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Review: Cleveland Orchestra Fate and Freedom Festival — Beethoven 5 and Shostakovich 10 (October 26)

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by Timothy Robson

BeethovenShostakovichSeverance Hall was sold out for Saturday evening for the third and final concert in The Cleveland Orchestra’s mini-series, Fate and Freedom: Music of Beethoven and Shostakovich. Music director Franz Welser-Möst conducted riveting performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93. The orchestra and it soloists sounded in particularly top form from beginning to end.

The program book featured specially written essays by Welser-Möst and composer/journalist Frank J. Oteri on the relationship of Beethoven’s and Shostakovich’s music to politics. For Beethoven, especially composing the third, fourth and fifth symphonies following the French revolution and under the philosophy of the Enlightenment; and for Shostokovich, enduring the Stalinist period of World War II and the grim Soviet era 1950s following Stalin’s death.

Beethoven’s was a period of social upheaval and political protest; Shostakovich lived in an era of political repression, where a statement against the regime likely would have dire consequences. Both composers expressed their political views through their music: Beethoven the concept of the freedom of all humankind; Shostokovich the idea of political protest hidden in secret messages within his music. The appreciation of these two great symphonies is not dependent on awareness of their context—even when performed together; however, the written commentary did enhance the experience. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra “Fate and Freedom” Festival — Beethoven 3 and Shostakovich 6 (October 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

BeethovenShostakovichFranz Welser-Möst returned to the Severance Hall stage on Thursday evening to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the first of three concerts on consecutive evenings that paired symphonies by Beethoven and Shostakovich under the banner of the orchestra’s “Fate and Freedom Festival.”

In a pre-concert chat in Reinberger Chamber Music Hall with director of artistic planning Mark Williams, Welser-Möst noted that he had been looking for a new way to program a Vienna Musikverein Beethoven cycle and credited the Takács Quartet with the idea of pairing Beethoven and Shostakovich on the same program. (The orchestra will repeat this three-concert cycle in the Austrian capital from November 20-22.)

Whether you care to go deeply into the philosophical and political similarities and contrasts between the two composers, as Welser-Möst did in his program book essay, or simply enjoy hearing a pair of their symphonies in close succession, there was a lot to stimulate the mind and the ear last weekend. Thursday evening’s short performance coupled Beethoven’s third symphony with Shostakovich’s sixth — each written during the composers’ thirty-third year. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony in Finnish & Russian music with Cynthia Warren & Martina Filjak (October 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

FILJAK-Martina-GreenThough the Finns and the Russians have often had a complicated relationship in recent times, their musical icons — Sibelius and Tchaikovsky — made agreeable partners on Saturday evening’s Akron Symphony program in E.J. Thomas Hall when Christopher Wilkins led Sibelius’s Finlandia, The Swan of Tuonela and Symphony No. 7 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Two extraordinary soloists, the ASO’s English hornist Cynthia Warren and Croatian pianist Martina Filjak (left), were out in front for the occasion.

The first half of the program belonged to Jan Sibelius, beginning with a robust performance of his patriotic tone poem, Finlandia, composed for an 1899 tableau, Suomi, that advocated the overthrow of Russian rule. As in the previous ASO concert, winds and brass were elevated on risers, which gave those sections more prominence. But with a smaller orchestra this time, sections didn’t blend with each other quite as well. Percussion and brass stood out, sometimes engulfing the strings.

Sibelius set to music four legends of Lemminkainen from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. In the composer’s words, “Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river with black waters and rapid currents, on which the Swan of Tuonela floats majestically, singing.” There’s more to the legend, but The Swan of Tuonela contents itself with painting the scene of the river and the swan in a gorgeously mournful melody for English horn and orchestra. [Read more…]

Review: Brownbag Concert at Trinity — organist Todd Wilson & ProMusica Brass Quintet (October 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Wilson-Flentrop-(Sam-Hubish)Though the modern brass quintet — two trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba — only dates from the years following World War II, that combination of instruments has now become a popular standard. And what could be more thrilling than partnering a brass quintet with pipe organ?

The ProMusica Brass Quintet, based in Columbus, made their way up Interstate 71 last Wednesday to perform with cathedral organist and music director Todd Wilson on the noontime Brownbag Concert Series at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Cleveland.

The ensemble — Thomas Battenberg and Timothy Leasure, trumpets, Charles Waddell, horn, Andrew Millat, trombone and James Akins, tuba — comprises musicians who play either in the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra or Columbus Symphony. Some play in both. Together with Wilson, they served up a varied, masterfully performed program of Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic music for a large lunchtime audience. [Read more…]

Review: Tri-C Classical Piano Series — Daniel Gortler at CMA (October 27)

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by Robert Rollin

GORTLER-DanielWhen Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler entered the stage for his Sunday afternoon recital at the Cleveland Art Museum’ s Gartner Auditorium, he radiated poise and concentration. Jet setter Gortler is on faculty at the Buchman-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University and is guest piano studies professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School Department of Music. He regularly plays piano concertos and concertizes in solo and chamber music recitals around the world.

His program concentrated on the genre of piano fantasy and fantasia, and featured works by Mozart and Schumann. This was a clever choice because both composers are noted for their ability to string many themes together in a manner that makes their pieces seem structured and beautifully organized.

Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, typifies Schumann’s ability to write character piece sets with extra-musical connections. The eight movements seemed more intricate and complex than most. Gortler played the relatively slow Evening, the first piece, with a gorgeous singing tone that made the oddly-grouped cross rhythms stand out. He also stressed dovetailed soprano and bass lines when appropriate, expressing the essence of Schumann’s rather limited dynamic markings. [Read more…]

Review: Impressive debut by Avner Dorman with CityMusic Cleveland at Fairmount Church (October 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

DORMAN-Avner2CityMusic Cleveland celebrated the beginning of its tenth season with the debut of its new music director, Avner Dorman, on Wednesday evening, October 23 at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights. Dorman skillfully led the 40-piece chamber orchestra in nuanced and nearly flawless performances of his own Concerto Grosso, Vivaldi’s Concerto for two oboes and two clarinets, Schubert’s Symphony No. 3, and the first of five different Mozart concertos with guest violinist Rachel Barton Pine.

Dorman noted both in written and oral notes that he intended to show off the talents of members of the orchestra as much as possible in his first concert, and that principally meant the ensemble’s wind section, whose excellence runs both deep and wide. The Vivaldi concerto boasted pairs of soloists — oboists Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew and Daniel Rios and clarinetists Daniel Gilbert and Ellen Breakfield Glick — who matched each other’s elegant tone perfectly, yet each pair provided cheerful sonic contrasts as oboes tossed phrases off to clarinets. As always, Vivaldi was infinitely resourceful within his time-honored formulas, and he snuck in a strangely arresting rhythmic pattern at the beginning of the last Allegro. Harpsichordist Peter Bennett added stylish decorations to the keyboard accompaniment. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Jakub Hrůša (October 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Hrusa-Jakub-by-Petra-KlackovaA dismembered maiden, a Slavic hero and a mismatched beau with ADD shared the stage with Czech guest conductor Jakub Hrůša and The Cleveland Orchestra last Thursday evening at Severance Hall. That sounds like the cast for a particularly unlikely sitcom, but those were only a few of the characters brought vividly to life by Haydn in his “Symphony” subtitled Il distratto, by Dvořák in his symphonic poem The Golden Spinning Wheel and by Janáček in his “Rhapsody for Orchestra,” Taras Bulba, three evocative pieces inspired by different genres of literature.

Although it goes by the name of Symphony No. 60, Haydn’s six-movement work is really a suite recycled from the incidental music to Die Zerstreute, the German reworking of a comedy by Jean-François Regnard staged at the Esterházy Court. The plot concerns an unfocused daydreamer, Leander, who is pushed into a romance with Isabelle by her Parisian mother — but, of course, Isabelle has her eyes on someone else.

You can count on Haydn to be witty, but Il distratto finds him reveling both in sophisticated humor and low-hanging jokes (e.g. subtle musical references to Leander’s distractedness, and a sudden, noisy tuning session by the violins in the finale that had the audience giggling.) [Read more…]

CD Review: 100 NAMES — Rebekah Heller, bassoon

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by Larry and Arlene Dunn

Heller-100-NamesInternational Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) bassoonist Rebekah Heller has released an exciting debut CD on Tundra Records, ICE’s own new label. Heller’s performance on this album affirms her as a leading voice reimagining the role of the bassoon in contemporary music. Leveraging ICE’s practice of collaborative commissions with noteworthy composers, 100 NAMES presents five wildly different works that probe the full range of sounds a bassoon can be coaxed to produce.

Opening with Edgar Guzman’s ∞¿? (2008), loud electronic static noise is paired with Heller’s provocative low blasts and sputtering high staccato notes. As the electronic drone repeats and morphs, Heller wails in a free-jazz riff reminiscent of Sam Rivers or Albert Ayler.

Marcelo Toledo’s Qualia II (2011) is full of the sounds of the Argentine jungle. And the jungle comes alive with the chirps of birds, animals scurrying in the underbrush, and the gurgle of a flowing river. [Read more…]

Preview: CMA “Masters of the Violin” — a conversation with Mark O’Connor

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by Mike Telin

O'Connor-SQViolinist, composer and educator Mark O’Connor is not a folk musician or a jazz musician or a classical musician. Nor is he a musician specializing in any one of the multitude of musical styles he has studied. The categorization of Mark O’Connor is nearly impossible as he is his own musical genre.

On Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium, Mark O’Connor returns to Cleveland with his string quartet for performances of his String Quartet No. 2 “Bluegrass,” Appalachia Waltz and String Quartet No. 3 “Old-Time.” The concert is co-presented by CIM and the Cleveland Museum of Art as part of the Mixon Hall Masters Series: Return of the Composer/Virtuoso and the CMA Performing Arts Series: Masters of the Violin. A conversation between O’Connor and CIM president Joel Smirnoff begins at 6:00 p.m.

Through his popular summer string camps and method books, O’Connor is training the next generation of musicians in the art of what he refers to as “American” string playing. And while in town he will also present master classes in string improvisation and composition as well an educational workshop at CIM. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Chamber Music Society — fifteen minutes with Cuarteto Casals violist Jonathan Brown

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cuarteto-Casals-BarueccoFormed in Barcelona in 1997, Cuarteto Casals soon rose to international prominence with first prizes at string quartet competitions in London and Hamburg. Violinists Vera Martínez Mehner and Abel Tomàs Realp, violist Jonathan Brown and cellist Arnau Tomàs Realp have joined the King of Spain on diplomatic visits and have performed on the special, decorated Stradivarius instruments housed at the Royal Palace in Madrid. Collaborations with György Kurtág, Christian Lauba and James MacMillan have underlined the ensemble’s commitment to contemporary music.

Curateto Casals will appear in its latest collaboration, with Cuban-born guitarist Manuel Barrueco, on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church on Tuesday, October 29 at 7:30 pm. The performance, itself a collaboration with the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, features Eduard Toldrà’s Quartet “Vistes al mar,” Debussy’s Quartet in g, op. 10, Boccherini’s Quintet in D, “Fandango,” and the premiere of Roberto Sierra’s Fantasía.

Violist Jonathan Brown, a native of Chicago, joined the quartet in 2002. We reached him by telephone in Gainesville, FL at the beginning of Cuarteto Casals current United States tour.

Daniel Hathaway: You’ve been with Cuarteto Casals now for eleven years. How did you come to join the ensemble?

Jonathan Brown: I was studying in Salzburg and playing with the Camerata Salzburg and the quartet was studying with the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne. [Read more…]

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