by Daniel Hathaway
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Recent conductor appointments include Daniel Harding to the Los Angeles Philharmonic (music director beginning in 2027), Marin Alsop to the Cincinnati May Festival (director for 2027), and Elim Chan to the San Francisco Symphony (music director designate) beginning in 2027.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Italian composer and violinist Nicolo Paganini died on this date in 1840 in Nice on the French Riviera. His virtuosic caprices are ubiquitous encore pieces, but Augustin Hadelich tempers the fireworks of No. 17 with humor in Fantasia dei Gatti, an animation by Tam King.
May 27, 1928 is the birthdate of Scottish composer Thea Musgrave, whose music has been programmed locally by Tim Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Multiple performers heralded her 90th birthday in May, 2018 with a concert at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York. Watch that tribute here, and get to know her in interviews here and here.
And another contemporary composer, Luciano Berio, died in Rome on this date in 2003, leaving a body of work that has been performed more frequently and by various ensembles in Northeast Ohio. Listen here to a performance of his Sinfonia by Pierre Boulez, the Chicago Symphony, and the Swingle Singers in Tokyo in 1995.
It may not be widely known that Berio is one of several composers who undertook the completion of Puccini’s Turandot. A few weeks before he died, the composer played what he had completed for conductor Arturio Toscanini, saying, “If I don’t succeed in finishing it, at this point someone will come to the footlights and will say: ‘The author composed until here, and then he died.’”
Toscanini respected his wishes on opening night. Working from extensive sketches, Berio finished the work in his own fashion. Listen here to a performance of the ending by Riccardo Chaily and the chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Milan, and read a review of Berio’s work by Anthony Tommasini here.
