by Jarrett Hoffman
BREAKING NEWS FROM THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA:
The Cleveland Orchestra has canceled its plans to invite audiences into Severance Hall from March to June. Performances without audiences will continue, to be filmed and presented on the In Focus series on the Adella platform.
“Until recently, we had been optimistic that we could welcome audiences back to live performances at the beginning of March,” President and CEO André Gremillet said in a press release. “However, with uncertainty around case numbers, the introduction of new virus variants, and extended vaccination schedules, we have concluded that we must make different plans for the months ahead.”
Next month’s In Focus programming now consists of “Carmen-Suite,” premiering on Thursday, March 11, and “Lyrical Cello,” premiering on Thursday, March 25, both at 7:00 pm. More details — including options for ticket donation, rollover, and refunds, as well as plans to announce a concert season at Blossom Music Center this summer — can be found in the press release.
STRING QUARTETS OF THE TIMES:
Readers of the arts section in The New York Times have probably come across the “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love ______” series, where writers and artists recommend short selections to get you hooked on various kinds of music. It started with classical in general, and has gone on to cover the piano, violin, cello, flute, sopranos, opera, Baroque music, Mozart, Beethoven, and 21st-century composers.
The latest iteration, here, is all about string quartets. The list includes Haydn, Beethoven (appearing three times), Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn, Smetana, Debussy, Ravel (twice), Bartók, Shostakovich, Leroy Jenkins, Terry Riley, Tony Conrad, Reza Vali, Sabrina Schroeder, and Paul Wiancko.
As with so much in the world, a summary like that one I just wrote is handy, but there’s no substitute for engaging with the thing itself. On that note, two of my favorite discoveries this morning: Wiancko’s Lift (“The first three minutes here squeeze life into slow, gliding harmonies that are interrupted by a straight-out party,” writes cellist Andrew Yee) and Schroeder’s UNDERROOM for amplified quartet and live electronics (“It transports me to a place of primal intensity and beauty,” writes violinist Christopher Otto).
One beautiful selection on the more traditional side of that list is the third movement from Fanny Mendelssohn’s E-flat-major Quartet (a “gem of a musical fairy tale” that shows “how versatile the string quartet can be in the hands of a skilled poet,” writes Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim of the Times.)
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Pivoting from Fanny, let’s touch on the Sixth Quartet by her brother Felix Mendelssohn, who was born on this date in 1809, and who dedicated that work to her after her passing at age 42 of complications following a stroke. (He would die of the same cause six months later.)
One takeaway from the piece is the frantic and distressed feeling that can be heard through much of it. Here’s one memorable performance of it to watch again, from the hands of violinists Alexi Kenney and Nathan Meltzer, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis on a program by ChamberFest Cleveland in June of 2019.
Two other important composers who were born on February 3 in history did not gravitate towards the string quartet — very inconveniently for my attempt at a neat summary of this day in history. Luigi Dallapiccola, the first Italian composer to adopt twelve-tone technique, brought his emotionally expressive approach to that style largely to the realm of vocal music. His best-known work is probably the one-act opera Il prigioniero (“The Prisoner”), a chilling piece of music written in response to Fascism. Watch here from the Teatro Colón.
And Jehan Alain is most famous for his organ music. Last June, on the 80th anniversary of the composer’s passing, Daniel Hathaway honored Alain by offering two recommendations: his Trois Danses (played by recent Cleveland Museum of Art recitalist Vincent Dubois) and a selection of his unjustly neglected choral music (here performed by the Camerata Saint-Louis and the Ensemble Vocal Sequenza 9.3).