Archives for November 2020

by Jarrett Hoffman

SALONERA TONIGHT AND IN THE SPRING:

Master improvisers come together in “Unwritten Traditions,” the latest episode of Les Délices’ early-music talk show SalonEra, which airs tonight at 7:30 — see our Concert Listings for a link and details. Plus, the ensemble has now announced that the series will continue in the spring with eight more episodes.

OTHER FEATURES FROM THE AREA:

The Cleveland Orchestra visits the kitchen of Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream (above) in the latest video in the ensemble’s Music Medicine Initiative with the Cleveland Clinic. Hear the Orchestra’s associate and assistant concertmasters play Telemann’s Concerto for Four Violins in D.

And the Canton Symphony has shared a couple of projects over the last week. First, a young people’s concert titled The Cycles of Life and Music, which “will challenge students to see how music has evolved over time just like the world around them.” Click here to view (and use the password “YPC2020” which the orchestra shared on Facebook).

Second, the CSO has launched a series of lectures called Music History with M.J. featuring Canton native M.J. Albacete. Episodes released so far have focused on Black composers and Handel’s Messiah. Click here and scroll down to listen (or to read the included transcripts, if that’s more up your alley).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

From the passage of the first German beer purity law (1487 — it had to be just water, malt, and hops), to the only known instance of someone being struck by a meteorite (1954 — it left Ann Hodges with a big bruise, some legal complications, and a bit of celebrity), this date in history certainly has its oddness.

It also brings celebrity. Big names in all sorts of fields have come and gone on November 30: James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Evel Knievel, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Jonathan Swift, Dick Clark, George H.W. Bush.

There’s not quite as much star power on the classical music side, but here’s one important figure to note: English composer and organist Thomas Weelkes, who died on November 30, 1623. Here I’ll pass the mic to Daniel Hathaway, who shared a strong list of listening and watching recommendations on the anniversary of that musician’s birth:

And Thomas Weelkes, one of the greatest madrigalists and church music composers of the Elizabethan period was also one its most colorful personalities. Listen here to his Hark, all ye lovely saints above, in a performance by the Sidonia-Ensemble, and here to his Gloria in excelsis Deo as sung by King’s College Choir in 2000. For insights into the craft of the English madrigalists, watch Texting With Madrigals, an Early Music America lecture by retired Oberlin English professor (and ClevelandClassical.com board member) Nicholas Jones.

by Jarrett Hoffman

CONCERTS THIS WEEKEND:

In the words of Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, “Gone fishin’ — there’s a sign upon our door.” We’re taking a break from our Diary until Monday, so here are a few musical recommendations looking ahead to this weekend.

On Friday at 7, No Exit goes miniature in several ways. The concert will last about half the length of their normal performances, and will consist of solos and duos of five minutes or less by Iannis Xenakis, Kaija Saariaho, György Ligeti, Leo Ornstein, Betsy Jolas, and Charles Delaney. More info here.

Then on Sunday at 8 — live as part of the Silver Hall series — Daniel Shapiro continues his journey through the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas with the Sonatina in G (Op. 79), Sonata No. 4 (Op. 7), the famous “Moonlight” Sonata, and its lesser-known bunkmate in Op. 27. Click here at start time.

Speaking of Beethoven cycles, we’ll have to wait until May 2021 for James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong to finish up their three-part series covering the composer’s complete violin sonatas for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society. But, as an alternative, artistic director Eric Charnofsky caught up with the duo to find out what they’ve been up to since COVID struck, and to hear some music — movements from Beethoven sonatas, yes, but also works by Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov. Listen here on the Society’s “Safe With Sound” series.

GRAMMY NOMINATIONS HAVE BEEN RELEASED…

…and Cleveland’s Azica Records is on the list. They’re represented by the Dover Quartet’s October 2019 album The Schumann Quartets in the category of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. (Listen on Spotify or Apple Music, and see the complete list of nominations here.)

The album was produced by Alan Bise (right) and engineered by Azica’s founder Bruce Egre (left), who sadly passed away in September of this year. Bise wrote to us yesterday: “It’s very bittersweet not to be able to celebrate with Bruce — I’m really missing him today.” Read an obituary for Egre here from Brown-Forward Funeral Home.

Back in 2015, Bise and Egre spoke to ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin about the fascinating and ever-evolving recording industry — streaming, physical CDs, and more. We also got a taste of their humble personalities:

Why did Bruce Egre start Azica Records? “Perhaps I was a little ignorant,” he answered with a laugh.

Read that interview here.

AS FOR THANKSGIVING DAY:

No history or musical recommendations this time, just our very best wishes for the holiday — and a reminder that Zoom is lifting its 40-minute limit for group calls starting at midnight on November 26, and lasting through 6 am ET on November 27. So enjoy your screen time with anyone who’s out of reach, and if needed, start planning ahead for a new excuse to hang up.

by Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA POWER OF MUSIC VIDEOS:

A series of videos to be released weekly over social media for the next 7-10 weeks finds Assistant Concertmaster Jessica Lee and her colleagues fanning out through the community to play in various businesses in Greater Cleveland, “to bring these places back into people’s lives while we are less able to visit and enjoy them.” The series is part of the Music Medicine Initiative: The Power of Music for Health and Well-Being, a community collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Clinic’s Art + Design Institute.

In the first video, released on Monday, Lee joins Yun-Ting Lee, Wesley Collins, and Dane Johansen at Luna Bakery in Cleveland Heights for the third movement of Debussy’s String Quartet.

BW ROCK OPERA FEATURED IN AMERICAN THEATRE:

Not one to be deterred by a mere pandemic, Baldwin Wallace Musical Theatre Director Victoria Bussert forged ahead with plans to produce Spring Awakening last week.

“What would a pandemic-era production look like, and how would people see it? How could you perform group numbers when unmasked group singing is verboten? What about kissing? And most importantly, how would you keep everyone safe?” Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On November 24, 1868, American composer and pianist Scott Joplin was born near Marshall, Texas. Most famous for single-handedly inventing ragtime — a syncopated American genre revived by William Bolcom and William Albright, who introduced the young musicologist Joshua Rifin to Joplin’s music in 1968, and further popularized in the movie The Sting — Joplin wrote two operas as well. The materials for A Guest of Honor have been lost, probably seized by a rooming house owner in lieu of rent during a tour in 1904, but Treemonisha enjoyed a full production by Houston Grand Opera in May, 1975. Watch a video (with subtitles in Portuguese!) here.

Back to ragtime: Joplin made seven pianola rolls in 1916 including his most famous piece, the Maple Leaf Rag. In 1970, Rifkin’s Nonesuch recording of Joplin piano rags was the label’s first to sell a million copies.

Also born on November 24 (in 1934), Russian composer Alfred Schnittke adopted what he called his polystylistic technique in works like his remarkable Concerto Grosso No. 1, performed live in Moscow in 2004 by Gidon Kremer, Tatiana Grindenko and Kremerata Baltica.

On November 24, 1940, American jazz composer Wendell Logan was born in Thompson, Georgia. He joined the Oberlin Conservatory Faculty and founded the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble in 1973, later developing a jazz curriculum for the school, which adopted admission standards for jazz students in 1991. Watch a shaky cell phone video of Logan speaking at the dedication of the Kohl Jazz Studies Building in 2010 (he died later that year).

And listen to a February, 1991 recording of Logan’s Roots, Branches, Shapes and Shades (of Green), commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, composed for pianist Neal Creque, and first performed under the direction of Edwin London in February, 1991.

Finally, multi-genre double bass phenomenon and composer Edgar Meyer was born on this date in 1960. ChamferFest Cleveland violinist David Bowlin and bassist Nathan Farrington performed the third movement of his Concerto Duo at The Wine Spot in June, 2014. Watch here.

by Jarrett Hoffman

LOCAL 4 & ASO: BRIDGETOWER & “KREUTZER”

Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata has recently cropped up in a couple places in the area. First, violinist Emily Cornelius (above, left) played it during last week’s recital sponsored by the Local 4 Music Fund. She also shared some of its complicated and frankly strange history.

That includes how Beethoven finished it so late that violinist George Bridgetower (center) had to sight-read the premiere — which turned out to be very well received. Soon afterwards, the two had a falling out, and the violinist’s name was withdrawn from the work’s dedication. (That story involves some alcohol, and an off-color remark about a woman Beethoven admired.)

Details aside, the fact is that as a result of that argument, history has largely lost sight of an important Black violinist. Instead, the name that lives on in the piece is that of Rodolphe Kreutzer — one of the great virtuosos of his era, to be sure, but who never actually played the sonata, and who even looked down upon it.

The fraught relationship between Bridgetower and Beethoven is the backdrop for the first several entries in the Akron Symphony’s new podcast, Unorchestrated, co-hosted by music director Christopher Wilkins and director of marketing Thomas Moore.

Joining them in the opening 14-part series is Akron-born poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove (above, right). They discuss her book of poems Sonata Mulattica, which uses fact and fiction to tell the story of Bridgetower and to explore the nature of fame and of public memory. Three episodes have been released so far — click here to find out where you can listen, and here to watch last week’s Local 4 concert.

ONLINE TODAY:

Locally, tonight brings two live-streamed performances from area music schools: check out the CIM Orchestra or the Kent State Percussion Ensemble, both at 7. And if you’re curious about any streamed events further afield, check out the weekly guide from Musical America.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

It doesn’t often take long to be drawn into the flavorful and expressive, yet stylistically very different, music of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla and Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who were both born on this date in history — in 1876 and 1933, respectively. That’s certainly the case in the two works with which we’ll commemorate them today, which don’t waste any time ramping up their energy.

Listen to Penderecki’s Duo Concertante in a performance by violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti and bassist Nathan Farrington from ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2018 season. And as for de Falla, here’s a unique arrangement of selections from his El amor brujo, thanks to the Davin-Levin Duo (CIM faculty guitarist Colin Davin and Dallas Symphony principal harp Emily Levin).

Photo of Rita Dove by Fred Viebahn