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Archives for January 2022

DIARY: Monday, January  31, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Stay home today and enjoy the latest episode of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, hosted by Eric Charnofsky and broadcast online from WRUW, Case Western Reserve University, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

Host Eric Charnofsky celebrates the birthdays of Franz Schubert and Philip Glass with an arrangement of a Schubert Piano and Violin Sonata for flute and strings, and Glass’s orchestral piece The Light, written on commission from CWRU. Other music includes Gian Carlo Menotti’s Violin Concerto, and George Tsontakis’s Ghost Variations for piano. Click here to listen to the internet feed.

And at 7:30 pm, the latest episode of Les Délices’ SalonEra will be guest hosted by multi-instrumentalist Daphna Mor. “Ottoman Influence” explores eastern cultural influences on western music in the 17th and 18th centuries and beyond and features oud player Kane Matthis and Turkish violinist Ceren Turkmenoglu. Watch a trailer here. Register and watch online free (donations welcome). Available on-demand after debut.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Double bassist Kebra-Seyoun Charles and violinist Jonathan Okseniuk have placed first in the senior and junior divisions of the 25th Annual Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latinx String Players. The finals were streamed online from Detroit on January 29. Charles, from Miami, studies at Juilliard with Joseph Conyers. Okseniuk is a student of Jing Zeng at the Arete Preparatory Academy in Mesa, Arizona. Read the press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

The big names to remember today are Austrian composer Franz Schubert and American minimalist composer Philip Glass, both born on the last day of January, in Vienna (1797) and Baltimore (1937), respectively.

Glass is topical in Cleveland this week: John Adams will lead the “Facades” movement from his 1982 suite, Glassworks, on Cleveland Orchestra concerts this weekend. Scored  for two soprano saxophones, synthesizer, viola, and cello, it was originally intended for the film score of Koyaanisqatsi. Ultimately omitted, it’s frequently performed as a separate piece.

After his larger concert and stage works, the composer was interested in creating what he called a more popular, “Walkman-Suitable” work, “specially mixed for your personal cassette player.” Click here to listen to Louisiana State University percussion professor Brett William Dietz play his own solo version of “Facades.”

From what are myriad possibilities, let’s choose to salute Schubert with settings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (“The soul of mankind is like water”), a poem which seems both to have obsessed him and proved problematic. One is for unaccompanied male chorus, an entirely different setting that the composer left unfinished adds piano, and the remarkable third version — again completely different — adds an ensemble of low strings. Listen to No. 3 as performed in 2011 by the Norwegian Soloist Choir and the Oslo Camerata, directed by Grete Pedersen.

And does anybody remember the American tenor Mario Lanza? Born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza on this date in 1921 in Philadelphia, he was discovered by Louis B. Mayer, who made him a movie star in the 1940s, and nearly simultaneously by Serge Koussevitzky, who groomed him as an opera singer. Click here to watch a centennial celebration of Lanza’s vocal talent created in 2021.

DIARY: Weekend January 29 & 30, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

 HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Only two events are on our radar for the last weekend of January.

On Sunday at 7:30 pm, Paul Ferguson and Bill Rudman will host a joint retrospective, “The Gershwins on Broadway” with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and the Musical Theater Project at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Also on deck: the Joe Hunter Trio, and vocalists Treva Offutt & Evelyn Wright. Ticket prices include a live streaming option. Click here to reserve.

Another meeting of minds is scheduled for Sunday at 6 pm in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, when the Cleveland Chamber Choir (Scott MacPherson, artistic director) will team up with Cleveland State University’s composition programs (Andrew Rindfleisch, director), for a workshop of choral works written by CSU School of Music graduate and undergraduate Music Composition Majors. It’s free.

NEWS BRIEFS:

A reminder to music students: Tuesday Musical Scholarship Applications are due online on Monday, January 31. Details here.

Lisa Wong would like us to alert our readers to a job opening: The College of Wooster is receiving applications for Visiting Assistant Professor in Music-Voice. Read the details and download application materials here.

INTERESTING READS:

In an opinion piece, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette critic Jeremy Reynolds (who served as ClevelandClassical.com‘s Nicholas Jones Young Writer Fellow for 2015) ponders the primacy of live performances, even in the age of COVID. Read his comments in a review of The Rose Elf here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

We’ll begin by noting the first performance of William Walton’s Partita for Orchestra, dedicated to George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra, which received its premiere on January 30, 1958.

Asked by Szell to provide program notes, Walton demurred. “It is surely easier to write about a piece of creative work if there is something problematical about it, Indeed — it seems to me — the more problematical, the greater the flow of words. Unfortunately from this point of view, my Partita poses no problems, has no ulterior motive or meaning behind it, and makes no attempt to ponder the imponderables.”

Online recordings give us the opportunity to compare performances both in musical and technical terms. Here’s a remastered recording of the piece by its original dedicatees, followed by a live performance Szell gave with the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra later in 1958.

Born on January 29, 1852, Jamaican-born British composer Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen represents a composer lauded in his lifetime for a large body of compositions — operas, oratorios, cantatas, orchestral suites, songs, and six symphonies — but now nearly completely forgotten. Of those Symphonies, No. 3, subtitled “Scandinavian” and dating from 1880, was widely performed in Europe and the U.S. Click here to hear a performance by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra led by Adrian Leaper.

Cowen’s orchestral overtures — curtain-raisers for concerts — were among his most popular works. Click here to hear Leaper and his Slovak musicians play The Butterfly’s Ball, written in 1901 and based on a poem by William Roscoe partly quoted in the video notes.

DIARY: Friday, January 28, 2022

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by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:00 pm Dave Becker will lead the BW Symphony Orchestra in a program to be announced at Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. The concert is free. Click here to access the live stream.

At 7:00 pm organist Daryl Robinson (Christ Church Cathedral, Houston & University of Houston) will present a recital sponsored by the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at the Immaculate Conception Church, 4129 Superior Ave., in Cleveland. The event is free.

Also at 7:00 pm, the Somerset Trio, Danna Sundet, oboe, Mark Addleman, horn and Elizabeth Etter, piano, will present a program to be announced at the Church of the Western Reserve, 30500 Fairmount Blvd, Cleveland. The performance is free.

IN THE NEWS: 

Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium  

Next month a consortium of area arts organizations will come together to present a series of events celebrating some of the major masterworks of silent cinema. To highlight the Cleveland connection, the Festival will focus on the music of Cleveland native and film music pioneer John Stepan Zamecnik.

The week-long Festival kicks off on February 13 at 3:00 pm at the Hermit Club, when violinist Isabel Trautwein and other members of the Cleveland Orchestra join Rodney Sauer, music director of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, in a concert of chamber works by Zamecnik and his mentor, Antonín Dvorak. Click here for tickets.

Zamecnik’s music will accompany a screening of the Buster Keaton classic Steamboat Bill, Jr., at the Apollo Theater in Oberlin on February 16, and at three Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque screenings: Wings(Feb. 18), The Wedding March, (Feb 19), and Sunrise, (Feb 20). Steamboat Bill, Jr., The Wedding March, and Sunrise will all feature live accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, an ensemble nationally known for its definitive interpretations of historic film scores.

During the festival, Mont Alto will be working with Oberlin students in a Winter Term project on locating, selecting, and compiling historic photoplay music for silent film accompaniment. An end of term free performance will be held at the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space on February 15 at 7:00 pm.

Click here to access the Festival Facebook Page. COVID protocols will be in place for all events. Proof of vaccinations/booster will be checked at the door and masks must be worn at all times.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

In a year that was full of unexpected events, it appears that January 28 was left alone although our Daily Diary archives reveal two debuts and one final curtain call of note.

Today marks the birth of Polish-American pianist Arthur Rubinstein in 1887 in Łódź, Poland. With a career spanning eight decades, he is regarded as one of the greatest pianists — and the greatest interpreter of Chopin — of all time. Relocating to California during WWII, he became a naturalized U.S. Citizen in 1946. He also lent his talents to Hollywood, providing piano soundtracks for films, including Song of Love with Katharine Hepburn, and playing himself in Carnegie Hall and Of Men and Music. Click here to watch a documentary of his life with historic film footage.

On this date in 1944, British avant-garde composer John Tavener was born in London. We featured his life in our Daily Diary last November 12, marking the date of his death. The English composer achieved wide renown for his religious works, many of which reflected his conversion to Orthodox Christianity in 1977. Among his best-sellers: The Protecting Veil (recorded by cellist Steven Isserlis), Song for Athene (sung at the end of the funeral for Princess Diana in Westminster Abbey in 1997), and the haunting little setting of William Blake’s The Lamb, inspired by his 3-year-old nephew and premiered at the 1982 King’s College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Watch Quire Cleveland perform The Lamb at Trinity Cathedral in December, 2013.

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge included The Lamb in a 2013 tribute to Tavener, along with his Mother of God, Today the Virgin, Funeral Ikos, and Song for Athene. Stephen Layton conducted the ensemble at the European Festival of Church Music in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany in July 2013. Watch here.

Finally, today we note the passing of violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler on this date in 1962. Like Rubinstein, he was regarded as one of the greatest musicians of all time. Listen to a WQXR interview on his 80th birthday in 1955 here. Kreisler was famous for his encores, and you can binge-listen to two hours of them here.

DIARY: Thursday, January 27, 2022

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by Jarrett Hoffman

FOR THE YOUNG ONES:

Applications for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’s 2022-23 season are now open. Admire the photo by Roger Mastroianni above, then click here for more information.

And the Canton Symphony’s educational program “SymphonyLand Strings” — which tells the story of Crunch the Shy Dinosaur while teaching about string instruments — is now available to watch. Register here. It’s designed for children ages 3-6, but, I mean…a dinosaur? That’s shy? That maybe likes music? Potentially checks a lot of boxes. (And because it’s virtual, interested adults need not go the route of Steve Buscemi’s character in NBC’s 30 Rock, in a flashback to his days infiltrating high schools as an undercover cop.)

TODAY’S LISTENING, FOR YOU, AND FOR MR. KIBBLES

The Cleveland Orchestra’s podcast, On A Personal Note, continues with a two-part episode exploring “one of the most unusual and memorable performances” in the history of the ensemble. That was in January 2018, when one soloist for Haydn’s The Seasons fell ill — and then another. Listen to “Change of Seasons” here, from “The Scramble” to “The Golda Touch.”

And an article from Animal Wellness Magazine explores the benefits music may offer to dogs and cats, an idea with particular relevance in stressful environments such as shelters and veterinary hospitals. Perhaps those concepts and applications are a draw for you, or perhaps you don’t want to deny yourself the opportunity to see a picture of a dog wearing headphones. Either way, click here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Anniversaries on this particular date in classical music history go on and on — the birth of Mozart (Salzburg, 1756) and the death of Verdi (age 87 in Milan, 1901) just scratch the surface.

Given that January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day — chosen for the date in 1945 when the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps — we’ll turn our focus to Czech pianist and composer Gideon Klein, who died on that same date in 1945 at age 25.

[Read more…]

The Cleveland Orchestra:
Denk on Adams & writing

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Almost two years passed, with Jeremy Denk limited to thinking about the piece, playing around with the fingerings, and maybe emailing the composer a question or two. All while he had it solidly learned.

“That was horrible not to be able to play this piece,” the pianist said during a recent telephone interview. “But.” He paused. “Good things come to those who wait, I suppose.”

Only recently did the opportunity arrive to perform John Adams’ third piano concerto, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? — written in 2018, and played by only a couple of other keyboardists before Denk was to take it on with the composer on the podium in late March of 2020.

Finally, his first go at it came in Seattle in the early days of 2022. St. Louis is next, in late January. And Cleveland will follow when Denk and Adams share the Severance stage with The Cleveland Orchestra on February 3 (at 7:30 pm), February 5 (at 8:00 pm), and February 6 (at 3:00 pm).

“Now we’re really in the thick of trying to define this piece and make sense of it,” Denk said, “which is so much fun.”

[Read more…]

CityMusic Cleveland: “Tales and Scenes” (Jan. 21)

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by Stephanie Manning

The Christmas season appeared to still be in full swing at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus on January 21. Merry wreaths, festive trees, and twinkling lights filled the cavernous space three weeks into the new year. The evening was a chilly one, and most audience members chose to keep their coats on as they settled into their seats for CityMusic Cleveland’s captivating chamber program, “Tales and Scenes.”

The Pantheon Ensemble kicked off the concert with J.S. Bach’s Concerto in f, where pianist Elizabeth DeMio was joined by violinists Masha Andreini and Mari Sato, violist Yaël Senamaud-Cohen, cellist Nataliya Pschenychna, and bassist Tracy Rowell. The group approached the Bach with a rich, dramatic style fitting for both the piece and the venue. But although the architecture of St. Stanislaus is visually impressive, its extremely resonant space was not always beneficial to the ensemble’s blend and balance.

[Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, January 25, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Pianist Melody Quah, faculty member at Penn State University, will play a double-header at Youngstown State University today. Both her Music at Noon program at the Butler Institute or American Art and her 7:30 pm recital on the Muse Concert Series at the McDonough Museum of Art will include Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and the evening performance will add works by Malaysian, Chinese, and Australian composers. Both are free.

INTERESTING READS:

Among the African American musicians who found Europe more promising for their careers than the United States, was conductor Everett Lee, who passed away on January 12 in Sweden at the age of 105. Growing up in Cleveland, he was mentored by Cleveland Orchestra music director Artur Rodzinsky, and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Joseph Fuchs, the Orchestra’s concertmaster.

Lee attracted the attention of many conductors and musical institutions, but was continuously passed over when appointments were made, even being denied auditions because of his race. New York Times writer David Allen chronicled Lee’s life and career on January 20. Click here to read “Everett Lee, Who Broke Color Barriers on the Conductor’s Podium, Dies at 105.”

And except for occasional outliers like Cameron Carpenter, performers in the organ demi-monde aren’t often regarded as newsworthy by a wider musical audience. Enter Swedish organist and songwriter Anna von Hausswolff, who has been making waves in Europe for a decade now — notably upsetting religious conservatives by performing in churches, where most organs are located. Click here to read Alex Marshall’s New York Times article,  “A ‘High Priestess of Satanic Art’? This Organist Can Only Laugh.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Is there something auspicious about January 26 as a date for opera premieres? How about this list: Mozart’s Così fan tutte in 1790 and Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande in 1905, both in Berlin, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (Dresde,n, 1911), and Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites (La Scala, Milan, 1957). [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, January 25, 2022

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by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY’S SCHEDULE:

After the concert was postponed last week, organist Jonathan Moyer will get the chance to play the complete Nedêlní Hudba (“Sunday Music”) by Petr Eben today at noon in a livestream-only concert presented by the Church of the Covenant. Watch on YouTube.

And as a reminder, the concert by the Danish String Quartet on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series, previously scheduled for tonight, has been cancelled due to positive COVID-19 test results from one of the performers — wishing them a quick recovery. Ticketing questions? See yesterday’s Diary.

TODAY’S READING:

Three days ago, January 22, The Washington Post featured “22 for ‘22” — a list that Michael Andor Brodeur described as “a diverse variety of composers, performers and artists hitting their stride with work that resonates with the right now.” Click here to read about Carlos Simon, Kedrick Armstrong, Marcos Balter, Rohan Chander (a.k.a. AIYYER), James Diaz, Anthony R. Green, Sarah Hennies, Raquel Acevedo Klein, Eddy Kwon, Catherine Lamb, Charmaine Lee, Allison Loggins-Hull, Raven McMillion, Rob Moose, Emma O’Halloran, Tarik O’Regan, Kamala Sankaram, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Dale Trumbore, Dai Wei, and Paul Wiancko.

In more weighty news, The New York Times undergoes a self-evaluation: out of deference to its style guide, did the paper ever refer to the late rock singer Meat Loaf as Mr. Loaf ? Matt Stevens investigates here — click the arrows to discover the truth.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

The name Robert Burns has already come up in our pages a few times in recent weeks. That’s because Scotland’s national bard was the inspiration for Les Délices’ concert video “The Highland Lassie,” released five days ago as an early celebration of the anniversary of the poet’s birth on January 25, 1759 — 263 years ago today. Watch the concert here.

Speaking of that anniversary — on this date, you might celebrate Robert Burns Day, a.k.a. Rabbie Burns Day, Burns Day, and Burns Night. Whatever you name it, the party might include a Burns Supper, traditionally kicked off with a bagpiper greeting the guests, and continuing with a welcome speech, then the saying of grace — usually the Selkirk Grace, attributed to Burns and written in Scots:

Some Folk hae meat that canna eat,
And some can eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
So let the Lord be Thanket!

[Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, January 24, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The last unhosted weekly episode of WRUW’s Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music airs today between 2:00 & 4:00 pm (Eric Charnovsky returns in February). Today’s program includes George Walker’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, William C. Banfield’s Symphony No. 3, C.P.E. Bach’s Clavichord Sonata in f-sharp, Martin Scherzinger’s Etudes for Piano (selections), Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 20 (“Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain,”) Nicolo Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo (arr. for trumpet), Paul Ben-Haim’s Three Songs Without Words (violin and piano) & Igor Stravinsky’s Scènes de Ballet (orchestra). Free on WRUW, Case Western Reserve University. Click here to listen to the internet feed.

COVID-19 UPDATES:

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society regrets that the concert by the Danish String Quartet scheduled for Tuesday, January 25 has been cancelled due to positive COVID-19 test results from one of the performers. The concert will not be rescheduled this season. Patrons who purchased tickets with a credit card (online or by phone) will receive an automatic refund to that card. Those who purchased tickets by mail should contact the office to receive a refund. Those who prefer to exchange their ticket(s) for another concert this season should be in touch by the end of this week.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Jazz organist Eddie Baccus Sr. (pictured above), passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, January 23, the very day he was to be honored with a concert at the Bop Stop. That event turned into a tribute evening and a benefit for his family.

Announcing the change of plans, the jazz club wrote

Eddie Baccus Sr. has been a beloved part of the Cleveland music scene since just about forever (the 60s). He met a fellow blind musician, the great flute/sax player Roland Kirk, at the Ohio State School for the Blind in late 40s, but chose a different path and opted to stay closer to home than Kirk. While Kirk toured the world and died young at age 41 of a stroke in 1977, Baccus has continued to roll his Hammond B-3 into area clubs, performing in a range of jazz styles, and collaborating with and mentoring other players, such as Joe Lovano, Ernie Krivda and his sax-playing son Eddie Baccus Jr.

Donations can be made here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Among the entrances and exits on the classical music stage on January 24: the births of Frederick the Great (in 1712 in Berlin, the flute-playing king of Prussia who challenged the father of his court musician C.P.E. Bach to improvise a fugue on the spot during a visit in 1747. Also of the English oboist Evelyn Barbirroli in 1911 (spouse of conductor Sir John), and of Klaus George Roy in 1924, long-time program editor and annotator for the Cleveland Orchestra. [Read more…]

DIARY: Weekend, January 22-23, 2022

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by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, CityMusic Cleveland repeats its “Tales and Scenes” program featuring Pantheon at St. Jerome at 7 pm, the UA Wind Symphony performs in Guzzetta Recital Hall in Akron at 7:30 pm, and Cleveland Pops features trumpeter and vocalist Byron Stripling in Mandel Hall at Severance (for which you’ll need tickets).

On Sunday at 3, the Cleveland Cello Society will showcase its current scholarship winners in an online only, live performance from the Bop Stop. Read more about those magnificent seven in our Concert Listings.

R.I.P. VIOLIST ROGER TAPPING:

British-born violist Roger Tapping succumbed to cancer on January 20 in New York at the age of 61. Known to Cleveland Chamber Music Society audiences as a member of the Takács Quartet from 1995 to 2013, and then the Juilliard Quartet, he also held a number of orchestral positions including principal viola with the London Mozart Players, as well as serving as a member of the English Chamber Orchestra, and a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A dedicated teacher, he served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Longy School, and Boston Conservatory, as well as the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Tapping’s charming personality comes through clearly in an interview I did with him before a Cleveland Chamber Music Society performance by the Juilliard Quartet in November, 2014.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

While it’s amusing to note the anniversary this weekend of Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart’s recovery from intestinal flu just in time for a performance in The Hague in 1766, and bizarre to recall the death of American composer Marc Blitzstein from brain injuries in a barroom fight in Fort-deFrance, Martinique in 1964, two opera premieres and an historic concert featuring Black musicians make it to the front of the pack.

On January 22, 1907, Richard Strauss’s opera Salome received its U.S. premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, followed by its cancellation after a single performance and subsequent absence from the stage of the Met until 1930.

As an article in the Met archives sums it up, “No opera premiere in Met history has created a scandal to equal the one that greeted Richard Strauss’s Salome on January 22, 1907.” Read all about it — and the opera’s later history with the company here.

On January 22, 1934, Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District opened in Leningrad at the Maly Operny, where Cleveland Orchestra music director Artur Rodzinski saw the production several times and vowed to bring it to the recently completed Severance Hall. Cleveland audiences first enjoyed it there on January 31, 1935, but not without some troubles along the way — and more to come. [Read more…]

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