George Hanson will conduct the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of a work by "Canada's Mozart." That performance will also mark the TSO's CD debut.

jeffry scott / arizona daily star

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The Tucson Symphony Orchestra is about to go where few similarly sized orchestras go: the record store.

The orchestra will make its first-ever recording in May with a renowned French-Canadian pianist.

But it won't be recording its rendition of works by Bach, Beethoven or Brahms: The TSO will perform the world premiere of a piano concerto by André Mathieu, a composer many dub "Canada's Mozart."

The CD, on Canadian label Analekta, will come out worldwide next fall, just ahead of a movie about the composer's life expected to hit North American theaters in early 2009.

"This concerto is going to be a major event musically. Tucson will have the world premiere of probably one of the most important major works of the year," pianist Alain Lefèvre said in a phone interview Monday from his Montreal office. "It was a very major decision. I could have saved Concerto No. 4 for a Canadian orchestra. (But) after listening to what the orchestra did with (Mathieu's 'Rhapsodie romantique' in 2006), I wanted to do the concerto with the Tucson orchestra."

The TSO, which received a grant from the Stonewall Foundation for some of the costs, will record the CD live during its season-finale concerts May 8, 9 and 11 at the Tucson Music Hall. It also will include Mathieu's "Scenes de Ballet" (Ballet Scenes) and Four Songs for Choir and Orchestra, featuring the TSO Chorus.

"This recording is happening because of the extraordinary abilities of our musicians," TSO Music Director George Hanson said, a sentiment Lefèvre echoed. "This is happening because a world-class artist who has the option of recording with major symphonies throughout the world came here and was so moved by the performance of the musicians here that he said he wanted to record here."

"I was very, very impressed by everyone," Lefèvre said in a thick French accent of his TSO appearances in 2004 and 2006 to play Mathieu works. "I believe in those musicians. . . . Here we were with an orchestra that did mesmerize me completely."

The TSO was the first American orchestra to play Mathieu's long-lost compositions, which Lefèvre dug up over the last 20 years. Many of the scores would have remained lost to history without the pianist, who went to bars and taverns throughout Mathieu's native Montreal retrieving some of the compositions sheet by sheet. The composer had traded them to satisfy his bar tabs.

Mathieu may have written as many as 200 works, but none of them is properly cataloged. Not much is known about the composer's life, but his virtuosity and prodigy in many ways mirrored Mozart's. Mathieu was born in 1929 in Montreal and was composing little pieces at the age of 4. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 13 but saw his fame peak by 1950, in large part due to his drinking. He died in 1968, penniless and mostly forgotten.

The Piano Concerto No. 4 is the final piece of Mathieu's puzzle and one that came to Lefèvre through a long-lost recording. Apparently, toward the end of Mathieu's life, he recorded the concerto in New York. No score was known to exist, so Lefèvre recruited fellow French-Canadian Gilles Bellemare, a Montreal conductor and composer, to transcribe the score from the recording.

"That was a major work," Lefèvre said, noting that Mathieu recorded the orchestra parts on piano. That meant that Bellemare had to "visualize the orchestra part."

The TSO recording will be Lefèvre's fourth CD of Mathieu works. The three earlier CDs have sold almost 85,000 copies combined, including 44,000 copies of the 2003 Quebec Concerto recording with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra.

In classical music sales, that's phenomenal, Lefèvre said. Most classical CDs sell an average of a couple thousand copies; sales exceeding 4,000 are considered major successes.

"We have a chance now to make a mark nationally and internationally," noted TSO's Hanson. "It is an opportunity that frankly is unheard of for a regional orchestra like ours."

The TSO, with an annual operating budget of just over $4.5 million, is similar in size to orchestras in Hartford, Conn.; Omaha, Neb.; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Oklahoma City, to name a few, TSO spokesman Terry Marshall said.

"For an orchestra our size to have an opportunity to do something that has this much commercial value . . . is a rarity," added TSO Executive Director Susan Franano.

"What will happen in Tucson will be a major step for the orchestra and the community," Lefèvre said. "I want people to know how good the orchestra is. There's a gem in Tucson, and it is the orchestra."

Watch a TSO video from the StarNet archives at www.azstarnet.com/accent