The excellence of two Analekta albums was recognized this weekend at the JUNO Awards in St. John (Newfoundland).

Indeed, in the category “Classical album of the year: solo or chamber ensemble”, double bassist Joel Quarrington’s Garden Scene beat the competition (which included two other Analekta recordings, Philip Glass, Portrait and Souvenir de Florence). In the “Classical album of the year: large ensemble or soloist(s) with large ensemble accompaniment”, the Mathieu, Shostakovich and Mendelssohn recording by Alain and David Lefèvre, accompanied by the London Mozart Players, won the JUNO. Congratulations to the winners!

You can listen to Joel Quarrington here…

… and to Alain & David Lefèvre and the London Players here…

On Saturday, April 10, the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony’s Design a Concert program has its 2nd annual outing.  The program, inspired by a similar program offered by the Pittsburgh Symphony, offers 30 high school students (from 6 different schools) the opportunity to work with staff on the theme, program, marketing, fundraising and stage production elements of an orchestral concert.

The students select a specific workgroup: Marketing, Artistic, Development and Operations (Production), and each workgroup is mentored by at least one KWS staff member at all times. Orchestra management provides the students with the venue, the orchestra, a conductor and soloist(s). The rest is designed and run by them, starting with determining the theme which leads to the programming, which then determines the marketing, fund raising and stage production elements of the project.

The students work on a deal sheet with KWS staff which determines budgets and ticket prices. The golden rule is that the bottom line does not show a deficit so the students quickly learn how simple decisions can have a major impact on the budget.

The staff have been challenged and inspired by this project. Teaching is not always a role that they were prepared for, but they have all enjoyed working with the students. They have many stories about the students who get ‘bitten by the bug’ and will likely use this work experience as part of their future careers.

So, which composers were selected for this concert? Mozart, Vivaldi, Brahms, Tchaïkovski, Dvořák, Bartok and Vaughan Williams. Our future arts administrator do have some taste. And if music could lead to just about anything?

A week ago, the Opéra de Montréal unveiled his 31st season. Six productions will be presented: Verdi’s Rigoletto, the seldom-heard Roberto Devereux by Donizetti, Menotti’s The Consul, Massenet’s Werther, Strauss’ Salomé and Puccini’s La Bohème. Soprano Marianne Fiset will breath life in the ever so touching Mimi character.

You can listen to her singing Dvorak in the recent 2-CD boxset celebrating the JMC’s 60th anniversary.

Vallée d’Obermann, the most substantial work of the first collection of Années de pélerinage, is also the most sublime. Inspired by Senancour’s novel Obermann—set in Switzerland and passionately read, reread and annotated by the two lovers—this piece contains some especially daring harmony that occasionally foreshadows the upheaval brought about by Wagner. Liszt cites Byron again, but also Senancour: “Que veux-je? Que suis-je? Que demander à la nature?” (What do I want? Who am I? What do I ask of nature?).

Despite its imposing stature and unlike the Dante-Sonata, whose massiveness somewhat unbalances the “Italy” segment, Vallée d’Obermann seems to sum up the cycle’s very essence. This long metaphysical meditation can be split in four parts, though it remains a great example of cyclic form (one theme developed from beginning to end), as his Liszt’s famous B Minor Sonata.

I invite you to access the work, performed here by André Laplante, and then come back here to follow the meanders of the piece while listening.

The piece starts with a very lyrical statement of the theme, the left hand creating the illusion that it has become a singing cello, the right hand accompanying the theme with sombre, insistent chords. A very chromatic, heart-rending motif is juxtaposed to the main one. The theme is repeated, forte this time, but soon disappears into a chromatic complaint, surrounded by chords in the extreme low register of the instrument. The theme is then once more presented in its original form, and then very slightly manipulated, the D natural replacing the D sharp giving it a luminescent quality.

The second part (5 min) features lighter textures and ambiance. The theme, almost scintillating, becomes more serene when stated in C major. After a triumphant forte, it dissolves into a pianissimo chromatism once more.

The recitative (6 min 55) that follows is certainly the most troubled section of the piece, with its almost omnipresent tremolos. The theme is forceful and emphatic, in the minor mode. Numerous chromatic passages surround it and fortissimo octaves shake its very foundations. A dramatic dialogue between right and left hands emerges. After a climax bursting with octaves, the material seems to crumble and a pianissimo statement, rhythmically very fluid, takes its place.

Explosion turns into serenity. The theme of the second section reappears (9 min 32). First almost shy, it soon rises, luminous, one last time, dissolving itself into harmonious chords, almost wind-borne. The piece concludes by the victory of the serene theme, sustained by flamboyant chords.

The Ukrainian pianist Serhiy Salov, winner of the Grand Prize of the Montreal International Musical Competition in 2004, will play tonight the concerto who brought him gold almost six years ago, Brahms’ Second. He will be accompanied by the Université de Montréal Orchestra (OUM), under the direction of Alain Trudel. The concert, in Salle Claude-Champagne, starts at 7:30 and also features Holst’s Planets.

I’ll tell you more about Salov’s newest recording, to be released in about 10 days, very soon.

You can listen to him playing with I Musici here…