By Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. Weekend openings and performances
. $15k from NEA to Les Délices, Apollo’s Fire’s local programs next season
. Almanac: Births of Ysaÿe, Stravinsky, and Sir Paul McCartney
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
This weekend finds Ohio Light Opera, ChamberFest Cleveland, and Encore Chamber Music Institute in full swing. There’s lots to sample and dabble in alongside more well-known music. Visit our Concert Listings page for robust listings of these and other events — with composers, titles, and performers’ names.
Ohio Light Opera continues its run of Camelot at Freedlander Theater at The College of Wooster on Saturday. Read preview articles here, here, and here.
ChamberFest takes its inspiration this season from Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and interesting concerts this week include “Karin’s Smile” (Friday, June 16 at St. Wendelin Church in Tremont), “Fidelity and Betrayal” (Saturday, June 17 in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music), and “Dads, Dvořák, and Donuts,” an al fresco event for Father’s Day (Sunday morning, June 18 at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.) Read preview articles here & here.
And ENCORE’s Music and Ideas Fest, subtitled “Creatures of Emotion” features two early evening concerts and a Sunday matinee this week. Sandbox Percussion performs on Friday, June 16 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, followed by clarinetist Sangyoon Kim and the Catalyst Quartet on Saturday, June 17 at Lakewood Congregational Church, and “Transcendence,” an Artist-Teacher Showcase on Sunday afternoon, July 18 in Harkness Chapel at Case. Read a preview article here.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Cleveland’s period ensemble Les Délices has received a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the fourth season of SalonEra, “an award-winning early music webseries and podcast that highlights the work of a diverse range of musicians and historians and serves a global audience of classical music enthusiasts. Produced under the aegis of Les Délices, SalonEra is free to enjoy and is made possible by support from individual donors and foundations.” Read the press release here.
Apollo’s Fire has released details of its 2023-2024 season, which includes a homestand of 29 performances of 8 programs in Northeast Ohio. View the announcement here.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
June 16:
Belgian violinist, composer, and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe was born on this date in Liège in 1858. Ysaÿe has two interesting links to Ohio, having taught Josef Gingold, concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, and having served as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony from 1918-1922 after turning down the directorship of the New York Philharmonic.
César Franck wrote his much-admired Violin Sonata in A as a wedding gift for Ysaÿe. After receiving the piece on the morning of the wedding, Ysaÿe and pianist Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène had a quick rehearsal, then played the Sonata for the other guests at the wedding.
That duo would give the official premiere at a museum in Brussels three months later — and that’s an interesting story in itself. The program began in the late afternoon, with the Sonata placed in the most honorable position: the finale. But the concert was so long that when the time arrived for the Sonata to be played, the sun had gone down — and museum officials forbade artificial light in the gallery.
Rather than abandon the premiere, Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène pressed on, having to rely on memory for the final three movements as the room grew darker and darker. So you can understand why they played the opening movement a few clicks faster than Franck intended — something he ended up approving of regardless of the lighting situation: “From now on there will be no other way to play it.”
Listen to a performance by another excellent duo: violinist Nathan Meltzer and pianist Evren Ozel from ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2019 season
June 17:
Igor Stravinsky was born on this date in Oranienbaum, Russia, in 1882. He made his debut as guest conductor with The Cleveland Orchestra in February of 1925, conducting his Fireworks, Chant du Rossignol and Firebird Suite. Conductor Nikolai Sokoloff found him “something of a showman and not entirely endearing,” adding, “He was, in short, a pain in the neck.” (Rosenberg, The Cleveland Orchestra Story, p. 87).
Stravinsky was more complimentary about his experience: “I have never seen an orchestra in which there was finer discipline and a greater responsiveness than right here in your Cleveland Orchestra.” Here’s a live performance of Le chant du rossignol by Pierre Boulez and The Cleveland Orchestra from November, 1970.
June 18:
On June 18, 1942, Paul McCartney (Sir Paul since 1965 when The Beatles were inducted into the Order of the British Empire) was born in Liverpool. In addition to his career with the groundbreaking Liverpudlian band (who memorably played Cleveland in 1964 and 1966), he made a foray into classical music with his Liverpool Oratorio, featuring Kiri Te Kanawa. Watch a recording here of its dress rehearsal and premiere in Liverpool Cathedral in 1991.
