Archives for July 2020

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On July 28, 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig at the age of 65, following two unsuccessful eye operations by the discredited surgeon who would unsuccessfully treat George Frederic Handel a year later.

With some 1,128 surviving works, picking just a few to mark the composer’s passing is an exercise in futility. Two of them bookend his career in fascinating ways.

At the end of his life, Bach crowned his contrapuntal achievements with The Art of Fugue, a work that in a manuscript from the early 1740s contains twelve fugues and two canons on a single theme. By 1751, a year after the composer’s death, a revised edition had added two new fugues and two new canons as well as three pieces he may never have intended to include in the collection.

One of those three pieces is the autograph manuscript of an unfinished fugue that breaks off after measure 239 with a notation in the hand of C.P.E. Bach (above):

At the point where the composer introduces the name BACH in the countersubject to this fugue, the composer died.

That’s probably another of the musicological legends that makes classical music history so appealing to program commentators — scholars have pointed out that the composer’s failing eyesight would have made writing impossible well before 1750.

In any case, that errant fugue has come to be known as the final Contrapunctus in the collection. Some composers have set out to finish it, while various performers — there’s no instrumentation indicated — have decided to just let the piece unravel as a symbol of Bach’s unfinished business.

Click here to watch Musica Antiqua Köln take the latter course.

At the other end of his career, when Bach was about 22 and organist of the Church of Divi Blasii in Mühlhausen, he wrote the funeral cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (“God’s time is best”), a work that continues to hold a special place in his portfolio.

Click here to watch a performance of BWV 106 by Oberlin Baroque on Early Music America’s Young Performers Festival in Boston on June 17, 2011. The sound is a bit sub-par, but the performance is lovely. Or for a more atmospheric experience, watch Ton Koopman lead his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir in a candlelit performance in a Gothic church (somewhere!)

Incidentally, on this date in 1850, the Bach-Gesellschaft was founded and embarked on the publication of the composer’s complete works, a monumental task that was completed with the publication of its 46th volume in 1900. Robert Schumann was among the founders.

NEWS BRIEFS: [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1741, Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi died in Vienna. He made his reputation in Venice, especially as music director for 30 years of the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for young women. He continued his career in Mantua, eventually migrating to Vienna in hopes of advancing his fortunes as an opera composer.

Of course, Vivaldi’s best known for his hundreds of orchestral concertos, including The Four Seasons, which have provided a central stream of music for Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire. Click here to watch a performance of his Concerto for Two Cellos (René Schiffer and Mimé Brinkmann), and here to witness Jeannette Sorrell’s infectious arrangement of his La Folia, both from concerts at Tanglewood.

And on July 27, 1924, Italian-German composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni died in Berlin. Known for his Romantic piano elaborations of Bach chorales, Busoni crowned his keyboard works with his immense Piano Concerto. Pianist Garrick Ohsson recorded it in the late 1980s with Christoph von Dohnányi, The Cleveland Orchestra and the men of the Orchestra Chorus. Thirty years later, Ohlsson revisited the piece with the Orchestra in February, 2019, and prefaced the performance with some of his thoughts. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERESTING READS:

Writing in Arts Professional, Kahlil Ashanti, an entrepreneur, actor, web developer and CEO of weshowup.io, a pay-what-you-can platform for experiences, describes how presenting concerts for U.S. Air Force troops in dangerous places informs his methods of getting audiences to support streamed content through after-event donations. Click here to read.

Writing in The Guardian, Tim Benbdzko describes a German initiative that seeks to enlist 4,000 concertgoers in a coronavirus experiment. Read the article here.

And a National Public Radio article previews a forthcoming recording featuring the works of the first known women composers in America.

JUST POSTED ON CLEVELANDCLASSICAL.COM:

Read Jarrett Hoffman’s reviews of the first episode of the Miró Quartet’s Beethoven Cycle on the Orcas Island Series and ACRONYM’s tenth and latest CD.

THIS WEEKEND ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

On Saturday, Cleveland Opera Theater launches its “Barber” Mini Series, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society features one of its educational success stories, the MET Opera reprises a 2010 Rosenkavalier, The Cleveland Orchestra brings back an Emanuel Ax concerto, and the Miró Quartet continues its Beethoven cycle for the Orcas Island Festival via Texas.

On Sunday, Florida Grand Opera winds up its matinee series with Mourning Becomes Electra, The Cleveland Orchestra revives a performance by violinist Nikolaj Znaider, organist David von Behren plays live from Lincoln, Nebraska, the MET offers a 2018 production of Puccini’s Wild West opera, and ChamberFest Cleveland features an encore performance of Strauss’ Metamorphosen. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Although there are no readily available local performances to remember them by, take a moment this weekend to toast the birthdays of Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester (7/25/1930), Irish pianist and composer John Field (7/26/1782), Russian American conductor Serge Koussevitzky (7/26/1874) and Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt (7/26/1958).

by Daniel Hathaway

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?:

Swedish violinist Johan Dalene, 19, who won first prize in Oberlin’s 2017 Thomas and Evon Cooper Competition, “is quickly establishing an international reputation as one of the most prodigiously talented instrumentalists to emerge in recent years.” Read the Violin Channel story here.

David von Behren, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Todd Wilson, is now assistant organist and choirmaster at Harvard’s Memorial Church, and accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club. The Nebraska native will play an Abendmusic recital at First Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln on Sunday at 5:00. (During his high school years, von Behren studied with First Plymouth music director Tom Trenney, a native of Painesville and also a CIM graduate). View the program here, and catch up with his career in a post on the Memorial Church blog, which links to the recital stream.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

The Miró Quartet continues its complete Beethoven cycle on the Orcas Island Chamber Music Series (but thanks to the pandemic, they’re live-streaming from Austin, Texas), WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra serves up a Sibelius tone poem and a Schubert Symphony. The MET Opera archives turns the clock back for a 1992 production of Verdi’s Falstaff. And the American Guild of Organists’ OrganFest 2020 wraps up its virtual convention with old music, new music, and the reconstruction of a Charles Ives piece. Details here.

INTERESTING READS:

The Canadian blog Ludwig van Toronto considers a dozen ways the pandemic will change classical music.

New Music Box considers innovations and experimentations in distanced choral singing.

And The Art Newspaper catches up with progress on the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, now that major aesthetic decisions have been made.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1880, Swiss-American composer Ernst Bloch was born in Geneva. We wrote about the founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music a few days ago on the anniversary of his death, but today we remember him through his Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh), a full-length, through-composed setting of the Jewish liturgy. Listen to a classic 1960 recording by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic here.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

“Masked But Not Muted,” the latest episode of Oberlin Stage Left, features new faculty violinist Francesca dePasquale, who joins Viola Professor Kirsten Docter and pianist Adam Golka for Brahms’ own arrangement of his Op. 40 Horn Trio.

Also on today: AGO OrganFest 2020, the Miró Quartet continues its complete Beethoven cycle on the Orcas Island series, WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra (Beethoven and Bartók), and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette from the MET Opera Archives. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1757, Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti died in Madrid. Son of composer Alessandro, Domenico spent most of his career in Spain, producing mainly keyboard works including 555 sonatas.

Click here to begin watching an extensive 1985 BBC documentary about Domenico’s life with musical selections played by Rafael Puyana (part two is here). And click here to watch Oberlin Harpsichord Professor Mark Edwards play three of the sonatas in Warner Concert Hall in February, 2018.

And on July 23, 1928, American pianist Leon Fleisher was born in San Francisco. Well-known to Cleveland — and worldwide — audiences for his commanding recordings of the Beethoven Concertos, Fleisher lost control of his right hand in 1964 due to focal dystonia. He spent the next decades concentrating on left-hand repertoire, teaching, and conducting, but made a famous comeback in 2004 with the Vanguard recording Two Hands.

Listen here to a Peabody Institute Founders Day interview with Fleisher by Ray Sprenkle, enjoy Fleisher’s recording of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra from 1961, and — for something completely different, watch him play a transcription of J.S. Bach’s Schafe können sicher weiden.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1796, Cleaveland was established as a settlement by the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company and named after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. (Although Cleaveland supervised the design of what would become our modern downtown, he returned home shortly thereafter and never returned to Ohio.) The name of the settlement was allegedly shortened in 1831 in order to fit on the masthead of The Cleveland Advertiser, and it wasn’t until 1836 that the settlement became incorporated as a city.

Culture took even longer to arrive on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, a history laid out by Cleveland State University professor J. Heywood Alexander in his article in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Jazz began to flourish in the early 20th century (read a parallel article by Joe Mossbrook and Chris Columbi here.)

Fast forward to 2020 to take a tour of the city with Cleveland Orchestra cellist Alan Harrell, who plays Bach in a number of different locations, and follows that up by popping up all over Northeast Ohio in a second video.

And on this date in 1933, soprano Caterina Jarboro appeared in the role of Aïda at the New York Hippodrome, the first Black female opera singer to perform in the United States. A year earlier, Jules Bledsoe made history by singing the role of Amonasro in the same opera, the first Black singer to appear in that role. His performance came in the second and last season of Stadium Opera at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a series whose first season, sponsored by The Cleveland Press, also saw the premiere of Shirley Graham’s Tom-Tom. Alas, no recordings are available.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Ohio Light Opera’s Virtual Summer Festival continues with selections from The Mock Marriage, and Kent Blossom Music Festival revisits a performance by Kulas Artists Joseph Kalichstein, piano, Jaime Laredo, violin, and Sharon Robinson, cello from July, 2019. Piano Cleveland’s Pianokids visits Germany, WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra features Bruckner, and a Mozart Symphony and aria (with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard). Tonight, the MET Opera Archives brings you a 2008 performance of Verdi’s Macbeth. Details here.