Gustave Mahler Three Des Knaben Wunderhorn Songs The collection of German folk poetry published between 1805 and 1808 under the title Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) had an enormous influence on the development of German lyric poetry and … Continue reading
Latest
VRS on Facebook
A sold-out performance for the Jussen brothers, another coup for Sheku, and Happy Lunar New Year! Check out this week's e-news...
A sold-out performance for the Jussen brothers
mailchi.mp
We're looking forward to welcoming pianists Lucas and Arthur Jussen to our stage at the Playhouse this Sunday. The concert is sold out (we have a wait list for tickets: call us at 604-602-0363 or email us if you'd like to be added to the list). Seated at a single piano, this remarkable pair of Dutch...Another coup for Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Congratulations Sheku! 👏
Sheku Kanneh-Mason makes UK Album Chart history by entering the Top 10
www.gramophone.co.uk
Kanneh-Mason becomes the first cellist in the history of the UK Official Album Chart to break into the Top 10 and the first British classical instrumentalist in 30 yearsHey piano lovers, check out this week's e-news...
mailchi.mp
In the words of the great Irving Berlin: I love a piano. I have piano on my mind because I’m still on a high after the Li brothers’ brilliant performance at the Playhouse on Sunday. Despite the inclement weather, George and Andrew Li played to a full house, and our next concert this month, featu...Program Notes: Bryn Terfel
Posted onIdris Lewis Cân yr arad goch (Ceiriog) The Welsh poet John Hughes (1832-1887), who took the bardic name Ceiriog, is known as the “Robert Burns of Wales.” Like the great Scottish poet, he sought to express his love for his … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Performance Three
Posted onSonata in A major D959 Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata was one of three written in the summer of 1828, just months before his death. This is a pianistically challenging work of unusually wide emotional range. Its moods run the gamut … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Perfomance Two
Posted onFantasie in F minor for piano four hands D940 Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor for piano duet, composed in 1828, is similar in structure to the composer’s ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy of 1822. Both are laid out in one continuous movement of … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Performance One
Posted onSonata in C minor D958 Of the three last sonatas Schubert wrote just before his death in 1828, it is the Sonata in C minor that most reveals him as Beethovenian, not just in his choice of key, synonymous with … Continue reading
Program Notes: Mark Padmore & Paul Lewis
Posted onThe age of the German lied, an art-song for solo voice with piano accompaniment, extends from the first songs of Schubert (1814) to the last songs of Hugo Wolf (1897). Its emergence in the early part of the 19th century … Continue reading
Program Notes: Brown-Urioste-Canellakis Trio
Posted onFranz Joseph Haydn Piano Trio in F sharp minor, Hob. XV/26 Haydn’s piano trios are really just accompanied piano sonatas, with the cello doubling the bass line and the violin the melody on top. Such a stylistically regressive texture, so … Continue reading
Program Notes: Richard Goode
Posted onBach: Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major, BWV 870 Among the chores assigned to the prelude in the time of Bach were those of catching the listener’s attention, establishing the tonality of the following (presumably more important) piece, … Continue reading
Program Notes: Tetzlaff Trio
Posted onRobert Schumann Piano Trio No. 2 in F major, Op. 80 Robert Schumann began composing in the 1830s, a time when the formation of a canon of great musical works was just beginning, thanks to new publications of older music … Continue reading
Program Notes: Igor Levit
Posted onJohann Sebastian Bach Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828 The Baroque suite was the iPod shuffle of its time. It was a colourful bowl of musical Smarties with a cosmopolitan flavour, offering a collection of dances from all the major … Continue reading