Ludwig van Toronto

November 5: Toronto classical concert highlights for the next seven days

John Terauds
Gottfired von der Goltz leads Tafelmusik’s concerts, starting Wednesday.

MONDAY

The great soprano, who usually teaches at Juilliard when in North America, is in town for a masterclass at University of Toronto. It is scheduled to run until 6 p.m., and should be full of insights from this frank and down-to-earth master.

Master accordionist Joe Macerollo and fellow practitioner Michael Bridge pair up with clarinet virtuoso Peter Stoll in an eclectic programme that begins with a Telemann sonata and ends with a gem by Astor Piazzolla. In between are pieces by Torontonians Norbert Palej, Andrew Staniland and Phil Nimmons. There’s also a bit of improv on the bill, aptly titled In the Key of ?. You’ll find all the details here.

Here is a short clip of Stoll and Macerollo with Ryan Janzen playing the made-in-Toronto hyrdaulophone (a water-powered organ) at a Walter Hall concert last January. The piece is Janzen’s The Sound of Water:

WEDNESDAY

One of Toronto’s more enterprising gangs of operaphiles presents its own adaptation of Kurt Weill’s classic in a wonderfully intimate space. I’ll have more details in a separate post. You’ll find ticket information here.

WEDNESDAY TO SUNDAY

Our great period-instrument orchestra’s week centres on Mozart and his contemporaries — Joseph Haydn, Joseph Kraus and Franz Beck — in a very rich programme. These concerts mark the first time Tafelmusik is being led by violinist Gottfried von der Goltz, music director of the excellent Freiburg Baroque Orchestra in Germany.

In addition to the concerts, Goltz hosts a public Baroque violin masterclass at the church on Saturday from 1:30 p.m. Admission is $10. You’ll find the concert details here.

Here is Goltz with recorder players Isabel Crijnen and Thera de Clerck and members of the Freiburg orchestra in the opening movement of J.S. Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto:

THURSDAY

This excellent pianist replaces an injured Alexander Seredenko for this free lunchtime recital. She is offering a rich programme that includes Franz Liszt’s transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, four Op. 34 Preludes by Shostakovich, two Spanish Dances by Granados and three favourites by Chopin. Not bad for a last-minute switch.

I think it is so amazing that the best orchestra at University of Toronto outside the Faculty of Music is the Skule Orchestra at the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. For this you can credit all the strict parents who forced music lessons on their overachieving children.

One of Skule’s many sub-groups, the Iron Strings Quartet, presents the first concert of the school year, with string quartets by Felix Mendelssohn and Philip Glass, as well as the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, by Johannes Brahms, with the help of clarinet player Jongmin Lee. You’ll find the details here.

FRIDAY

This chamber orchestra made up of professional Toronto musicians is a bit like Brigadoon, although they come together a bit more often than one day every century. It means few people know that the group and its leader, conductor Eric Paetkau, are capable of some pretty wonderful musicmaking.

Their 2012 concert is a mix of words and music by Ludwig van Beethoven (Symphony No. 1), Sergei Prokofiev (Symphony No. 1), Canadian Glenn Buhr (And Man Will Only Grieve) and New York City-based John Zorn (his mid-1980s audience-participation piece, Cobra). Actor Vanessa AvRuskin delivers the spoken portions. You’ll find the details here.

SUNDAY

This promises to be one of the great chamber music concerts of the season, pairing the ever-wonderful Marc-André Hamelin with the remarkable Takács Quartet. The string players perform the “Rosamunde” quartet by Franz Schubert (D804) and Benjamin Britten’s first (Op. 25). Hamelin joins the quartet for Dmitri Shostakovich’s deep and moving Op. 57 Piano Quintet.

You’ll find all the details, including programme notes, here.

In case you need an introduction, here is a fantastic, all-star performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet from the 2008 Verbier Festival, featuring Martha Argerigh, violinists Joshua Bell and Henning Kraggerud, violist Yuri Bashmet and Mischa Maisky on cello (it’s followed by the Bruch Kol Nidrei):

John Terauds