by Daniel Hathaway

R.I.P. MICHAEL BISHOP:

News has reached us of the death of Telarc and 5/4 Productions recording engineer Michael Bishop in an accident on March 29. Details and tributes to follow.

ONLINE TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Bachcast today features BachFest artistic director Dirk Garner in conversation with alumni choir members. Though the debut went live at breakfast time this morning, you can still view the live stream of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater from London’s Wigmore Hall. Tonight, it’s Trio Tuesday at the Bop Stop with Dominick Farinacci, the CWRU Orchestra plays from Silver Hall at the Maltz PAC, and a University of Akron faculty recital features Jim Johnson, trumpet, with Kiirsi Maunula Johnson, horn, and Randy Frye, piano.

Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

A well written guest obituary by Alex Vadukul in today’s New York Times profiles old-style oboe craftsman Paul Laubin, who died at his workbench in Peekskill, New York on March 1. “One of the last true artisans of the oboe, he made each of his instruments by hand, and the waiting list for a new Laubin could extend a decade.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Compiling the Almanac portion of the Daily Diary begins with a search for noteworthy events that happened on the date in question in classical music history. Sometimes there’s a mighty list of composers, conductors, and artists to sift through, and on other occasions like today, March 30, there’s next to nothing of import to write about — except the founding of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in 1815.

Or so our usual go-to source for historical dates told us. Wanting to be accurate and thorough, we always check out dates before setting electrons in motion and choosing music to celebrate milestones.

So we were surprised to read on bach-cantatas.com that “The Handel and Haydn Society was founded as an oratorio society in Boston on April 20, 1815, by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, Amasa Winchester, and Matthew S. Parker, a group of Boston merchants and musicians who were eager to improve the performance of choral music in a city that, at the time, offered very little music of any kind.”

Pressing the search further, we learned from a New York Times article marking the 200th anniversary of the Society, that “The society was born from the peace festivities after news reached Boston of the end of the War of 1812, when musicians presented highlights from “The Creation” and Handel’s “Messiah.” After newspaper correspondents wrote of a need to hear more European works, a group of 44 amateur choristers and instrumentalists formed the Handel and Haydn Society, on April 13, 1815.”

Then there’s this notice from the City of Boston: “The exhibition The Handel and Haydn Society: Bringing Music to Life for 200 Years opens at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square in the Cheverus Room on Tuesday, March 24, and runs through Saturday, September 5….The opening date of the exhibition coincides with the 200th anniversary of H+H’s founding and “Handel and Haydn Society Day” in the City of Boston.”

Well, if you’re over 200 years old, what do those few days’ difference matter? We’ll just pretend it’s H+H’s 206th Birthday and list some interesting facts about the organization.

• The Society, the oldest continuously performing organization in the U.S., made its debut on Christmas Night of 1815, when a chorus of 90 men and 10 women sang at King’s Chapel.

• The Society saw the first American edition of Handel’s Messiah into print in 1816, and gave the U.S. premiere of the work in 1818, followed by Haydn’s The Creation in 1819.

• The organization sought to commission a work from Beethoven around 1823, but the project never came to fruition.

• Fast forwarding, Handel and Haydn underwent a sea change in the 20th century when it began adopting historically informed performance practices under Thomas Dunn at the behest of Boston Globe critic Michael Steinberg, and Christopher Hogwood transformed it into a professional chorus and period instrument ensemble beginning in 1986.

Check our H+H’s COV-19 Era Messiah for Our Time (Part I and Hallelujah Chorus), led by Ian Watson, to see how a 200+ year old organization adapts to new realities. There are 183 other videos on the organization’s YouTube channel to enjoy as well.

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

Although murmurings of in-person concerts are beginning to pop up like early spring flora, this weekend’s attractions are still to be found online.

On Saturday, pianist Jackie Warren joins Sammy DeLeon, Scott McKee, and Miguel Cuni to celebrate her birthday at the Bop Stop. Both the Kent State New Music Ensemble and Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra feature Black composers, poets, and artists, and Washington, D.C.’s Thirteen Chamber Choir performs a version of Bach’s St. John Passion staged by Timothy Nelson.

On Sunday, the National Philharmonic presents “Music That Renews: American Roots,” with music by Valerie Coleman, Florence Price, and Amy Beach. The Cliburn hosts 2017 finalist Georgy Tchaidze (also a finalist in the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2016) for a performance and discussion about Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata. The Kent State Orchestra plays a pre-recorded program, WCLV visits the Cleveland Orchestra archives for a performance of Bach’s Matthew-Passion, and Portland, Oregon’s Trinity Cathedral broadcasts a live Palm Sunday performance of Charles Tournemire’s Sept Chorals — Poemes pour les Sept Paroles du Christ.

Details in our Concert Listings.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

A full list of historical comings and goings on March 27 and 28 includes prominent Russians and Americans, along with a few scattered Europeans.

On March 27, Russian cellist and conductor Mistislav Rostropovich was born in 1927 in Baku. On March 28, composer Modest Moussorgsky died in 1881 at the age of 42 following a drinking binge, and composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff died in 1943 in California, shortly after becoming a U.S. Citizen.

Moving on to Americans and March 27, composer and arranger Ferde Grofé was born in 1892, and playwright and composer Shirley Graham Dubois died on that date in 1977. On March 28, violinist, composer, and bandleader Paul Whiteman was born in 1890, American trumpeter and blues composer W.C. Handy died in 1958, and conductor and film composer Carmen Dragon wrote finis in 1984.

It’s fun to revisit the work of a few of these luminaries in archival footage. We can start with Ferde Grofé, who talks about his influence on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in an excerpt from an interview (skip the silly stuff and start at 1:39), and conducts a rehearsal of his Mississippi Suite. And for sci-fi buffs, here’s a cleaned-up print of the 1950 film Rocketship X-M, with score by Grofé that includes the first use of a theremin in a film score. (Sorry, we’re avoiding the Grand Canyon Suite.)

Rostropovich inspired the composition of many cello concertos, including Benjamin Britten’s — the two were close friends. But here’s his live performance of an older work,  the Dvořák concerto, with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra in 1969.

It’s a toss up whether Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition is more popular. Check out the original piano version of Pictures played by Evgeny Kissin at the Chorégies d’Orange in France in 2002 Evgeny Kissin, or by Sviatoslav Richter in 1956, live in Prague.

Certainly the most popular orchestration of Pictures is the one made by Maurice Ravel in 1922, although there are many others. Cleveland Orchestra Music Study Group lecturer Dr. Rose T. Breckenridge talks about the Ravel version here.

Earlier, Grofé mentioned Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which he arranged for symphony orchestra after the original performance by a jazz combo. Here’s a 78-rpm recording of part of the work recorded by birthday boy Paul Whiteman and his band in April of 1927 with Gershwin at the keys.

Continuing through our list, here’s a clip of W.C. Handy playing The St. Louis Blues on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town Show in 1949, and an odd recording of Arthur Sullivan’s Victorian favorite The Lost Chord by Carmen Dragon and the Royal Philharmonic in 1949 (sing-along slides included). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CONCERT NEWS AND UPDATES:

Piano Cleveland announced today that the 2021 iteration of the Cleveland International Piano Competition will begin online from July 8-25 with preliminary rounds recorded at eight venues across the globe, and culminate with in-person Semifinal and Final Rounds in Cleveland from July 29 to August 4. The final two days will feature contestants in chamber music with the Escher Quartet, and concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra. Read the press release here and keep an eye out tomorrow for a ClevelandClassical.com interview with Yaron Kohlberg, (President) and Marissa Glynias Moore (Executive Director) of Piano Cleveland.

Apollo’s Fire has changed both the dates and repertoire for its April concerts. The previously-announced set featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons will now include J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto in d, Cantata 51, Jauchtzet Gott in allen Landen, with soprano Amanda Forsyth and trumpeter Steven Marquand, and  Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. New dates for the four in-person concerts  are April 22-25. Alternatively, patrons may choose to watch a video of the program to be released on May 11.

IN THE NEWS:

Michigan Opera has announced productions for its first season under its new artistic director Yuvan Sharon and associate artistic director — and star soprano — Christine Goere. Read Joshua Barone’s New York Times article “A Malcolm X Opera Will Get a Rare Revival in Detroit” here.

New Music USA announces its New Music Organizational Development Fund, which “offers grants to non-profit organizations, performance groups, dance organizations, festivals, presenters, and venues with a proven track record and impact who need support to sustain their programming of new music, artist development work, and other services in the evolving context of COVID-19. This program is for outstanding organizations which work regularly with, and support the development of, music creators and artists and offer a crucial resource to the community.” Application guidelines here (deadline is April 22).

ONLINE TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Symphonic Band and Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the new music ensemble No Exit, and the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra Little Big Band are among tonight’s local streams. And from the West Coast, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra presents violinist Gil Shaham in a performance of music by Arvo Pärt and Chevalier de St-George “set to images and art created and processed in a first-of-its-kind digital studio at Wilhardt + Naud.”

See our Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One debut and three final acts to commemorate today: French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was born on this date in 1925 in Montbrison, while Renaissance composers Heinrich Isaac and Antonio de Cabezon, and German composer Ludwig van Beethoven took their final bows in 1517, 1566, and 1827 in Florence, Madrid, and Vienna, respectively.

Cabezon, who was blind from early childhood, rose to become the first major Iberian composer for keyboard instruments and a member of the Spanish royal household. Listen here to his Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa played by Arturo Barba Sevillano on the historic organ at Villar de Cañas, Cuenca, in 2013.

One of the most prolific and well-traveled of Renaissance composers, Isaac enjoyed the patronage of the Medicis, whose coat of arms is associated with his Palle palle, played here by Voices of Music.

If you’ve been missing wind music (allegedly the super-spreaders of the COVID-19 era), here’s another Isaac tune, A la battaglia, performed by the Italian Consort.

Beethoven’s music has been in everyone’s ears during the 250th anniversary year of his birth, but maybe not this piece. His Elegischer Gesang for string quartet and four voices dates from 1814 and was dedicated to a friend whose wife had died three years earlier at the age of 24. It’s a lovely way to celebrate the departure of Beethoven as well. Listen to it here performed by the San Francisco Choral Artists.

Lest we become too sentimental, it’s worth remembering that the earthy composer was told on his deathbed that a gift of a dozen bottles of wine had arrived from his publisher. According to his American biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Beethoven’s last recorded words were “Pity, pity — too late!”

And Pierre Boulez enjoyed a special relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra, palpably represented by his performance with them of the Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, but also preserved in musicians’ tributes on the occasion of his 90th birthday. And more recently, in Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs’ remembrances in the 10th episode of the Orchestra’s On a Personal Note podcasts.

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE TODAY:

On this week’s Baldwin Wallace Bachcast, released today, BachFestival Director Dirk Garner interviews Stuart Raleigh, who served as Festival Choral Director from 1974 to 2007. Watch the 17-minute conversation here.

Young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä, who made a sensational debut at Blossom two summers ago, joins favorite Cleveland Orchestra guest pianist Kirill Gerstein and the Orchestre de Paris today at 3:30 pm, and violinist James Ehnes is the featured guest soloist with the Dallas Symphony tonight at 8:30 pm (Katherina Wincor is on the podium).

At 6:00 pm, Dominick Farinacci hosts Trio Tuesdays and a Songbook Watch Party at the Bop Stop, and at 8:00 pm, pianist Aaron Diehl plays concert works in the jazz style on the Dacamera series in Houston. Check our Concert Listings for connection details.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

ClevelandClassical.com extends our sincere condolences to Rich Fried and family on the death of his wife, Judy S. Fried on March 11. She played violin with The Cleveland Orchestra from 1980 to 2008, and with the Cleveland Octet. Read an obituary here.

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society sent out a survey today asking its audience under what conditions they would be willing to return to the concert hall. At the moment, three live events remain on the CCMS calendar this spring: violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Renana Gutman at the Maltz PAC on April 27, the Junction Trio (violinist Stevan Jackiw, cellist Jay Campbell, and pianist Conrad Tao) at CIM’s Mixon Hall on May 11, and violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong at the Maltz on May 18. Click here to access the survey (to be returned by March 29).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Three very different organist-composers to honor today: German Kappelmeister Johann Gottfried Walther who died in Weimar on this date in 1748, German Romantic composer Julius Reubke, born on March 23, 1834 in Hausneindorf, and Eugène Gigout, born ten years later in Nancy.

J.S. Bach’s cousin and almost his exact contemporary, Walther authored an important Lexicon, the first German-language encyclopedia of music, as well as some 132 organ works that include both elaborations of chorales and transcriptions of Italian orchestral concertos that were popular in Germany during his era.

His variations on Jesu, meine  Freude are among his best. Listen here to a performance by Tom Anschütz on the 17th-century Hoffmann organ in Langenhain (near Frankfurt), rebuilt by Knauf in the 18th century, and by Kutter (ongoing) in 2020.

Walther’s Concerto el Signr. Meck is mislabeled — it’s actually a work by Vivaldi, but remains one of Walther’s most popular reworkings. Hear it played by Dutch artist Jacques van Oortmerssen on the organ at the Smarano Organ Academy in Italy, and then in an arrangement of an arrangement — for two marimbas, played by Marimbazzi, the young Polish percussion duo of Paweł Dyyak and Jakub Kołodziejczyk.

Reubke died at 24, which didn’t give this disciple of Liszt much time to compose, but he left two relatively monumental works to posterity. Listen to his Piano Sonata played by Austrian pianist Til Fellner here, and to his Sonata on the 94th Psalm played by American organist Nathan Laube here (at a Pittsburgh regional convention of the American Guild of Organists).

And two pieces stand out among French organist Eugène Gigout’s works for the instrument. His Toccata in b minor is quintessentially French (Jonathan Moyer plays it here on the organ at Cleveland’s Church of the Covenant), while his Grand Choeur Dialogué lends itself to various call-and-response echo treatments. Jonathan Scott plays it here in its original organ solo format on the Pascal Quorin organ at Évreux Cathedral, in Normandy, France.

And now the fun begins. If you have two players and two organs at your disposal, you can play it like Peter Eilander and Jaap Eilander do at the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam. If it’s just you and you have organs in multiple locations, you can arrange the work like Michael Hey did at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Or go all out and add brass and percussion as Michael Murray and the Empire Brass did in their over-the-top Telarc recording at Boston’s Church of the Advent.

by Daniel Hathaway

IT’S SPRING!

No snow on the crocuses and daffodils this time around in Northeast Ohio. To celebrate, we recommend a few poems by e.e. cummings, for whom spring was a recurring theme. Revisit (or discover for the first time) [in Just-], Spring is like a perhaps hand, and [O sweet spontaneous], or listen to the first movement of Vincent Persichetti’s Spring Cantata for soprano and alto voices and piano sung by the Dr. Phillips High School Cora Bella ensemble at the March 2012 Southern Division ACDA Conference in Winston-Salem, NC. There are three more cummings poems that Persichetti set to music in the cantata, but no recording of the complete set seems to exist. A shame.

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

The schedule is teeming with concerts this weekend. Here are some highlights, but check our Concert Listings for a more extensive list:

On Saturday, Oberlin Stage Left’s large ensemble performances include Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and Italian classical guitarist Emanuele Buono plays on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series.

On Sunday, take a day trip to Baltimore for the 45th Annual Bach Marathon, hear Caroline Oltmanns on the Tri-C Classical Piano series, catch the Cleveland Composers Guild’s 60th anniversary concert from the Maltz PAC, virtually attend a recital by organist Steven Young in Huron or by the Strasera Duo at Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran arts series, or hear the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra’s Early Music Day Concert.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Overshadowing the birth of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter on March 20, 1915, and the 1948 duel on that date between CBS and NBC to broadcast the first symphony orchestra concert (CBS won by 90 minutes with a Philadelphia Orchestra program, and NBC was the runner up with a Toscanini-led NBC Symphony performance), German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685.

Bach’s output was so extensive that there’s no paucity of music to recommend to mark his birthday, But because he was occasionally called upon to create birthday or name-day cantatas for his employers, let’s spin his cantata Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208, written for the 31st birthday of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels in February, 1713. Here’s a complete performance led by Helmuth Rilling.

It’s fun to run down a list of available arrangements of the most famous movement in BWV 208, “Schafe können sicher weiden,” or “Sheep may safely graze.” The original, sung by the character of Pales, is a charmingly simple thing scored for soprano and continuo with two obligato recorders.

Although it’s most frequently performed by pianists including Leon Fleischer, Lang Lang and Gina Alice, and Murray Perahia, you can also find the “Sheep” aria in versions sung by Kirsten Flagstad, played by classical guitarist Christopher Parkening, or the Canadian Brass, or in a full orchestral elaboration by Leopold Stokowski. What would Bach have thought? Had he lived in the 21st century, would he have earned royalties?

Organizations over the globe have scheduled Bach Birthday Bashes this weekend. Here’s one from the South Dakota Chapter of the American Guild of Organists that took place last Friday evening. Watch here and view the complete program here.

by Daniel Hathaway

IN THE NEWS TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival is releasing a series of Tuesday podcasts in advance of its Virtual 88th Festival. “Bachcast Podcast Conversations” begin today with a program about the vision of the Festival featuring Dwight Oltmann, who directed it from 1975-2014, in conversation with current Artistic Director Dirk Garner. Subsequent podcasts will be accessible at 8:00 am on March 23 & 30, and April 6 and 13 (click here to listen). The Festival itself, which runs from April 24-26, will include new venues and guest artists. Read a press release here.

More about the Grammy Awards. The Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music have added details about prize-winning projects that involved their alumni. Read the Oberlin article here and the CIM release here.

Viewers of the Awards ceremony on Sunday were treated to some ironic technical glitches. “…seeing as the Grammys primarily award outstanding sound, the multiple acceptance speeches during the Premiere Ceremony that suffered from echoing, distortion or absent volume felt like a big miss for a show of its stature.” Read a Variety article here.

The New York Times reports this morning about the status of the MET Opera Orchestra. ‘The Metropolitan Opera House has been dark for a year, and its musicians have gone unpaid for almost as long. The players in one of the finest orchestras in the world suddenly found themselves relying on unemployment benefits, scrambling for virtual teaching gigs, selling the tools of their trade and looking for cheaper housing. About 40 percent left the New York area. More than a tenth retired.” Read more here.

Rubinstein Competition Returns. The 16th iteration of the Arthur Rubinstein Competition will adopt a hybrid format in 2021 of digital and live sessions, with stages I & II (April 1-10) to be recorded in New York, London, Beijing, Potsdam, and Tel Aviv, and the Finals (April 29-May 3) to be streamed from Tel Aviv concert halls with live audiences. Laureates include Emanuel Ax and Daniil Trifonov. More information here.

ONLINE TODAY:

A new weekly series, Trio Tuesdays with Dominick Farinacci & Songbook Watch Party debuts at the Bop Stop today, Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society celebrates Telemann, and the MET Opera offers an archive production of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West. Details in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There’s quite a mixed list of arrivals and departures to acknowledge on this 16th day of March. Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi (who died in 1736 in Pozzuoli of tuberculosis at the age of 26), American composer and conductor Edwin London (born in Philadelphia in 1929), English conductor Sir Roger Norrington (born in 1934 in Oxford), American composer David Del Tredici (born in 1937 in Cloverdale, California), Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (who died in Los Angeles in 1968), and American composer Roger Sessions (who died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1985 at the age of 88).

A pastiche of their compositions and performances would make a remarkably varied concert program.

We could start with Pergolesi’s popular Stabat Mater, performed here by Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor), Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), and Emöke Barath (soprano) at the Château de Fontainbleau), and follow that with something completely different: Ed London’s The Declaration of Independence with saxophonist Howie Smith.

To end a rather long first half, how about Norrington’s take on Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique with the Royal College of Music Symphony?

Transitioning after intermission to another world of fantasy, we could launch the second half with one of Del Tredici’s Alice (in Wonderland) pieces — an obsession of his.

Then as an entremet, one of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s classical guitar works. There are a hundred to choose from, but here are some interesting possibilities: Korean guitarist Bokyung Byun performing his Escarraman for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society this season; Petra Poláčková playing the first movement of his Omaggio a Boccherini; Chaconne Klaverenga playing the fourth movement of his Quintet with Rebecca Benjamin and Andrew Ma, violins, Mark Liu, viola, and Sarah Miller, cello, at the Cleveland Institute of Music in April, 2016; or Klaverenga performing his Capriccio Diabolico at CIM in May, 2015.

For a finale, why not the work that earned Sessions his Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Click here for a 1981 performance of his Concerto for Orchestra by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. (His opera Montezuma, premiered in 1976 by Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston, is best left for another day.)

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday evening, point your browser toward Oberlin for a pre-recorded concert by the Conservatory’s large ensembles. The program features the Oberlin Sinfonietta in works by British composer Elisabeth Luteyns (pictured) and Olly Wilson, and the Oberlin Orchestra in Mozart’s Symphony No. 29. Timothy Weiss and Raphael Jiménez conduct the ensembles.

On Sunday afternoon, catch young pianist Evren Ozel, a name that will be familiar to Piano Cleveland and ChamberFest Cleveland audiences, in a live performance from The Gilmore in Kalamazoo, and watch an interview with Music From the Western Reserve Executive Director Zsolt Bognár.

Details in our Concert Listings.

HONORS AND AN INTERVIEW:

Marilyn Horne, a frequent guest at the Oberlin Conservatory and Honorary Voice Program Director (and alumna) of the Music Academy of the West, will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 63rd Grammy Awards on Sunday at 8:00 pm EDT. Read an announcement here.

ChamberFest Cleveland cellist Oliver Herbert, 23, is among the recipients of this year’s Avery Fisher Career Grants. Read more here.

New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New has received the annual Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. Music Director of the Hamilton, Ont. Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Dallas Symphony, and Resident Conductor of the St. Louis, Symphony, she replaced Bramwell Tovey in a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Blossom in July, 2019. Read our review here.

British pianist and polymath Stephen Hough recently sat for an interview with Musical America’s Clive Paget in its One to One series, where he “discusses the effect of the pandemic on musicians’ bank balances, its impact on international touring, and reflects on how the industry might change as it seeks to re-establish live performance in a post-COVID world.” Watch here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

On March 13, 1842, Italian-born composer Luigi Cherubini died in Paris at the age of 82, having taken up residence in France in 1785, where his aristocratic connections nearly put him on the wrong side of history during the Revolution. He wrote his most famous work, the Requiem in c in 1816 to commemorate the execution of Louis XVI. Watch a performance in Trieste in 2010 by a youth orchestra and four youth choirs led by Riccardo Muti.

Austrian composer Hugo Wolf, most celebrated for his many Lieder, was born on this date in 1860 in Windisch. 127 years later, British pianist Gerald Moore died on March 13, 1987. Though composer and pianist obviously never met, we can conjoin their landmark dates today through German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with whom Moore recorded Wolf’s Mörike Lieder — nearly two hours worth of music.

Gerald Moore spent his career advancing the usually sublimated role of the collaborative pianist, and filled several books with his witty commentary. Listen to an audio version of The Unashamed Accompanist dubbed from an Angel LP.

And on to March 14, the date on which German composer Georg Phillip Telemann was born in 1681 in Magdeburg. Choosing to accept a position in Hamburg, Telemann turned down the post of Cantor in Leipzig in 1723, leading the authorities to offer the job to their second choice, Johann Sebastian Bach (who made Telemann godfather to his son C.P.E. Bach) Telemann seems to have spent his every waking moment writing music for a career total of some 3,000 works.

Here are three in performances by Cleveland ensembles. First, his Concerto for Four Violins played by Cleveland Orchestra members in their Music Medicine series from the kitchen of Mitchell’s Ice Cream in Ohio City. Second, a movement from his Concerto for Recorder and Viola da Gamba from a concert presented at the Cleveland Museum of Art by Michael Lynn and friends in benefit for the Cleveland Clinic Liver Transplant Research Program. And third, a light-hearted funeral cantata for  a dead canary performed by baritone Jeffrey Strauss and Apollo’s Fire.