Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tchaikovsky on Original Instruments

Reflecting the recent international trend of performing Romantic period music on period instruments, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra is presenting a series of concerts at Koerner Hall on Sep 19 to 22 featuring Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and several pieces by Mendelssohn. Our program will include performances by Orchestra MusicAeterna under its founding conductor, Teodor Currentzis, as well as Jos van Immerseel and his Anima Eterna period ensemble.

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Massenet and His Exotic Operas

Many late 19th-century Romantic composers were obsessed with the Orient. Massenet was no exception. Of his thirty operas, at least five were based on characters living in exotic realms - Hérodiade, Thaïs, Cléopâtre, Esclarmonde, and Le Cid. Situated in the Holy Land, Ancient Egypt, Byzantium, and Muslim Spain, these stories provided Massenet with the opportunity to use dazzling and outlandish orchestrations to portray these colourful locales. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra will be presenting Thaïs in an opera-in-concert format on November 7 and 9 at Roy Thomson Hall. Our program will focus on this work with other examples taken from his other “Oriental” operas.

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Offenbach Bicentennial Celebration

This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of one of France’s most popular and prolific composers, Jacques Offenbach. Although his only opera, Les contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), is a masterpiece at opera houses the world over, we often forget that he wrote almost 100 operettas of which very few are produced today, such as Orfée dans l’enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld), La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen), La Vie parisienne (Parisian Life), and La Périchole. A selection of excerpts from these works as well as some of his orchestral creations will be presented in this celebration to reveal his genius as the musical emperor of the Third Empire enthroned beside Napoleon III.

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Bach: Christmas Oratorio

Composed by J. S. Bach in 1734, The Christmas Oratorio was written for performance during the Christmas season. It incorporates music from earlier compositions. The work is in six parts with each part intended to be performed on a major feast day of the Christmas period. The entire work is nearly three hours long so we will sample several recordings to welcome the beginning of the 2019 festive season.

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Beethoven Sestercentennial I - Missa solemnis

2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. Orchestras and performing groups all over the world are making the works of this giant of the Romantic period an important part of their programming. The Classical Music Club Toronto will feature several programs over the remainder of the 2019/20 season and continuing into 2020/21, each focussing on different genres of this composer’s impressive body of work. Our first program will showcase his Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, composed between 1819 and 1823.

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Beethoven Sestercentennial II

Please note the revised programme date, now Feb 16 (was Feb 9).

2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. Orchestras and performing groups all over the world are making the works of this giant of the Romantic period an important part of their programming. In Part 2 of our ongoing celebration, we will feature a selection of works that were composed between 1803 and 1805. This gap between String Quartets No. 6 (1800) and No. 7 (1806) represents a period in which Beethoven further established his artistic self-identity. The works will include: Piano Concerto No. 3, the Waldstein and Appassionata Piano Sonatas, Kreutzer Violin Sonata, and Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”.

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Beethoven Sestercentennial III

Postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19 social distancing

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Beethoven Sestercentennial IV

Postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19 social distancing

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Beethoven Sestercentennial V

Postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19 social distancing

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