Thread: MSO's new home will open on Sept. 7

Latest news, from the Montreal Gazette and La Presse:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...962/story.html
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musiq...-ouverture.php

I will be blogging about the MSO and its "former" home on Sept 21. Suffice it to say that the former hall was a "Festival" hall, meant to host many types of events, and not specifically designed for symphony concerts. This new hall has been in the works, off and on, for over 30 years, and three is great anticipation for patrons of both Nagano's Montreal Symphony and Nezet-Seguin's Orchestre Metropolitain which will share the venue.

Montreal, after Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto (with two of them!) will finally have a world-class, acoustically superior, concert hall. It's about time!

From the Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2151614/

UPDATE: From La Presse
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musiq...6_section_POS1

The La Presse article mentions that the main attraction of the inaugural concert, Beethoven's Ninth, will be broadcast "tape delayed" on both the French and English services of the CBC (Radio, TV and Web) at 9 PM EDT.

Mr, Nagano will be conducting the OSM, OSM Choir and Tafelmusik choir of Toronto, with soloists Erin Wall (Canada), Mihoko Fujimura (Japan), Simon O'Neill (New Zealand) et Mikhaïl Petrenko (Russia).

A new hall can be quite a facelift for an orchestra. I like the design and coloring of this hall very much! Are you going to any concerts there this year?

Unfortubnately, I am not. However, I will try and catch the inaugural tomorrow night on French CBC Radio and TV.

that soprano had striking blue eyes didn't she!

She did, and the performance was pretty good.

I watched it on Radio Canada, and listened to the last 5 minutes on Espace Musique. I was not impressed with the way they mic'ed up the hall, though. And I could have gone without the circus performers on the TV broadcast. They also kind of ruined the 3rd movement with the dozen or so "spoken vignettes", some of which were out of place IMO. They should have done these between movements rather than super-imposing them over the music!

I wish I were there in person, and would have avoided all of that... I also wished I'd hears the three pieces in the first part of the concert, the Vivier a capella piece in particular.

I'll post some reviews later today.

Montreal’s new concert hall, hereafter referred to as La Maison symphonique (de Montréal) was officially inaugurated yesterday. Reviewers seem to back-up my observation (based on listening to the TV broadcast last night) that conductor, orchestra and staging need more time in the hall to “adjust” to their new surroundings.

Not to say the performance was unpleasant – though the TV broadcast had a number of “irritants” for my taste (read the La Presse article linked below on the “outdoor” portion of the concert, and some of the comments against the CBC blog).

Some of the articles and reviews:

The Montreal Gazette:
(Review) http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...652/story.html

More related articles from Gazette Arts section as at 8 September:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/index.html

La Presse (in French):

(Claude Gingras' review not available - yet? - on the web edition..)

Related articles can be found in La Presse’s Classical Music section:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musiq...que-classique/

Google News:
http://news.google.ca/news/more?q=mo...ed=0CBsQqgIwAA

Claude Gingras' review from La Presse (in French)
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musiq...-orchestre.php

A generally favourable review.

Concert review from the Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2158346/

I've subscribed to a good number of concerts by both the MSO and Orchestre Metropolitain this year. Really looking forward to the new concert hall.

Barely two months later, Analekta releases the major work heard at the Inaugural concert, Beethoven`s Ninth:
http://www.analekta.com/en/album/Bee...-Love.674.html

Originally Posted by itywltmt

Barely two months later, Analekta releases the major work heard at the Inaugural concert, Beethoven`s Ninth:
http://www.analekta.com/en/album/Bee...-Love.674.html

From Analekta's samples, it sounds like a limp performance, with weak attacks and weak timpani.

Their earlier LvB release got panned. This one will, too.

I haven't listened to the recording yet, but the curmudgeon critic from La Presse gave it 4 out of 5 stars:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musiq...mphonique-.php

He does agree with Vaneyes that some of the performance (the adagio in particular) weren't to his taste, and he had his reservations about the Yann Martel essays, but seemed generally pleased.

Maybe Gingras is gettting to be a homer in his old age...