sm17-7_EN_p01_Cover_sm17-4_FR_pXX 12-03-30 3:01 PM Page 1 sm17-7_EN_p02_TOC_sm17-2_FR_pXX 12-03-30 2:44 PM Page 2 CONTENTS APRIL 2012 8 NOTES » News in brief 9 EDITORIAL 10 The Bohlen-Pierce system 12 INSTRUMENTAL INSIGHTS » Violin 14 A Baroque collective is born! 16 JAZZ SECTION » Katie Malloch 21 Annual subscription guide 22 REGIONAL CALENDAR 23 CONCERT PREVIEWS 32 REVIEWS 33 VARIATIONS ON A THEME Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin 34 Pianist Alain Lefèvre 36 DISCOVERY CD » MODULATION vocal ensemble Maxim VENGEROV JACK OF ALL TRADES Maxim Vengerov hurt his shoul- der in early 2007. Concert after concert was cancelled before he announced semi-retirement after giving one last perfor- mance in June. Vengerov made his comeback on May 3, 2011, in Brussels. 4 FOUNDING EDITORS MANAGING EDITORS REGIONAL CALENDAR E. Robinson, Joseph K. So, Daniel SUBSCRIPTIONS Wah Keung Chan, Philip Anson Laura Bates, Crystal Chan Eric Legault, Etienne Michel Taylor, Jacqueline Vanasse Surface mail subscriptions (Canada) cost $42 La Scena Musicale VOL. 17-7 CONTENT EDITOR WEBSITE TRANSLATORS / yr (taxes included) to cover postage and handling costs. Please mail, fax or email your MARCH 2012 Caroline Rodgers Normand Vandray, Michael Vincent Dayna Lamothe, Ariadne Lih name, address, telephone no., fax no., and PUBLISHER JAZZ EDITOR BOOKKEEPERS VOLUNTEERS email address. Donations are always welcome La Scène Musicale Marc Chénard Kamal Ait Mouhoub, Wah Wing Chan, Marie-Astrid and are tax-deductible. (no 14199 6579 RR0001). EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PROOFREADER Mourad Ben Achour Colin, Lilian I. Liganor, Annie Pro- Wah Keung Chan Anne Stevens ADVERTISING thin, Michel Zambrano LA SCENA MUSICALE, published 10 times per BOARD OF DIRECTORS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Smail Berraoui, Marc Chénard, year, is dedicated to the promotion of classical and jazz music. Each edition contains articles Wah Keung Chan (pres.), Iwan Adam Norris Morgan Gregory / ads.scena.org ADDRESSES and reviews as well as calendars. LSM is publi- Edwards, Holly Higgins-Jonas, GRAPHICS CONTRIBUTORS 5409, rue Waverly, Montreal shed by La Scène Musicale, a non-profit organi- Sandro Scola, CN Rebecca Anne Clark Lorena Jiménez Alonso, Renée (Quebec) Canada H2T 2X8 zation. La Scena Musicale is the Italian translation of The Music Scene. All rights reser- ADVISORY COMMITTEE Production: [email protected] Banville, Hélène Boucher, Frédéric Tel.: (514) 948-2520 ved. No part of this publication may be repro - Gilles Cloutier, Pierre Corriveau, COVER PHOTO Cardin, Éric Champagne, Marie- Fax: (514) 274-9456 duced without the written permission of LSM. Maurice Forget, C.M., Ad. E, David Simon Fowler Astrid Colin, Carissa Klopoushak, [email protected] / www.scena.org ISSN 1927-3878 Print English version Franklin, Ad. E, Margaret Lefebvre, OFFICE MANAGER Marie-Astrid Colin, Philippe Ger- Ver: 2012-2-27 (La Scena Musicale). Stephen Lloyd, Constance V. Pathy, Julie Berardino vais, Félix-Antoine Hamel, Annie © La Scène Musicale. ISSN 1927-3886 Online English version C.Q., E. Noël Spinelli, C.M., Bernard SUBSCRIPTIONS & DISTRIBUTION Landreville, Alain Londes, Krista Canada Post Publication Mail Sales Agreement No.40025257 Stotland, FCA Conor O’Neil Martynes, Philippe Michaud, Paul 2 APRIL 2012 sm17-7_EN_p03_Merkelo_sm17-4_FR_pXX 12-03-30 2:44 PM Page 3 Thank you MUSICIANS WITH ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): Wah Keung Chan, Paul Merkelo, Holly Higgins Jonas, Margaret Lefebvre, Alexandre Vovan PHOTOS Robert J. Galbraith ATTENDEES Herbert Bercovitz Garrfield Du Couturier-Nichol “Tea & Trumpets” Alexandra Morrisson Roslyn Takeishi Fundraiser with Paul Merkelo Maurice Forget Louis Angers Nathalie Grosshenny Katherine Waters February 26, 2012 Catherine Gillbert David Waters Reed Scowen Carolyn Roper THANKS TO Sheila Moore Joan Mcguigan Mark Goldman Gabor Jellinek Margaret Lefebvre, host Nancy Lydon Ronald Walker, host Ron Meisels DONORS Holly Higgins Jonas, coorganizer Robert Boily Paul Merkelo, trumpet Andrea Bobkowicz Manon Vennat Alexandre Vovan, piano John Ciaccia Mark MacPherson Elizabeth Bradshaw, assistant Paula Pedicelli Roy Eappen Krystyna Mattula, assistant Alex Weinstein Kieran and Elizabeth Shanahan Ken Lobo, assistant Mathew Kenny Carl Ravinsky Brian Webb sm17-7_EN_p04-07_Vengerov_sm17-7_EN_pXX 12-03-30 2:43 PM Page 4 Jack of all trades MAXIM VENGEROV by CRYSTAL CHAN was “a blessing in disguise,” he says. Maxim Vengerov hurt his shoulder in early 2007. Concert after concert was It cancelled before he announced semi-re- tirement after giving one last perform- ance in June. It seemed like the worst thing to happen at the time. He was only 32, had a record- ing contract with EMI, and had won scores of awards, including a Grammy, Edison, and Echo Klassik. He had performed on Paganini’s violin. There were worldwide engagements booked with the top orchestras and at top venues. This wasn’t the only unexpected halt of his career; Vengerov had just come back from an injury-related sab- batical in October 2005. Yet another halt seemed doomed to cripple the momentum of a wildly suc- cessful career—unless it was short-lived. But it wasn’t. Vengerov made his comeback four years later on May 3, 2011, in Brussels. PHOTO Tibor Rauch ; ILLUSTRATION Adam Norris 4 APRIL 2012 sm17-7_EN_p04-07_Vengerov_sm17-7_EN_pXX 12-03-30 2:43 PM Page 5 ON THE COVER VENGEROV “I FEEL VERY YOUNG AND NEW AGAIN,” the audience could barely see him. So around three in the morning. Yet there were says Vengerov. “The break I had was very Vengerov wanted to play something in the moments of bad temper, such as when he recreational. Now I feel again like a new, string section that sat right at the front, and broke his bow in frustration. His family was promising violinist. Again I am in love with by age four he got his wish: he started study- far from well off and lived in a two-room base- the violin.” The operative word here is ‘again.’ ing the violin. By five he was learning with ment. Siberia was filled with rations and badly The key to how such a star player, at the top of Galina Tourchaninova. He did not become her heated winters. That Vengerov had a recog- his game and young enough to have most of star pupil right away, however. At their first nized talent and lessons with a famed teacher, his career still stretching before him, can see meeting he punched her in the stomach. Dur- that his father was able to get an old grand an injury as a blessing has a lot to do with the ing early lessons he refused to play. His piano for them—even though they had to stardom itself. Vengerov had been vigorously mother started crying when told Tourchani- knock a hole through the wall and use the training on the violin since the age of four; he nova would no longer continue after five les- closed lid as a kitchen counter to make room— won his first international competition—the sons, and Vengerov astounded everyone by all this must have seemed too good to give up Wieniawski Competition (junior division)—by playing seventeen assigned pieces by memory. in order that Vengerov could play normal age ten. Years of accumulated labour and the Vengerov was put on a strict schedule that childhood games in the evenings. There were weight of expectations, the shadowy underside saw him practice seven to eight hours after harder sacrifices being made all around them of such stardom and success, had worn down dinner. He kept up with this as he was eager to in Soviet Russia. his love for the violin. Vengerov told the Lon- please his mother, who also enticed him with And the sacrifice was paying off. At seven, don Times in April 2008 that he was fully the promise of being able to ride his tricycle Vengerov enrolled at the Central Special Music healed. It took, then, less than a year for him “after practicing,” although that meant at School, enabling him and his grandparents to to heal physically from his injury, but half a decade to rejuvenate mentally. Although he put down the violin, Vengerov did not stray from music. Vengerov launched into fulfilling his “longtime dream”: conduct- ing. The death of his mentor Mstislav Ros- tropovich had been yet another blow in spring 2007, and perhaps this turn to conducting was also an homage to the cellist-turned-conduc- tor, a way of fully following in Rostropovich’s footsteps. He had already gotten some con- ducting training from Vag Papian in the late Again I nineties and started studying with Yuri Si- monov in 2006 but he focused with much greater seriousness on conducting when he am in love stopped playing publicly. The same year he in- jured his shoulder he conducted a North American tour of the Verbier Festival Orches- with the tra, which included a stop at Carnegie Hall. In June 2008 he was invited by Valery Gergiev “ violin.” to conduct the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, } one of many orchestras he conducted over he next several years (including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre sym- phonique de Montréal). VENGEROV HAS PLAYED many priceless in- “Conducting is bigger,” says Vengerov. “It’s a struments. He currently plays the 1727 ex- whole different way of communication with Kreutzer Stradivarius, which was sold for a the audience and the musicians of the orches- record-breaking price at an auction in tra. It’s not as lonely as violin playing; there is 1998, a 2004 made-to-order Samuel Zyg- a human factor and this is the most interesting muntowicz viola, and a 2005 bright blue for me. Any orchestra can play by themselves Violectra five-string electric violin. but the conductor is there to be the leader, like the leader of the army forces—and we have to battle for music.” A STAR IS BORN IN SIBERIA Vengerov was born with music in his genes, and a desire to be centre stage developed soon after.