Tag: Vancouver Recital Society
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PROGRAM NOTES: WINTERLUDE – SUITE SATURDAY WITH JEAN-GUIHEN QUEYRAS
A Bit of History Few scholars doubt that Western music was better off for the release of a certain “Bach, Johann Sebastian” from the county jail in Weimar where he had languished, in unsuitable company, for the better part of a month in the autumn of 1717. Court organists can be a stroppy crew at…
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PROGRAM NOTES: JOYCE DIDONATO WITH IL POMO D’ORO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
WAR, PEACE and BAROQUE OPERA The lust for war, the longing for peace: emotions such as these lie at the extremes of human experience. What better place to explore them than in the luridly violent, yet touchingly pathos- filled world of Baroque opera, where chaos reigns in the personal lives of kings and queens, stand-…
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PROGRAM NOTES: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV
Antonio Vivaldi Siciliana in D minor (arr. J. S. Bach and Alfred Cortot) Nothing could be more Baroque than an arrangement of an arrangement. The Baroque was a period in music history in which music travelled freely between instruments and instrumental ensembles. Bach’s Organ Concerto No. 5 for solo organ BWV 596, composed sometime…
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PROGRAM NOTES: ISTVÁN VÁRDAI
Felix Mendelssohn Variations Concertantes Op. 17 Felix was not the only musician in the Mendelssohn family. His older sister Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) was a prodigiously talented pianist and composer, although she chose marriage over a public career, and his younger brother Paul Mendelssohn (1812-1874) was no slouch as a cellist, to judge by the…
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PROGRAM NOTES: THE DANISH STRING QUARTET
Johann Sebastian Bach Well-Tempered Clavier II Fugue No. 7 in E-flat major BWV 876 (arr. Mozart) In 1782 Mozart’s patron, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, showed the composer a number of manuscripts of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and encouraged him to make string arrangements for performance at the Baron’s regular series of Sunday afternoon…
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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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LEILA GETZ: HATS ‘ON’ TO TWO EXTRAORDINARY MUSICIANS!
Following their incredible journey through the Beethoven Piano and Violin Sonatas in three concerts for the Vancouver Recital Society, Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov were anxious to blow off excess steam and see something of Vancouver before they left for their next engagement in San Francisco. So I, as the tour guide, and Allison…
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PROGRAM NOTES: THE BEETHOVEN PROJECT
Ludwig van Beethoven The Ten Violin Sonatas Beethoven wrote his first violin sonatas, a set of three (Op. 12) in 1797-98. Six more appeared by early 1803, making a fairly compressed time span for a medium in which Beethoven was to write just one more in 1812. All but the tenth were written before the…
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PROGRAM NOTES: CHRISTIAN GERHAHER AND ANDRÁS SCHIFF
Ludwig van Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte Adelaide, Op. 46 An die ferne Geliebte, composed in 1816, stands proudly at the beginning of Christian Gerhaher’s recital as the first important song cycle from any composer, that is, a series of songs in which the constituent numbers are linked together by a theme or narrative of…
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SAFEGUARDING THE ARTS IN VANCOUVER
By now, many of you have heard the sad news that the Playhouse Theatre Company commenced to wind down operations as of March 10. On the preceding day, Leila and I attended the announcement, which could only be described as a wake for a departed loved-one. An unusual silence fell over the assembled group…
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PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE
Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonata (“Moonlight”) in C sharp minor, Op.27, no.2 (Sonata quasi una Fantasia) The year 1801 marked not only the dawn of a new century, but also a significant new approach on Beethoven’s part to matters of form and structure in the piano sonata. The bold use of unusual and exotic keys,…
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MUSIC, WHAT’S IT MEME TO ME?
Enter the Vancouver Recital Society’s RU35 Collaborative Art Project and You Could Win! Looking for a way to experience heart-stopping classical music recitals without breaking the bank? RU35, or Recitals Under 35, is the Vancouver Recital Society’s new program for discerning young Vancouverites between the ages of 18 and 35. RU35 tickets for all recitals…
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AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORIAN BOESCH
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. How did the New Year start for you? The New Year started with a Messiah concert in Zurich and then 5 days skiing with the kids and friends in Vorarlberg. That‘s a very good start! Who are the great influences in your life and in…
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RU35: RECITALS UNDER 35
Looking for a way to experience heart-stopping classical music recitals without breaking the bank? RU35, or Recitals Under 35, is the Vancouver Recital Society’s new program for discerning young Vancouverites between the ages of 18 and 35. RU35 tickets for all recitals are only $18, a savings of up to 75%. As one of the…
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PROGRAM NOTES: FLORIAN BOESCH
A recital of Lieder set exclusively to poems of Heinrich Heine and composed solely by Schubert and Schumann is particularly apt inasmuch as Heine was born the same year as Schubert (1797) and died the same year as Schumann (1856). He was not only one of Germany’s leading romantic authors, he also wrote about travel,…
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RU35: RECITALS FOR YOUNG VANCOUVERITES
Ru35 is a new program for discerning young Vancouverites between 18 and 35 who want to broaden their cultural horizons, impress a date or influence their network in a new way. Young adults get the opportunity to experience live solo performances by world-class classical artists, meet new people, and never break the bank doing it.…