By Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
No Exit new music ensemble continues its season-long survey of surrealism with the third of three concerts on Saturday at 7 at SPACES. Read a preview article here.
And Apollo’s Fire repeats its “Splendour in London” program (Handel’s Water Music and Other Royal Festivities) on Saturday at 8 at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, and on Sunday at 5 at Church of the Gesu in University Hts.
Two organizations will mark Hispanic Heritage Month on Saturday: Sammy DeLeon y su Orquesta at Severance at 7, and the Youngstown Symphony under Francisco Noya in “Latin Fire” at 7:30.
The first of two Cleveland Philharmonic concerts led by Victor Liva with violin soloist Andrew Sords will take place at West Shore Unitarian Universalist on Saturday at 7:30, repeated on Sunday at 3 at Cleveland State University.
And on Saturday at 8 at Disciples Church, Cleveland Chamber Collective plays two performances of the fourth program in its Music of America series, including music by Claude Bolling, Jeff Scott, Ty Alan Emerson, and traditional Brazilian chorinho, repeated Sunday at 8 at the Pivot Center.
This week’s packed Sunday afternoon schedule also includes concerts by the Parma Symphony (with pianist Michael Lu) at 3, the Meta4 String Quartet at the College of Wooster, also at 3, Heights Chamber Orchestra with violin soloist Emily Cornelius at First Baptist in Shaker Hts. at 3:30, the CIM New Music Ensemble in Mixon Hall at 4 (a Joan Tower 85th birthday celebration), and the University of Akron choirs at Fairlawn Lutheran at 4.
Ending the week with a special gathering of friends at Severance Music Center, soprano Renée Fleming (pictured above) will collaborate with the Emerson String Quartet and pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a program of music by Beethoven (Quartet No. 14), Philip Glass (Etude No. 6), and André Previn (his Penelope, narrated by Merle Dandridge).
For details, visit our Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READ:
In a preview for its performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt in Evanston on October 19, the Chicago Sun-Times reflected on Apollo’s Fire’s activities in the Windy City in light of the city’s seeming inability to maintain a period instrument orchestra there.
It is not uncommon for classical groups to tour regularly to the same venue or present an annual concert series in another city. New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, for example, has performed an annual series of concerts at Chicago’s Harris Theater since 2011-12.
But there is little precedent among classical organizations in the United States for the deep kind of involvement by Apollo’s Fire in Chicago. The group has made the city nothing less than a second home.
Indeed, Sorrell’s email signature states: “Apollo’s Fire/Cleveland & Chicago,” and the press release announcing the ensemble’s Windy City Series has a whole section about its commitment to the city. Moreover, Apollo’s Fire Chicago, a kind of legal subsidiary, has incorporated in Illinois with its own 10-member board.
But Sorrell was adamant about maintaining the Orchestra’s primary connection with Cleveland — as she also stated in an interview with this publication.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
October 14:
Composer Kaija Saariaho was born in Helsinki on October 14, 1952 but lived in Paris now for thirty-some years until her passing in June. Recently, the BBC Music Magazine polled 174 composers about the greatest names in the history of their field. Bach landed 1st, and Saariaho 17th, the highest ranking among living composers. (Here are the results of the top 50.)
Among local performances of her work, hear Oliver Herbert play the Sept Papillons (“Seven Butterflies”) for solo cello during the 2017 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland. And check out her recent interview with Tom Welsh as part of the “Behind the Beat” series from The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Maurice Martenot, the inventor of the electronic instrument known as the ondes Martenot, was born in Paris on this date in 1898. Cynthia Millar, described by The Guardian as the “unchallenged sovereign” of the instrument, describes its nature and its importance to Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie here. And moving to the world of popular music, listen to this collection of ondes Martenot-heavy excerpts from the band Radiohead, whose lead guitarist and keyboardist became a fan of the instrument after hearing Turangalîla as a teeanger.
One last big name for October 14: Leonard Bernstein, who died on this date in 1990. Read our Diary entry from August 25, 2020, where Daniel Hathaway celebrated that needs-no-introduction musical figure with videos of “Lenny” in rehearsal.
October 15:
German philosopher, philologist, poet, cultural critic and sometime composer Friedrich Nietzsche was born on this date in 1844. His ideas exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history, and on the music of Gustav Mahler, Frederick Delius, and Richard Strauss, although Nietzsche admitted that he himself was probably “a thoroughly unsuccessful musician.” Conductor Hans von Bülow agreed, describing one of Nietzsche’s pieces as “the most antimusical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time.”
Strauss incorporated Nietzsche’s philosophy into his tone poem based on the book Also sprach Zarathrustra. Listen here to a rare, 1944 high-fidelity recording of the composer conducting the work with the Vienna Philharmonic. And the Cleveland Institute of Music marked the passing of conductor Louis Lane with a recording of the piece by Lane and the CIM Orchestra in March, 2000.
And two important concert venues opened their doors on this date in history.
On October 15, 1900 The Boston Symphony — founded in 1881 — opened Symphony Hall with a gala program. Based on such traditional European halls as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the venue has been celebrated for its excellent acoustic, partly due to its coffered ceiling and sixteen statues in niches that help distribute the sound. While performances are on hold for the foreseeable future, take a tour of the building with Amariah Condon and meet one of the Orchestra’s librarians here.
And 32 years later on this date, San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, the first municipally-owned opera house in the U.S., opened its doors with a performance of Tosca. Take a look behind the scenes of San Francisco Opera’s 2011 Ring cycle here.
