A large audience was present in Montreal last Friday evening to hear the American violinist Hilary Hahn on tour with pianist Cory Smythe. Ms Hahn’s warm and engaging personality helped to dispel the cool and rainy weather concert goers had faced on the way to the Maison Symphonique. And then there was the music!
Ms Hahn is well-known for her championing of modern music as well as pairing modern pieces with well established parts of the repertoire. Hahn’s current tour follows the release of her latest CD, 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores. She undertook this project to encourage contemporary composers and to increase the repertoire of encores available for classical artists. She is playing two of these compositions on tour. These contemporary works tied in well with the overall theme of the evening which was thematic development and fantasy. Read More
Prior to Saturday night’s concert of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM), Maestro Nagano humorously warned certain members of the audience they might want to block their ears as the OSM’s brass section had been augmented by 12 additional trumpets distributed in the balconies at the sides of and behind the stage. He also mentioned that the first piece to be performed, Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta, had not been played by the orchestra for quite some time.
It is a pity this work has not been heard more often. As mentioned in the program notes, Janáček drew his inspiration from a military-style fanfare he had heard in a park in Brno, and the work was offered to celebrate Czech independence gained following the end of WWI. The OSM gave a stirring performance whose detail and clarity blended perfectly with the numerous trumpets. All five of the brief movements showed the orchestra at its best, including the rousing conclusion. Read More
It seems unlikely that Maestro Kent Nagano had the Oscars’ weekend in mind when he planned this season’s schedule for the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM). Nevertheless, there was measure of serendipity in the timing of the four sold-out concerts this week at the Maison Symphonique which included two works by Mozart so famously featured in the multiple Academy Award winning film Amadeus.
Although Amadeus was not mentioned anywhere in the program notes, the dramatic initial passages of Mozart's Symphony number 25, showcased in the opening sequences of Miloš Forman’s 1984 Best Picture, were familiar to almost everyone in the hall. Read More