Born in 1934 in Hawkesbury, Ontario, André Prévost studied composition with Clermont Pépin and writing techniques with Jean Papineau-Couture and Isabelle Delorme. He then furthered his studies in Paris with Messiaen and Dutilleux and later returned to study electroacoustic music with Michel Philoppot. The following summer was spent at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where he worked with Copland, Kodály, Schuller and Carter.

A tenured professor for many years at Université de Montréal, he taught composition and analysis.  It is in 1967 that Prévost created his most ambitious work, Terre des Hommes, for double orchestra, three choirs and two narrators, based on a poem by Michèle Lalonde, chosen to inaugurate the Expo 67 World Fair. He wrote more than 60 works, including Cosmophonie, Variations et thème, Mobiles and various sonatas and improvisations. We can hear Angèle Dubeau performing his Improvisation for solo violin here. He passed away in 2001.

An homage to the composer will be rendered in the next few days. Tonight at 5 p.m., at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, will be launched La musique que je suis, a book written under the direction of Lyse Richer. For more information: (514) 872-5338.

You will also be able to watch (for a first or second time) Journal d’une création, the fascinating documentary by James Dormeyer in which we follow the composer during the two years leading to the premiere of his Concerto for violin and orchestra, in April 1998. It will be featured on October 4, 6 and 7 at 1 p.m. at the Cinéma Parallèle.

The premiere of the diptych Pagliacci / Gianni Schicchi Saturday night at Opéra de Montréal gave us the chance to hear soprano Marianne Fiset as young and sweet Lauretta, charmed by Rinuccio. Supported by the impressive stage direction of Alain Gauthier and by a strong OSM, the young singer has charmed the audience, especially when she performed the mythical “O mio babbino caro” in Gianni Schicchi.

Let’s not forget also the exhilarating stage presence of alto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who portrays a very colourful and zanny Zita.

Other performances are scheduled on September 30, October 3, 5 and 8.

Initiated after an encounter between Argentinean gambist Juan Manuel Quintana and Canadian harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour, Concert parisien is an intimate recording, that gives us a taste of the Paris of the 1740s. As in the time of Louis XV, four musicians gather to play music among friends: Luc Beauséjour, Juan Manuel Quintana, violonist Hélène Plouffe and flutist Grégoire Jeay. Works by Telemann, Blavet, Forqueray and Leclair featuring the violin, the flute and the viola da gamba intertwined with excerpts from Rameau’s Clavecin en concert.

Luc Beauséjour and Juan Manuel Quintana explain how the concept came about in this video.

To listen to the recording..

It is around noon that, surrounded by some artists featured on the Analekta label, François Mario Labbé has unveiled the recordings to be launched this fall. Among the new artists to join the Analekta family, let’s mention the remarkable double bass player Joel Quarrington, the young harpist Valérie Milot, Révélation Radio-Canada Musique 2009-2010, the London Mozart Players (well-known ensemble with whom Murray Perahia has recorded the complete Mozart Concertos), the Argentinean gambist Juan Manuel Quintana and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Music lovers will be happy to hear once again Angèle Dubeau, I Musici de Montréal, Alain Lefèvre and his brother David Lefèvre, Ensemble Caprice, Luc Beauséjour, Hélène Plouffe, Grégoire Jeay, Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal and the Gryphon Trio.

An Analekta launch would be incomplete with some performances. We were treated to two sacred works sung by the  under the direction of their music director Gilbert Patenaude, as well as a performance of Ginastera’s Milonga and Caroline Lizotte’s La Madone by Valérie Milot.

Two enticing musical performances.

Pianist Alain Lefèvre speaks powerfully of André Mathieu’s Concertino.

A group photo, featuring les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal and their music director Gilbert Patenaude, François Mario Labbé, Geneviève Soly, Alain Lefèvre, Valérie Milot and Luc Beauséjour.

The Analekta fall will be filled with many happy surprises. One of the titles that will be announced tomorrow will surely carry a perfume of summer with it. Indeed, since the next recording of I Musici, under the direction of Yuli Turovsky, will feature, among other things, Souvenir de Florence, a sextuor for strings by Tchaikovsky, presented this time in a version for string orchestra.

Tchaikovsky loved Florence with a passion, this much is obvious from various letters he sent from that city to friends. Here are some excerpts of letters featuring his “dream city”

“Florence is so very dear to my heart. The longer you spend here the fonder you grow of it. This isn’t a noisy capital, where your eyes don’t know which way to look and which tires you with its bustle. But at the same time, there are so many things here full of artistic and historical interest that there is no chance of being bored.”

“So far as the fortnight in Florence is concerned, it will stay in my memory as a marvellous, sweet dream. I have had so many marvellous experiences here – the town itself, its surroundings, the pictures, the marvellous spring weather, the folk-songs, the flowers – that I’m weary. “

“I cannot begin to tell you how glorious the perfect tranquility of the evenings is, when all you can hear is the distant sound of the waters of the Arno as they tumble or flow down an incline. One can’t imagine a more comfortable or suitable place to work.”

I don’t know about you but, suddenly, I feel the very pressing urge to buy a one-way ticket to Firenze to enjoy the Duomo, I Uffizi and the Fiesole’s hills. Life isn’t always fair…