Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin is renowned internationally for his colossal technique and for his vast repertoire. In this video he discusses the music of Russian composer Nicolai Medtner (1880-1951). Medtner was born in Moscow but left his native country in 1921. He lived in England during the last 15 years of his life. For more about Hamelin visit his website at www.marcandrehamelin.com.
Valery Gergiev in his element conducting the music of Prokofiev. With the London Symphony Gergiev conducts an excerpt from the ballet score Romeo and Juliet. Gergiev shapes the music beautifully and brings out all its vivid colours.
Placido Domingo and Sondra Radvanovsky in the Final Scene of Cyrano de Bergerac
The most exciting classical music news in Toronto next week is the opening of the high-profile Black Creek Summer Music Festival on June 4 at the Rexall Centre. Megastar tenor Placido Domingo is coming after an absence of many years to kick off the Festival with a gala performance that also stars the great Verdi soprano Sondra Radvanovsky. These two artists collaborated in the rarely performed opera Cyrano de Bergerac by Franco Alfano, in the famous Francesca Zambello production that was seen at the Met, Covent Garden, Valencia, and La Scala. Here is the Final Scene from the opera, captured with a stationary camera. The picture and sound quality are not the best but it is still worth seeing for the incandescent performance by the two artists.
Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann is a perennial favourite in opera houses around the world. But the film version produced in 1951 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger remains a classic version. Few live performances could begin to rival the imaginative sets and costumes in this film and the unique combination of drama, dance and music. It remains, to be sure, a production only possible on film. In the doll scene, for example, no coloratura soprano could possibly sing her difficult aria while dancing like a great ballerina. In the film version the soprano is Dorothy Bond and the dancer is Moira Shearer. Sir Thomas Beecham is the conductor with the Royal Philharmonic.
Powell-Pressburger - usually operating under the name "The Archers" - was an extraordinary team of filmmakers which still hasn't received the recognition it deserves. Among their finest films were The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and Stairway to Heaven.
The Janacek Sinfonietta is a thrilling piece both to hear and to see. For trumpet fans it is an awesome experience. The composer requires no fewer than 9 trumpets in the piece and throws in a couple of bass trumpets for good measure. You can recognize the bass trumpets by their sheer size: they are much bigger than the usual B flat or C trumpets. Some other unusual instruments in the brass section are the two tenor or Wagner tubas. Wagner essentially invented them and Bruckner used them in his late symphonies.
Czech composer Leos Janacek was a great original and this 1925 composition was one of his best. The performance in our video by Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony at the Proms is first-rate too.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Sings Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt abhandon gekommen"
On this day exactly 100 years ago, the great Gustav Mahler died. Born on July 7, 1860 in eastern Bohemia, Mahler's work bridged the late 19th century Romantic tradition and the post-Romantic modernism of the early 20th century. Mahler was known in his lifetime chiefly as a conductor, while his own compositions only gained popularity after WWII. To remember him, here is one of his greatest works—"Ich bin der Welt abhandon gekommen," from a collection of five songs for voice and orchestra known as the Ruckert Lieder—sung by the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Karl Bohm.
Estonian-born conductor Neeme Jarvi turns 74 in a few weeks but shows no signs of slowing down. He had some serious health issues a few years ago but seems to have made a complete recovery. He now heads the Hague Residentie Orkest in Holland and the Estonian National Symphony, and guest conducts all over the world.
One of his former orchestras is the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden and he has maintained a close relationship with that orchestra over the years. This video shows him in rehearsal with this orchestra and in conversation. For more on Neeme Jarvi visit his website at www.neemejarvi.ee.
There seem to be Jarvis conducting everywhere these days. Father Neeme has made hundreds of recordings and done stellar work in Gothenberg, Sweden, Detroit, Michigan and New Jersey among other places. His oldest son Paavo is set to leave the music directorship in Cincinatti and spend more time with the the Orchestre de Paris and Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and younger son Kristjan is making his mark too especially in contemporary music.
All three Jarvis are enormously talented conductors but so far Neeme deserves pride of place. He has a vast repertoire, he has championed a wide range of less familiar music especially from his native Estonia, and he has a Beechamesque flair for the often under-appreciated small gems in the orchestral literature. Here is a case in point. I can't recall hearing a more interesting or exciting performance of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Grieg's incidental music for Peer Gynt. And the members of the Berlin Philharmonic give him everything he wants and more!
Rolando Villazon Sings "Pourquoi me reveiller" from Werther
Fans of Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon have reason to celebrate. On May 5, the tenor had a triumphant return to Royal Opera Covent Garden in the title role in Massenet's Werther, receiving unanimously positive reviews. After three years of vocal ill health that involved two hiatuses from the stage, many cancellations and eventually surgery to remove a cyst in his vocal cord, it appears Villazon is singing well once again. Observers note a newfound security in his top register and the absence of the tendency to push his lyric tenor for a bigger, more dramatic sound. Let's hope this is the start of a new phase in his career. Performances of Werther continue on May 11, 14, 17 and 21. Here is Villazon singing "Pourquoi me reveiller" at the Paris Opera in March 2009. He sings with his trademark honeyed mezza voce, only betraying signs of strain and flatness at the top when he tries to push his instrument. His Charlotte is American mezzo Susan Graham, and Kent Nagano led the Paris Opera forces in a beautifully shaped reading. Hopefully video or audio clips of Villazon's current Covent Garden performances will appear on Youtube.
After all the hype about the Royal Wedding last Friday, we needed to be reminded that while individual members of the British royal family may be silly and/or superfluous the institution has served us well. It remains a positive model of how people and nations can organize themselves into lasting and workable social structures.
The wedding itself was a magnificent affair by any standard and the music greatly enhanced the nobility and wonder of the occasion. For some tastes the music was far too traditional and looked backwards rather than forwards. But this was not a contemporary music concert. It was a celebration of a great British institution and its stability and grandeur. There was some music by living composers - Peter Maxwell Davies, John Rutter and Paul Nealor - but there were also the chestnuts that turn up regularly on the Last Night at the Proms: Parry's Jerusalem and Blest Pair of Sirens.
But watching the ceremony and getting caught up in the spirit of the moment, from my perspective it all worked beautifully. Walton's Crown Imperial was ideal for the newly-married couple's walk down the aisle and out the front door of Westminster Abbey to be cheered by the hundreds of thousands of people waiting patiently to greet them. And Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens - a setting of a poem by John Milton - was perfect for the guests to enjoy while the wedding party signed the registry out of sight. Blest Pair of Sirens was performed gained immensely from the inclusion of a superb boys choir instead of the more customary women's voices. The measured tempo was just right too. For comparison one can visit YouTube and see a performance given at the 1998 Proms and led by Andrew Davis. Davis takes the correct tempo at the beginning but to me it seems too fast for the spirit of both words and music.
Here is a video of the wonderful performance given last week at the Royal Wedding.
Jennifer Larmore Sings "Che faro senza Euridice" from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice
The third production of the COC Spring Season opens this Sunday with Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. This is arguably the greatest opera in the Baroque repertoire and certainly one of the most popular. The COC production comes from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, directed by Canadian Robert Carsen. The role of Orfeo is taken by countertenor Lawrence Zazzo. Another well known American counter tenor David Daniels is a noted Orfeo, and he sang in this very production opposite the Euridice of Isabel Bayrakdarian in Chicago. However, Orfeo is most often sung by low mezzo voices the likes of Marilyn Horne and Stephanie Blythe, although lyric mezzos like Dame Janet Baker and Teresa Berganza also had great success as Orfeo. Here is another wonderful singer, mezzo Jennifer Larmore, singing the famous aria "Che faro senza Euridice."
La Scena Musicale's award-winning website SCENA.org has been a world leader of classical music and arts news since 1996. Today's Classical Music Video Blog is our video pick of the day.
Read the press release at http://bit.ly/LSMPRVidBlog . Submit your favourite video to todaysvideo@lascena.org.
