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April 9: Toronto classical concert highlights for the next six days

By John Terauds on April 9, 2012

Tuesday's concert highlight is free chamber music from three of the city's top string players, at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre (Canadian Opera Company photo).

TUESDAY

  • Trio Arkel (violinist Marie Bérard, violist Teng Li and Winona Zelenka, cello) at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, noon.

Canadian Opera Company concertmaster Marie Bérard is in for a busy day that starts with an hour of fine, free chamber music with two Toronto Symphony Orchestra colleagues — principal viola Teng Li and cellist Winona Zelenka — and ends with the opening night of Jacques Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, under COC music director Johannes Debus.

On the programme are two four-movement works that will take up nearly the full hour of the free lunchtime concert: an early String Trio by Ludwig van Beethoven and Cloud Trio by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

Here’s an all-star taste of the Beethoven Trio, featuring Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman and Lynn Harrell at New York’s 92nd Street Y in 1990:

WEDNESDAY

Anonymous 4 a cappella quartet celebrates its 25 years, at Koerner Hall.

It would be hard to find as wide a swath of Western music as that being presented by New York City a cappella quartet Anonymous 4 in honour of its silver anniversary, at Koerner Hall.

Susan Hellauer, Ruth Cunningham, Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek and Marsha Genensky present music written for them, as well as works going back to the 13th century, sacred pieces as well as secular works.

For full concert details, and tickets, click here.

Here is the quartet singing a old American hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River,” which is on the concert programme:

WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY

Sondra Radvanovsky sings with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on Thursday and Saturday.
Gianandrea Noseda

If you like your emotions big and bold, it is highly unlikely that you’ll hear them expressed better than by these two operatic stars: Caledon-based soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, both guests of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra this week.

The programme is a mix of sung and instrumental. Radvanovsky, one of the finest Verdi sopranos of our time, sings “Mercè, dilette amiche” from I vespri siciliani as well as the “Letter Scene” from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

The big symphonic piece of the evening is Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” (No. 6).

For full programme details, and tickets, click here.

Here is “O patria mia,” from Radvanovsky’s great turn as Aida at the Canadian Opera Company at the start of last season:

This is not on the programme, but makes for interesting listening.

Noseda has been championing the work of Italian composer Alfredo Casella (1883-1947), and last year released a riveting recording of the Symphony No. 2 with the BBC Philharmonic on the Chandos label. Casella was educated in Paris and, unlike his Italian contemporaries, concentrated on instrumental rather than operatic music. He was also a tireless advocate for the music of Antonio Vivaldi and the Scarlattis, which had been largely forgotten by the end of the 19th century.

Another little bit of trivia: Casella was conductor of the Boston Pops before Arthur Fiedler.

Here’s the Sturm und Drang of the opening “Lento, grave, solenne” movement of Casella’s Symphony No. 2, which dates from 1910, as Noseda wants us to hear it:

FRIDAY

I Furiosi close their season at Eastminster United.

Toronto’s bad girls and boys of the Baroque end their season with a concert entitled Family Jewels, which they describe as:

“Families. You can’t live with them, you can’t legally have them all sent to an island in the middle of the ocean. The Baroque era saw many families of composers and musicians who tolerated each other – or didn’t. Jed Wentz and Olivier Fortin come for an I Furiosi dysfunctional family reunion.”

Wentz, who teaches at the Amsterdam Conservatory, is a fantastic period flautist, and a very capable conductor.

Tickets are $10 or $29, and are only available at the door. Eastminster United Church is located a few steps from Carrot Common on the north side of Danforth Ave., just west of the Chester subway station.

Here s Wentz in action at the Musikgebouw this past January, playing J.S. Bach’s B-minor Flute Sonata, BWV 1030:

SATURDAY

Ensemble Vivant's core trio is joined by bassist Dave Young at the Glenn Gould Studio.

It should be a fine evening of Latin heat as Toronto’s Ensemble Vivant — pianist Catherine Wilson, violinist Erica Beston, cellist Sybil Shannahan, with Dave Young on bass — presents a programme of music by Astor Piazzolla, Aldemaro Romero and Duilio Dobrin, drawn from their most recent album.

For more details, and tickets, click here.

Here are the players, in a sampler from a Piazzolla programme, presented with the help of two dancers (who will not be at the Glenn Gould Studio):

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Afiara String Quartet plays in Mississauga on Saturday, downtown Toronto on Sunday afternoon.

As it turns six, the all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet has become incredibly busy, thanks to its excellent reputation for warm, engaging musicianship.

Violinists Yuri Cho and Valerie Li, violist David Samuel and cellist Adrian Fung make three stops in the GTA this week, starting with a visit to the Classical 96.3 FM concert lobby on Friday at 1:20 p.m.

  • Saturday concert for the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga, at the Great Hall of the Unitarian Church (84 South Service Rd — QEW at Hurontatio St), 8 p.m.

The programme consists of String Quartets by Mozart (the “Dissonance,” K. 428), Felix Mendelssohn (No.2, Op. 13) and Brett Abigana (No. 2)

For more details, and tickets, click here.

  • Sunday recital for Mooredale Concerts at University of Toronto’s Walter Hall, 3:15 p.m.

The programme consists of Antonin Dvorák’s Op. 106 String Quartet, Franz Schubert’s Cello Quintet (with guest cellist, the Toronto Symphony’s David Hetherington) and the premiere of a new piece commissioned from Lariysa Kuzmenko.

For more details, and tickets, click here.

Here’s a bit of Mendelssohn from the Afiaras back from their fledgling days of 2008:

John Terauds

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