by Jarrett Hoffman
TODAY’S SCHEDULE:
At 7:30 pm at Severance, Herbert Blomstedt begins a three-day run leading The Cleveland Orchestra in a pair of symphonies: Carl Nielsen’s Fourth and Beethoven’s Fifth. Tickets are available here.
IN THE NEWS:
Brothers Lounge has announced that it will reopen on March 20, just over two years after the Detroit Avenue venue closed in mid-March of 2020. Read the story by Anne Nickoloff for Cleveland.com here.
CityMusic Cleveland has announced a Diversity Fellowship for the 2022-23 season. Violinists, violists, and cellists of African American, Latin American, and/or Native American descent are invited to apply by April 30. More information here.
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus is looking for singers to attend its mid-season auditions on February 12. Find out more here.
Another invitation for vocalists: the Firelands Symphony encourages singers to register for its Winter Vocal Masterclass Series, to be held in the Cedar Point Building at BGSU Firelands in Huron. Kirsten C. Kunkle and Michael Shirtz will lead a session on traditional classical repertoire on February 17, and a week later, Evelyn Wright will partner with Shirtz to focus on The Great American Songbook. Details and registration information can be found here.
Moving down in age group, the Canton Symphony announces the in-person return of the “Listen @ the Library” series, in which librarians and trios of CSO musicians come together to pair storytelling and music for an audience of kids ages 3-6. View the schedule here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Leontyne Price, one of the soprano greats, and a true trailblazer as the first Black vocalist to reach international acclaim in opera, turns 95 today.
On the occasion of Price’s 90th birthday, Tom Huizenga wrote for NPR that “over years of interviewing singers and critics, whenever Price’s name comes up, something special happens. The talk turns to that powerful, gleaming voice and the strength of her artistic convictions, even in the face of adversity.”
That article also contains thoughts from the late, great Jessye Norman, who shared her experience listening to recordings of Price in Verdi’s Il trovatore with frequent collaborator Herbert von Karajan at the Salzburg Festival. As Norman points out, sometimes a lack of words provides a better description than words themselves:
…that is truly, truly, truly great singing. And because it is what it is, it is more than simple singing. It is much more than that. Whatever those words should be, I don’t have them this moment, but it’s far more than singing.
Listen to Price in the aria “D’amor sull’ali rosee,” especially towards the end, to discover what an apt description that is.
And Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony — the one with the intense, fatelike, fanfare theme; the dreamy, slithery, off-kilter waltz; the deep melancholy alternating with notes of happiness; the restless pizzicato; and the caffeinated and vigorous finale, which almost always results in an immediate standing-O — had its premiere in Moscow on this date in 1878, going by the Old-Style calendar.
Like other great pieces recently covered in the almanac, the premiere of “Tchaik 4” received a mediocre reception at best, and in this case, that lukewarm reaction lingered for a while. After the U.S. premiere in 1890, a critic from the New York Post described the work as “semi-barbaric,” adding, “If Tchaikovsky had called his symphony ‘A Sleigh Ride Through Siberia’ no one would have found this title inappropriate.” (Shrugs.)
Listen to a recording by Lorin Maazel and The Cleveland Orchestra here.