Some birthdays can only be celebrated in style once every four years… when it is leap year, of course! It’s the case for Gioachino Rossini, born February 29, 1792 in Pesaro, who died on Friday the 13th! (Talk about destiny…)

Rossini wrote his last and grandest opera, William Tell,  in 1829 when he was only 37, at the peak of his fame, and had lived barely half his life. Yet for reasons never fully explained, he retired from the operatic stage thereafter and wrote little more. He chose to live the dolce vita and invent new recipees for his friends. After, he just loved food!

Sources mention that  on the night of the première of the Barber of Seville, the composer cut short the post-concert congratulations to plunge into a fiery description of a salad which naturally became an ensalada alla Rossini. Stendhal says in his biography that the “Di tanti palpti” aria from the opera Tancreda became known throughout Europe as the “Rice aria” because Rossini is said to have composed it while waiting for a portion of risotto in a Venice restaurant. The aria “Nacqui all’affanno et al pianto” from the opera Cinderella, was composed in similar circumstances in Rome. By the end of his life, he also composed some little known piano pieces entitled Radishes, Anchovy, Pickles, Butter, Dry Figs, Almonds Raisins and Hazelnuts.  

So why not celebrate Rossini’s birthday in style tonight with your own rendition of the Tournedos Rossini? You can get the recipee (and the behind the scenes story) here…

Of course, you’ll be listening to his six Sonatas for strings while doing all the prep work… Buon appetito!

Tomorrow night, music lovers who like to step off the beaten path can enjoy on the same program two concertos and two premieres, thanks to Orchestre 21. Paolo Bellomia will conduct Sokolović’s Concerto for orchestra (a commission of the OSM, premiered in 2007) and a new work by Hugues Leclair. Debussy is also well-represented on the program. (The concert is presented as part of the international Debussy symposium held this week at Université de Montréal.) The world premiere of an orchestration of Debussy’s sketches for Le diable dans le beffroi, a one-act opera based on a tale of Edgar Allan Poe will be heard, as well as his Fantaisie pour piano. Jimmy Brière will be the soloist.

Details here…

To listen to Jimmy Brière in Corigliano, Korngold and Rota…

Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, Germany, on February 23, 1685, a few weeks before Bach. (The two musicians never met, although Bach lived in this region all his life.) Handel’s father was a surgeon-barber, a common combination of professions in those days, although it seems rather funny to us today. Georg showed surprising musical gifts from a very young age. His father didn’t give his son much encouragement, but nevertheless the boy managed to hide a clavichord in the attic, probably with his mother’s help. One day fortune smiled on the young musician. The Duke of Saxe Weissenfels heard him and ordered the boy’s father to give him proper music lessons. The local organist became his teacher and taught him the basics of organ playing as well as composition.

In 1703, after a year of legal studies, Händel decided that his future lay with music. He moved to Hamburg, a more cosmopolitan city. There he taught music and played violin and harpsichord in the opera orchestra. By the time he was 20, he composed his first opera, Almira, which was warmly received by the public. Five years later, he decided to accept a permanent position with a German prince, but soon asked for a year off to visit London. He reworked some “old” material and came up with the opera Rinaldo, which took English audiences by storm. Although he never lost his great passion for travel, he finally settled in London in 1714, and it remained his home until his death in 1759. He is burried with kings and queens at Westminster Abbey.

Here, you can hear some of his italian cantatas, as performed by Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Luc Beauséjour.

This is the 10th year of the Montreal International Musical Competition and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will once again be the “house band” for the finals (June  5 and 6) and gala concert (June of this edition devoted to voice. According to Mr. André Bourbeau, who co-founded the MIMC with Mr. Joseph Rouleau, “very few organizations, even at the international level, benefit from orchestras of this calibre. This is an invaluable opportunity for the young musicians from all over the world.” The official list of candidates will be announced in May, at the inaugural press conference.

Bach’s St. John Passion is one of the masterworks of the choral repertory. A very dramatic work, it displays the unfolding details of the suffering of Jesus – and their effect on those caught up in it – in personal terms. It is almost breathless in its progress through the sequential events of the Passion, and the chorales and arias heighten this intensity.

A new recording of this masterpiece is now available from The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. The oldest American Bach Choir, it gave the first complete American performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass in 1900 and of the Christmas Oratorio in 1901. Since its founding in 1898, the now-famous Choir has been attracting thousands of visitors from across the United States and beyond to the annual Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania. You’ll understand why be listening to their reading of the work here…

Soloists include Julia Doyle, Daniel Taylor,  Benjamin Butterfield, Charles Daniels, William Sharp, Christopheren Nomura and David Newman.