation of the opening movement:
Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 Mozart wrote both this chamber piece and the Clarinet Concerto for Anton Stadler, who must've been a particularly inspiring person, because this is some of Mozart's most gorgeous music. I've chosen the quintet over the concerto because I wanted to include a chamber piece on the list. Probably not coincidentally, Mozart wrote this piece while working on the opera Così fan tutte, in 1789.
Here's the third-movement Minuet played by a bunch of talented teens from North Carolina's Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra at the end of music camp last summer:
Since I decided to work my way through my Necessary 100 list more or less chronologically, I want to catch a few pre-Classical strays before moving on.
I'm already beginning to feel like I could provide 100 candidates just from the Renaissance and Baroque. Handel, Bach and Vivaldi deserve many, many more nominations. And, What ho! No Palestrina and no Orlando Gibbons? Where are Gabrielli's brass choruses?
Some parlour games are more brutal than others.
That said, I want to make a case for some stragglers, because of their beauty and/or originality:
William Byrd: Selinger's Round Byrd's sacred music is nothing short of exquisite. But one can find the same polyphony, movement and shape in his other pieces, including the 42 dances for keyboard he compiled in the late 1580s in My Ladye Nevells Booke. This is music that sounds fine no matter what instrument it is played on, as Glenn Gould proves here:
Georg Philipp Telemann: Six Paris Quartets Magdeburg-born Telemann was the most famous German composer of his day, lived to a ripe old age (he was 86 when he died in 1767) and composed, according to French musicologist Bernard Wodon, about 6,000 pieces of music (of which slightly more than half have been catalogued at this point). A list compiled at Stanford University even shows 30 operas to his credit.
So what happened? For one thing, he outlived his style's popularity. The young Mozart was already scribbling music by the time Telemann died, and the German had spoken out vehemently against the banality and simplicity of this new style of music.
The Paris Quartets were written before the form was codified. They are individually titled as Concertos and Suites, featuring flute, violin, gamba and harpsichord -- the two high instruments play solo and duo, while the two lower instruments are continuo. (There are two sets of these pieces. To make a convoluted story short, the set I'm recommending for the Necessary 100 is the one Telemann wrote during a visit to Paris in 1737.)
Here is Il Giardino Armonico with a fine taste, the Chaconne movement from the final piece, known as No. 12:
Heinrich Ignaz Biber: Missa Salisburgensis This Bohemian-born composer spent most of his working life in Salzburg. Biber is best known for fabulous violin compositions, but there's nothing quite like his 1682 Missa Salisburgensis, which has no peer for sheer, glorious, polychoral excess. The score calls for 16 individual voices and 37 instruments.
Here is the Credo, brought to us by Musica Antiqua Köln and the Gabrielli Consort led by Reinhard Goebel:
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater This short-lived Italian composer (he was 26 when he died in 1736) was best known for his comic operas while he was alive. But Pergolesi lives on forever in his 1736 setting of Stabat Mater, a poetic meditation on Mary standing near the cross where her son has been hung to die.
Here is a brief taste, taken from the 2009 St. Denis Festival, in Paris. Soloists Sabina Puertolas and Vivica Genaux are joined by Les Talens lyriques and conductor Christophe Rousset:
I wanted to add three more commentaries to the compositions I bolded in Larry Beckwith's Necessary 100 submissions posted yesterday. I'll keep going down the list in coming days.
We're firmly in the Baroque world now. These three picks from Beckwith's list are absolute naturals for this list, due to their enduring popularity, even among people who don't consider themselves classical music listeners.
Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas It wasn't until after George Frideric Handel disembarked on the blighty side of the English Channel that audiences got a taste of serious Italian opera. In the meantime, the English had been enjoying masques -- grand entertainments that mixed words, music and dance. Dido and Aeneas, which had its premiere at a girls' school in 1688, was one of the first English operas, meaning that it was meant to be sung all the way through. The piece packs a great story of love and loss into less than an hour. The music is gorgeous -- instrumentally, chorally and in the solo arias. The most famous and haunting aria is Dido's Lament, which has been enjoyed by three centuries' worth of appreciative ears.
Here is Canadian mezzo Laura Pudwell -- a frequent and welcome performer in Toronto -- at her very best in Dido's Lament, from a recording made with Le Concert Spirituel:
Vivaldi: 'Winter' from The Four Seasons The violin concertos that we know as The Four Seasons are but the tip of Vivaldi creative iceberg. We hear these pieces far too often, but there's also a reason for that: this is instrumental at its most inventive and evocative. These concertos come from a book of 12, known as Op. 8, published in 1725. Vivaldi added the title "Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione" -- the melding of harmony and creativity -- something that turned out not to be just marketing hype.
There were little descriptive sonnets included for each concerto. The breaks correspond to the different movements. Here is a rough English translation for Winter:
Shivering, frozen mid the frosty snow in biting, stinging winds; running to and fro to stamp one's icy feet, teeth chattering in the bitter chill.
To rest contentedly beside the hearth, while those outside are drenched by pouring rain.
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling. Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up. We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors... this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.
This is Renaldo Alessandrini leading soloist Francesca Vicari and the Concerto italiano period-instrument orchestra in what we should call the X-treme Baroque interpretation of all three movements of Winter, a.k.a. the Violin Concerto in F-minor, RV 297:
J.S. Bach: Suites for Unaccompanied Cello Here is another set of pieces -- six suites -- that hardly needs an introduction. We don't actually know when Bach wrote them. The earliest surviving score dates from 1726. The seductive music means it hardly matters (and for a fascinating story of one man's growing obsession and fascination with these pieces, get your hands on Montrealer Eric Siblin's 2009 book, The Cello Suites).
Here is Toronto Symphony Orchestra cellist Winona Zelenka performing the Sarabande from Suite No. 2:
I received my first list of 100 pieces yesterday, from Toronto violinist, teacher and Toronto Masque Theatre founder, Larry Beckwith.
It's not too hard to pick composers, but it's a major challenge to pick individual pieces. Thee are only a couple of composers from Beckwith's list I would not have included. I've bolded those specific pieces that would have been on my list (and I'm adding commentary, text translations and video clips, for the first three).
Heeeere's Larry, being perfectly chronological (the commentary is mine):
From the lists you've already received, it seems important to make the distinction between personal taste and some sort of objective idea of pieces that are valuable or "necessary". There are those pieces that have special meaning in one's life because of a particular performance one heard, or the circumstances - a love affair, the death of someone close, etc - that surround it. These are 100 pieces off the top of my head that I would deem "necessary" to anyone who really wanted to know something deep and essential about the Western classical music tradition (I think the 19th century is over-rated....I don't see Rossini, Donizetti or Bellini as having been innovative in any way, neither were Tchaikovsky or Puccini...lots to argue about!) The last 2 entries may be subjective, but I grew up with a composer in the house who I admire greatly!...and Stardust, well, that's an incredible song with alot of meaning for me:
*HIldegard: Ordo virtutum *Machaut: Messe de Notre Dame *Dufay: Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys *Ockeghem: Requiem *Josquin: Ave Maria
*Gesualdo: Madrigals, book VI -No ordinary rules of musical theory apply in thiese mesperizing polyphonies. Even Igor Stravinsky felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to this tragic madman's haunted, abandoned castle. Here is No. 17, "Moro lasso al mio duolo" led by Alan Curtis:
I die, alas, in my suffering, And she who could give me life, Alas, kills me and will not help me.
O sorrowful fate, She who could give me life, Alas, gives me death.
*Palestrina: Missa aeterna christi munera *Byrd: Cantinones sacrae (1591)
*Tallis: Spem in alium -The legendary motet written around 1570 for 40 individual voices (eight groups of five voices) is the ne plus ultra of polyphony, and one of the most awe-inspiring pieces of music every written, anywhere. The video comes with bonus visuals of Ely Cathedral, which is just north of Cambridge (Tallis was organist at Canterbury Cathedral):
I have never put my hope in any other but in You,
O God of Israel
who can show both anger
and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins of suffering man
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness
*Monteverdi: Orfeo -Claudio Monteverdi didn't invent opera, but is the only member of the Italian "New School" of composers whose operas have survived. These men looked back to Antiquity to find a way of maximizing drama by blending music and text in a stage play. I would rate the Marian Vespers of 1610 as highly as Orfeo, but it's time for something secular.
Here is Cecilia Gasdia as La Musica, singing the Prologue in a 1998 production of the opera at the Teatro Goldoni in Florence, led by René Jacobs:
From my beloved Permessus I come to you, illustrious heroes, noble scions of kings, whose glorious deeds Fame relates, though falling short of the truth, since the target is too high.
I am Music, who in sweet accents can calm each troubled heart, and now with noble anger, now with love, can kindle the most frigid minds.
I, with my lyre of gold and with my singing, am used to sometimes charming my mortal ears, and in this way inspire souls with a longing for the sonorous harmony of heaven's lyre.
From here desire spurs me to tell you of Orpheus, Orpheus who drew wild beasts to him by his songs and who subjugated Hades by his entreaties, the immortal glory of Pindus and Helicon.
Now while I alternate my songs, now happy, now sad, let no small bird stir among these trees, no noisy wave be heard on these river-banks, and let each little breeze halt in its course.
*Monteverdi: Vespers (1610) *Monteverdi: Madrigals, book VIII *Carissimi: Jephte *Schutz: Musikalische exequien *Purcell: Dido and Aeneas *Purcell: Te Deum and Jubilate *Corelli: Violin sonatas, op. 5 *Couperin: Lecons de tenebres *Charpentier: Medee *D. Scarlatti: Piano Sonata, L. 224 *Vivaldi: "Winter" from The Four Seasons *Handel: Solomon **Handel: Giulio Cesare *Bach: Klavierubung III *Bach: Trauer-ode *Bach: Cello Suites *Bach: St. Matthew Passion *Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, books I and II *Rameau: Les indes galantes *Haydn: String quartet, op. 76, #2 *Haydn: Trumpet Concerto *Haydn: Symphony #104 *Mozart: Piano concerto in D minor *Mozart: Don Giovanni *Mozart: Clarinet quintet *Mozart: Jupiter Symphony *Beethoven: Violin Concerto *Beethoven: Symphony #9 *Beethoven: String Quartet, op. 131 *Beethoven: Piano sonata, op. 109 *Schubert: Die Winterreise *Schubert: String Quintet in C major (I agree with Scott!) *Schubert: Symphony #9 *Weber: Der Freischutz *Schumann: Piano Quintet *Mendelssohn: Elijah *Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique *Chopin: Preludes for piano *Brahms: Haydn Variations *Brahms: Piano pieces, op. 118 and 119 *Bizet: Carmen *Dvorak: Serenade for Strings *Verdi: La Traviata *Verdi: Otello *Wagner: Tristan und Isolde *Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition *Mahler: Symphony #5 *Widor: Toccata for organ *Ives: Three Places in New England *Stravinsky: Rite of Spring *Ives: Concord Sonata *Stravinsky: Agon *Debussy: La Mer *Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande *Debussy: Preludes for piano, books 1 and 2 *Ravel: Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé *Strauss: Elektra *Schoenberg: Moses und Aron *Joplin: Treemonisha *Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet *Berg: Violin concerto *Berg: Wozzeck *Janacek: Jenufa *Weill: Mahagony *Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue *Gershwin: Porgy and Bess *Shostakovich: Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk *Bartok: Miraculous Mandarin *Bartok: String Quartet #5 *Messiaen: Quartet for the end of time *Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony *Duruflé: Requiem •Duruflé: Ubi caritas •Barber: Adagio for strings •Bernstein: West Side Story •Howells: Collegium Regal Service •Elgar: Dream of Gerontius •Copland: The Tender Land •Britten: War Requiem •Miles Davis: So What •Lutoslawski: Symphony #4 •Boulez: Le marteau sans maitre •Billy Strayhorn: Take the "A" train •Berio: Sinfonia •Berio: Sequenza for Soprano •Stockhausen: Stimmung •Maxwell Davies: Diary of a Mad King •Schafer: Patria Cycle •John Beckwith: Sharon Fragments •Hoagy Carmichael: Stardust
It's fun to start something on the spur of the moment. It's another to make it work. The submissions and suggestions for my list of The Necessary 100 pieces of music (thanks to Daniel Shapiro for the title) are coming in -- see the comments at the bottom of yesterdays post, plus more below.
I'm going to keep posting your submissions, and provide one suggestion a day. Then, when it feels like we're reaching some sort of critical mass, I'll start getting this little beast of a list organized.
I was thinking it would be fun to try to convince a music downloading service to offer a Necessary 100 package at an attractive price. But let's see how things go, first...
SUBMISSIONS VIA EMAIL:
From Daniel Shapiro: The challenge to choose the Necessary 100 may indeed be too challenging, at least for those of us with jobs and lives to live, but I offer the following:
1. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which I think is simply the most beautiful full-length classical piece. Period.
2. J.S. Bach's A Musical Offering. This isn't Bach's finest work (I've no idea how to choose that, and I'd take Bach's work alone if I could have only one composer), but it displays a command of counterpoint that never fails to astonish me. As a sometime composer, I know that trying to make a worthwhile extended contrapuntal section is tremendously difficult; in this piece, Bach does five-part counterpoint, and in one short section six-part. Having worked for a long, tortuous period to achieve three- and four-part counterpoint, I listen to this simply awestruck.
(Here are flutist Marc and harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï to give us a taste of the main theme and ricercar (a 3):)
3. Leonard Cohen's New Skin for the Old Ceremony. (If we are choosing full-length works including operas, albums of song belong here (what about The Who's Tommy?), and not just individual songs. I am not a big Schubert fan, but if someone chose the Winterreise as a group, I think we'd have to let them.) The individual songs are extraordinary pieces, but together form a kind of look into the soul, dark and light, brutal and sensitive, that seems to me unparallelled.
4. Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. The collection of songs here are the epitome of what makes this songwriter's canon so great. The extended metaphors of the title song and "Desolation Row," the harsh but empathetic attitude embodied in "Like a Rolling Stone," "Ballad of a Thin Man," and "Queen Jane Approximately," and the sheer exuberance in melody and rhyme of practically every song on the album makes this necessary.
5. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I once heard an overnight FM host object to playing some of the great "warhorses" (his word) of classical music, because we've heard them so often; I recall thinking that we listen to them over and over because they repay the time and effort. He was referring to Grieg's Piano Concerto (lower down on my own list, but surely in there somewhere), but the notion applies to this, in my opinion as in many others', simply the greatest symphony in the repertoire. Yes, the Ninth is magnificent, the Eroica is extraordinary, and I have a warm spot for the rich and surprising Seventh (and the Fourth is my pocket fave, the one I like when the others are just too much), but the Fifth rings down the centuries with a greatness unlike the others; it's on a separate plane. What is more thrilling than its opening four notes, more surprising and striking than the oboe obbligato, more satisfying as a complete orchestral meal?
6. Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Again, we listened to it too many times, but it got played so much because it's so terrific. From the traditional versions to the Nigel Kennedy and Il Giardino Armonico re-imaginings, the range and the delight of this sequence of pieces continues to enthrall new listeners. And, if you come to it without the jaded ear most of us older listeners have acquired, you'll hear anew its wonder and mastery.
7. Joni Mitchell's Blue. A series of songs so personal they'll have the hair on the back of your neck standing on end. Strong melody, instrumentation that shows the beginnings of her interest in jazz without losing the lightness of pop songs, yet songs that have real weight.
8. Hector Berlioz's Harold in Italy. Berlioz's masterpiece, I think, and so much better than the rest of his work that it belongs here. If I ever chose to learn to play the viola, it would be to play this. What melodic invention! What sheer pleasure in the sound of life!
9. Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." When I first heard this, I was simply floored. The recreation of mediaeval ballad style, complete with daring rhymes ("too rough to feed ya" and "been good to know ya" reminded me of no one so much as Geoffrey Chaucer) and the even more daring tactic of letting the simple melody take care of itself, as a ballad will. I separate it from the album it was on not because there were no other good songs (Lightfoot's catalogue of wonderful songs is second to no one's), but because it's just such an unbelievable achievement of mature songcraft, that every time I hear it I am astounded and captured by it.
I don't really have time to fill in ninety-one more items, but I would like to include more Bach, along with Brahms, Prokofiev, Schumann's string quintet, albums by the Beatles (Rubber Soul or Sergeant Pepper), Phil Ochs (Rehearsals for Retirement), Gershwin (Concerto in F and Fred Astaire's album of song stylings, perhaps), Handel, Haydn, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Randy Newman's Little Criminals, Shostakovich, something by Poulenc, and — well, you see why I have to stop now.
From Canadian Opera Company Orchestra tuba Scott Irvine:
I'm not even going to try to limit myself to 100. Sometimes I need the bombast and swagger of stuff like Walton's Crown Imperial, or the intimacy of Feldman's chamber works. Bach plays a big role, as does the music of Vaughan Williams, (that's where you and I first got into contact). I'm also a string 4tet junkie, so Beethoven looms large as well. And of course, I've been in the COC Orchestra for over 25 years, so Mozart, Puccini, Strauss and Wagner have to figure in there somewhere.
So I will name just one piece -- number 1 on my list, above everything else. It's the first CD I would grab in case of fire:
Schubert - String Quintet in C major, D956
Here's the music, as performed by our very own Penderecki String Quartet, with cellist Roman Borys, earlier this year:
MY DAILY SUBMISSION Because of the jumble in my head over this little game, I'm going to do this chronologically, so that my eensy little brain can keep my own list straight.
Early Music: Libro Vermell de Montserrat If nothing else, this collection of 10 devotional songs and dances compiled in the 14th century in the Catalan monastery in Montserrat (home to a shrine to the Black Virgin) serves to remind us of how dancing does not have to be confined to deafening clubs in the Entertainment District. This simple music, written in one or two parts, was not meant to be listened to but meant to be sung and enjoyed by anyone who had made the pilgrimage to Montserrat. This is music that's all about life.
Here is "Stella Splendens" and "Los Set goxs recomptarem" (The Seven Joys):
Three-and-a-half years ago, I sat down with an energetic and enthusiastic young Torontonian conductor and harpsichordist who had just returned from living in London. While there, he had been introduced to the music of George Frideric Handel and he couldn't wait to tackle as much of it as possible.
It didn't take long for the dream to bump into the financial realities of starting a new music enterprise, but Aziz just keeps on going. He founded the Classical Music Consort, created Opera Erratica with partner Patrick Eakin Young and, last spring, inaugurated a multi-date Handel Festival at St. James Cathedral.
This year, Aziz is building on the Handel Festival -- which will run May 3 to May 8, by adding a Handel-only vocal competition for singers under age 30. The deadline for applications is Jan. 31. Six finalists, who are to be named by March 18, will sing in the festival for a panel of judges that includes soprano Shannon Mercer, conductor Ivars Taurins and the recently retired head of the Univeristy of Toronto opera program, Stephen Ralls.
Just for fun, I wanted to juxtapose old, modern-instrument Handel with current period-instrument Handel using excellent interpretations of the well-known "V'adoro pupille" aria from Giulio Cesare. First up is Lucia Popp in a 1965 recording conducted by Fritz Wunderlich (Caesar is sung by Walter Berry), followed by Isabel Bayrakdarian, from her fantastic 2004 Cleopratra-themed album with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra:
I have a year-end best-of/worst-of article for in today's Star. It includes a Top 10 Concerts list, with no explanation of what made each one so special, so I thought I'd fix that here, by counting down from 10 each day to Dec. 31.
5. Opera Atelier’s April production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at the Elgin Theatre.
I'm not a foodie, but I've eaten out often enough to have noticed that, the shorter and the more limited the menu, the better the chance that the kitchen is going to do a good job.
And so it is with little Opera Atelier, its two annual productions coming from the Baroque and Classical eras. I think that because the composer's name guarantees good ticket sales, co-artistic directors Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lejeunesse-Zingg are currently taking us through Mozart's output, one opera per season.
In theory, the company's limited aesthetic pallette -- similar techniques in direction, choreography, costumes and scenery -- should make for tedious similarity from production to production. How many opera companies in the world rely on a single director, choreographer and set designer? But such is the power of nuance that director Pynkoski -- who leaves no detail of a staging unexamined -- makes each production look and feel fresh.
The freshness was particularly striking in Marriage of Figaro, which has had every conceivable sort of staging. Pynkoski's love of commedia dell'arte worked especially well in this subversive story, augmented by a fine cast and great work by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.
Although the grand creative gesture is the most fun -- and gets the most notoriety -- it is careful attention to detail that ultimately makes the difference between something being good and something being great.
One of the busier and more versatile of Toronto's professional violinists, Aisslinn Nosky has landed the job of concertmaster at Boston's venerable and respected Handel & Haydn Society. She has two guest visits left this season with the nearly 200-year-old music presenter, and begins the new job in earnest next season.
Playing period violin, Nosky is best known in Toronto as one of the founders of I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. She and I Furiosi pal Julia Wedman have also been members of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for five years. Nosky, who is originally from Vancouver, is also an active chamber musician and I've even spotted her on occasion filling it on modern violin at the Toronto Symphony. She was assistant principal second violin in the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra for a couple of seasons before she joined Tafelmusik.
Because a concertmaster has a lot of administrative work to do as well, I'm not sure how much Nosky is going to have to cut back in Toronto, but she is definitely staying on with Tafelmusik, as much as schedules will allow.
Here is what Tafelmusik music director Jeanne Lamon had to say in an email, when I asked her about this:
"In spite of her new appointment as concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra, she will continue to be a valued member of the Tafelmusik core orchestra, missing none of our tours or recordings and only a very few of our concerts.
"I'm thrilled for her. It is a very valuable opportunity for her at this point in her career. Aisslinn is a musician with a lot of leadership talent which this position will allow her to develop."
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I Furiosi have always added an extra layer of theatricality to their concerts. Here is a sample of their work. The singer is Gabrielle McLaughlin. Stephanie Martin is at the organ. Felix Deak plays cello. Julia Wedman and Aisslinn Nosky are on violin:
I get a giggle out of the titles I Fudiosi Baroque Ensemble gives its concert programmes. Tonight's outing is called Empire Strikes Baroque. The next one, in January, is My Big Fat Baroque Wedding.
Less funny is not knowing what they're going to perform. One has to go to one of their concerts knowing that these are experienced and very, very capable musicians who all share a deep musicological curiosity that's as sharp as their wit. Think of it as a musical pot luck by blue-ribboned chefs.
Tonight's concert is at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, not at the group's usual venue. For details, click here.
The star guest tonight is Montreal harpsichord master Olivier Fortin, who is particularly happy to be able to make it.
I saw him in the audience at a concert earlier this week and stopped to say hi. Bright eyed, smiling, animated, he seemed his normal self, which is no small miracle.
He and his partner were in a car crash in France just a few months ago. Fortin had severe head trauma and doctors had to induce a coma. The doctors had to remove a lot of blood from his cranium and, apparently, were quite sure that Fortin would not emerge from the ordeal quite the same.
Well, he did -- except for having lost hearing in his right ear. He told me that there was so much blood in his ear that it destroyed the cochlea, the part of the ear that captures sound. That's it. His brain and hands work perfectly, he said, beaming.
If nothing else, tonight's a great opportunity to see this lucky, talented man do what he does best.
Here is Fortin (at the red harpsichord) performing Jean-Philippe Rameau's La Cupis with Skip Sempé, followed by Fortin and his Montreal ensemble, Masques, in Amsterdam early this year performing Anthony Holborne's exquisite Image of Melancholy:
John Terauds started at the Toronto Star as a freelance writer in 1988, and has been on staff since 1997. He began writing on classical music in 2001, and has been the full-time classical music critic since 2005.
He is also the organist and choir director at St. Peter's Anglican Church, a parish founded in 1863 in downtown Toronto.
If he's not listening to, writing about or playing music, it means he's either asleep, unconscious, walking his dog -- or all of the above.
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