by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
This evening at 6, Chamber Music in the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art will feature young musicians from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Three concerts tonight at 7:30 will include The Choir of Westminster Abbey, London (pictured) Andrew Nethsingha, conducting, at St. Paul’s, Cleveland Hts.) Singers Company (Samuel Gordon, conducting, in Cuyahoga Falls) and pianist Richard Goode (on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series in Finney Chapel).
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s free summer concert series, CityStages, will take place on Wednesdays July 22 and 29 in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood outside Transformer Station. This year’s block party-style events feature the West African group Kaleta & Super Yamba Band and the South Korean group Insun Park & Generals. Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., and seating is limited.”Bring camp chairs and enjoy an evening of music and dancing in the street.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was born in 1879, the son of a wealthy patent medicine manufacturer.
Together with Sir Malcolm Sargent, he founded the London Philharmonic and attracted a cult following, leaving a trail of witty and occasionally wicked bon mots, some authentic, some (like many memorable quips) spurious.
Here’s a vintage (and therefore noisy) 1927 recording of a Beecham performance of Part I of Handel’s Messiah with the BBC Chorus, played on an HMV cabinet gramophone. Beyond the sonic values, it’s interesting to compare Beecham’s interpretations with today’s historically-informed performances.
And during this uncertain period for many of the world’s orchestras, it’s informative to view the 1943 film Battle for Music, a docudrama featuring Sir Malcolm Sargent and the London Philharmonic as they faced bankruptcy at the outbreak of World War II. It’s set in the context of a film club feed.
And on April 29 of 1899, American composer and band leader Edward Ellington (“Duke”) was born in Washington, DC. Here’s a rare solo piano recital he gave in Australia during the 1980s with no audience present.
