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CD Review
Les Délices: Age of Indulgence

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by Daniel Hathaway

Les-Delices-Indulgence-CDWhen an ensemble’s programs are as carefully curated as those of Cleveland’s Les Délices, it makes perfect sense to preserve them nearly intact in the form of a recording. Age of Indulgence is a case in point. Presented twice in November of 2015, the program delivered everything the ensemble is known for: expert, accessible performances of French Baroque repertoire using a small number of players in inventive combinations, always chosen to make an artistic point without pretense or pedantry, and performed without intermission in the course of an hour and a quarter. [Read more…]

Les Délices: tragic stories inspire beautiful cantatas at Plymouth (April 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

LesDelicesPlymouth012217You can count on Les Délices, Cleveland’s French Baroque specialists, to curate inspired programs and perform them with consummate skill. “Fated Lovers,” featuring cantatas by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault and Jean-Philippe Rameau, continued that tradition on Sunday afternoon, April 9 in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church. The tragic stories of Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Hippolyte and Aricie inspired gorgeous music expressively sung by soprano Clara Rottsolk and tenor Jason McStoots, supported by the instrumentalists of Les Délices. [Read more…]

Les Délices closes its season this weekend with “Fated Lovers”

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by Mike Telin

Rottsalk-Les-DelicesWhether it’s Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, or William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the quest for true love often ends in tragedy. This weekend Les Délices will bring the timeless tails of star-crossed lovers to life with a program titled “Fated Lovers.”

Performances will be held on Saturday, April 8 at 8:00 pm in the Galleries at Cleveland State University, and on Sunday, April 9 at 4:00 pm in Plymouth Church. The concerts will feature works by Rebel, Clérambault, Senaillé, and Rameau.

“What I always find challenging with these types of settings is the question of whether it is the original version of the myth or a poet’s take on it,” soprano Clara Rottsolk said during a telephone conversation from New York, where she was performing with the early music ensemble Artek. [Read more…]

Les Délices & Blue Heron: Machaut at Historic St. John’s (Mar. 3)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Wheel-of-FortuneLes Délices’ normal métier is French Baroque music, but last weekend the ensemble turned to earlier French music, joining forces with Boston’s Blue Heron to produce a condensed version of Guillaume de Machaut’s Remède de Fortune. Their performance of this dit, or long narrative poem, by the 14th-century superstar attracted a good-sized audience to Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City on Saturday evening. [Read more…]

Les Délices & Boston’s Blue Heron to collaborate on Machaut’s Remède de Fortune

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by Mike Telin

court-of-loveDuring his lifetime, French Medieval poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut produced manuscripts of 6 complete works containing more than 15 long narrative poems, 280 lyric poems, and 23 secular motets, as well as the earliest setting of the complete ordinary of the Mass by a single composer.

This weekend, Les Délices and Boston-based vocal ensemble Blue Heron will present one of Machaut’s narrative poems, Remède de Fortune. This musical-poetic masterpiece recounts the story of a bumbling lover who — with help from Hope and by the good grace of Fortune — ultimately gets the girl. The performances will include projected supertitles and manuscript images illustrating the story.

A free, open rehearsal at St. John’s Church in Ohio City on Wednesday, March 8 beginning at 6:30 pm will be followed by three full performances: Thursday, March 9 at 8:00 pm in Stull Recital Hall at the Oberlin Conservatory (free); Saturday, March 11 at 8:00 pm at St. John’s; and Sunday, March 12 at 4:00 pm in Herr Chapel of Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. [Read more…]

Apollo’s Fire — Virtuoso Bach: ten minutes with oboist Debra Nagy

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by Daniel Hathaway

NAGY-DebraApollo’s Fire’s next series of concerts from February 16-20 will spotlight members of the ensemble as soloists in orchestral music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Oboist Debra Nagy will be featured in the Oboe Concerto in g, and Nagy will join oboist Kathryn Montoya in the C-Major Orchestral Suite. Completing the program will be Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 4.

We reached Debra Nagy in Berkeley, California. She was on the West Coast fulfilling one of her many guest gigs with early music ensembles nationally and abroad. In Cleveland, she is artistic director of the French Baroque ensemble Les Délices.

[Read more…]

Les Délices: “Mozart in Paris” (Jan. 22)

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by Daniel Hathaway

LesDelicesPlymouth012217The 21-year-old Mozart planned to take Paris by storm on his second visit in 1778, but he chiefly succeeded in alienating colleagues and patrons alike with his arrogance. The composer fared far better on Sunday afternoon, January 22 at Plymouth Church, when Les Délices presented “Mozart in Paris,” a program that surrounded his Oboe Quartet with works by Gluck, Cambini, Duport, and Boccherini, all pieces that the Parisian public might have heard in the French capital during that period. [Read more…]

Cellist Elinor Frey to join Les Délices for “Mozart in Paris” this weekend

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by Mike Telin

frey-elinorMozart made an excellent impression visiting Paris with his father and sister in the mid-1760s. However, when he returned to the city in the spring of 1778, things didn’t go so well. “Despite the successful premiere of his Paris Symphony, and a few other commissions, he felt misunderstood,” oboist Debra Nagy said during a recent conversation. “But it was his bad attitude that was ultimately his undoing.”

On Saturday, January 21 at 8:00 pm at 2731 Prospect Gallery, Les Délices will present “Mozart in Paris.” The program, which marks the ensemble’s first full concert featuring music from the Classical era, will include Mozart’s Quartet for Oboe and Strings, quintets by Luigi Boccherini and Christoph Willibald Gluck, a string quartet by Giuseppe Cambini, and an etude by renowned French cellist Jean-Louis Duport. The program will be repeated on Sunday, January at 4:00 pm at Herr Chapel in Plymouth Church. In addition to Nagy, performers include violinists Julie Andrijeski and Beth Wenstrom, violist Cynthia Black, and cellist Elinor Frey. [Read more…]

Save the dates: January events to log in your classical music calendar

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by Daniel Hathaway

gaffigan-jamesFormer assistant conductor James Gaffigan will return to the podium at Severance Hall from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 7 to lead The Cleveland Orchestra and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Bernard Hermann’s Suite from Psycho, Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, the original, jazz band version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Performances include Thursday and Saturday evenings, a Friday matinee and a Fridays@7 event.

From January 6-8, the Philadelphia-based vocal ensemble, The Crossing, will give sixeen performances of David Lang’s Lifespan in Gallery 218 — the glass house that rises above the Cleveland Museum of Art’s East Boulevard façade. Surrounding a 4-billion-year-old rock suspended from the ceiling, three vocalists will whistle and breathe, moving the rock like a pendulum, “a poetic form of wind erosion” (read a preview here). Performances are scheduled for Friday at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 7:45 and 8:30 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday on the hour from noon to 4:00 pm. Weigh in on your experience by sharing your own comments on the ClevelandClassical.com Facebook page. [Read more…]

Les Délices: “Songs Without Words” at Plymouth Church (October 16)

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by Mike Telin

NAGY-DebraA good song is a good song, and for centuries vocal music has been a fruitful source of repertoire for instrumentalists. In “Songs Without Words,” Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy has created an inspired program that juxtaposes 17th-century art songs with 20th-century jazz standards. [Read more…]

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