By Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. R.I.P. Gerhardt Zimmermann
. Eric Charnofsky broadcasts 500th edition of his classical music show on WRUW
. Marking the departures of John Ireland and Oliver Knussen & Benjamin Britten’s creation of a new musical fusion in Curlew River.
HAPPENING TODAY:
From 2-4 pm, Eric Charnofsky hosts the 500th edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, broadcast from the studios of WRUW at Case Western Reserve University. View the playlist in our Concert Listings, and click here to listen to the internet feed (or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area).
And tonight at 7:30, Apollo’s Fire presents a performance of its summer show, The Fiddlers of Dublin, in Bath.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Canton Symphony music director Gerhardt Zimmerman (pictured above) departed this life on Saturday morning at the age of 77, shortly after entering Hospice care. Read an obituary here, and view tributes from staff and musicians here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Several British anniversaries to note today.
Scottish composer and conductor Oliver Knussen was born on this date in 1952. We noted the anniversary of his untimely death on July 8, 2018 in an earlier Diary entry, and linked to Celebrating Olly, the video of an evening at the Royal Academy of Music the following December celebrating his life, as well as to remarks by violinist Leila Josefowicz before her performance of his violin concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra in February, 2020.
June 12 also marks the death of British composer John Ireland in 1962. Ireland is known for his miniatures, chamber music, songs, and the anthem, Greater Love Hath No Man, composed in 1912 but often sung in Britain to commemorate those who perished in “The Great War.” Click here to hear it sung in a live BBC broadcast from the chapel of St. John’s College, Cambridge, on August 13, 1997. But another piece much loved by Ireland admirers is his Concertino Pastorale, written on the brink of World War II.
And June 12, 1964 saw the premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River in Orford Church, Aldeburgh, with Peter Pears as the Madwoman, and the composer conducting. Based on the Japanese Noh Drama Sumidagawa, which Britten saw in Japan in 1956, the piece was the first of three “Parables for Church Performance” that merged elements of Japanese and medieval religious drama, and set the composer off on a new stylistic course for the rest of his career. The Burning Fiery Furnace followed in 1966, and The Prodigal Son in 1968.
Watch a production of Curlew River staged at the Church of the Transfiguration in New York with the neXus Instrumental Ensemble here.
