Year: 2012
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A LETTER FROM ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO
As I enter my 20th year of professional performance, I have been reflecting on the most resonant musical moments throughout my development as a singer. From my beginning as a Broadway baby to my now daily dances with Handel, I have realized that there is a lot of music in between those two poles which…
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PROGRAM NOTES: ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO
Henri Duparc was, with Berlioz and Fauré, among the pioneers of la mélodie (the French art song, as distinguished from folk song). His career was remarkable in that although he lived for 85 years, his reputation rests on barely more than a dozen songs. “Chanson triste” was Duparc’s first song, written at the age…
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PROGRAM NOTES: STEPHEN HOUGH
Frédéric Chopin: Nocturnes, Op. 27 The nocturnes are Chopin’s most intimate and personal utterances. Some are wistful, some reflective, some melancholy, some faintly troubled and some serenely joyful. All are sensuously beautiful, suffused with elegance and deeply poetic impulses. During Chopin’s lifetime they were his most popular pieces. Twenty-one survive, the first written when…
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PROGRAM NOTES: MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN
Alban Berg: Piano sonata, Op. 1 “Among the most auspicious Opus Ones ever written,” was Glenn Gould’s assessment of Alban Berg’s piano sonata. Berg wrote this work in 1907-08 while studying with Arnold Schönberg. Originally it was intended to have three movements but, after completing the first, Berg found that “for a long time nothing…
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PROGRAM NOTES: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV
Franz Schubert: Piano sonata in A major, D. 664 (Op. 120) Scholars lack definite evidence for the date and place of composition of Schubert’s early A major sonata, but most are willing to grant that most likely he wrote it during the summer of 1819 while vacationing in Steyr in Upper Austria. He wrote to…
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THREE VIOLINS AND THE TALENTED TRIO
Imagine my delight when I received an email from Jonathan Chan in London, where he is studying at the Guildhall, telling me that he had been awarded the 1715 Dominicus Montagnana violin on loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank. Canada’s finest young talents compete for the opportunity to use these instruments for a…
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PROGRAM NOTES: PAUL LEWIS
Paul Lewis performs the Late Schubert Sonatas The year of Schubert’s death, 1828, saw the birth of an extraordinary number of masterpieces from the pen of this master lyricist: the “Great” C major Symphony, the Mass in E-flat, the String Quintet in C, thirteen of his finest songs, and the final trilogy of great…
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PROGRAM NOTES: ANDRAS SCHIFF PERFORMS BACH
J. S. Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier One of the monumental landmarks in the history of music, Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier (the WTC for short) has come to represent the “Old Testament” of the pianist’s repertory (Hans von Bülow) and his “daily bread” (Robert Schumann). “For more than 250 years,” states Davitt Moroney, “Das wohltemperierte Clavier has…
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PROGRAM NOTES: ERIC OWENS, BASS-BARITONE
Eric Owens’ recital divides neatly into two halves – a German half and a French half, with the final song a true rarity that bridges the geographical and cultural divide. The German songs (Lieder) all tend to be of a dark, serious or melancholic nature, while the French songs (mélodies) are lighter, even airy and…
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ANDRÁS SCHIFF: ON PLAYING BACH AND THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
Senza pedale ma con tanti colori (Without the pedal but with plenty of colours) Playing J. S. Bach’s keyboard music on the modern piano, pianists are confronted with various fundamental questions. The answers to these are never simple. For example: what is the “correct” instrument for the Well-Tempered Clavier? The clavichord, the harpsichord, the organ,…