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Archives for March 2021

DIARY: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

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by Jarrett Hoffman

MCGILL ON COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

Earlier this month, VAN Magazine published a fascinating interview between Brin Solomon and clarinetist Anthony McGill centered around Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. That composer’s music is the focus of the new album Uncovered, Vol. 1 from the Catalyst Quartet, McGill, and pianist Stewart Goodyear, released on Azica Records.

Solomon and McGill discuss how racism impacts which historical figures we do and don’t learn about. “It’s whitewashing history: We don’t find out about all the heroes and creators that are of African descent,” McGill says.

The clarinetist also shares his own personal feelings about playing Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet. “It sounds like the experience of someone I can identify with, someone who’s a Black man,” McGill says. “Those melodies are singing to you directly, whoever you are. But also, as I was playing them, I felt like they were coming directly from me.”

Among many other topics, Solomon and McGill also consider the question of whether classical music institutions are making meaningful change with regards to diversity and changing the power structures within the field.

Listen to McGill and the Catalyst perform the first movement of Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet on YouTube. Also, stay tuned for a live performance of the piece on April 11 from CityMusic Cleveland.

TODAY ON THE WEB:

Today, Apollo’s Fire will release the concert video of “Tapestry: Jewish Ghettos of Baroque Italy,” an exploration of the vibrant melting pot of Jewish culture in Italy c. 1600. Purchase tickets here — the video will be available on-demand for 30 days.

Other local attractions include “CIM Perspectives: Armenian Music for Peace” at 7 pm (free, but donations benefit humanitarian relief for Armenia and Artsakh) and WCLV’s “Cleveland Ovations: The Best of BlueWater Chamber Orchestra” at 8 pm.

Moving southwest, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music welcomes Transient Canvas in a virtual residency tonight and tomorrow, both at 7:30 pm, including six premieres by CCM students (watch here). And moving east, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society presents pianist Richard Goode at 6:00. A bit further east, the Philharmonie de Paris presents Ensemble Intercontemporain at 2:30.

Details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

The two most famous musicians to recognize today are Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (born on this date in 1809) and Polish violinist/composer Henryk Wieniawski (died on March 31, 1880). But let’s instead turn our focus to a pair of lesser-known figures, beginning with an Ohio-connected composer.

Jake Heggie was born on this date in 1961 in West Palm Beach, Florida, but shortly afterward, his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he was raised. Heggie’s story clues you into the amount of creative talent that exists in the administrative sector of the arts industry: in the late ‘90s, he went straight from the position of public relations associate for San Francisco Opera to being named that company’s composer-in-residence. His international career began with Dead Man Walking, premiered in 2000. Watch a clip from a 2016 performance by Shreveport Opera here.

And soprano Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who died on March 31, 1876, was considered the best-known Black musician of her time in both Europe and America, armed with a beautifully resonant voice and a wide range. Born into slavery in Natchez, Mississippi, she was taken to Philadelphia as a child and freed, though she continued to serve her former mistress until that woman’s death. After that, Greenfield supported herself by performing, gained recognition in the Northeast, and eventually embarked on a tour of the U.S. and Europe that included performing for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.

That description covers the basic facts about her life and accomplishments, but there is so much ugliness that’s also important to understand in the history around Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield. Learn about the different ways in which racism impacted her career in an article by Adam Gustafson in The Conversation, which ends on a positive note about her impact on society:

But Greenfield’s tour did more than prove to white audiences that black performers could sing as well as their European peers. Her tour challenged Americans to begin to recognize the full artistry – and, ultimately, the full humanity – of their fellow citizens.

Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus 7 marks COVID-19 anniversary with emotional Shostakovich and Messiaen 

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by Daniel Hathaway

Episode 7 of The Cleveland Orchestra’s pre-recorded In Focus series is the shortest so far, clocking in at only 37 minutes. But the emotional impact of Dmitri Shostakovich’s bleak Chamber Symphony in c followed by the calm, shimmering hopefulness of Olivier Messiaen’s Le Christ, lumière du Paradis (from Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà) is out of all proportion to the length of the music.

The Shostakovich is an arrangement by Rudolf Barshai for string orchestra of the composer’s String Quartet No. 8, a work directly inspired by the firebombing of Dresden, an attack toward the end of World War II that claimed more victims than Hiroshima. [Read more…]

No Exit: zany, creative, impressive & local (Mar. 26)

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Plenty of pre-recorded concerts have offered audiences some sort of new and compelling experience. But few organizations have mined that format with as much joy and silliness — and in general, personality — as Cleveland’s new music ensemble No Exit. That trend continues with their latest video, released on March 26 and centered around music by Cleveland-area composers.

You won’t want to miss the opening remarks, which turn the obligatory into a comedy routine. One of the best lines delivered by the shadowy head of artistic director Tim Beyer: “Recently, we’ve been flooded with letters from little boys and girls from around the country, all of them asking the same question: Tim, how can we give money to No Exit?”

[Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, March 30, 2021

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by Daniel Hathaway

R.I.P. MICHAEL BISHOP:

News has reached us of the death of Telarc and 5/4 Productions recording engineer Michael Bishop in an accident on March 29. Details and tributes to follow.

ONLINE TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Bachcast today features BachFest artistic director Dirk Garner in conversation with alumni choir members. Though the debut went live at breakfast time this morning, you can still view the live stream of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater from London’s Wigmore Hall. Tonight, it’s Trio Tuesday at the Bop Stop with Dominick Farinacci, the CWRU Orchestra plays from Silver Hall at the Maltz PAC, and a University of Akron faculty recital features Jim Johnson, trumpet, with Kiirsi Maunula Johnson, horn, and Randy Frye, piano.

Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

A well written guest obituary by Alex Vadukul in today’s New York Times profiles old-style oboe craftsman Paul Laubin, who died at his workbench in Peekskill, New York on March 1. “One of the last true artisans of the oboe, he made each of his instruments by hand, and the waiting list for a new Laubin could extend a decade.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Compiling the Almanac portion of the Daily Diary begins with a search for noteworthy events that happened on the date in question in classical music history. Sometimes there’s a mighty list of composers, conductors, and artists to sift through, and on other occasions like today, March 30, there’s next to nothing of import to write about — except the founding of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in 1815.

Or so our usual go-to source for historical dates told us. Wanting to be accurate and thorough, we always check out dates before setting electrons in motion and choosing music to celebrate milestones.

So we were surprised to read on bach-cantatas.com that “The Handel and Haydn Society was founded as an oratorio society in Boston on April 20, 1815, by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, Amasa Winchester, and Matthew S. Parker, a group of Boston merchants and musicians who were eager to improve the performance of choral music in a city that, at the time, offered very little music of any kind.”

Pressing the search further, we learned from a New York Times article marking the 200th anniversary of the Society, that “The society was born from the peace festivities after news reached Boston of the end of the War of 1812, when musicians presented highlights from “The Creation” and Handel’s “Messiah.” After newspaper correspondents wrote of a need to hear more European works, a group of 44 amateur choristers and instrumentalists formed the Handel and Haydn Society, on April 13, 1815.”

Then there’s this notice from the City of Boston: “The exhibition The Handel and Haydn Society: Bringing Music to Life for 200 Years opens at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square in the Cheverus Room on Tuesday, March 24, and runs through Saturday, September 5….The opening date of the exhibition coincides with the 200th anniversary of H+H’s founding and “Handel and Haydn Society Day” in the City of Boston.”

Well, if you’re over 200 years old, what do those few days’ difference matter? We’ll just pretend it’s H+H’s 206th Birthday and list some interesting facts about the organization.

• The Society, the oldest continuously performing organization in the U.S., made its debut on Christmas Night of 1815, when a chorus of 90 men and 10 women sang at King’s Chapel.

• The Society saw the first American edition of Handel’s Messiah into print in 1816, and gave the U.S. premiere of the work in 1818, followed by Haydn’s The Creation in 1819.

• The organization sought to commission a work from Beethoven around 1823, but the project never came to fruition.

• Fast forwarding, Handel and Haydn underwent a sea change in the 20th century when it began adopting historically informed performance practices under Thomas Dunn at the behest of Boston Globe critic Michael Steinberg, and Christopher Hogwood transformed it into a professional chorus and period instrument ensemble beginning in 1986.

Check our H+H’s COV-19 Era Messiah for Our Time (Part I and Hallelujah Chorus), led by Ian Watson, to see how a 200+ year old organization adapts to new realities. There are 183 other videos on the organization’s YouTube channel to enjoy as well.

Piano Cleveland announces plans for 2021 International Piano Competition

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by Mike Telin

Piano Cleveland has announced that after a year-long postponement due to the challenges presented by the pandemic, the organization’s signature event — the Cleveland International Piano Competition (CIPC) — will take place from July 8 through August 11, 2021. (Above: Nikita Mndoyants, 2016 first place winner, with Bramwell Tovey.)

The competition has been reimagined as a hybrid event with pre-recorded First and Second Rounds — Semi-Final and Final Rounds will take place in Cleveland. Twenty-eight contestants who were chosen for the 2020 competition will compete for an opportunity to perform with The Cleveland Orchestra and to win the Mixon First Prize of $75,000, a New York performance debut, management services, and a recording on the Steinway & Sons label. Click here for a full competition schedule and here for ticket information.

Creating the plan — a logistical jigsaw puzzle 

Piano Cleveland president Yaron Kohlberg said in a Zoom conversation that all the decisions during the planning process were made with the best interests of the contestants in mind. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, March 29, 2021

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by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

We’ll train our focus today on two musicians from the British isles: the world said hello to English composer William Walton on March 29, 1902, and goodbye to Irish composer Charles Stanford on this date in 1924.

One intersection between Walton and Stanford: the Agincourt Carol, an English folk song recounting the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt. Listen to the carol here, performed at the Tower of London on the 600th anniversary of the battle in 2015 (pictured above). Then watch a clip of Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film version of Henry V using that same tune in Walton’s scoring — a perfect match for the patriotic tone of the movie, which arrived near the end of World War II.

Stanford also recognized the power of the carol — and the associations it carries — when he set it in his 1918/1919 A Song of Agincourt, which commemorated members of the Royal College of Music who had died in World War I. It was premiered under his direction by the orchestra of that conservatory in 1919. Although no full performance is readily available, it was featured in a recording on the Hyperion label — listen to a short clip here.

Back to Walton, his music for the Olivier movie can also be heard in concert under the title Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario. Adapted from the film score by conductor Neville Marriner, actor Christopher Plummer, and arranger Christopher Palmer, it also includes lines from Shakespeare’s play.

The Akron Symphony performed that piece in 2019, and music director Christopher Wilkins described it vividly in a preview conversation:

In Walton’s piece, the narrator helps to paint “the vast fields, the sense of moving from England to France, and the sight of 20,000 troops,” Wilkins said. “But we also rely on the music to convey the scene and the setting, and to transport us emotionally. We go through the whole build-up to the battle, the night beforehand, and the vigil, and then the battle itself is portrayed in music. The smoke clears, and Henry says, ‘The day is ours,’ and there’s this tremendous feeling of catharsis.”

It’s starting to feel like a cliché to compare everything to the pandemic, but let’s look forward to that day when the smoke clears — or perhaps the aerosols — and we can all say, “The day is ours.”

NEW PODCAST SERIES FROM ASO:

Speaking of the Akron Symphony, their podcast Unorchestrated has begun a new series titled “Deep River: The Legacy of the Spirituals.” In Episode One, Jonathan Turner and Brenda Justice join co-hosts Christopher Wilkins and Thomas Moore to discuss the importance of spirituals in American history, with a particular focus on the contributions of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

And if you were hoping to hear some music as well, you’re in luck: the episode opens with an excerpt of Moses Hogan’s arrangement of Elijah Rock (performed by the Gospel Meets Symphony Choir) and closes with Burleigh’s arrangement of Deep River (performed by Jonathon Turner).

Listen on Apple, Google, Spotify, or Libsyn.

TODAY ON THE WEB:

In local features and connections, 7:30 pm brings both “Medieval Visionaries” on Les Délices’ SalonEra series, as well as Cleveland’s Duo Anime (Mell Csicsila and Andrew Pongracz, mallet percussion) in a presentation by Penn State.

Other attractions from London and New York: tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake at Wigmore Hall at 3:30 pm, and “Jessye Norman in Concert” from Lincoln Center at Home at 7:30.

Details in our Concert Listings and in Musical America’s streaming guide.

DIARY: Weekend, March 27-28, 2021

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by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

Although murmurings of in-person concerts are beginning to pop up like early spring flora, this weekend’s attractions are still to be found online.

On Saturday, pianist Jackie Warren joins Sammy DeLeon, Scott McKee, and Miguel Cuni to celebrate her birthday at the Bop Stop. Both the Kent State New Music Ensemble and Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra feature Black composers, poets, and artists, and Washington, D.C.’s Thirteen Chamber Choir performs a version of Bach’s St. John Passion staged by Timothy Nelson.

On Sunday, the National Philharmonic presents “Music That Renews: American Roots,” with music by Valerie Coleman, Florence Price, and Amy Beach. The Cliburn hosts 2017 finalist Georgy Tchaidze (also a finalist in the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2016) for a performance and discussion about Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata. The Kent State Orchestra plays a pre-recorded program, WCLV visits the Cleveland Orchestra archives for a performance of Bach’s Matthew-Passion, and Portland, Oregon’s Trinity Cathedral broadcasts a live Palm Sunday performance of Charles Tournemire’s Sept Chorals — Poemes pour les Sept Paroles du Christ.

Details in our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

A full list of historical comings and goings on March 27 and 28 includes prominent Russians and Americans, along with a few scattered Europeans.

On March 27, Russian cellist and conductor Mistislav Rostropovich was born in 1927 in Baku. On March 28, composer Modest Moussorgsky died in 1881 at the age of 42 following a drinking binge, and composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff died in 1943 in California, shortly after becoming a U.S. Citizen.

Moving on to Americans and March 27, composer and arranger Ferde Grofé was born in 1892, and playwright and composer Shirley Graham Dubois died on that date in 1977. On March 28, violinist, composer, and bandleader Paul Whiteman was born in 1890, American trumpeter and blues composer W.C. Handy died in 1958, and conductor and film composer Carmen Dragon wrote finis in 1984.

It’s fun to revisit the work of a few of these luminaries in archival footage. We can start with Ferde Grofé, who talks about his influence on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in an excerpt from an interview (skip the silly stuff and start at 1:39), and conducts a rehearsal of his Mississippi Suite. And for sci-fi buffs, here’s a cleaned-up print of the 1950 film Rocketship X-M, with score by Grofé that includes the first use of a theremin in a film score. (Sorry, we’re avoiding the Grand Canyon Suite.)

Rostropovich inspired the composition of many cello concertos, including Benjamin Britten’s — the two were close friends. But here’s his live performance of an older work,  the Dvořák concerto, with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra in 1969.

It’s a toss up whether Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition is more popular. Check out the original piano version of Pictures played by Evgeny Kissin at the Chorégies d’Orange in France in 2002 Evgeny Kissin, or by Sviatoslav Richter in 1956, live in Prague.

Certainly the most popular orchestration of Pictures is the one made by Maurice Ravel in 1922, although there are many others. Cleveland Orchestra Music Study Group lecturer Dr. Rose T. Breckenridge talks about the Ravel version here.

Earlier, Grofé mentioned Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which he arranged for symphony orchestra after the original performance by a jazz combo. Here’s a 78-rpm recording of part of the work recorded by birthday boy Paul Whiteman and his band in April of 1927 with Gershwin at the keys.

Continuing through our list, here’s a clip of W.C. Handy playing The St. Louis Blues on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town Show in 1949, and an odd recording of Arthur Sullivan’s Victorian favorite The Lost Chord by Carmen Dragon and the Royal Philharmonic in 1949 (sing-along slides included). [Read more…]

DIARY: Friday, March 26, 2021

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by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERT NEWS AND UPDATES:

Piano Cleveland announced today that the 2021 iteration of the Cleveland International Piano Competition will begin online from July 8-25 with preliminary rounds recorded at eight venues across the globe, and culminate with in-person Semifinal and Final Rounds in Cleveland from July 29 to August 4. The final two days will feature contestants in chamber music with the Escher Quartet, and concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra. Read the press release here and keep an eye out tomorrow for a ClevelandClassical.com interview with Yaron Kohlberg, (President) and Marissa Glynias Moore (Executive Director) of Piano Cleveland.

Apollo’s Fire has changed both the dates and repertoire for its April concerts. The previously-announced set featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons will now include J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto in d, Cantata 51, Jauchtzet Gott in allen Landen, with soprano Amanda Forsyth and trumpeter Steven Marquand, and  Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. New dates for the four in-person concerts  are April 22-25. Alternatively, patrons may choose to watch a video of the program to be released on May 11.

IN THE NEWS:

Michigan Opera has announced productions for its first season under its new artistic director Yuvan Sharon and associate artistic director — and star soprano — Christine Goere. Read Joshua Barone’s New York Times article “A Malcolm X Opera Will Get a Rare Revival in Detroit” here.

New Music USA announces its New Music Organizational Development Fund, which “offers grants to non-profit organizations, performance groups, dance organizations, festivals, presenters, and venues with a proven track record and impact who need support to sustain their programming of new music, artist development work, and other services in the evolving context of COVID-19. This program is for outstanding organizations which work regularly with, and support the development of, music creators and artists and offer a crucial resource to the community.” Application guidelines here (deadline is April 22).

ONLINE TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Band and Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the new music ensemble No Exit, and the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra Little Big Band are among tonight’s local streams. And from the West Coast, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra presents violinist Gil Shaham in a performance of music by Arvo Pärt and Chevalier de St-George “set to images and art created and processed in a first-of-its-kind digital studio at Wilhardt + Naud.”

See our Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One debut and three final acts to commemorate today: French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was born on this date in 1925 in Montbrison, while Renaissance composers Heinrich Isaac and Antonio de Cabezon, and German composer Ludwig van Beethoven took their final bows in 1517, 1566, and 1827 in Florence, Madrid, and Vienna, respectively.

Cabezon, who was blind from early childhood, rose to become the first major Iberian composer for keyboard instruments and a member of the Spanish royal household. Listen here to his Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa played by Arturo Barba Sevillano on the historic organ at Villar de Cañas, Cuenca, in 2013.

One of the most prolific and well-traveled of Renaissance composers, Isaac enjoyed the patronage of the Medicis, whose coat of arms is associated with his Palle palle, played here by Voices of Music.

If you’ve been missing wind music (allegedly the super-spreaders of the COVID-19 era), here’s another Isaac tune, A la battaglia, performed by the Italian Consort.

Beethoven’s music has been in everyone’s ears during the 250th anniversary year of his birth, but maybe not this piece. His Elegischer Gesang for string quartet and four voices dates from 1814 and was dedicated to a friend whose wife had died three years earlier at the age of 24. It’s a lovely way to celebrate the departure of Beethoven as well. Listen to it here performed by the San Francisco Choral Artists.

Lest we become too sentimental, it’s worth remembering that the earthy composer was told on his deathbed that a gift of a dozen bottles of wine had arrived from his publisher. According to his American biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Beethoven’s last recorded words were “Pity, pity — too late!”

And Pierre Boulez enjoyed a special relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, palpably represented by his performance with them of the Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, but also preserved in musicians’ tributes on the occasion of his 90th birthday. And more recently, in Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs’ remembrances in the 10th episode of the Orchestra’s On a Personal Note podcasts.

DIARY: Thursday, March 25, 2021

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by Mike Telin

Happy Thursday.

TODAY ON THE WEB:

At 12:00 pm it’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra on WCLV 104.9 Ideastream & on the web. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads performances of Wagner’s  Tannhäuser Overture, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto (Michael Sachs), Beethoven’s Scherzo and Finale from String Quartet No. 10 ‘Harp’ and Strauss’s Polka française Kreuzfidel.

 

At 5:00 pm The Violin Channel presents Tessa Lark, violin (pictured), Amy Yang, piano, and Frank Vignola, guitar. The set-list includes Kreisler’s Syncopation, Praeludium and Allegro, and Liebesleid, Telemann’s Fantasia No. 4 in D, Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 4 in e, Michael Torke’s Milk from Spoon Bread, and the fifth movement from Avner Dorman’s Violin Sonata No. 4. View here. (Free)

There’s more Cleveland Orchestra at 7:00 pm with the debut of In Focus Episode 7: “Memory & Transformation.” Franz Welser-Möst leads Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in c and Messiaen’s “Le Christ, lumière du Paradis” (Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà). Online only on the Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform. Free to subscribers and Orchestra donors of more than $300/year. Adella subscriptions available.

A half-hour later, the 92nd St Y presents Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan. The cellist and pianist perform Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole and Rachmaninoff’s Sonata. Tickets $20. View here.

Also at 7:30 pm, the University of Akron School of Music presents A Tribute to Women in Music, in celebration of Women’s History Month. Solo and ensemble works by Jenni Brandon, Johanna Magdalena Beyer, Amy Cheney Beach, Libby Larsen, Florence Price, Clara Schumann and more. Online only. Click here at start time. (Free)

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

We begin by paying respects to composer (Achille) Claude Debussy who died of cancer at 55 on March 25, 1918 at his home in Paris. Influenced by the Symbolist poets of the late 19th century, Debussy was a leader in the impressionist movement, although he rejected the notion of being called an impressionist composer.

Click here to listen to Debussy play “Clair de Lune” from Suite bergamasque.

Click here to listen to Pierre Boulez lead the Philharmonia Orchestra in a performance of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

Debussy’s music influenced many composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Bill Evans, and Béla Bartók — which brings us to our birthday celebration.

On March 25, 1881 composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and teacher Béla Viktor János Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania.

Bartók began studying piano with his mother, and at age nine started composing dance pieces. From 1899 to 1903, he studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. It was there that he met Zoltán Kodály and the two became lifelong friends and colleagues — they both shared an interest in folk music.

In 1908 Bartók and Kodály traveled into the farthest regions of the country to collect folk tunes, but what they discovered was that the Maygar folk melodies popularized by Franz Liszt they had previously thought of as Gypsy music were based on a pentatonic scale similar to that found in Asian folk melodies.

Although one doesn’t need to be an expert on all of this to enjoy Bartók’s music, here are a couple important things to remember:

  • Bartók catalogued more than 9,600 melodies of Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovakian origin.
  • Bartók incorporated these melodies into his compositions, often quoting them note for note.
  • Bartók’s musical style is a mixture of folk music, classicism, and modernism.

If you’re so inclined, click here to listen to Thomas Little (AKA The Classical Nerd) explain all you need to know about the composer in seven and a half minutes.

If you’re looking for something a little more in-depth, click here to watch A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts’ beautiful documentary about the composer.

If you want to know more about the theory behind Bartók’s musical practices, click here to watch Axis Theory make the complicated simple — it really is quite fun.

On a personal note, my introduction to Bartók’s music came early in my teens when my junior high school band director gifted me an LP of George Szell conducting The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of the Concerto for Orchestra. From then on I was seriously hooked.

Click here to listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky give the Broadcast premiere of the piece (with its original ending) on December 30, 1944.

If you’re looking for something special to do on that first Zoom date, click here to enjoy Bluebeard’s Castle (you’ll need to scroll down a bit).

Click here to listen to Pierre Boulez and the Philharmonia Orchestra play The Miraculous Mandarin (you can follow along with the score).

Click here to get a bird’s-eye view of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.

And finally, click here for a performance of the Sixth Quartet played by the Hungarian String Quartet (again, you can follow along with the score).

DIARY: Wednesday, March 24, 2021

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by Jarrett Hoffman

IN MEMORIAM KENNETH COOPER:

Earlier this month, after suffering a stroke at his apartment in New York City, harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper passed away at age 79. A deeply respected and widely acclaimed musicologist and performer, he was especially known as a brilliant improviser. In an obituary for The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini covers Cooper’s many musical interests and accomplishments, and also shares at least one gem of a quote:

“Oh, I enjoy improvising a lot,” Cooper said in 1977. “I always enjoy making trouble.” That wasn’t an attempt to be outrageous, he added. “I’m trying to give the music the same vividness and impulse that I think Bach or Handel might have given it.”

ClevelandClassical.com’s Daniel Hathaway spoke to Cooper in 2013 before a performance with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra. The questions were specific to the repertoire for that concert, but it’s still very much worth a read, because when Cooper opens his mouth to talk about music, the thoughts and stories he shares are timeless.

I’m no expert on Cooper’s life and career, but as a graduate student in New York, I did take a course he offered on performance practice. As a teacher, he was extremely kind, and possessed an ocean of knowledge that came through in his lectures and in fun little anecdotes. He always had a grin on his face, especially whenever the topic was improvisation or interpretation. (It’s amazing to compare the smile and the energetic gaze in the two pictures above.) And whenever he took to the harpsichord to demonstrate some concept, you knew you were in for something daring, breathtaking, and so engaging.

With his own excitement, he did his best to get hands raised and mouths moving in what was a quiet class of students, myself included — one of those little regrets that stays with you.

I won’t forget his generosity in inviting myself and two other students to his apartment for a coaching on Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock. We went over lots of fine points of playing — I remember some slight but very effective rubato he suggested to the pianist — to bring the music to another level, more vivid, more human. R.I.P.

ONLINE TODAY:

Local highlights in today’s Concert Listings include “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra,” guitarist Doug Wood’s program of classically-infused folk, rock, and jazz for Trinity Cathedral’s Virtual Brownbag series, and a recital by a combined group of CIM faculty and students. Heading east, it’s also worth checking out tonight’s programming from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (featuring violinist Miriam Fried and pianist Jonathan Biss) and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (composer Anna Clyne).

[Read more…]

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