There is music available online during this current pandemic, and that is going a long way to help some of us through a very difficult time without a lot of the Arts we typically rely on to sustain us. So this week, a little bit of good news to share that hopefully will lift your spirits as much as they did mine.
I received an email last month from Margaret Gay, Artistic Director of The Gallery Players of Niagara, reminding me and by extension all of you about the new CD release by the Eybler Quartet and the planned launch party that was to take place in St. Catharines tomorrow afternoon. I say planned, of course, because that had to be scrubbed due to the Coronavirus lockdown we're still currently enduring, but it will be going ahead nevertheless with the new recording now available through Gallery Players' website at www.galleryplayers.ca.
The Toronto-based quartet, internationally-renowned for their varied performances and pioneering efforts in presenting music by hitherto obscure composers of the past such as Vanhal, Backofen and of course their namesake Eybler, have done it again with their latest recording. The new release features the music of Viennese composer Franz Asplmayer, who lived from 1728 to 1786.
Never heard of Franz Asplmayr? Not to worry; most people including myself hadn't.
But the Eyblers had, and they are presenting the first-known recording of the entirety of his Six Quartets, Op. 2, published in 1769. It was group violist Patrick Jordan who stumbled upon a copy of the modern edition of these quartets by American musicologist Dennis C. Monk in a used bookstore in Toronto back in 2006. They sat on a shelf collecting dust in Jordan's home for awhile, before he found the first edition parts in the Bibliotheque National de France five years ago. From then to now the Eyblers have been studying and ultimately perfecting their performances of the works and have now released the premiere recordings of the Quartets.
In his day Asplmayr was a busy musician and prolific composer in several genres, producing at least 41 symphonies, 43 string quartets and 70 trios, but during his lifetime he was best known for his works for the theatre, including at least 25 complete ballets, of which 11 survive, and the first German-language melodrama.
The Eybler Quartet is made up of violinist Julia Wedman and violist Patrick Jordan, both members of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; violinist Aisslinn Nosky is concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society, and cellist Margaret Gay is Artistic Director of the Gallery Players of Niagara as well as being much in demand as both a modern and period instrument players.
The new recording is also available for download from the iTunes and Google Play stores.
Meantime concert pianist Daniel Vnukowski has been keeping busy during the pandemic with live streamed performances throughout the month of April, reaching over a million hits on Facebook and over half-a-million video views. He is not letting up in the month of May, either, and his next live stream concert comes up at 3pm today. If you miss it you can check out the archive of past broadcasts and catch it there.
Vnukowski is based now in southern California but his roots are here in Canada, and in fact he founded the Collingwood Summer Music Festival last year to bring live concert music to a beautiful part of Ontario situated on the south shore of Lake Huron. He performs regularly around the world but of course now, due to COVID-19 he is performing digitally through his website and Facebook.
The New Classical FM radio station in Toronto is currently re-broadcasting the virtual concerts on their station as well.
The live streams are sponsored by Fazioli, who have provided Vnukowski with their largest grand piano, the celebrated F308, which in fact is the largest grand piano in the world. It has several features not found on other concert grands and is the choice of many classical pianists the world over.
The general public cannot access the live streams, but you can if you become a member. It's free if you register for the full HD broadcasts on his official website, or in lower resolution they can be accessed on his Facebook page.
Again, the next performance is today at 3 pm.
Speaking of concert pianists who favour the Fazioli, I have become a regular viewer of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt's daily performances on Twitter and Facebook the past month or so. On Twitter you'll find Angela at @HewittJSB, by the way.
Ottawa-born Hewitt is without a doubt the finest exponent of the music of J.S. Bach alive today, with her many recordings for Hyperion records as well as earlier recordings from CBC Records regularly receiving rave reviews.
I met Angela at the Windsor Arms Hotel in downtown Toronto I believe it was 1985 after she won the International Bach Piano Competition earlier that year and secured a debut recording contract with DGG. Members of the press including your humble scribe had lunch with a very young Angela and for myself, I was very much taken by her poise and demeaner even back then.
The first time I saw Angela perform live was at the River Run Centre in Guelph several years ago as she performed to a typically packed house and was as always tremendously gracious both on stage and off.
Now living in a comfortable flat in London, Angela is feeding her - and our - love of great classical music with daily pieces recorded on her phone and uploaded to both Facebook and Twitter. They are short, as Twitter has a limit of 2:20 for audio recordings. Just last week Angela compiled all the performances together, all 40 of them, and they are available for viewing now as well.
I sat in on a video conference and virtual performance from her flat just this past week as Angela talked to Canadian broadcaster Eric Friesen about the current situation and highlights of her career thus far. It was a most enjoyable hour in the afternoon remembering such a storied career that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. The conference was coordinated with Ottawa's Chamberfest, where Angela regularly comes back to perform and in fact was scheduled again for this year.
Incidentally, her CDs are available through her online shop on the Angela Hewitt website and she'll even autograph it for you. I have my dibs on a 2-disc set on the site and plan to order it for myself shortly.
That should give you some musical food for thought during these difficult times...
Have a great weekend and stay strong. We are all in this together!
May 9th, 2020.
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