Isn’t it about time that we rethink the way that Brahms, Beethoven and Bruckner are presented? Plenty of reflexion has already been done in the UK it seems. The Southbank Centre recently supported the premiere of a new concerto for beatboxer and orchestra. The Barbican puts orchestral scores to films and the Roundhouse’s Reverb series introduces classical music to a pop venue. So is there a way to reinvent the concert?

Some of Britain’s classical taste-makers tell all in this article published in The Times...

You always remember your first time… Generally, that sentence refers to your first kiss but it also could be adapted to hearing Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Some may have heard the piece for the first time in front of the TV set, enthralled by the dinosaurs’ story in Fantasia. Volcanoes erupting, dinosaurs stomping, the lost world has everything to capture a kid’s imagination and Walt Disney masterfully used the music of Stravinsky to bring us millions of years back. Others may have seen the ballet choreographed by Marie Chouinard (her Rite of Spring quickly became a “classic” of Québécois dance) or the older version, by Maurice Béjart. This was my case. I was maybe nine or ten but the emotions felt that evening remain very vivid. A tad traumatised (more likely by the movement of the bodies than by the music itself), I nevertheless didn’t wait very long before listening to the work again. I was so convinced of its qualities that it was on one of the first – if not the first – LPs I bought with my pocket money. Since that day, I’ve listened to it countless times, and my love for the work never diminished. If a local orchestra is playing it, you can bet I’ll be in the audience that evening.

Even nearly a century after the premiere, its pagan subject matter, its strong tribal imagery, and its marked rhythms and dissonances still manage to take one by surprise. Nevertheless, once you have heard it, it seems you only wish to repeat the experience and immerse yourself more completely in this cornerstone of 20th century music.

To listen to it, in a totally different disguise so to speak, in its solo piano version, gave me the chance to still hear new things in it. Even when you think you really know the Rite of Spring, the pas de deux between the work and the listener has just begun.

To listen to Serhiy Salov’s solo piano version…

Pianist Alain Lefèvre will once more immerse himself into the musical world of André Mathieu this week as he gives two concerts with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, to be held tomorrow night and Wednesday morning. Our informers tell us that tomorrow’s performance has been sold out for a while but that a few tickets may still be found for the morning performance, if your schedule permits it. On the program: André Mathieu’s Piano Concerto No. 4, premiered and recorded in the Spring of 2008 by Alain Lefèvre and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Georges Nicholson, who has put in countless hours working on Mathieu’s biography, will be chatting with Alain Lefèvre at the pre-concert lecture tomorrow night. After the concert, a signing session will be organised in the foyer of Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.

To listen to Mathieu’s Piano Concerto No. 4…

In the nineteenth century, transcriptions for piano or small ensemble of pieces from the symphonic or operatic literature constituted a privileged means of making large-scale works accessible to music-lovers. Several composers chose to make these transcriptions, one of their aims being to promote their own works. But for others, including Liszt, the process afforded the means to revisit the works of composers they admired.

In transcribing The Rite of Spring for solo piano, Serhiy Salov’s purpose was to find a new way to convey Stravinsky’s wild imagination. To achieve this, he immersed himself in the work, exploring its most minute inner workings and deconstructing it to better rebuild it afterward.

“I did this above all out of love for the Rite, since the piano offers a greater freedom,” he stresses. “And it seems to me that a single player can bring a more focused energy to the work, which seems somewhat diffuse with an entire orchestra. Of course, one cannot reproduce everything one hears in the orchestra, with its huge range; but on the piano, one can dive into the very heart of the piece.”

In reworking the The Rite of Spring, Serhiy Salov paid particular attention to the various strata of sounds that needed to be reproduced:

“Because there is a limit to what ten fingers can accomplish, I chose to use the sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal on the piano), for example, to help clarify the textures. Stravinsky also plays around with the traditional roles of orchestral instruments, such as using horns and strings as percussion instruments, or by treating multiple strata of strings as broad aggregates of harmonics. My aim here was to convey the colour and mood of the work, for example by playing around with the range of perceived frequencies, letting low notes convey something mysterious and almost indeterminate, such as the timpani might do.”

I invite you to discover this remarkable new take on the masterpiece here…

We knew him as guest soloist, recital pianist, chamber musician, artistic ambassador of the Lanaudière Festival. With the release of the original soundtrack of the movie L’enfant prodige: l’incroyable destinée d’André Mathieu, a film scripted and directed by Luc Dionne, a Cinémaginaire production featuring Patrick Drolet, Alain Lefèvre acts as music director, composer and pianist.

“The incarnation of pure genius” is Alain Lefèvre’s unequivocal assessment of André Mathieu. For the last several years, Lefèvre’s ambition was to revive the public’s interest in Mathieu. He has done so on the concert stage, on disc and in interviews, including with the famous Charlie Rose. As a pianist, he has played Mathieu in Canada and everywhere else in the world. In May 2008, he gave the premiere of Mathieu’s Concerto No. 4 with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra (recording available on the Analekta label) before performing it in Paris with the Orchestre National de France at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées.  Recent winner of a JUNO for his recording with the London Mozart Players, Lefèvre will give the London premiere next October of Mathieu’s Concertino No. 2 at Cadogan Hall with the prestigious chamber ensemble, a few days after the German premiere in Berlin of Mathieu’s Concerto No. 4. On May 27, he will open the Canadian Pavilion at EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, performing the same concerto with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, followed the next day by the world premiere of the film on the composer’s life.

Discover the soundtrack here…