Archives for September 2020

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Thanks to WCLV Ideastream, here’s your lunch crew for today at noon: Franz Welser-Möst, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, and The Cleveland Orchestra. After dinner, how about a live performance via stream? Coming to you from the Maltz at 8, Youngstown State piano professor Caroline Oltmanns plays music by Schubert, Debussy, Janáček, Griffes, Crumb, Chopin, and University of Akron composition professor James Wilding.

Oltmanns performed the same program this summer from her home as part of London’s Piano Week Online Edition. On her website, she shared a sample of the Griffes piece, “The Night Winds” from his Three Tone-Pictures, which is based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. She noted that “to set up the mood perfectly,” she loves to read a short passage of Poe before performing the piece — perhaps that will be the case tonight?

The pianist also recently caught up with Zsolt Bognár, host of Living the Classical Life, on his “Where Are They Now Wednesdays?” series on Instagram. They discuss “playing online and on ground,” staying healthy amidst the pandemic, and talking shop with Martha Argerich.

You can find more details about today’s performances, including the nightly Met Opera stream, in our Concert Listings.

NEWS FROM NO EXIT:

The Cleveland-based new music ensemble will begin its 12th season with a free, virtual concert on Friday, October 2 at 7:00 pm. Mostly made up of solo works, the evening will include music by Adam Roberts, Heitor Villa-Lobos, William Grant Still, and Harald Genzmer, as well as a world premiere written and performed by percussionist Luke Rinderknecht. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

With not a lot going on locally today, let’s mark some anniversaries with tributes by musicians both local and global.

On September 15, 1890, Swiss composer Frank Martin was born in Geneva (he died in the Netherlands in 1974, where he spent much of his career). Martin developed a lean compositional style influenced by Schoenberg’s 12-tone theories, but never abandoned tonality altogether. George Szell programmed his Cello Concerto with Pierre Fournier and The Cleveland Orchestra in October, 1967, two years after it was written. Click here to listen to the live performance.

Austrian organist, conductor, composer, and influential teacher Anton Heiller was born on this date in 1923 in Vienna, where he died in 1979. He was a prolific composer whose works, influenced by Hindemith and Martin (see above), never approached the popularity of his solo performances, which included a series of recitals on the new Fisk organ at Harvard in 1970. Two performances of his organ works include Oberlin alumnus Dexter Kennedy playing his In Festo Corporis Christi in 1971 on the Beckerath organ in Dwight Chapel at Yale, and Simone Gheller playing his Fantasia super Salve Regina on an artist diploma recital on the Fisk organ in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel in 2011.

In 1945, American soprano Jessye Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia. A celebrated opera diva, she sang 85 performances at the Met, including 11 roles in 10 different works. Revisit her artistry in a live performance of Richard Strauss’ Morgen at the 1991 Salisbury Festival inaugural concert on the West Green of England’s Salisbury Cathedral, and — out-of-season but in another cathedral — her 1992 Christmas Concert with the Lyon Opera Orchestra at Notre-Dame in Paris.

Also on this date in 1945, Austrian composer Anton von Webern was accidentally shot to death by an American soldier when he stepped outside his house to light a cigar during the post-war occupation. Webern’s eventually sparse compositional style is contrasted to J.S. Bach’s polyphonic textures in his arrangement of the 6-voice Ricerar from A Musical Offering, performed here by The Cleveland Orchestra led by Christoph von Dohnányi.

INTERESTING READS:

In a long New Yorker essay, “Black Scholars Confront White Supremacy in Classical Music,” Alex Ross considers a thorny question with several dimensions. “Living with history means living with history’s complexities, contradictions, and failings…Attempts to cleanse the canon of disreputable figures end up replicating the great-man theory in a negative register, with arch-villains taking the place of geniuses. Because all art is the product of our grandiose, predatory species, it reveals the worst in our natures as well as the best.”

And in a WQXR article, Philadelphia Inquirer critic David Patrick Stearns muses about a new trend in curating classical recordings. “Fascinating, provocative, and bewildering, such discs subvert expectations — not just with names that wouldn’t normally be heard on the same disc. Instead of going deep into a single composer’s psyche, they go broad, reaching into distant centuries and ethnicities, but not superficially. Sure, there’s some gleeful perversity going on, but there’s also a lot of enterprise and thought that allows these interpretive artists a greater means of creative expression. Maybe they don’t compose the music, but they can compose the program, and do so around ideas that are important to them.” Read “Beyond High Concept, Beyond Algorithms: Classical Recording Artists Go ‘Off the Leash’” here.

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY ON THE WEB WITH O’BRIEN:

Vocalist Connor Bogart O’Brien joins Carl Topilow and the Cleveland Pops Jazz Ensemble tonight at 8 as part of the Silver Hall Series from the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Seats in the hall will be empty, but you can stream it live for free.

A native of Ashtabula, O’Brien is both a stellar performer and an incredibly fun person to talk to. In an interview with Mike Telin in 2015, O’Brien discussed his musical versatility (ranging from opera to musical theater to rock) and his experience learning an entire show in Mandarin, phonetically.

In 2017, he shared some of his thornier travel stories, and his journey into home renovation. (“My life is now a strange juxtaposition,” he said. “I’m either smashing out drywall at my house on the west side of Cleveland, or dressed in a tuxedo performing onstage for a couple thousand people.”)

And in 2019, O’Brien talked about finally singing his dream role of Tony in West Side Story — after having turned it down multiple times — and the unexpected setting where he proposed to his girlfriend: a ride on a gondola, yes, but in Dallas.

For more from the Pops, you can also check out this recent stream from the ensemble’s pianist, Rock Wehrmann, where Carl Topilow picks up his clarinet — or rather, clarinets.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

September 14 marks several notable birthdays: Austrian composer Michael Haydn (1737), Italian composer Luigi Cherubini (1760), American composer and organist George Whiting (1840), and French pianist and composer Gabrielle Ferrari (1851), as well as the death of American composer and pianist Mary Howe (1964).

We’ll focus on Cherubini, who was known for both sacred music and opera, and for his stylistic straddling of the Classical and Romantic eras. His best known work is the opera Medea, which tells the story of that mythological character who killed her children in revenge after being abandoned by her husband Jason.

One rare Northeast Ohio performance of Medea came in 2017 from the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater program. In a preview conversation with Mike Telin, director David Bamberger cautioned against judging the title character too harshly: “In Euripides’ play, it’s clear that our sympathies are supposed to lie with her even though she does terrible things.” Read Daniel Hathaway’s review here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society always launches its new season with a Showcase Concert, but this time around, there will be no audience present in Silver Hall at the Maltz Performing Arts Center for the Saturday evening event. Register for a free live stream invitation instead.

On Sunday, Apollo’s Fire holds its first online benefit, “Go For Baroque,” link to be supplied with a donation, cellist Simon Housner plays a solo recital on the Sacred Heart Series in Oberlin, guest carillonneur Keiran Cantilena plays a recital on the McGaffin Carillon in University Circle, and pianist Daniel Shapiro opens the Music from the Western Reserve series — as well as launching his season-long expedition through all 32 of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas — with a virtual recital pre-recorded from Christ Church in Hudson. Details in the Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS FROM ENGLAND:

Bachtrack editor Mark Pullinger reflects on the long-term effects of free, live streamed concerts during the pandemic. Read Free streaming: lifeline or noose? here.

It’s not about music, but still thought-provoking. The Guardian commissioned GPT-3, “OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch. The assignment? To convince us robots come in peace.” Read Robot Wrote This Article here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

On September 12, 1764, French composer and music theorist Jean Philippe Rameau died in Paris at the age of 80. It was only after he turned 50 that he began writing the operas that have been the main source of his place in history. Watch a 2003 video of his Les Boréades performed by Les Arts Florissants at the Opéra National de Paris in 2003, and a concert of suites from his dramatic works played by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations at Versailles in 2011.

Rameau also wrote solo music for the harpsichord, chamber works, and religious music. In April, 2018, Cleveland’s Les Délices joined Scott Metcalfe and his Boston ensemble Blue Heron in a program at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights that featured several of Rameau’s motets. Here are three selections from In Convertendo: “Laudate nomen Dei,” “Euntes ibant,” and “Tunc repletum est.”

And Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich was born on September 12, 1906 (Old Style dating) in St. Petersburg. The Cleveland Orchestra has played his symphonies many times over the decades, but let’s suggest two historic recordings led by Artur Rodzinski: Symphony No. 1 (undated in this posting), and No. 5 (recorded February 22, 1942 in Severance Hall).

On September 13, 1819, German pianist, composer, and teacher Clara Wieck was born in Leipzig, later to marry Robert Schumann, whose works eclipsed her own. Watch a recent concert by the Dana Piano Trio that featured her own piano trio.

Also born on September 13, but in 1917 in Cleveland, composer Robert Ward was most celebrated for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1961 opera The Crucible, based on the play by Arthur Miller. In 2011, at the age of 93, Ward journeyed to Sarasota Opera to hear a production of the work, and talked about it in a video interview.

And on September 13, 1977, conductor Leopold Stokowski died at the age of 95 in the English village of Nether Wallop. Watch a BBC4 video documentary of his long career, and enjoy a recording of his own transcriptions of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition played by The Cleveland Orchestra under the late Oliver Knussen.

by Daniel Hathaway

MUSIC EN PLEIN AIR:

Oberlin Conservatory will open its concert season with a performance of John Luther Adams’ Sila that deploys more than 50 brass players and percussionists all over Tappan Square. The 6:30 pm event is free, masks required, and physical distancing is built into the plan.

And at 12:15 noon today, University Circle carillonneur George Leggiero will ascend to his office in the McGaffin Tower to play Baroque and Baroque-inspired music on the 47-bell carillon. It’s free, and you can listen from various greenswards or remain in your car (honking = applause). Details of both events here.

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA REMEMBERS 9-11 IN PODCAST:

Lisa Wong, director of choruses at Severance Hall, “reflects on the healing power of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls after 9-11 and the human voice as medicine for the soul” in the just-released second episode of the second season of the podcast series “On a Personal Note.” Watch here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt was born on this date in 1935. One of the truly original voices of the 20th century, Pärt invented what he called the tintinnabuli style, a minimalist approach influenced by chant.

Frequent ChamberFest Cleveland violinist Alexi Kenney joined his colleague Stefan Jackiw and Boston’s A Far Cry chamber orchestra in a live performance of “Silentium,” the second movement of Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, in Jordan Hall in 2017. Watch here. And listen to the Estonian Chamber Choir sing Pärt’s 1989 Magnificat under the direction of Paul Hillier.

French composer, organist, and harpsichordist François Couperin “Le Grand” died in Paris on this date in 1733. QinYing Tang included the 18th Ordre from his Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin on her doctoral recital at the Cleveland Institute of Music in April, 2015. And in the same month, Les Délices played his La Sultanne on its program in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Oberlin Conservatory and the New World Symphony are collaborating on a three-part series on racial justice in the music world, conceived by bassist Michael Martin. Part one, “Black Reflections: Contributions of Black Artists” streams today at 5:00 pm on Oberlin Stage Left, with moderator Chi-chi Nwanoku, of Chineke Foundation, and panelists including pianist Aaron Diehl, Sphinx Organization founder Aaron Dworkin, and musicologists Fr.edara Hadley and Tammy Kernodle. Register for the webinar here.

(Earlier this week, the Oberlin Faculty approved a statement, “Towards a More Equitable and Diverse Conservatory Education.” Read the full document here.)

Also on today: “We Three Quings” from Bop Stop, with Noa Even, saxophone, Dan Bruce, guitar, and Anthony Taddeo, drummer, a Mozart Flute Concerto with Joshua Smith on Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, and the MET Opera’s archive production of Massenet’s Cendrillon. Visit the Concert Listings for details.

NEW VIDEO FROM THE ART MUSEUM:

In a conversation with CMA’s Tom Welsh, Ruth Reichl, sometime restaurant critic for the New York Times and editor of Gourmet Magazine, explores her Cleveland connection through her grandmother Mollie Brudno, “an unheralded but important impresario in the mid-20th century who organized hundreds of concerts with the Cleveland Museum of Art.” Watch the latest episode of CMA Behind the Beat here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1684, German organist and composer Johann Rosenmüller died at Wolfenbüttel, where he ended his career as choirmaster at the ducal court. Previously, he was organist at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig before getting run out of town for alleged homosexual activities. He fled to Venice to work at San Marco and at the Ospedale della Pieta.

Watch videos of Rosenmüller’s Das ist meine Freude and Nisi Dominus performed by Burning River Baroque at St. Alban’s in Cleveland Heights in March, 2018, and of his Magnificat in c by ARTEK and Les Sacqueboutiers du Toulouse in 2017 at Old St. Patrick’s in New York.

And on September 10, 1941, British conductor, harpsichordist and musicologist Christopher Hogwood was born in Nottingham. Co-founder with David Munro of the Early Music Consort in 1967 and founder of the Academy for Ancient Music in 1973, Hogwood was a central figure in the early music revival movement, including his tenure as music director of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, but his expertise extended into more modern music as well.

Watch a video where Hogwood conducts Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 with Robert Levin at the fortepiano, and a 2013 Gresham College lecture here where Hogwood talks about Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with live musical illustrations. (He died a year later in Cambridge, where he served as honorary professor at Cambridge University.)