Last year, Pacific Opera Victoria sponsored a fun event called A Grand Tour of Beer, a “beer-soaked musical journey through five regions, each with its own unique tradition of classical music and brewing.”
It was hosted by local beer expert Joe Wiebe and featured performances by the early-music duo comprising violinist Paul Luchkow and harpsichordist Michael Jarvis, joined by their frequent collaborator Sam Stadlen, of the London-based viol consort Fretwork.
On Friday, at POV’s Baumann Centre (925 Balmoral Rd.), the same host and instrumentalists will present a second Grand Tour (7:30 p.m., $45.50; tickets include five 10-oz. glasses of beer and snacks; pacificopera.ca).
This year’s regions are Germany, Italy, Belgium, Scotland and Canada. The music for each ranges from about 1600 to the late 18th century, including (with soprano Ai Horton) ariettes from Joseph Quesnel’s Colas et Colinette (1790), the first opera written in Canada.
The program will include one of Tommaso Giordani’s Op. 30 sonatas, from 1782, of which Luchkow, Jarvis and Stadlen made stylish, world-première recordings for a CD recently released on the Marquis label.
Also this weekend:
The Victoria Symphony’s four-concert series Under the Northern Lights will continue with a program nominally in its Classics Series, though the first half comprises two modern works from Scandinavia (Sunday, 2:30 p.m., Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria Centre; $35-$58; victoriasymphony.ca).
Those works are the lovely Pastoral Suite (1938), by the late Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 (1999) by the popular Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg — the latter a showcase for the orchestra’s concertmaster, Terence Tam. The program concludes with Mozart’s popular Symphony No. 40 in G Minor.
In late May, the Victoria Mendelssohn Choir, together with the DieMahler String Quartet, was scheduled to give two performances of an all-Baroque program including Vivaldi’s Magnificat, a Bach cantata and choruses by Handel. They had to be cancelled, but have been rescheduled to take place this weekend (Saturday, 3 p.m., St. Peter’s Anglican Church, 3939 St. Peter’s Rd.; Sunday, 3 p.m., SHOAL Centre, 10030 Resthaven Dr., Sidney; $20; see choir’s Facebook page).
On Sunday, the University of Victoria’s School of Music will welcome two distinguished performers from McGill University, in Montreal: pianist Stéphane Lemelin and violinist Axel Strauss (2:30 p.m., Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, $25/$20/$10; streaming online at livestream.com/somlive; finearts.uvic.ca/music/calendar).
Their all-French program comprises two pieces by Lili Boulanger, a violin sonata by Gabriel Fauré and (along with the Lafayette String Quartet) an ambitious work by Ernest Chausson: the Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet (1891).
The return of one of the biggest names in the early-music movement, Ton Koopman, the Dutch harpsichordist, organist and conductor, will be the weekend’s highlight.
Koopman, 75, founded the renowned Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979, and its allied choir in 1992. He still tours internationally and records with these ensembles, while maintaining careers as a solo keyboard performer, guest conductor, festival director, scholar, teacher, writer and editor.
Koopman appeared here during the inaugural 1985-86 season of the Early Music Society of the Islands, and (thanks to personal connections) was lured back in 2014 to give an organ recital at Christ Church Cathedral. On Saturday, in between gigs in Vancouver, he will give another recital at the cathedral, as part of the Pacific Baroque Series (7:30 p.m., $35; pre-concert talk 6:45; pacbaroque.com).
His program will include some Spanish and French music and a sonata by C.P.E. Bach, but, as in 2014, will be mostly devoted to the organ composers with whom he is most closely associated — Buxtehude and J.S. Bach. (Among his hundreds of recordings are the complete organ works of both composers, and he has won prizes named for both of them.)
The second half will be given over to Bach: a prelude and fugue, the mighty Passacaglia in C Minor and the chorale prelude Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele. (No, “Schmücke dich” does not mean “You schmuck.”)
Koopman is a virtuoso whose keyboard playing is full of energy, colour, imagination and improvisatory spirit. He somehow manages to maintain very high performance standards throughout an immense repertoire.
