Media Reviews
Media Room
December 19, 2013
Battle of the Messiahs: Toronto Symphony wins this round
2013-14 Season
Will the 10,000 people who go hear the show at Roy Thomson Hall get the better or worse experience than the 6,800 at Koerner and Massey halls? It’s long been a seesaw battle.
Based on the Toronto Symphony’s first Messiah performance on Tuesday night and Tafelmusik’s on Wednesday, it’s the former that has a slight edge in 2013.
First-time visiting conductor Christopher Warren-Green did a remarkable job of teasing out impressive details from Handel’s music — using less than three-dozen members of the TSO set against the 140 members of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
December 18, 2013
Concert review: This could be the Toronto Symphony’s best Messiah so far this century
2013-14 Season
Tuesday’s first performance of the Toronto Symphony’s five-concert run of Handel’s oratorio Messiah at Roy Thomson Hall was that rare beast: a triumph from brisk Overture to rousing Amen.
This interpretation has it all: great soloists, a lean, expressive orchestra, superb choir and a cohesive performance approach from a veteran British conductor making his Toronto Symphony début.
December 13, 2013
Messing with Messiah
2013-14 Season
Noel Edison, artistic director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir says he has no problem with unconventional approaches to The Messiah but, when he leads his singers on their five days with the TSO’s program, he is strictly on the side of tradition.
“I’m too conservative,” Edison admits. Besides, he says, it doesn’t need embellishment. Handel “has so intimately, honestly and elegantly placed the text with the music, that it comes alive.”
November 19, 2013
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and guests make magic of Benjamin Britten cantatas
2013-14 Season
Here’s a suggestion: If you go to one choral concert other than Messiah this season, make it the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s brilliant tribute to Benjamin Britten on Wednesday evening.
Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church revealed not only a compelling, deeply affecting programme, but wonderful performances from the Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Children’s Chorus, orchestra, pianists, organist and, last but far from least, soloists tenor Colin Ainsworth and soprano Leslie Bouza.
Mendelssohn Choir music director Noel Edison chose two cantatas to showcase the composer’s genius for writing potent music drama for all ages and abilities: The Company of Heaven, created for BBC Radio in 1937, and Saint Nicolas, commissioned for the centennial of Lancing College but premiered at Aldeburgh in 1948.
November 1, 2013
TSO’s Carmina Burana a thrilling Halloween Musical Fare
2013-14 Season
I must give my highest praise to the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, surely a national treasure. Every time I see them, I always think – “they’ve outdone themselves this time.” And then the next time I see them, I want to say the same thing.
October 31, 2013
Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Carmina Burana raises Roy Thomson Hall roof
2013-14 Season
John Terauds, Musical Toronto The feature draw was an all-stops-pulled performance of Carl Orff’s modern classic from 1936, Carmina Burana. The Toronto Symphony was joined by 116 members of the…
May 24, 2013
An invigorating performance: Missa Solemnis in D Major
2012-13 Season
Michael Johnson, Concertonet Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis doesn’t come around often enough, a fact that prevents it from becoming stale – and all the more reason to welcome it when it…
May 23, 2013
Concert Review: TSO speaks a little too softly with Brahms’s A German Requiem
2012-13 Season
Arthur Kaptainis, National Post Softness reigned at the start, of course, as the violas and cellos traced their lines with the audio equivalent of a dotted line and the Toronto…
May 23, 2013
TSO, Mendelssohn choir and soloists give Brahms his due
2012-13 Season
Robert Harris, The Globe and Mail And fittingly, Toronto’s Mendelssohn Choir, fresh off a performance of the Missa Solemnis just a week ago, provided the backbone of the TSO performance…