To celebrate the delicate snow scene outside my window (oh joy! oh bliss!) and as a thank offering for not living in the Buffalo-Niagara area I offer up this small excerpt from Claude Debussy's Children's Corner Suite.
André Caplet and Claude Debussy
The Snow is Dancing is the fourth in the series of six piano pieces Debussy composed between 1905 and 1908. They were meant to evoke scenes of childhood and when it was completed he dedicated the suite to his treasured "Chou-chou": his three year old daughter Claude-Emma. Sadly, Chouchou passed away from diphtheria in 1919 at the age of 13, only a year after her father's death from cancer.
Shortly after the piano score was published Debussy's friend André Caplet created a transcription for orchestra, as he was to do for several of Debussy's works. Caplet was a composer in his own right whose career was cut short by the effects of a gas attack during the Great War. He never completely recovered and died from a lung disease in 1925.
Though I would have difficult choosing between the two I find Caplet's transcription the more evocative of a snowy landscape and gentle swirls of snow dancing through the air. The piano version seems to have the odd shard of ice hidden within its whirling flakes. But I'll let you decide which you prefer..
The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal always had a special way with Debussy when Charles Dutroit was on the podium.
Even as I type this there are gentle swirls of snow outside my window - at this point it's almost possible to believe in Debussy's winter magic. Ask me how I feel about it in two months time.
I know I haven't written much about our cultural life in Ottawa since our return so you could be forgiven for thinking that I have been musically/theatrically/terpsicordilly deprived in the winter wasteland that is Ottawa. And if you have that impression then it is entirely my fault.
Granted there is one ..lly missing from the list and that would be operatically but we will let that pass for the moment. But for the other "arts" the calender - though perhaps not as crowded with big names - is still a crowded one. Between our subscriptions for the NAC orchestra, two dance series, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Chamberfest, the Cantata Singers and other groups here in Ottawa we are out often twice a week to concerts, recitals or plays. In February we've had the National Ballet of Canada with their new production of Romeo and Juliet; unfortunately a late work day and exhaustion meant missing the Brahms Alto Rhapsody with the NAC Orchestra; Ballet BC in a programme of modern dance - the William Forsythe piece beautifully done, the rest... boh!; the NAC theatre company in a fascinating staging around and in a swimming pool of Ovid's Metamorphosis; and last evening a piano concert by Angela Hewitt.
Miss Hewitt appears in Ottawa frequently - she is after all a hometown girl - and the concerts always have a special, almost familial, air to them. She appeared here last year twice - once in the Chamberfest Winter series with The Chamber Players of Ottawa. That evening one of the players had taken sick and the substitute did not have time to feel comfortable with the second piece of the evening so we had to make do with (!) Miss Hewitt playing Le tombeau de Couperin. Several months later she appeared with the NAC orchestra for the Ravel Piano Concerto and hosted a small coffee reception afterwards. She proved as gracious a host as she was a brilliant musician.
This time it was a solo concert with, on paper at least, an unusual programme of Bach and Debussy. It seemed an unlikely combination but the Bach French Suites 5 and 6 with their dance movements dovetailed with Debussy's Baroque influenced Pour le piano and the dance tempi of Suite bergamasque. Even the encore - Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte- kept us in the realm of Baroque-influenced dance.
I will be the first to admit that Bach does very little for me. I can admire the musicality, the originality, the line of Bach's music however I find that it very seldom moves me. I recognize that Miss Hewitt is considered the preeminent keyboard interpreter of Bach and even her playing gives rise to only admiration for the genius of Bach on my part. However last night her playing of the Sarabande in the Suite No. 5 gave me an emotional charge that both surprised and delighted.
I don't normally associate Debussy with passion - romance yes passion not so much. But passion was a quality that Miss Hewitt brought to all three Debussy pieces. It is always fascinating to watch the body language of pianists and, if possible, to watch their hands. From our seats Mezzanine-left we had a perfect view of Miss Hewitt and the keyboard. Though she is never less than elegant there was a marked difference in the way her arms were held and her body moved between the Bach and Debussy. For the one more formal - I wont' say ridged - and for the other her body seeming to flow with the music. For the Bach the hands moved majestically over the keys; for the Debussy they often seemed to flow and even the complex cross-hand playing had a remarkable fluidity.
She took the Clair de lune movement of the Suite Bergamasque the slowest I have ever heard it played. There is always a danger with choosing that sort of tempo that things sound dragged or fall apart and become disjointed but last night the risk paid off. In a word it was "sublime" and I was as carried away as Miss Hewitt obviously was in this clip from a recent performance at CBC Toronto.
In a previous post I mentioned that Miss Hewitt will be giving a benefit concert at the newly re-built St Jude's Anglican Cathedral in Iqaluit this summer. The original cathedral, and many of the native tapestries and art work that adorned it, was destroyed by fire - reportedly arson - in 2005. The long struggle to rebuilt has been completed and the cathedral was consecrated in June 2012. Angela Hewitt has strong ties to the Anglican church and promised to go to Iqaluit and give a benefit concert when the building was completed. And on June 12 she will make good on that promise and I am sorely tempted to join her and a party of her Ottawa fans on the 2000 km journey to the North. We shall see.
The original St Jude's Cathedral in Iqaluit was built in the shape of an igloo and the new Cathedral
follows that design concept. The sanctuary (above) was hung with native tapestries from the regions
of the Arctic and the altar cross was made of narwhal bone - sadly most of the artifacts were lost in the fire.
20 February - 1959: The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonicjet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
Ontario Youth Choir at
the National Gallery, Ottawa
Though I have not written much about, well anything lately but music more specifically since my return to Ottawa it has not been for a lack of music or musical events in my life. Sadly of opera there is little here but we do have a rich orchestral and concert season and the luxury of not one but two summer classical festivals. That and our darling Cathy who makes sure we are kept well aware of what is happening chorally and orchestral in town. Thanks to her urging we attended a marvellous concert by the Ontario Youth Choir which for its unique blend of music, fascinating staging and young voices made for a remarkable evening on the theme "What is Life?" Though they may not have answered that question the young singers, from all over the province, gave every indication that music was their lives! And they greatly enriched our lives with their music that evening.
Music and Beyond and Chamberfest both offer a wealth and variety of music over their respective two-three week periods. In the case of both festival there can be as many as 5 events taking place in one day - some in small venues, others in more spacious halls, some may only last an hour while others are a full evenings entertainment. Over July and August we had dance, chamber music, vocal recitals, piano concerts, trios, quartets, organ recitals, choral concerts, music from Renaissance to atonal, late night jazz, modern chamber operas and to end the Festival season a late night concert by Lemon Bucket, the only Balkan-Gypsy-Klezmer-Party-Punk Super-Band in Toronto. Eclectic was definitely the word for the line up provided by the two festivals.
One of the joys of the past season was hearing Angela Hewitt not once but twice. She appeared with the National Arts Centre Orchestra late last fall in the Ravel Piano Concerto and predictably knock our wooly socks off. Afterwardss she hosted a small group of us at a coffee and desert reception and proceeded to charm us all with chat about her festival in Trasimeno, her love of the Ravel (she first played it when she was 13) and her upcoming concerts.
In the early spring she returned to her home town to be feted during Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa and give a concert with the Ottawa Chamber Players. I'll quote from her own website about the turn of events that evening took:
As soon as I returned to Ottawa from the West Coast, it was non-stop action for several days. At the concert in a packed-out Christ Church Cathedral on Friday night, the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, presented me with a plaque and a personalized citation commemorating Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa. He told me to put it on the dashboard of my car to avoid getting parking fines for a week! Unfortunately Guylaine Lemaire, the violist of the Chamber Players of Canada, was unable to perform because of an injury, but Philippe Djokic from Halifax came at the last moment and played in the Schumann Piano Quintet. That was great fun! I used my new ipad for my score, turning pages with my foot using an Air Turn pedal (works by Bluetooth so no wires!). Fantastic! Takes a bit of practise, mind you, to get the co-ordination right. As the quartet couldn't play Schubert's Death and the Maiden with a new player at such short notice, I filled in the second half, performing solo Couperin and Ravel. It was wonderful to see so many friends and fans.
Angela Hewiitt - News
Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa (2012-05-25)
So sadly we were denied the Death and the Maiden and had to do with a second half solo concert by Miss Hewitt. We were all so disappointed - yeah right!!!!
What was rather touching, and is not mentioned in her report, was one of her encore pieces. As she says the concert took place in Christ Church Anglican Cathedral where Godfrey Hewitt, her father, was organist and choirmaster for 49 years. As an encore she played Bach, as only she can play Bach, a piano arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. And familair as that piece may be she brought a depth of feeling to it that I would like to think was inspired by the venue and the memories it held for her.
As an interesting sidebar next June Miss Hewitt will be giving a benefit concert to celebrate the consecration of St Jude's Anglican Cathedral in Iqaluit on Baffin Island. The original cathedral - a small igloo shaped building - was destroyed by arson in 2005. A combination of the short building season, a construction company that went out of business because of the recession and a paucity of funding it has been a long struggle to get a new cathedral built. Angela Hewitt promised that she would give this concert when the building was completed. Though Iqaluit is 2085 kilometres (1296 miles) from Ottawa and a world away from Miss Hewitt's normal concert venues but the announcement of the concert came as no surprise. And I was just remarking to Laurent that I was sorely tempted to go just for the pleasure of hearing her in an area of my country I have never seen but always wanted to visit.
12 September - 1899: Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
