by Jarrett Hoffman
NOW AVAILABLE:
A Canton Symphony Young People’s Concert is up online until the end of the year. Made with the help of the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, and including music specifically written for the orchestra, the program focuses on “communities throughout history in America and what has led to the cultural makeup we see in our country today.” Register here to access the video, and check out the Learning Materials here to get your brain humming in preparation for the concert.
SAVE THE DATE:
A new event from the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project has been announced for Thanksgiving weekend. The live-streamed concert on Sunday, November 28 at 6:00 pm will include solo performances by saxophonists Nick Zoulek and Andrew Hosler, as well as harpist Stephan Haluska. Watch on CUSP’s Facebook page.
INTERESTING READ:
Ahead of the release this week of his three-part series The Beatles: Get Back, director Peter Jackson discusses sifting through 60 hours of unseen footage, and how what he saw pushes back against notions of the band’s final days together. “I was amazed,” Jackson said in an interview with Andy Welch of The Guardian. “I was waiting for it to get really bad but it didn’t. It actually gets happier and happier as it goes.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On her designated feast day, pour one out for St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. Among those musicians born on this date in history is Benjamin Britten (1913 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England), who wrote a piece of music in honor of that figure: his 1942 Hymn to St. Cecilia (sung here by the ensemble VOCES8) on a text by W. H. Auden, who was for a time a frequent collaborator and important influence — artistically, intellectually, and as a fellow gay man.
Several pieces written in honor of that patron saint have been premiered on this date in history. Henry Purcell’s 1683 Welcome to all the pleasures (performed here by the Bach Collegium San Diego) was the first in a series of works by the composer taking that figure as inspiration.
From the pen of G. F. Handel we have the 1739 Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (played here by the Dunedin Consort led by John Butt), and from Charles Gounod the 1855 St. Cecilia Mass (follow the score here alongside a performance by Barbara Hendricks, Jean-Philippe Lafont, and Laurence Dale with the Choeurs de Radio-France and Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, led by Georges Pretre).
The parents of folk-song collector Cecil James Sharp — both of them music lovers — seemingly took things to another level when they decided on his name (he was born on this date in 1859). A clear bonus: the opportunity to nickname him C-sharp.
Moving into different territory, some have wondered whether the famous Simon & Garfunkel song Cecilia is a reference to the saint — the lyrics a metaphor for the fleeting nature of inspiration in songwriting. (The more obvious take is that Cecilia is an unreliable lover.) Then again, others claim that it’s merely about Paul Simon’s dog Cecilia.
And when you get that deep into parsing out the meaning of a song, you know it’s time to move on.