by Daniel Hathaway

EVENTS LIVE AND OTHERWISE THIS WEEKEND:

Some organizations are making the most of outdoor performing possibilities this weekend, although Heights Arts has postponed its 20th Anniversary Concert to next weekend due to chilly weather conditions. You can still catch Akron Symphony Interlude performances at Hale Farm and Museum, a front yard concert by the Blue Streak Ensemble playing music by Margaret Brouwer, Tuesday Musical’s percussion shows at Akron’s Historic Barder House, and an open-air Brahms String Sextet on the Sacred Heart Series in Oberlin (note: the last concert has now been moved indoors).

Indoors (or wherever you open up your laptop), you can catch the first pre-recorded large ensemble performances from Oberlin, watch a recital by organist Christa Rakich at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Akron, and hear what CIM composition students are up to. Check the Concert Listings for details.

INTERESTING READS:

New York Times critic Joshua Barone reports that American orchestras are suddenly on a roll to program music by Black composers, but wonders if that trend will last. Read the article here.

In a WQXR article, Heather O’Donovan polls a dozen scholars about changes in the academic field of (ethno)musicology. Two separate streams of research seem to be combining as scholars broaden the scope of their inquiries. “Today, music scholars (note the conspicuous absence of terminology) are grappling with the field’s complex, colonial history, its purpose and articulation, and even its name in novel ways. Their work is a reflection of the field’s proverbial coming of age.”

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

On October 3, 1923, Polish American conductor and composer Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was born in Lwow. He escaped the communist regime in 1958 to settle in the United States. Read a ClevelandClassical.com interview where he talks about that escapade and his first gig with The Cleveland Orchestra at the invitation of George Szell. (He was scheduled to return to Blossom after an absence of three decades, but had to cancel due to illness.)

Skrowaczewski led what is now the Minnesota Orchestra for fourteen years, and was a favorite guest conductor with many other ensembles. One of his highly regarded performances was Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in 2014, preserved in this video.

In 1931, Danish composer Carl Nielsen died on October 3 in Copenhagen. Celebrated for his six symphonies, which demonstrate a highly individual compositional voice, his music was championed by Leonard Bernstein.  Listen to his Fifth Symphony (the one where the snare drum is given permission to play out of time and interrupt the story) in a 1967 performance by The Cleveland Orchestra under Sixten Ehrling.

And on October 3, 1936, American composer Steve Reich was born in New York City. In 2015, ChamberFest Cleveland programmed two of his works: New York Counterpoint (for amplified clarinet and tape, featuring Franklin Cohen in CIM’s Kulas Hall) and Nagoya Marimbas (played by Scott Christian and Alexander Cohen at The Wine Spot).

On October 4, 1982 Canadian pianist Glenn Gould died in Toronto. We featured Gould recently when his birthdate came up, but it seems appropriate to celebrate the other end of his lifeline with the last work he performed with orchestra before withdrawing into a private world of highly-edited studio recordings.

The ensemble was the Toronto Symphony, the conductor was Karel Ančerl, and Gould’s participation in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto came about when Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli withdrew 72 hours before the performance. Gould was persuaded to take over and play from memory a work he hadn’t touched in four years. The concert, televised and aired on September 12, 1970, was a triumph. Watch it here.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB:

No Exit new music ensemble begins its season tonight at 7 with an online concert of solo works by Adam Roberts, Harald Genzmer, and percussionist Luke Rinderknecht (the premier of his Downfall), plus works by Villa-Lobos and William Grant Still. Read a preview article here. And looking ahead to Saturday evening, No Exit will host an online concert by Boston-based Transient Canvas.

And Youngstown State University continues its Dana Alumni Recital Series with a pre-recorded concert by pianist Sean Baran. Details in the Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

In an interview for the Harvard Gazette, New Silkroad artistic director Rhiannon Giddens talks about mission and music-making in the age of COVID. Read Charting a path for the Silkroad here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German composer Max Bruch died on this date in Berlin-Friedenau in 1920. Inspired by Brahms and mostly known as a choral composer during his lifetime, Bruch is now celebrated for a few instrumental works that have remained popular.

The first of his three violin concertos is one of those, performed here by Rachel Barton Pine and CityMusic Cleveland at St. Stanislaus in October, 2012. Another is his Kol Nidrei, played here in the same venue by CityMusic artistic director and cellist Amit Peled in October, 2019. And ChamberFest Cleveland featured selections from his Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano on a June concert in 2019 (with Franklin Cohen, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Evren Ozel).

And on this date in 1943, Canadian American composer R. Nathaniel Dett died of a heart attack in Battle Creek, Michigan while on tour with a USO orchestra. Born in Drummondville, Ontario (now part of Niagara Falls), Dett moved across the border with his family at the age of 11, was the first Black student to graduate from the Oberlin Conservatory’s 5-year degree program, and studied composition during the summers at Harvard with Arthur Foote.

Dett reflected the opinions of Antonín Dvořák when he wrote, in 1918

We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people … But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it, unless we treat it in such manner that it can be presented in choral form, in lyric and operatic works, in concertos and suites and salon music—unless our musical architects take the rough timber of Negro themes and fashion from it music which will prove that we, too, have national feelings and characteristics, as have the European peoples whose forms we have zealously followed for so long.

Dett’s popular Juba Dance is included on the Oberlin Stage Left episode Linking Legacies, played by pianist Dianna White-Gould, and his Don’t Be Weary, Traveler, which won Harvard’s Francis Boot Award, was sung by Quire Cleveland at Historic St. Peter Church in April, 2014. And click here to listen to Canada’s Nathaniel Dett Chorale perform his popular spiritual, Listen to the Lambs.

Perhaps Dett’s most ambitious work is his 1937 oratorio, The Ordering of Moses, premiered at Cincinnati’s May Festival in 1937. James Conlon, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the May Festival Chorus revisited the work in 2016. Listen here.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB & AIRWAVES:

Oberlin Conservatory faculty members Timothy LeFebvre, baritone, and Peter Takács, piano, celebrate Beethoven’s 250th with his song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, plus works by Handel, Ravel, and Ives. The free concert streams live from (the empty) Warner Concert Hall at 7:30 pm.

Remember James Feddeck, the former assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Youth Orchestras (and Oberlin alum, by the way)? He’s stepping in tonight for Leonard Slatkin — as he frequently does for indisposed conductors — to lead the Detroit Symphony in music by Adolphus Hailstork, Purcell, Penderecki, and Mozart. It’s an online ticketed event that streams at 7:30 pm.

Check the Concert Listings for links and details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1965, French composer Paul Dukas was born in Paris. It’s a good time to search out one of the versions of Disney’s Fantasia to reconnect with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Who can listen to Dukas’ orchestral fantasy without conjuring visions of Mickey Mouse?

The celebrated Russian American pianist Vladimir Horowitz was born on this date either in 1903 or 1904. Among his personal quirks: he ate only Dover Sole, and only played recitals (if he didn’t cancel) on Sundays at 4:00 pm. Watch a documentary of his life in the film The Last Romantic, and a video of his famous return to Moscow concert in 1986. There’s also a live recording of his recital in Cleveland in 1974.

Austrian American composer Ernst Toch died in Santa Monica, California on October 1, 1964. Although he wrote film music in Hollywood after escaping the Third Reich, perhaps he’s best known for his experimental works, including Gesprochene Musik (Spoken Music) suite, and its catchy “Geographical Fugue.” The suite was meant to be recorded on a 78 rpm record and played at a higher speed in concert. As Toch wrote in a program note, “increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level … created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking.” The Fugue is performed here on a concert by Houston’s River Oaks Chamber Orchestra guest conducted by former Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell. (It’s even better in German!)

And in 1979, American composer Roy Harris died — also in Santa Monica and on this date. Born in rural Oklahoma, with the help of Aaron Copland he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and went on to write numerous works on American themes. His big breakthrough was his Third Symphony, captured here in a live performance by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra in 2010.

by Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA — WARNER PODCAST OUT:

Episode 4 of the second season of The Cleveland Orchestra’s “On A Personal Note” podcasts is available today. In “Love Notes,” pianist and violinist Carolyn Gadiel Warner talks about falling in love — with her husband of 40 years, with Bruckner Symphonies, and with her profession. Listen here.

LES DÉLICES PREVIEW VIDEO:

“Bewitched” is the title of the first of four concerts in Les Délices’ all-online season. The period instrument ensemble offers a sneak preview of the October 22 premiere program here.

CLEVELAND OPERA THEATER HIP-HOPERA:

In partnership with Refresh Collective, Cleveland Opera Theater is expanding its after-school program, “Stories of Struggle and Success,” into a month-long virtual intensive for teens 13-18. “Students will engage in an overview of music history from the time opera originated in the 1600s to the present day with an emphasis on storytelling through music, highlighting the similarities between opera and hip-hop.” Details and registration here.

ANOTHER INNOVATION FROM THE DSO:

One nagging defect of virtual performances is the deafening silence at the end of pieces and concerts. The Detroit Symphony, an institution that has been way out front in providing digital content in the absence of live, in-person concerts, is now inviting its viewers to submit applause videos. “Film yourself (family members and pets welcome!) clapping and cheering on the orchestra. No spoken words of thanks, please. Use the landscape mode on your recording device (a cell phone will work just fine), and don’t forget the audio!” The Orchestra will take it from there and the finished product will premiere at the end of a forthcoming concert. Submit here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are only a handful of obscure candidates for tributes today, so let’s focus on another aspect of September 29: Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels falls on this date each year, and marks the beginning of autumn in many Christian cultures.

It lends its name to the fall term in British universities, and gives rise to a number of folk customs, including making Michaelmas Bannock on the eve of the Feast of Saint Michael from equal parts of barley, oats, and rye without employing any metal implements. And Michaelmas draws the line after which you should stop picking blackberries. That last piece of advice derives from the legend that when the Archangel Michael expelled the rebellious Lucifer from heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush (ouch!), which he cursed and defiled in a special way. Don’t eat the berries.

Angels — divine messengers charged with delivering news good and bad to humans — are part of the rich mythology of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike. The archangels Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel join a trio in “The Heavens are telling” in Haydn’s The Creation (sung here by the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus under Robert Shaw). Later, Gabriel returns to the story to bring surprising news to Mary of Nazareth (listen to Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria sung by Chanticleer). He’s also likely to have been part of the heavenly host that sends the shepherds to the stable in Bethlehem (as re-enacted by Kiera Duffy and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chorale). And Gabriel may even have taken up a viol to entertain the bystanders as in Matthias Grünewald’s altarpiece that Hindemith turned into “The Angel Concert” in Mathis der Maler (here played by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt).

Celebrate Michaelmas with a recent service of Choral Evensong for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels from Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. As pianist Stephen Hough has written, “Evensong hangs on the wall of life like an old, familiar cloak passed through the generations. Rich with prayer and scripture, it is nevertheless totally nonthreatening. It is a service into which all can stumble without censure – a rambling old house where everyone can find some corner to sit and think, to listen with half-attention, trailing a few absentminded fingers of faith or doubt in its passing stream.”

Burrow deeper with Herbert Howells’ Sequence for St. Michael, written for Sir George Guest and the choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and dedicated to the memory of Howells’ son Michael, who died as a child. Click here for the text by Alcuin.

by Daniel Hathaway

BRUCE EGRE OBITUARY:

Brown-Forward has posted an obituary for Azica Records founder Bruce Egre, who died on September 23 at the age of 61, noting that “Private services due to Covid-19 restrictions will be held at Fairmount Presbyterian Church.” Egre’s extensive audio career is documented in this AllMusic list of recordings he engineered.

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, the Akron Symphony Interlude Series presents a live concert at Hale Farm and Village, and Oberlin Conservatory streams the first in a series of large ensemble works on Oberlin Stage Left. On Sunday, the Cleveland Composers Guild streams its 28th “Creativity: Learning Through Experience XXVIII” event, and Akron’s Urban Troubadour take a virtual stroll through galleries, hotels, bars & other Akron locations with videos of past performances. Details in the Concert Listings.

SAVE THE DATES — NEW CALENDAR EVENTS:

Les Délices’ Monday evening, bi-weekly SalonEra programs continue on October 5. Read a press release about the month’s episodes here.

Organist Christopher Houlihan, who played all of Louis Vierne’s Symphonies in a cross-country marathon in 2012, is sponsoring a Vierne Festival honoring the former organist of Notre-Dame in Paris on the 150th anniversary of his birth. The online event runs from October 5-8, includes interviews with concert manager Philip Truckenbrod and Notre-Dame organist Olivier Latry, and culminates in a performance of the composer’s 4th Symphony in the chapel of Trinity College, Hartford. Details here.

In lieu of Opera Western Reserve’s production of Verdi’s La traviata, scheduled for November 13, the company will stream “A Taste of Traviata” on November 13 including excerpts from the opera, behind-the-scenes extras, and educational material. The program will be recorded at OWR’s home, Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown. Read the press release here.

FEATURED VIDEO:

M.U.S.i.C — Stars in the Classics, has shared a video with excerpts from its September Garden Concerts. Watch here.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

Where to begin? On September 26, 1800, New England composer William Billings died in Boston, French conductor Charles Munch was born in Strasbourg (1891), American composer George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn (1898), American composer and trombonist William Dawson was born in Anniston, Alabama (1990), Hungarian composer Bela Bartók died in New York City (1945), and American composer Gabriela Lena Frank was born in Berkeley, California (1972).

And on September 27, American composer Vincent Youmans was born in New York City in 1898, German composer Engelbert Humperdink died in Neustrelitz (1921), and English composer Gerald Finzi died in Oxford (1956).

I’ll pick just three musical excerpts in tribute to Munch, Dawson, and Finzi.

Here’s a clip of a 1966 Boston Symphony performance of “The Shepherds’ Farewell to the Holy Family” from Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ conducted by Charles Munch with the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society. It’s special to me because I sang in this luminous performance of a work that should be heard more frequently (the entire piece is available on DVD — see the notes).

William L. Dawson brought the Tuskegee Institute Choir to such a level that the ensemble was invited to sing six daily performances at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall in 1932. His arrangements of spirituals are classics, and his Negro Folk Symphony was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. Here’s a performance of Dawson’s arrangement of I Wan’ to be Ready by the Cleveland State University Chorale, Brian Bailey, director, at an April, 2019 Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral.

Gerald Finzi is one of those British composers (like Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams) who combine a native tendency toward the pastoral with a highly individual musical language. A particularly striking work of Finzi’s is his solo cantata Dies Natalis, settings of metaphysical texts by 17th-century Anglican clergyman Thomas Traherne. Click here for a performance led by Finzi’s son Christopher with tenor Wilfrid Brown and the English Chamber Orchestra (you can follow along with the score).

by Daniel Hathaway

RETURN OF OBERLIN STAGE LEFT:

After a summer of intensive planning, Oberlin Conservatory’s large ensembles are back in the business of rehearsing and performing with reduced numbers and physical distancing. They’re recording a series of programs in Warner Concert Hall and Finney Chapel to be streamed on Saturday evenings on Oberlin Stage Left, beginning on September 26 at 8:30 pm. Details in Erich Burnett’s article, “The Show Must Go On — Online, That Is.”

WHAT’S ON TODAY (IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL):

ENCORE Chamber Music moves outdoors on a fine early autumn evening to bring an engaging 6:00 pm program to the banks of the Chagrin River. Jinjoo Cho and Kiarra Saito-Beckman, violins, Eric Wong, viola, and Maya Enstad, cello, play Scandinavian folk tunes, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Florence Price, and American popular and movie tunes in Chagrin Falls’ Riverside Park. Bring lawn chairs & picnic blankets. Masks required, and social distancing enforced.

Indoors, CityMusic Cleveland begins its all-chamber music season at 7:00 pm at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus with music by Jennifer Higdon, Amy Beach, Libby Larsen, Shelley Washington, and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Reservations, masks, and social distancing are required for the performance, which features Minju Kim and Mari Sato violins, Esther Nahm, viola, Nataliya Pshenychna, cello, Dan Gilbert, clarinet, and Donna Lee, piano

And online, the Jupiter and Jasper String Quartets meet up electronically at 7:30 pm for a concert recorded at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana (Jupiters) and in Syracuse (Jaspers) for the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music. The program includes Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 73 (”Harp,”, Jupiters), music by Lera Auerbach and Joan Tower (Jaspers), and Mendelssohn’s Octet (Jaspers with local Syracuse musicians. There’s a ticket fee for this one.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1849, Austrian composer Johann Strauss Sr. died in Vienna at the age of 45. Founder of the Strauss waltz dynasty, Johann Sr. is best known for his Radetzky March, his Op. 228 (!) which you can enjoy being played here by the Vienna Philharmonic on its New Year’s Concert 2011, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst.

On September 25, 1927, English conductor Colin Davis was born in Weybridge, Surrey. Sir Colin returned to conduct The Cleveland Orchestra in April, 2009, after a hiatus of 25 years. As reported in a Plain Dealer preview, his reappearance came at the urging of pianist Mitsuko Uchida. “She told me, ‘You’ve got to get back,’” recalled Davis, 82, by phone from his home in London, where Uchida also resides. “And I thought, ‘If she told me to do it, I’d better do it.’”

That concert in 2009 included the Second Symphony of Jean Sibelius, a composer whose music was a Davis specialty. In this video, he conducts the finale with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester at the 2008 BBC Proms.

And on this date in 1932, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould was born in Toronto. One of the great keyboard personalities of the 20th century, Gould was also among the most eccentric, demanding special conditions for his recitals and recordings and eventually giving up live performances entirely in favor of studio recordings over which he could exercise precise control.

For glimpses of Gould’s life and career, watch the documentary Genius Within — The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, and view François Gerard’s 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould.

Although Gould was most revered for his interpretations of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, many listeners also cherish his recording of Bach’s Partita No. 6. Watch a video here.

Gould soloed with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra, leading to a famous outburst on the part of the conductor. As related in the New York Times, the pianist “wasted more than an hour of orchestral rehearsal time turning the screws on the special chair he uses, explaining that he could not get it at just the right height. Szell finally exploded and told Gould in very explicit terms what he could do with the screws.”

Another conductorial tiff had Leonard Bernstein officially distancing himself from Gould’s tempo decisions in the First Brahms Concerto. Listen to Bernstein’s extraordinary pre-concert announcement to the audience here.

by Daniel Hathaway

MOURNING THE PASSING OF BRUCE EGRE:

News has reached us of the death on Wednesday of Bruce Egre, founder of Cleveland’s Grammy-winning Azica Records and head of the audio recording degree program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, after a nearly two-year battle with cancer. An obituary and tributes will follow. (Photo: Egre with his Azica Records partner Alan Bise in the background.)

NEW CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA VIDEO OUT TODAY:

Inspired by cellist David Alan Harrrell’s “Cleveland Bachs” project, more than a hundred Cleveland Orchestra musicians performed an excerpt from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from the Ninth Symphony in sixteen locations around metropolitan Cleveland this summer. Locations include the steps of Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, Cleveland Botanical Garden, Holden Arboretum, Lake Erie shore, historic League Park, Progressive Field, the Cleveland Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland Metroparks’s polo fields, Soldiers and Sailors memorial in Public Square, and President Garfield’s tomb in Lake View Cemetery. A 2018 performance of the Ninth at Severance Hall, led by Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, is used as the soundtrack. Watch the “Beethoven 9 Project” here.

MET OPERA TAKES A PASS ON 2020-2021 SEASON:

After originally planning to re-open its house for a New Year’s gala, New York’s 137-year-old Metropolitan Opera — the largest performing arts institution in the United States — has now cancelled its entire 2020-2021 season, simultaneously releasing an ambitious schedule of performances for 2021-2022. Read the New York Times article here.

ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Tune in at 7 tonight to a virtual concert by the Cavani String Quartet live streamed from the Bop Stop at the Music Settlement. Annie Fullard & Catherine Cosbey, violins, Eric Wong, viola, and Kyle Price, cello will offer “Creating Common Threads, a musical tapestry program” featuring the music of Beethoven, Eric Gould and a few special surprises (one involves jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, whose birthday was celebrated yesterday). [Read more…]