Bernstein Archives - Toronto Mendelssohn Choir https://www.tmchoir.org/tag/bernstein/ Canada’s Choir for 130 Years Mon, 31 May 2021 01:13:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 CANDIDE at TSO Gives You Permission to Laugh https://www.tmchoir.org/candide-at-tso-gives-you-permission-to-laugh/ Mon, 30 Apr 2018 22:06:26 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=3054 Taylor Long, Broadway World.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey began the evening by saying, "in light of the way things are... I want to give you permission to laugh." It didn't take very long before the audience was in stitches with laughter. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra performed Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE last weekend, accompanied by some of the country's greatest classical voices - Judith Forst and Tracy Dahl - and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The evening was a spectacular display of fine music, drama, and comedy.

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]]> Candide with the Toronto Symphony: using our imaginations https://www.tmchoir.org/candide-with-the-toronto-symphony-using-our-imaginations/ Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:25:23 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=3053 Leslie Barcza, barczablog. This felt like a very authentic performance to me, Bramwell Tovey kicking the TSO, chorus & soloists along at a wonderful pace.  Tovey even got into the act, singing & dancing himself, but he was having a great time.

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]]> TSO’s Candide Pushes Bernstein’s Wordplay A Little Too Far https://www.tmchoir.org/tsos-candide-pushes-bernsteins-wordplay-a-little-too-far/ Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:16:10 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=3052 Arthur Kaptainis, Ludwig Van Toronto. While the score brims with good tunes and snappy rhythms, Candide’s travels never really acquire anything like dramatic momentum. Characters inexplicably return to life (as the duet “You Were Dead, You Know” explicitly acknowledges) and the unpleasant misadventures are essentially random.

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]]> Belshazzar’s Feast Program Notes https://www.tmchoir.org/belshazzars-feast-program-notes/ Thu, 24 May 2012 01:38:25 +0000 https://www.tmchoir.org/?p=899 The Gloria by Francis Poulenc (1899 -1963) was commissioned by the Koussevitsky Music Foundation and first performed in 1961 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. It was dedicated to the memory of Nathalie and Serge Koussevitsky, a former Music Director of the BSO. To many, the work seemed irreverent – this ancient sacred text from the Mass being treated frivolously with wit and humour. But what they failed to catch was Poulenc’s interpretation of liturgical joy as a swirl of musical colour and dancing rhythms.

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