by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S AGENDA:.

Because of the recent COVID surge, today’s noontime concert from the Church of the Covenant will be presented online only. At 12 Noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play music for the Epiphany by Buxtehude, Lefébure-Wély, Jongen, Messiaen, and Tournemire. Click here to view a pdf of the program, and here to view the live streamed performance.

ANDREA ANELLI, 60

Jonah Schulz has written to inform us of the passing of his mother on January 1.

“Andrea Anelli (pictured), the beloved soprano and founder of Cleveland Opera Theater (originally Opera Per Tutti) and ContempOpera Cleveland, passed away at the age of 60.

“Andrea’s passion for opera kept the art form alive and thriving in Northeast Ohio. After founding Opera Per Tutti in 2006, Andrea performed many of Opera’s most classic roles making world class productions accessible to audiences in Gordon Square’s Cleveland Public Theatre, Cleveland’s Masonic Auditorium and as the creator of The Italian Cultural Garden’s annual “Opera in the Garden” concert.

“Her talent and work ethic was honored at Cleveland’s City Hall when she was presented with the Italian-American Heritage Award by Mayor Frank Jackson.

“After leaving Cleveland Opera Theater, Andrea founded ContempOpera Cleveland where she performed and produced the works of modern composers and brought opera into classrooms around Cleveland.”

Click here to read a statement from Cleveland Opera Theater, and here to view Anelli’s greeting to the audience before an Opera Per Tutti al fresco performance.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Apollo’s Fire has announced a job opening for full-time general manager of Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra. Read about the position and download a detailed job description here.

Video applications are now being received through February 15 for the 2022 James Stroud National Classical Guitar Youth Competition, open to students ages 14-18. Semi-final and final rounds will be held in person at the Cleveland Institute of Music from June 2 through 5. The competition will award prize money totalling US$ 25,000. Click here for details.

Looking ahead, the Vienna Philharmonic has announced that frequent guest conductor Franz Welser-Möst will lead its New Year’s Concert for the third time on January 1, 2023.

And looking back to its December “Carols for Quire XI” programs, Quire Cleveland has made ten “videos” created from photos and a live audio recording of its December 4, 2021 concert at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church available here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One important development to celebrate today in classical music history. In 1950, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) announced that it would produce LPs — 33 1/3 rpm long playing records — following the lead established by Columbia Records in 1948.

These records would replace 78 rpm discs — made of an abrasive shellac compound and limited to about five minutes of recording time per side — with vinyl, and formerly wide grooves with “microgrooves,” extending playing time to 22 minutes per side.

The history of this development gets a bit complicated (RCA had attempted to bring out an earlier version in 1931 that failed), but suffice to say that the change from shellac to vinyl — with all the attendant technical details — was a boon for classical music.

RCA has produced two films about “The History of Vinyl.” Click here to watch a 1946 film narrated by longtime Metropolitan Opera commentator Milton Cross that includes a tour of RCA’s Camden, New Jersey plant, and here to watch Part II, which followed ten years later. Part III, which followed in 1958, introduced stereo recording.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Organist Jonathan Moyer devotes his Tuesday Noon Advent Series recital at the Church of the Covenant to music by J.S. Bach: the Six “Schubler” Chorales — all arrangements by the composer of his own cantata movements, plus the little Duetto II that found its way along with three other two-part pieces into the Clavierübung III, and the C-Major Prelude and Fugue, BWV 545. It’s free. (Lunchtime Holiday Carillon concerts resume on Wednesday at 12:15.)

Burning River Brass takes its Holiday program to the Federated Church in Chagrin Falls tonight at 7. Tickets are available online.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Earlier this month, the finals of the 2021 Primrose International Viola Competition were held at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. Among the eight semifinalists was Cleveland native Samuel Rosenthal (pictured), who eventually took home second prize in the prestigious contest established in 1979 and named for viola virtuoso William Primrose. He currently studies with Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang at the Juilliard School.

The San Francisco Conservatory has announced a new collaborative project with the National Brass Ensemble, whose artistic director is Cleveland Orchestra principal trumpet Michael Sachs. The ensemble, which draws brass and percussion players from major American orchestras, last came together in 2014. Part of the NBE’s Summer Academy for students, scheduled for June 13-20, events will include a live concert on June 20 in Davies Symphony Hall.

Sachs said, “We’ll be performing and recording new works written especially for us by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jonathan Bingham, and Arturo Sandoval, and a new Richard Wagner Ring compilation arrangement.

“In addition to these performed works, this time we will be interacting with a group of brass, percussion, and timpani students especially chosen through auditions to participate in a comprehensive menu of educational events including panel discussions, lectures, intimate masterclass settings, instrument specific subject matter classes, as well as interactive readings of chamber music, music of Giovanni Gabrieli, and standard orchestral repertoire.” Read a press release here.

LIVE AT CMA:

Trinity Cathedral associate organist and Baldwin Wallace faculty member Nicole Keller will bring live concerts back to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday, January 9 at 2:00 pm with a free recital of music by J.S. Bach, Calvin Hampton, Rayner Brown, Hindemith, Mozart, and Florence Price.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

The Winter Solstice is scheduled for today at 10:58 am in the Northern Hemisphere. Despite a recent run of blazingly sunny days, this moment marks the point when we northerners are tilted as far away from the sun as possible, producing a Tuesday with the shortest daylight and longest night of the year. Just the thing to warm our hearts as the latest episode of the COVID-19 saga unfolds.

Given no alternative, we might as well enjoy our mutual planetary experience today, and as usual, music comes to the rescue.

Click here to listen to the carol commissioned for the 1998 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge. Gile Swayne set his own English text in his Winter Solstice Carol (it alternates with familiar Latin phrases from the Christmas Day antiphon to the Magnificat): [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S AGENDA:

First, an update: the No Exit concert announced for this evening at Praxis Fiber Workshop has been cancelled due to COVID concerns.

Otherwise on Saturday, Cleveland Orchestra Holiday Concerts will begin at 2:30 and 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center. 2:30 Oberlin events include the Oberlin Chamber Singers in Fairchild Chapel and the Verona Quartet in Kulas Recital Hall. Cleveland Opera Theater will take its Amahl production to Old Stone Church on Public Square at 7, and at the same hour, Local 4 of the Musicians Union will present “Classic, New, Borrowed & Blue II” at SPACES, and Summit Choral Society will sing by candlelight at St. Bernard’s Church in Akron.

On Sunday, you can catch repeat performances of Holiday Concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra at 2:30 and 7:30, and Cleveland Opera Theater’s Amahl at 3 in Rocky River. Also at 3, Oberlin faculty organist Mark Edwards will play Baroque Christmas from 17th and 18th century Germany, Italy, and France on the new Paul Fritts organ in First Lutheran, Lorain, and at 4, Arts Renaissance Tremont will host Burning River Brass (pictured) at St. Wendelin Church. The Oberlin Musical Union — the second oldest choral organization in the U.S. — will end the weekend with a collage of masterworks at 7:30 in Finney Chapel.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Oberlin Conservatory has named the winners of its inaugural Peter Takács Beethoven Prize in Piano competition, held on December 4 and 5 in Finney Chapel. They include second-year pianist Ho Ting (Kelvin) Tang, (first prize and an award of $5,000), fourth-year student Leo Choi (second prize and $1,000), and third-year student Guoanni (Annie) Qin (third prize and $500). Read the story by Erich Burnett here.

INTERESTING READS:

Did you know that in mid-career Charles Dickens wrote four other Christmas books besides A Christmas Carol? Click here to read a story in The Guardian about the others, including Cricket on the Hearth, now being promoted by London’s Dickens Museum in conjunction with a first-time display of John Leech’s sketches for the book. “It’s quite a lovely, homely romance story, that was also extremely popular. It’s quite fairytale-like,” said curator Emily Smith.

While acknowledging the popularity of A Christmas Carol due to the originality of its plot, Dickens’ great-great-great granddaughter and author Lucinda Hawksley said, “the others are also definitely worth reading – and they were written by Dickens to be celebrated in the same way…to be read with your family over the Christmas period, around the fire, and probably to be read out loud.”

Now that’s a lovely way to celebrate that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. But failing a family reading, the next best thing might be to hear the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral reading Cricket in front of his fire with a pot of tea nearby and the decanal cat at his feet. Click here.

CHRISTMAS JAZZ  FOR YOU:

Tri-C JazzFest has curated a playlist of 50 tracks that can enhance three hours and fourteen minutes worth of your holiday activities this Christmas. Among other jazz legends, the mix includes performances by Charlie Parker, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, Vince Guaraldi, and Take 6. Access Christmas Jazz to Keep you Warm here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

We could raise a glass to several events in classical music history this weekend, but since it’s a busy time of year, let’s stick to one first performance that suggested itself  through the Oberlin Musical Union’s playlist for its Sunday evening concert of excerpts from choral  masterworks.

Although commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky for the Boston Symphony, Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms received its first performance in Belgium by the Société Philharmonique de Bruxelles on December 13, 1930, followed by the American premiere a week later on December 19 by the BSO and the chorus of the Cecilia Society (prepared by Arthur Fiedler!) Koussevitzky had an orchestral work in mind, but Stravinsky had long been contemplating a work for chorus and orchestra. The piece is remarkable for the predominance of wind instruments —  the only strings are cellos and basses.

Stravinsky was on the podium for a recording made in Paris with the Orchestre des Concerts Straram and the Alexis Vlassov Choir in February, 1931 (listen here), but there are a number of other recordings with different takes on the striking piece. Here’s one led by Riccardo Muti, obviously recorded in Italy but with no mention of who the performing forces are (La Scala?).

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S AGENDA:

The Tuesday Noon Advent Series continues at the Church of the Covenant with a program of “Marian Music” performed by harpist Anna O’Connell and organist Jonathan Moyer. The program introduces the new Flentrop chapel organ.

The Cavani Quartet brings its “Beyond Beethoven” project to Mandel Concert Hall at Severance tonight at 7:30, sharing the stage with 90 students and teachers and unveiling new works by Josh Henderson and Kamari Dodson-Poindexter as well as playing LvB’s Opus 59, No. 3 Quartet. Educator Dr. Ronald Crutcher, himself a cellist, emcees the gala event.

And at 7:30 pm, Oberlin clarinet professor Richard Hawkins (pictured) and the Verona Quartet discuss Brahms’ B-minor Clarinet Quartet before performing the work. You can watch the performance online around 8:10.

Casting a wider net, the Harvard University Choir will present its 112th annual Christmas Carol Service tonight at 8 in Memorial Church in Cambridge. Predating by eight years the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols devised by Eric Milner-White for King’s College Cambridge on Christmas Eve, 1918, Harvard’s version includes only three readings and a lot more music, this year with an emphasis on American works. Download the program and join the live stream here. The organist’s name will ring bells for Clevelanders — it’s David von Behren, a CIM graduate and student of Todd Wilson, who served as organ scholar at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Tuesday Musical will hold its 66th annual Scholarship Competition in-person on Saturday, March 19 in the University of Akron’s Guzzetta Hall. More than $32,000 is available to award to Ohio music majors. Details here. Applications will be accepted online from January 1-31.

WEIRD BUT FUN?:

Does Jeffrey Arlo Brown at Van Magazine have too much time on his hands? He’s put himself in the position of a first-time listener to Schubert’s songs and has ranked all of them — more than 600 — from worst (“Yikes!”) to best (“The Transcendent”). Enter that rabbit hole here. If that was amusing, he’s done the same here for Domenico Scarlatti’s 500+ keyboard sonatas. Brown writes, “I’ll make no claim to have heard each work in monkish concentration, and I make no guarantees for the correctness of my observations. But, at least partially thanks to the social wasteland caused by the coronavirus, I really did hear the entirety of every single one. Now you don’t have to.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Let’s remember some first performance anniversaries today: Puccini’s Il Trittico (comprising Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi) at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on this date in 1918, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in Berlin in 1925 after a whopping 137 rehearsals, and Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11 in Rome by the Pro Arte Quartet in 1936.

Click here to enjoy a 2011 Royal Opera House production of Puccini’s madcap comedy, Gianni Schicchi, with Antonio Pappano in the pit and the family from hell onstage.

The quality’s not terrific, but click here to hear what may be the only surviving recording of Wozzeck led by Eric Kleiber, who conducted its premiere. It dates from Covent Garden in 1953.

And it’s interesting to hear a much-appropriated piece in its original form and context. Click here to listen to the Barber Quartet performed by the Curtis Quartet in 1938. The slow movement has become the famous Adagio for Strings, but some think it’s more intense played by a quartet. Do you agree?

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

ON SATURDAY, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo sticks around after his recital last night for an 11:30 am master class at CSU, violinist Francesca de Pasquale and pianist Reiko Uchida play an Oberlin faculty/guest recital at 4:30 pm followed by a 7:30 pm Oberlin TIMARA recital by Aaron Dilloway and Stephan Haluska, and at 8, No Exit takes its “Music from The Collective” program to the Bop Stop.

Saturday’s Holiday Concerts include a 2:30 matinee and a 7:30 evening concert by The Cleveland Orchestra, 7 pm concerts by Cleveland Chamber Choir at Old Stone Church and by Singers Companye at the Church of the Western Reserve and a 7:30 pm Cleveland Philharmonic program featuring Cleveland Orchestra cellist Charles Bernard at Westlake PAC, and Apollo’s Fire takes Messiah to First Baptist Church at 8.

ON SUNDAY, Holiday Concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra start at 2:30 and 7:30, Apollo’s Fire finishes its run of Handel’s Messiah in Bay Village and the Cleveland Philharmonic repeats its Saturday program at CSU, both at 3. Close behind, the Suburban Symphony features Klezmer fiddler Steven Greenman at 3:30 in Beachwood, and at 4, Cleveland Chamber Choir reprises Saturday’s program at Christ Church in Hudson. The busy day ends with Oberlin’s annual Messiah Sing-Along (pictured) in Finney Chapel at 7, led by Peter Slowik.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Here’s a trio of  “firsts” in classical music history to memorialize this weekend.

On December 11, 1918, Russian conductor Nikolai Sokoloff led the debut concert of the Cleveland Orchestra in Grays Armory. The program, a benefit for St. Ann’s Church, included Liszt’s Les Préludes, Victor Herbert’s American Fantasy, Bizet’s Carmen Suite, excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and Liadov’s Enchanted Lake.

The Grays, whose third building on Bolivar was completed in 1893, deserve a bit of historical background. Founded in 1837 as The Cleveland City Guards, the organization dated from the era when the constitutional militias referenced in the Second Amendment were foundering due to neglect from state politicians.

The private military company’s purpose was both to assist local law enforcement and to defend the city should Canada’s Rebellions of 1837 cross the border and instigate a new war with the United Kingdom. After serving in the Civil and Spanish American wars, and with the reorganization of the U.S. Military, the Grays were subsumed into the Ohio National Guard, and their participation in military operations ended with World War I.

The Armory subsequently became a center for Cleveland social and cultural events — like early concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra. In the summer of 1970, a Wurlitzer cinema organ from the Warner Theater in Erie, PA was reinstalled in the armory, and concerts have been scheduled from time to time by the Western Reserve Theatre Organ Society. (Watch a brief clip here.)

Jumping ahead, December 11, 1950 saw the debut of Paul Hindemith’s Clarinet Concerto by Benny Goodman with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Two years later, some 70,000 viewers in more than 30 theaters witnessed the first Pay-TV presentation of an opera (Richard Tucker in Carmen).

To dig a little deeper, take a 2-½ minute video tour of Grays Armory here, watch a performance of the Hindemith Clarinet Concerto by Adrián Hernández Altelarrea and the Brussels Symphony here, and update your calendars here for the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD Series for 2021-2022.