Looking like a rock star, with leather jackets and cool glasses, the pianist Alain Lefèvre seems miles away from the sophisticated image one associates with the world of classical music. He is first and foremost a faithful artist who defends André Mathieu with unwavering conviction, as well as a confirmed activist when it comes to reaching tomorrow’s music lovers. He spoke with us about some of his favourite topics and his not-so-favourite ones.

Lefèvre often likes to approach the pages of the repertoire while thinking of orchestral colours. We will therefore not be surprised to learn that he says he is above all attracted to the symphonic repertoire, even if he confesses to having a particular affection for Dinu Lipati, the pianist of Romanian origin. “I love Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Wagner. They are part of my life. There is nothing more beautiful than the Four Last Songs and I consider Metamorphoses and the Alpine Symphony masterpieces. I’m a pianist but I prefer to listen to opera. I like instrumental works, particularly violin concertos. Sibelius’s Violin Concerto is, for me, the greatest. I also love Strauss’s Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon, which is never played. I’m crazy about Brahms, I love Bach, I love all the composers, but it’s hard for me to talk about them, especially when it comes to the piano repertoire. Don’t ask me what I think about such and such a pianist. What could be more dishonest that the opinion of one pianist about another pianist? It’s all so incestuous!”

Tomorrow, he speaks about the next generation of music lovers.

Two of Canada’s better-travelled orchestras, both Analekta artists, have headed to Mexico this month for the 37th annual Festival international Cervantino de Guanajuato.  Both the Orchestre symphonique de Montreal (last week) and Tafelmusik (tonight) will perform at the festival, which brings together over 2000 artists from 30 different countries and is generally considered to be Latin America’s premiere multidisciplinary festival.  The theme of this year’s festival is Galileo Y El Telescopo: 400 AÑOS, named in honour of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009).

Under the direction of Jean-François Rivest, the OSM performed Claude Vivier’s Orion, Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Marc-Andre Hamelin) and Holst’s The Planets.  Tafelmusik will perform its Galileo Project: Music of the Spheres program, a multi-disciplinary event that features the orchestra, astronomers, a stage director, a set and lighting designer, and astronomical photographers. Assuming the narrator’s role is Mario Iván Martínez, one of Mexico’s most accomplished classically-trained actors (who was seen in Like Water for Chocolate) who has a parallel career as a singer specializing in early music.

The Festival ends November 1. Details here…

Telemann and the Baroque Gypsies is meant as the natural extension of Vivaldi and the Baroque Gypsies, the penultimate recording by Ensemble Caprice. This album was nominated for 2009 Echo Klassik awards in Germany in two categories: Ensemble/ Orchestra of the Year and Classics Without Borders.

“One can hardly believe what wonderful imaginative ideas these pipers and fiddlers have as they improvise. In only a week, a composer could be inspired for an entire lifetime. I have written several major concertos in this style.” As mentioned in his autobiographies, Telemann’s encounters with Eastern European gypsy music influenced his own compositions. The prolific composer must have been enthralled by the wonderful inventiveness of this music.

As it was the case with Vivaldi and the Baroque Gypsies, melodies and dances from the spectacular Uhrovska Collection (1730) have been integrated, with arrangements by Mathias Maute. The musicians are musically re-enacting the encounters of Telemann with the gypsies of Eastern Europe. The direct dialogue between the various works depicts a conversation in which commonalities as well as differences are made unabashedly explicit.

You can view a video taken at a rehearsal minutes before a performance at McGill University.

To listen to the album…

After 1850, the appearance on the scene of the conductor as interpreter (that is, someone other than the composer), brought a new face to the world of orchestral conducting. Since the composer was no longer always around to explain things, ambiguous or uncertain situations arose, especially since up until World War II there were no courses of study for conductors. Nowadays, anyone who wants to be a conductor has to learn to play an instrument first and acquire a solid background in theory. He plays in an orchestra, (or, if he is a pianist, becomes a rehearsal assistant) and observes the conductor at work. If the conductor needs an assistant during a rehearsal, so he can go out into the hall to hear what the orchestra sounds like from a distance for example, that’s the assistant’s chance to mount the podium.

The conductor today

In these early years of the 21st century, conductors are known primarily for their technical perfection, just as pianists are known for the evenness of their scales or string players for their intonation or for their bow control. This attribute has become essential for conductors today due to the limited rehearsal time at their disposal and the need for precision when working in radio, television, and the recording studio. To achieve the status of “super-maestro,” the hero audiences eagerly identify with, one must put in countless hours of practice. Conducting is far more complex than it might first seem.

After bewitching us with her extraordinary Philip Glass: Portrait last fall and revealing to us the joyful universe of Jean Françaix in Gargantua and Other Delights, Angèle Dubeau launched yesterday a box set featuring excerpts from some her most acclaimed recordings. A representative panorama of her long and fruitful career, these CDs demonstrate the multiple talents of Ms. Dubeau, whether as a soloist with the great orchestras, a chamber musician, a member and artistic director of her ensemble La Pietà or alone with her violin. She is heard in excerpts of concertos by Mendelssohn, Sibelius and Glazunov, solo in Locatelli’s Caprice No. 9 (from his Arte del violino), in three tracks with La Pietà, in Martinú’s Madrigal-Sonata for flute, violin and piano and in a transcription of “L’ho perduta” from Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro, performed in duo with her friend, the late Alain Marion, as well as in Schubert’s Sonata in D major, with renowned pianist Anton Kuerti.

Discover it first…