Volume 28 Issue 1 | September 20 - November 8, 2022
Our 28th season in print! “And Now, Back to Live Action”; a symphonic-sized listings section, compared to last season; clubs “On the move” ; FuturesStops Festival and Nuit Blanche; “Pianistic high-wire acts”; Season announcements include full-sized choral works like Mendelssohn’s Elijah; “Icons, innovators and renegades” pulling out all the stops.
Our 28th season in print! “And Now, Back to Live Action”; a symphonic-sized listings section, compared to last season; clubs “On the move” ; FuturesStops Festival and Nuit Blanche; “Pianistic high-wire acts”; Season announcements include full-sized choral works like Mendelssohn’s Elijah; “Icons, innovators and renegades” pulling out all the stops.
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Virtuosa Project<br />
Infusion Baroque<br />
Leaf Music LM246 (leaf-music.ca)<br />
! The piquant new<br />
release by Virtuosa,<br />
a period ensemble<br />
form Quebec, is<br />
part of their notable<br />
Virtuosa Project, a<br />
series of concerts,<br />
lectures and web<br />
videos dedicated<br />
to women musicians<br />
prior to the <strong>20</strong>th century. In itself, this<br />
is an impressive undertaking featuring 14<br />
compositions, stylish interpretations and<br />
tons of heartfelt energy. Almost all of the<br />
female composers on this album remained in<br />
the shadows of their male counterparts but<br />
brought just as much knowledge, skill and<br />
talent to the European courts and concert<br />
stages. Many were courageous and imaginative<br />
performers and composers who led<br />
financially independent lives and acquired<br />
noble reputations. This album features an<br />
all-star list of powerful and talented women<br />
composers, some of whom remain relatively<br />
unknown to audiences today: Anna<br />
Bon, Anna Amalia of Prussia, Wilhelmine von<br />
Bayreuth, Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen,<br />
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre,<br />
Leopoldine Blahetka, Teresa Milanollo,<br />
Hélène Liebmann and the better-known<br />
Clara Schumann.<br />
Ensemble Virtuosa is daring in both<br />
their programming and performance. The<br />
beauty of structure and phrasing is emphasized<br />
through a fantastic array of colours;<br />
the ensemble and their guest artists perform<br />
with a great sensitivity to each of the individual<br />
compositional languages. The inclusion<br />
of the contemporary piece Versailles written<br />
for Baroque instruments by Canadian Linda<br />
Catlin Smith is perhaps a surprising inclusion,<br />
but it works well as it binds together<br />
meditative and enigmatic feminine qualities,<br />
resulting in uniquely beautiful textural layers.<br />
Intuitive and reflective, Infusion Baroque<br />
celebrates the vibrant creativity and lives of<br />
these women.<br />
Ivana Popovic<br />
Lisztomania Vol.2<br />
Hando Nahkur<br />
HN Productions (handonahkur.com)<br />
! Hando Nahkur<br />
is a remarkable<br />
American pianist<br />
of Estonian origin.<br />
Actually, he has<br />
been enthusiastically<br />
reviewed on<br />
these pages in <strong>20</strong>18<br />
– his Lisztomania<br />
Vol.1 – and with this Vol.2 I can only reiterate<br />
and add to those accolades.<br />
Nahkur’s credentials are too numerous to<br />
mention. As soloist and accompanist he has<br />
enchanted audiences, won competitions and<br />
received international awards. Franz Liszt is<br />
his favourite composer, and listening to this<br />
recording he certainly does more than justice<br />
to the repertoire. In fact since Estonians<br />
and Hungarians (and the Finns) are related,<br />
coming from the same roots, he must have<br />
some Magyar blood in him as he has such<br />
tremendous affinity and love for the great<br />
Hungarian composer.<br />
According to our pianist the key to understanding<br />
Liszt is “from darkness to light”<br />
and nowhere is this more apparent than in<br />
his iconic Hungarian Rhapsodies inspired<br />
by folk tunes he picked up during his many<br />
visits to his homeland. Actually Rhapsody<br />
as a musical genre was invented by Liszt and<br />
later used by many composers. Generally<br />
these start out slowly (Lassu’) in the lower<br />
registers and gradually work toward sunlight<br />
when the pace quickens and turns into some<br />
frenetic Hungarian dance like the Csárdás<br />
and becomes an extremely difficult virtuoso<br />
piece with a spectacular ending. Hando does<br />
two of these, No.10 and my favourite No.12,<br />
played with gusto, total Romantic abandon<br />
and astoundingly perfect technique. Typical<br />
Liszt, those grace notes, rapid decorative<br />
passages that are cascading up and down the<br />
keyboard, paced perfectly evenly and light as<br />
a feather. The Liebestraum No.3 is played with<br />
loving tenderness and ardent passion and the<br />
big guns come out at the end in the Spanish<br />
Rhapsody that will lift you out of your seat.<br />
Janos Gardonyi<br />
Stravinsky – L’Oiseau de feu; Apollon<br />
Musagète<br />
Luxemburg Philharmonic Orchestra;<br />
Gustavo Gimeno<br />
Harmonia Mundi HMM905303 (store.<br />
harmoniamundi.com/release/318357)<br />
! In June of <strong>20</strong>19,<br />
Gustavo Gimeno<br />
conducted the<br />
Toronto Symphony<br />
Orchestra in a<br />
powerful performance<br />
of Stravinsky’s<br />
1945 suite from The<br />
Firebird. Last<br />
May, he led them in an even more memorable<br />
Firebird. This time, he took the podium<br />
as music director of the orchestra. And the<br />
version he chose was the less frequently<br />
programmed original that Stravinsky wrote in<br />
1910 for Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes.<br />
It’s more than twice the length of any of the<br />
three concert suites Stravinsky later made.<br />
But this performance left me with no doubt –<br />
more was better.<br />
On his standout new recording of The<br />
Firebird with the Orchestre Philharmonique<br />
du Luxembourg (where he is also music<br />
director), Gimeno again opts for the original<br />
full-length ballet score. Every moment speaks<br />
persuasively. Stravinsky’s tapestry of evocative<br />
Russian folk melodies, angular textures<br />
and infectious rhythms becomes an edgeof-the-seat<br />
experience. Colourful solos,<br />
like the rhapsodic flute welcoming the 13<br />
captive princesses, and the volcanic timpani<br />
driving the frenzied dance of the evil sorcerer<br />
What we're listening to this month:<br />
thewholenote.com/listening<br />
When Dark Sounds Collide<br />
Pathos Trio<br />
Featuring five new commissions<br />
that combine aesthetics of<br />
contemporary classical music with<br />
dark, heavy, dense sounds drawn<br />
from other genres.<br />
Dream Dancing<br />
Melissa Stylianou<br />
Melissa returns home for 2<br />
Canadian shows with Ike Sturm<br />
- bass, & Reg Schwager - guitar.<br />
10/8 Jazz Bistro & 10/9 The Jazz<br />
Room.<br />
Shanties! LIVE<br />
La Nef & Chor Leoni<br />
Shanties! LIVE features Seán<br />
Dagher, and the 50+ voices of<br />
JUNO-nominated Chor Leoni in a<br />
rollicking concert of sea shanties<br />
haunting laments, and exhilarating<br />
sea songs.<br />
three corners<br />
Hypnosis Negative<br />
A loud, colourful and psychedelic<br />
reimagining of traditional music<br />
from Estonia, Appalachia, and<br />
beyond for modern partner<br />
dancing played on flute, fiddle, and<br />
percussion.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>September</strong> <strong>20</strong> - <strong>November</strong> 8, <strong>20</strong>22 | 55