Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major K. 414 Mozart’s twelfth piano concerto was one of three composed in 1782 for sale to the Viennese public by advance subscription, the 18th-century equivalent of ‘crowd-sourcing’. A major selling … Continue reading
Latest
VRS on Facebook
“I don’t know what my listeners are going back home to... I don’t know what they sacrificed in order to spend money on their tickets. But I’m going to make it worth their while. I’m going to make it so they don’t regret it. I’m going to make it something that they’re going to reach for in those moments when they want to give in to negativity or the pain of, you know, everyday life."
Check out Alex Varty's interview with Measha Brueggergosman in this week's The Georgia Straight:
Art song meets gospel as star soprano Measha Brueggergosman ups the ante
The celebrated singer makes a convincing case that European art song and the African-American spiritual are soul mates.In this week's e-news: welcoming miraculous Measha Brueggergosman back to our stage, plus pianist Beatrice Rana is Gramophone Magazine's November cover star. bit.ly/2XcucLo
Read all about Measha Brueggergosman's recital at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts this Sunday in the Vancouver Sun.
Metro Vancouver classical music community celebrates anniversaries
Two very different concerts celebrating different anniversaries will be here to whet our appetites before the holiday music season kicks inPROGRAM NOTES: LUCA PISARONI & WOLFRAM RIEGER
Posted onWolfgang Amadeus Mozart Four Songs The earliest German lieder we have in the concert repertoire come from the more than 30 works that Mozart wrote between 1768 (at the age of twelve!) and his death in 1791. His mature songs … Continue reading
Do you remember your very first musical memory?
Posted onWhen I was a boy my father would sing me to sleep every night. And when he went away on business trips, my mother sang to me at night instead. Now, my mother, whom I love dearly (98 and going … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET
Posted onThe Art of Fugue Fugue is the Rubik’s cube of compositional genres. It’s the sort of thing that only the ‘brainiest’ of modern composers, one with a bent for antiquarian curiosities, would attempt. And yet in its golden age in … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: CHRISTIAN GERHAHER & GEROLD HUBER
Posted onBy Christian Gerhaher This programme of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set to music by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm was conceived as a tribute to the eight great poetic hymns written during the poet’s Sturm und Drang period … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: CHRISTIAN TETZLAFF
Posted onEugène Ysaÿe Sonata for solo violin in G minor, Op. 27, No. 1 Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe stands as a bridge figure between the late Romantic era of virtuoso violinists such as Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski (he studied … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: CHARLIE ALBRIGHT
Posted onFranz Schubert Impromptus Op. 90, Nos. 1-4 The impromptu is just one of a number of small-scale instrumental genres arising in the early 19th century, known under the collective title of “character pieces”. Cultivated by composers of the Romantic … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: DANIEL MÜLLER-SCHOTT & SIMON TRPČESKI
Posted onLudwig van Beethoven Sonata for cello & piano in C major, Op. 102, No. 1 Those who think of sonata form as a well-organized dinner plate – with the red meat in one corner, the mashed potatoes stationed opposite, and … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: PINCHAS ZUKERMAN & YEFIM BRONFMAN
Posted onFranz Schubert Sonatina for violin & piano in A minor D. 385 It humbles me to think, paraphrasing Tom Lehrer, that when Schubert was my age, he had already been dead for several decades. Lest I forget, there are his … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: IESTYN DAVIES & THOMAS DUNFORD
Posted onThe golden age of English lute song coincides with the public career of lutenist and composer John Dowland – and not by chance: from the publication of his First Booke of Songes in 1597 until his death in 1626, … Continue reading