Archives for August 2020

by Jarrett Hoffman

NEWS FROM THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA:

As a result of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, The Cleveland Orchestra has announced sweeping changes to its 2020-21 season, replacing the concert schedule that was announced in the spring.

As the Orchestra’s president and CEO André Gremillet wrote by email on Wednesday, the newly designed season will occur in two phases: fall and winter-spring.

Fall concerts, beginning in October, will take place without audiences at Severance Hall. Five different concert programs will be recorded and digitally-streamed, free for subscribers and donors of $300 and more, and otherwise available for purchase. The musicians will be spaced apart onstage at Severance, performing chamber orchestra works by composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and John Adams — more details about repertoire, guest artists, and broadcasting to come in September.

There is optimism that the winter-spring schedule, starting in January of 2021, will allow for concerts at Severance to be attended in person, by subscribers only. That will begin with “socially-distanced audiences in limited numbers,” with the potential for larger audiences as safety guidelines permit. Meanwhile, the streaming of concerts will continue throughout the season.

Gremillet also offers a frank assessment of how COVID-19 is impacting The Cleveland Orchestra as an institution. “This is, without question, the most significant crisis in the Orchestra’s 100-plus year history.”

In a separate news release Wednesday, the Orchestra announced the cancellation of its 2021 Miami residency at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. The ensemble plans to return to Miami in January 2022.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

At noon, have lunch with The Cleveland Orchestra over WCLV 104.9 Ideastream and on the web. Franz Welser-Möst leads the ensemble in two works by Beethoven: the Symphony No. 8, and the Adagio from Symphony No. 9.

Oberlin Stage Left honors the class of 2020 with a virtual performance of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It at 7:30 pm. Preceding that: a discussion on the making of the video — both “highs and lows” — and what the concept of ensemble means in 2020.

At 2:00 from New York City’s 92ndt Street Y, pianist Robert Levin plays popular works by Mozart in a way that promises to be particularly up that composer’s alley — with embellishments, flights of fancy, and improvisations on themes submitted by the audience.

Staying in New York for the evening, and moving to a more serious topic, Lincoln Center and WQXR present “Mostly Mozart: Black Experience in the Concert Hall” at 7:00. Host Terrance McKnight is joined by violinist Sanford Allen, vocalist Julia Bullock, tenor Lawrence Brownlee, cellist Alvin McCall, and vocalist Bobby McFerrin.

At 7:30, the Met Opera flips through its archives back to December 15, 1981 for a performance of Puccini’s Turandot, starring Nina Stemme, Anita Hartig, Marco Berti, and Alexander Tsymbalyuk, conducted by Paolo Carignani.

And moving up the coast to Maine, the Portland Chamber Music Festival presents “Songs & Stories” at 7:00, featuring baritone Thomas Meglioranza and pianist Shai Wosner in songs by Schubert.

For more details of these performances, check our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

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by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Special events today include the final “Best of ChamberFest” broadcast on WCLV’s Ovations with duo-pianists Roman Rabinovich and Orion Weiss playing Rachmaninoff’s Second Suite plus music by Kevin Puts, Martinů, and Fauré, Opera Western Reserve’s “Summer Songs” with soprano Marian Vogel, and a streamed concert from Minnesota’s Lakes Area Music Festival featuring Valerie Coleman’s Requiem Milonga.

WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra follows Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries with a Haydn Mass, and the nightly MET Opera stream revisits a production of Verdi’s Rigoletto from 1981. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1612, Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli died in Venice. He advanced the tradition of polychoral music at the Basilica of San Marco to the point where northern composers like Heinrich Schütz paid extended visits to study with him and take his techniques back home.

These works have provided great material for modern brass ensembles, as you can hear in the 1969 recording The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli, reissued in 1996 and featuring brass players from the Chicago Symphony, and the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestra.

That recording inspired the National Brass Ensemble — 24 players from the major U.S, orchestras, to gather in California’s Sonoma County in June, 2014, to perform and record excerpts from Gabrieli’s 1597 Sacrae symphoniae in a partnership between Oberlin Conservatory, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Green Music Center. Watch the documentary The Making of Gabrieli here.

On this date in 1928, Moravian-Czech composer and folk song collector Leoš Janáček died in Ostrava (then part of Czechoslovakia) at the age of 74. His wonderful Sinfonietta inspired a 1966 landmark recording by George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra, remastered by Sony in 2018 on the disc, One Hundred Musicians and a Perfectionist.

And on August 12, 1992, American composer John Cage died at the age of 79 in New York City. Meditate on his contribution to 20th century music with his most celebrated work, here performed by William Marx at McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California.

INTERESTING READ: [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS:

Youngstown’s Opera Western Reserve announces an online program to be streamed from Stambaugh Auditorium at 7pm on Wednesday, August 12. Summer Songs with soprano Marian Vogel and pianist Benjamin Malkevitch will include opera favorites, show tunes, and behind-the-scenes extras.

Youngstown State University and the University of Akron will hold its 2020 Northeast Ohio Keyboard Festival online from September 27-30. Director Caroline Oltmanns has announced this year’s artists in residence: Jeanette Yaryan and Ralitsa Georgieva-Smith. More information coming soon on Oltmanns’ website.

Oberlin organ professor Jonathan Moyer announces the August 28 release of the first volume in a series of recordings on the Gothic label, Voices of the Hanse, that will feature historic instruments in northern Germany as well as American organs influenced by them. The first volume features Moyer on the 1637 Stellwagen organ in St. Jakobi, Lübeck.

Cleveland-born pianist Nathan Carterette will be featured on Iowa Public Radio’s Virtual Steinway Café at noon on August 18, playing his program “Poets of the Piano — Heroes and Icons” from Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City. More information here.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Each Tuesday this month, Opera Vision will present five short operas created during the lockdown by opera teams from around the globe. Viewers can vote for their favorites. Tune in at 1:00 pm.

WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra serves up Brahms and Tchaikovsky (the Violin Concerto with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider), and the nightly MET Opera stream recovers a production of Carmen from 2008. Check the Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

 On this date in 1873, American composer J. Rosamond Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Trained at the New England Conservatory and in London, he’s best known for his setting of Lift Every Voice and Sing, the poem by his brother, James Weldon Johnson. During his active career in show business, he produced several Broadway operettas, and edited two volumes of Spirituals in the mid-20s.

Click here to hear three of Johnson’s Spirituals sung by the late Cleveland soprano A. Grace Lee Mims.

And on August 11, 1996, Czech conductor, composer and pianist Rafael Kubelik died in Lucerne, Switzerland. He left Czechoslovakia after the Communist coup in 1948 to pursue a busy career guest conducting orchestras in Europe and the U.S., and spent short spans of time as music director of the Chicago Symphony (three years) and the Metropolitan Opera (six months). He was briefly regarded as a long-shot candidate to fill George Szell’s vacancy in Cleveland.

Click here to listen to a 1973 live Cleveland Orchestra broadcast where Kubelik leads Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny at the keyboard. And if you’re looking for a long-term listening experience, in May of 2018, Deutsche Grammophon released a 66-disc set of the conductor’s complete recordings for that label.

by Daniel Hathaway

PRIZES AWARDED IN VIRTU(AL)OSO COMPETITION:

In Sunday evening’s Award Ceremony, Piano Cleveland announced the winners of its 2020 all-online competition:

First Prize: Martin James Bartlett (U.K.)

Second Prize: Arseniy Gusev (Russia)

Third Prize and Audience Prize: Byeol Kim (South Korea).

Watch the Awards Ceremony video here, and read the press release here.

ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES TODAY:

On the Cleveland scene, WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra features the Scherzo from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, string orchestra version, and Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony.

Two New York events of interest are in the calendar today: a 1pm stream from Trinity Church, Wall Street featuring its choir and baroque orchestra in two Bach cantatas led by Julian Wachner, and WQXR’s stream of the opening concert of the Mostly Mozart (mostly virtual) Festival. Plus, of course, the MET Opera’s nightly archive performance, this time a 2008 production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this August date, Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph) died in Salzburg in 1806, Russian composer Alexander Glazunov was born in St. Petersburg in 1865, French organist Marie-Claire Alain (sister of composer Jehan) was born in St. Germain-en-Laye in 1926, and American-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow (known for his player piano works) died in Mexico City in 1997.

But also on August 10 of 1995, the first Henry Wood Promenade Concert was held in London’s Queen’s Hall, an event that blossomed into the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Renowned for its often unruly “promenaders” — purchasers of cheap standing-room spots on the main floor of the hall — the series has also given rise to the “Last Night at the Proms,” a traditional blowout that culminates in an effusion of British patriotism. The Proms go on this month in a reduced, pandemic version, but it’s probably a good time to remember them in their pre-Brexit prime. Click here to watch Last Night in 1994 (part two continues here.)