by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Ten events of all shapes and sizes appear in our Concert Listings this weekend.
Saturday: Cleveland Silent Film Festival screens a classic with live music by David Blazer at CPL, No Exit presents a retrospective of music by Greg D’Alessio at Praxis, The Resonance Project hosts pianist Irwin Shung at Forest Hills Church, North Coast Men’s Chorus sings Beatlemania at the Maltz, and Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Janáček & Beethoven at Severance.
Sunday: Suburban Symphony celebrates its 70th Anniversary at Severance with Beethoven’ Ninth (pictured above: Domenico Boyagian rehearsing the orchestra and two community choirs), the Poesis Quartet plays works by Cleveland Composers Guild members at CSU, North Coast Men’s Chorus repeats Beatlemania, Arts at Holy Trinity, Akron, presents the Gold Tones Jazz Orchestra, Music at Bath hosts slide guitarist Austin Walkin’ Cane, and Oberlin Conservatory welcomes organist David Higgs for the annual David Boe Memorial Concert.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
March 15 — by Jarrettt Hoffman
French composer Lili Boulanger, the first woman to win the Prix de Rome (and the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger), died on this date in 1918 at the age of 24 of what we now know as Crohn’s disease. Her story is remarkable for what she was able to accomplish not only in such a short career, but despite suffering poor health throughout her life.
In fact, her chronic illness played a part in her intense pursuit of a career in composition. In The Life and Works of Lili Boulanger, Léonie Rosenstiel writes that composing
provided Lili with the means to decide her own future as much as possible, and to show her family, her friends, and, above all, herself, that she was capable of being considered a contributing member of the artistic and intellectual community in which she lived. In other words, it gave Lili the chance to develop a positive self-image…Lili’s physical dependence on others, especially her immediate family and their servants, was often total, but she enjoyed complete intellectual and artistic autonomy.
Illness forced her to withdraw the first time she entered the Prix de Rome. A year later, at age 19, she won for her cantata Faust et Hélène, bringing her a contract with an important publisher — meaning a steady income, and a platform on which to grow her career.
By the time of her death five years later, her output numbered over 50 works. Perhaps most famous is her Psalm 24, as Daniel Hathaway noted in a Diary entry on August 21, the anniversary of Boulanger’s birth.
Another standout is the haunting and beautiful Pie Jesu. Listen to a spectacular performance here by Paul Jacobs and Christine Brewer in an arrangement for organ and soprano — four minutes of haunting yet subtle music to give you goosebumps of the soul.
March 16:
There’s quite a mixed list of arrivals and departures to acknowledge on this 16th day of March. Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi (who died in 1736 in Pozzuoli of tuberculosis at the age of 26), American composer and conductor Edwin London (born in Philadelphia in 1929), English conductor Sir Roger Norrington (born in 1934 in Oxford), American composer David Del Tredici (born in 1937 in Cloverdale, California), Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (who died in Los Angeles in 1968), and American composer Roger Sessions (who died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1985 at the age of 88).
A pastiche of their compositions and performances would make a remarkably varied concert program.
We could start with Pergolesi’s popular Stabat Mater, performed here by Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor), Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), and Emöke Barath (soprano) at the Château de Fontainbleau), and follow that with something completely different: Ed London’s The Declaration of Independence with saxophonist Howie Smith.
To end a rather long first half, how about Norrington’s take on Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique with the Royal College of Music Symphony?
Transitioning after intermission to another world of fantasy, we could launch the second half with one of Del Tredici’s Alice (in Wonderland) pieces — an obsession of his.
Then as an entremet, one of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s classical guitar works. There are a hundred to choose from, but here are some interesting possibilities: Korean guitarist Bokyung Byun performing his Escarraman for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society this season; Petra Poláčková playing the first movement of his Omaggio a Boccherini; Chaconne Klaverenga playing the fourth movement of his Quintet with Rebecca Benjamin and Andrew Ma, violins, Mark Liu, viola, and Sarah Miller, cello, at the Cleveland Institute of Music in April, 2016; or Klaverenga performing his Capriccio Diabolico at CIM in May, 2015.
For a finale, why not the work that earned Sessions his Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Click here for a 1981 performance of his Concerto for Orchestra by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. (His opera Montezuma, premiered in 1976 by Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston, is best left for another day.)
