by Jarrett Hoffman
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
WCLV’s noon “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra” features three soloists today: a pianist, a clarinetist, and a soprano. After the Funeral March from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, hear Yefim Bronfman in the Andante from Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Franklin Cohen (now the Orchestra’s principal clarinet emeritus) in Weber’s Concertino, and Dorothea Röschmann in the aria “Dove Sono” from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Franz Welser-Möst conducts.
For another way to spend lunch, at 12:15 carillonneur George Leggiero plays a drive-in concert whose program spans from the 1770s to this very year, with a particular emphasis on the late 20th century. Healing Bells for Carillon, written by Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra and Jet Schouten, was premiered in May as a response to the pandemic. Another potentially healing work: Paul Simon’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. Also expect to hear music by Matthias Van den Gheyn, Jurriaan Andriessen, Ronald Barnes, and Wim Mennes. More info here.
And at 7:30 pm, the Met Opera continues to explore its HD archives with a performance from March 2008 of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, starring Deborah Voigt, Michelle DeYoung, Robert Dean Smith, and Matti Salminen, conducted by James Levine.
For details on catching all of these performances, head to our Concert Listings.
ON-DEMAND FROM THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA:
Principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag performs Bernhard Krol’s prayerful Laudatio, and first associate concertmaster Peter Otto pays homage to the late Krzysztof Penderecki with “La Follia.” (Both are excellent, but Otto seems to only mildly impress his visible audience: his dog.)
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On August 14, 1987, American composer Vincent Persichetti died in Philadelphia at age 72. He is known for a wide output that included nine symphonies, over a dozen keyboard sonatas, and many works for chorus and wind ensemble. One of the strongest aspects of his legacy is represented in those latter two genres, where his music often acts as an introduction for young people to classical music from the second half of the 20th century.
At least two of his works are known to have been premiered in Northeast Ohio: the Masquerade, Op. 102 (in a 1966 performance by the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Band with Persichetti conducting), and the Second Harpsichord Sonata, Op. 146 (performed by Elaine Comparone in Cleveland in 1982).
Hear the Singing Men of Ohio present Persichetti’s Song of Peace in 2018 in Athens.