by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S CONCERTS:

The only event on our radar today is the noontime recital by Oberlin’s Mark Edwards (pictured) at the Church of the Covenant, making a rare appearance as organist with four great Baroque works: the larger Nikolaus Bruhns Praeludium in e, Georg Böhm’s coloratura setting of Vater unser in Himmelreich, Jan Sweelinck’s Fantasia Chromatica, and J.S. Bach’s J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in e, BWV 548. That would make an immense program for an evening concert. It’s free, and as an extra enticement, there are cookies. 

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

October 26 provides a grab bag of births and departures to mention, and a couple to dwell on.

The prolific keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on this date in 1685, the son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and the third eminent member of the Class of ‘85 that includes Handel and J.S. Bach. Scarlatti spent most of his career in Spain churning out some of the most imaginative keyboard music of the period — his 555 Sonatas, which have become favorite program starters for keyboardists ranging from Liszt to Horowitz to Hamelin.

Thanks to the Petrucci Library, all of them are available here in eleven volumes edited by Kenneth Gilbert. Keyboardists: hone your sight reading by taking on one sonata every day, a challenge that will either thrill or frustrate you for the next year and a half!

Singers Mahalia Jackson and Christine Brewer made their debuts on earth in 1911 (New Orleans) and 1955 (Grand Tower, Illinois) respectively.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto received its premiere on this date in 1919 in London’s Queen’s Hall by Felix Salmond and the London Symphony with the composer on the podium. That under-rehearsed event has gone down as one of the more embarrassing debuts in music history. Ernest Newman wrote in The Observer, “never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself.”

Later, in the 1960s, the work became inseparably linked to Jacqueline Du Pré, who performs it here in a historic performance conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Next week, Sheku Kanneh-Mason will play it with The Cleveland Orchestra led by Jakub Hrůša.

And on this date in 1965, The Beatles kissed hands at Buckingham Palace and emerged as Sir John, Sir Paul, Sir George, and Sir Ringo, Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Lennon later returned his medal — read the story here.

by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERTS THIS WEEKEND:

The calendar’s loaded this weekend —but there’s one cancellation: the Saturday concert at Oberlin by the Verona Quartet will be rescheduled, new date to be announced.

On Saturday, the MET Opera broadcasts Terrence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones live in HD to area theaters at 12:55 pm, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presents Turkish artist Celil Refik Kaya at 7:30 pm in Shaker Heights, Apollo’s Fire continues its Vivaldi peregrinations with an 8:00 pm performance at Bath Church, The Cleveland Orchestra plays Josef Strauss, George Walker, and Erich Korngold at Severance at 8:00 pm, and No Exit hosts the Ogni Suono saxophone duo at 8:00 pm at Spaces.

A mere seven events to choose from on Sunday. At 3:00 pm, the Warren Philharmonic with guitarist Jason Vieaux, at 4:00 pm, Apollo’s Fire at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cavani Quartet at Bop Stop, organist Peter Richard Conte improvising a score to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, the University of Akron Concert Choir in Fairlawn, and Westwinds in Rocky River. The day ends with a new event at Oberlin — a 7:30 performance by voice majors of Russian and Czech songs in Warner Concert Hall, the fruits of their Winter Term Project.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink, 92, longtime music director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, who also led orchestras in London, Chicago, and Boston, died at his home in London on Thursday. Read a New York Times obituary by Vivien Schweitzer here.

Following up on earlier stories, the University of Michigan has dropped its investigation of composition professor Bright Sheng. Some students in his seminar had declared Sheng a racist after he showed a 1965 film of Shakespeare’s Othello where Sir Laurence Olivier appeared in blackface.

And St. John’s College at Cambridge University has announced its plans to admit girls and women to its formerly all-male chapel choir of men and boys. “John’s,” founded in 1511, is the famous choral rival of “King’s,” founded in 1441 and located just down the road. Read a Musical America story here.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

There’s a long list of births and deaths to mark this weekend, but let’s choose just two composers who have come to mind recently.

English Renaissance composer Thomas Weelkes was born on October 24 in 1575. One of the most brilliant madrigalists of the era of Elizabeth I, his name appeared recently in the playlist of VOCES8, who sang his As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending on the Tuesday Musical Series.

That was one of 25 part-songs by 23 composers published in 1601 by Thomas Morley in The Triumphs of Oriana, apparently a tribute to “The Virgin Queen,” though its connection to Elizabeth has been disputed. In any case, the collection marshals the talents of British composers in its depiction of an idealized England where nymphs and shepherds cavort in the countryside. Each madrigal ends with the refrain, ““Thus sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana: long live fair Oriana.”

Click here to listen to the entire collection, with some interpolated dance pieces, performed by the British ensemble i Fagiolini.

Centuries and worlds away, composer Sofia Gubaidulina was born on October 24, 1931 in the Tatar region of Russia. The New York Times took notice of the celebrations planned for her 90th birthday on Sunday in an article published online this week. Click here to read At 90, a Composer Is Still Sending Out Blasts. And click here to listen to Gidon Kremer play her Offertorium — Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, with Charles Dutoit and the Boston Symphony. “…the moving piece established Gubaidulina’s international reputation as something of a spiritualist.”

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

The Fine Arts Association of Willoughby presents a violacentric guest recital by Katrin Meidell (pictured), joined by her compatriot Melissa Lund Ziegler. Max Reger and J.S. Bach are the well-known composers, but there’s also music by Sarah Dubois, Scott Slapin, and Shawn Renzoh Head.

Apollo’s Fire is taking its eminently portable all-Vivaldi program to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and guest conductor Kenneth Bean and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble are in charge of tonight’s Fridays@Finney concert, performing recent works by Jessie Montgomery and David Ludwig, and a not-so-recent, 1916 Chamber Symphony by the difficult-to-classify Austrian composer Franz Schreker.

Details in our Concert Listings.

THOM MOORE UPDATE:

Yesterday’s Plain Dealer published an appreciation by Zachary Lewis of the late oboist and recording producer Thom Moore that referred readers to a Facebook page on which friends and colleagues are posting tributes, and announced plans for an early December  concert in his honor, details to be posted here.

CIPC WINNER TAKES THIRD AT CHOPIN:

Spanish pianist Martin Garcia Garcia, who won the Cleveland International Piano Competition last summer, has now claimed third prize at the 18th Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, as well as the Warsaw Philharmonic Prize for the best performance of a concerto. Watch a video of his final round performance of Chopin’s f-minor Concerto on October 19 here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are several Boston Symphony-related events to mark on this date in history: the Orchestra’s first concert at the Old Boston Music Hall in 1881 conducted by Sir George Henschel, the concert in New York in 1969 when 25-year-old Michael Tilson Thomas took over on the first of many occasions for the ailing William Steinberg, and the birth of German conductor Karl Muck in 1959, who became involved in a scandal that became a political flashpoint for BSO during World War I (read a New England Historical Society story here.)

Continuing with Orchestral history, Leopold Damrosch, who founded the New York Oratorio Society in 1874 and the New York Symphony Society (now the New York Philharmonic) in 1878, was born in Poznan, Prussica in 1832.

And moving to Opera history, the original Metropolitan Opera House opened on this date in 1883 with Gounod’s Faust. A hundred years later, the MET celebrated its 100th birthday on this date with a daylong concert featuring such headliners as Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. Visit the playlist on YouTube here.

While we can happily take note of the birth of piano virtuoso and composer Ferenc Liszt in 1811, we also have to bid adieu to Spanish cellist and conductor Pablo Casals (1973), and French conductor and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (1979).

Backing up to the 18th century, there’s one bizarre death to report: French violinist and composer Jean-Marie Leclair who was allegedly murdered by his jealous violinist nephew, Guillaume-François Vial, as he entered his Paris apartment in the dangerous Marais neighborhood. No-one was ever tried for the crime.

In tribute, click here to enjoy all three hours and 19 minutes of Leclair’s complete violin concertos as performed on period instruments by Igor Ruhadze and the Ensemble Violini Capricciosi.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Apollo’s Fire takes its Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Rediscovered program to St. Raphael Church in Bay Village, Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in music by George Walker (pictured) and Erich Korngold at Severance (repeated on Saturday), and Oberlin’s Luce Initiative for Asian Studies and the Environment screens The Awakened Steppe — Traditional and Contemporary Music from Mongolia in Stull Recital Hall at the Conservatory.

Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING  READ:

Remember Tom Lehrer, the Harvard and MIT math teacher whose night job as a satirical singer-pianist delighted many (and angered some) in the 50s and 60s? He lives on at the age of 93 in Denmark, as Jeremy Bernstein reports in his article in The London Review of Books. The author enjoys the distinction of having been in the audience both for Lehrer’s debut in 1949 and his final public performance in 1972. “By the 1970s he had had enough. He said that ‘political satire became obsolete’ after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.” Read They’re Playing Our Song here, and here for the lyrics to all of his songs, which Lehrer has released into the public domain through December 31, 2024.

NEWS FROM CIM:

The Cleveland Institute of Music has announced a new Artist Diploma program “designed to launch recent CIM alumni into professional orchestral performance careers. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of noted Cleveland philanthropist Barbara Robinson, the inaugural Fellows – CIM alumni Caleb Cox, viola, and Grace Roepke, harp – are recipients of the Robinson Orchestral Career Fellowship.” Read the press release here.

SAVE THE DATES:

Akron’s Urban Troubadour announces the resumption of its roving concert experiences beginning in the spring with Piazzola’s 100th Birthday Bash on March 13. Click here to check out what else Jane Berkner has planned for the first half of 2022. There are videos of past events to enjoy as well.

And Cleveland Opera Theater and Baldwin Wallace Opera director Scott Skiba writes to alert us to three upcoming events: Operas in Place, nine newly commissioned Micro Operas, available on Demand on December 1, 2, and 3, the world premiere of Griffin Candey’s La casa de Bernarda Alba on February 3, 4, 5, and 6 in the Kleist Center at Baldwin Wallace, and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro on March 24, 25, 26, and 27 in BW’s Gamble Auditorium.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Raise a glass today for the births of conductors Alexander Schneider and Sir Georg Solti, and the first performances — also births if you will — of works by Aaron Copland, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Scott Joplin. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday is the 400th anniversary of the death of Dutch composer and organist Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (read more in the Almanac below), an occasion to be marked by a 4:30 pm Oberlin historical keyboard faculty and guest recital in Fairchild Chapel. The recital is part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the John Brombaugh meantone organ. See the detailed program and connect to a live stream here. (The Dutch government has honored the composer on a 25 guilder banknote, above.)

Also happening on Saturday: Carousel with the Chagrin Valley Studio Orchestra (repeated on Sunday), and the first of two Cleveland Philharmonic concerts in Westlake (the second is on Sunday at Cleveland State University).

Sunday is busy. Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra with cellist Alisa Weilerstein performing a Joan Tower concerto, and Joela Jones, the Orchestra’s keyboard principal playing her last concert before retiring. Harmonia features East European folk music at the Maltz PAC. The Parma and Suburban Symphonies play fall concerts in Parma Heights and Beachwood. And Dallas Symphony organist Scott Dettra solos with the Youngstown Symphony at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Details in our Concert Listings.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Expanding on its earlier article about travel visa problems experienced by the Danish Quartet, today’s New York Times print edition chronicled recent cancellations by conductor Thomas Dausgaard, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, Russian singers in the Met Opera’s Boris Godunov, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (a 10-city tour), as well as some cliff-hanger situations involving such artists as Lang Lang.

“Even in normal times, it can be difficult for visiting artists to obtain the visas they need to perform in the United States. Now they face even longer lines and staff shortages at American embassies and consulates around the world. The earliest available appointments for visa interviews in some cities are for next spring, months after some artists have scheduled performances.” Read the article here.

Another Times article that appears in print today follows up on the recent controversy involving University of Michigan distinguished composition professor Bright Sheng. Read Jennifer Schleussler’s A Blackface ‘Othello’ Shocks, and a Professor Steps Back From Class here, and a Times opinion piece, What I See in the Latest Blackface ‘Scandal,’ by John McWhorter here.

The Oberlin Conservatory is beginning a multi-year partnership with the Detroit Chamber Winds and Detroit’s Carr Center to commission composers to “explore the African diaspora through the lens of contemporary American chamber music.” Resonate will result in performances of works by Courtney Bryan, Michael Frazier, Adolphus Hailstork, Nathalie Joachim, George Lewis, Patrice Rushen, and Pamela Z. at the participating institutions, including Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, the Michigan State University College of Music, and Western Michigan University School of Music. Read a story by Cathy Parlow Strauss here.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

On October 16 1621, Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck died in Amsterdam, where he spent his entire career, although his fame spread elsewhere. He was known in Germany for his mentoring of young organists and in England for his keyboard compositions, which found their way into the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. (A modern edition of this vast collection of keyboard music was co-edited by British musicologist William Barclay Squire, who was born on October 16, 1855.) [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS TODAY:

The Astralis Chamber Ensemble plays a program of music by Arthur Foote, Philip Glass, Jacques Castérède, Paul Patterson and Jacques Ibert at Messiah Lutheran Church in Fairview Park tonight at 7, and at 7:30, the Chagrin Valley Studio Orchestra moves to Chagrin Valley Little Theatre to continue its run of Carousel performances.

Also at 7:30, Oberlin Conservatory begins a Fridays @ Finney series featuring its large ensembles in a new rotation plan. The first program brings the Oberlin Orchestra (pictured) and Contemporary Music Ensemble to the Finney Chapel stage for a program of recent music conducted by Rafael Jiménez and Timothy Weiss.

As Erich Burnett writes on the Conservatory website, at the heart of the change is “an emphasis on more — and more diverse — repertoire, greater flexibility in terms of ensemble sizes, and increased performance opportunities for students,” as well as “an intentional shift in repertoire selection to be less reliant on works from the traditionally recognized Western canon and more focused on newer works by composers of wide-ranging cultural backgrounds and experiences.” Attend in person (it’s free) or watch the live stream.

Details in our Concert Listings.

APOLLO’S FIRE IN NYC:

Jeannette Sorrell will lead Apollo’s Fire and Singers in four performances of Handel’s Messiah with members of the New York Philharmonic on December 14, 15, 17, and 18 at Riverside Church in New York City. Popular soprano Amanda Forsythe is among the soloists. Planning a visit? Click here for ticket details.

INTERESTING READ:

The pandemic has upset travel plans for countless musicians, among them the Danish String Quartet. Read a story in the Los Angeles Times about the ensemble’s recent harrowing experiences in obtaining the necessary P1 visa to tour the West Coast this month. The quartet, who visit the U.S. three or four times each year, is scheduled to perform on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series in January, by which time (fingers crossed!) things should be operating more smoothly.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Exactly one year ago, the strings of The Cleveland Orchestra donned face masks and took their places behind widely-spaced individual music stands on the Severance Hall stage in a pre-recorded concert distributed on the Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform. Last night, the Orchestra gave their first in-person performance in the newly-named Mandel Hall since the pandemic shut public concerts down. Another step toward normality.

Speaking of concert halls, two celebrated performance venues opened their doors on October 15: Boston Symphony Hall in 1900, and the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco in 1932, the first municipally-owned opera house in the country. When San Francisco audiences return, they’ll be more comfortable, the management having replaced the original seats with more spacious ones to accommodate the bodies of 21st-century patrons.

Organists should take note of the birth on this date in 1868 of Hamilton C. MacDougall, who founded the American Guild of Organists in 1896 while teaching at Wellesley College from 1900-1925. With some 275 chapters and 12,000 members throughout the United States and abroad, the AGO has recently invested its energies into the recruitment and training of young musicians. Click here to watch Oberlin graduate Katelyn Emerson’s video A Reason to Practice, which she wrote, recorded, and produced for the American Guild of Organists’ Virtual Pipe Organ Encounter 2021.

Fans of new music in Latin America should celebrate the debut of Puerto Rican composer Rafael Apont-Ledée, born on this date in 1938. He studied in Madrid, and moved on to Buenos Aires to work with Alberto Ginastera before returning to his native Caribbean Island in 1965 to become one of the leaders in the new music movement of the 1960s. Listen to a compilation of four of his works here.

And on this date in 1964, Broadway mourned the final curtain call of composer and lyricist Cole Porter, who created both book and music for more than 20 musicals — mostly in the 1930s, but his late career hit, Kiss Me, Kate revived the popularity of a composer renowned for his witty, urbane lyrics. During his undergraduate days at Yale, Porter wrote some 300 songs, one of which is sung here by the Whiffenpoofs, of which he was a member.

by Mike Telin

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 7:30 pm with a program titled “New Beginnings,” Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra will return in full force to Severance Music Center for the first time since March 2020. The evening will include Richard Strauss’ Macbeth, Joan Tower’s A New Day (for cello and orchestra) with Alisa Weilerstein, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5. Tickets are available online. Click here for COVID-19 protocols.

This week’s concerts will mark the final performances by Joela Jones (hands pictured above) as the Orchestra’s principal keyboard. Jones, whose tenure has spanned 54 seasons, will be presented tonight with the Orchestra’s 25th Distinguished Service Award. Click here to read an interview with Jones and here for an interview with Alisa Weilerstein.

At 8:00 pm – BW Opera presents the fourth and final performance of Handel’s Alcina directed by Scott Skiba. The outdoor performance will be held on the steps of the Boesel Musical Arts Center at Baldwin Wallace University, 49 Seminary St. in Berea. Food trucks will be available. Free general admission for the lawn and street (bring your own chairs or blankets, first come, first served), and 50 reserved seats are available at $25 (click here).

IN THE NEWS:

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced on Wednesday that it had chosen Nathalie Stutzmann, a conductor and singer from France, as its next music director. Stutzmann, 56, will be only the second woman in history to lead a top-tier American orchestra when she takes the podium in Atlanta next year. Read the New York Times article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today marks the passing of American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, who died on this date in 1990 of a heart attack in his New York apartment at The Dakota. He was 72 years old.

Unfortunately for Northeast Ohio audiences, his sole appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra was a 1970 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony at Blossom.

In our August 25, 2020 Diary, Daniel Hathaway honored Bernstein’s birth by going behind the scenes for a look at “Lenny” in rehearsal — a process even more revealing than a resulting performance.

Hathaway wrote: “I had the honor of studying with Bernstein in the conducting class at Tanglewood in the early ‘70s, and of singing in Mahler 2 with the Harvard-Radcliffe Choruses and the Boston Symphony on a radiant summer afternoon during that time.” Click here to watch Bernstein rehearse Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring during the 1987 International Conductor’s Competition and Master Course at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. And in a separate clip, he takes the triangle players in Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette aside for a brief tutorial.”

September 8 marked the 50th anniversary of the world premiere of Bernstein’s MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers commissioned for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capital in 1971. Click here to read more about the work.

Click here to watch Bernstein lead the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in his Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.”