by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE TODAY:

Opera Philadelphia and LA Opera present a remastering of the 2016 recording of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek’s Breaking the Waves, the work that won the inaugural Best New Opera award from the Music Critics Association of North America. Recommended for mature audiences. Tickets from $10. Watch here. (Opera Philadelphia photo by Nicholas Korkos.)

A rare opportunity to hear Rodion Shchedrin’s 1967 Carmen Suite for percussion and string orchestra presents itself twice: in the latest episode of In Focus with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, that debuted yesterday on the Adella streaming platform, and on tonight’s live streamed performance by the CIM Orchestra under guest conductor Carlos Kalmar.

There’s a new video from Chamber Music at Lincoln Center available beginning today on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society website, and Jim Wadsworth Productions presents Jazz at the Maltz Performing Arts Center with acoustic-electric guitarist Moises Borges.

And composer/pianist Geoffrey Peterson has invited us to share a link to a video he has made. He writes, “As of March 2021, more than 2.5 million people have died from COVID-19. This collection of images captured from around the world speaks to the profound and devastating loss of life. I created this video, and arranged and performed the music.” Thanks to Geoffrey!

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On March 12, 1837, French organist and composer Alexandre Guilmant was born in Meudon. Titulaire of La Trinité for 30 years (Messiaen held the post even longer beginning in 1931), Guilmant founded Paris’s Schola Cantorum, taught Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatory, and left a large legacy of works for the organ — his sole compositional interest.

Guilmant played his Fugue in D at the opening concert for the E.F. Walcker & Sons organ in Latvia’s Riga Dom (Cathedral) in 1884 for an audience of 3,000. Latvian organist Aivars Kalējs played the work in July, 2012 on the same instrument (but probably for not quite as many listeners).

During the Soviet occupation of Riga, the Dom was secularized. But Moscow picked up the bill for the renovation of its famous instrument in 1984 when the entire organ was flown to the shop of Flentrop Orgelbouw in Zaandam, the Netherlands.

While the grand organ of Notre-Dame de Paris is undergoing restoration after the fire, enjoy Olivier Latry’s performance of the Finale of Guilmant’s Sonata No. 1. And for fans of American organist Christopher Houlihan, here’s his performance of Guilmant’s March, Op. 15 based on the “Lift up your heads” chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Houlihan plays a large Allen electronic instrument. Loaded question: can you tell the difference?

On March 12, 1890, Russian ballet master Vaslav Nijinsky, famous — or notorious — for creating the role of the Faun in Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un Faune, was born in Kvev. Although his performance seems to have been filmed, Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev suppressed its release. But Nijinsky’s close counterpart Rudolph Nureyev contributed a tribute in 1980 in partnership with the Joffrey Ballet.

March 12, 1985 saw the death of Eugene Ormandy (born Jeno Blau in Hungary), who launched his American career with what is now the Minnesota Orchestra, then chalked up a record-winning 44 years as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Both heralded and criticized for developing “The Philadelphia Sound,” to some ears everything he conducted sounded the same. Watch a film of Ormandy conducting Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in 1979.

And on this date in 1999, child prodigy violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin died in Berlin. For an interesting look at his artistry, watch a 1947 film of a concert by the Hollywood Symphonic Orchestra led by Antal Dorati at Charlie Chaplin’s Hollywood studios. Menhuin contributes the Mendelssohn Concerto, which he first played at the age of 7. There was no rehearsal for this pilot film — intended to be released in film theaters. The full performance requires a Medici-TV membership, but this clip is free.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC — MORE WOMEN IN MUSIC:

British-American composer Anna Clyne was born in London on this date in 1980, which suggests a jumping off place for more thoughts about women in music (see earlier Diary entries for March 1 & 8).

New York Times critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim chose her short piece, “Lavender Rain” from Clyne’s seven-movement work, The Violin, as her contribution to the article Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music in September 2018. Fonseca-Wollheim writes,

The first notes of “Lavender Rain” form a simple scale, but one that moves as haltingly as someone warily placing one foot in front of the other in pitch darkness. There’s a second voice here, trailing the first like a shadow. Then the sound grows, divided as if by a prism into many lines, and the music embarks on a reluctant, ineffably tender descent. Anna Clyne wrote “Lavender Rain” as she was grieving for her mother. In its somber beauty — somehow both weightless and heavy-hearted — it’s part of a long tradition of classical music inspired by loss.

Her double violin concerto Prince of Clouds, jointly commissioned by the Chicago Symphony, the IRIS Orchestra, the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, and the Curtis Institute, and composed for Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Listen to them perform it here with the Curtis 20/21 Ensemble, conducted by Vinay Parameswaren.

In addition to their increasing importance as composers, women have incrementally moved into all areas of classical music making — at least in recent years. Ironically, although The Cleveland Orchestra was started by Adella Prentiss Hughes — recently honored by the Orchestra in naming its digital streaming platform “Adella” —  it took a long time for women to join the roster of musicians.

The first, principal harp Alice Chalifoux, appointed in 1931 by Nikolai Sokoloff, was the only female member of the ensemble for the next dozen years. She feistily held her own in that men’s club until her retirement in 1974, as Donald Rosenberg noted in an obituary on the occasion of her death in 2008 at the age of 100.

MARKING ONE YEAR OF CANCELLATIONS:

Without many of the usual markers, it’s been difficult to track the passage of time during the pandemic, but thinking back to one year ago today, March 9, 2020 represented the beginning of a flood of cancellations that has profoundly affected the performing arts.

That was the day that The Cleveland Orchestra announced the cancellation of its European and Middle Eastern tour. By my accounting, during the next week, 35 Northeast Ohio organizations cancelled or postponed their seasons, or took their events online.

Now that several vaccines are scheduled to become widely available, some organizations are taking cautious steps to present in-person performances again. Apollo’s Fire is selling seats for its Tapestry programs later this month, and Tuesday Musical will welcome reduced audiences of subscribers to a solo recital by Emanuel Ax in Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s experience over the past twelve months in trying to make future plans suggests that we’re still in for a period of uncertainty — a step forward is frequently followed by a step back. The tour cancellation on March 9 came one day after the announcement of the Blossom and Summers at Severance seasons. Then on March 12, the weekend concerts for March 12-14 were cancelled. On March 24, the projected April and May performances came off the calendar.

On April 5, the Orchestra published details of its 103rd season, followed on May 8 by news of the shuttering of the Blossom and Summers at Severance concerts. On November 18, the Christmas concerts got the axe. On December 10, January and February events were postponed, followed on February 3 by the cancellation of the March-June performances.

Meanwhile, the Orchestra set up the In Focus series to be streamed every two weeks on the Adella platform, and added a number of smaller initiatives to keep some music flowing from Severance Hall.

It’s not an easy time to be running a large performing arts organization. We earnestly hope that conditions will improve in the next few months and that the Orchestra’s generous patrons will continue their patient support until in-person audiences are once again possible. It’s been a long year, and it’s not over yet.

by Daniel Hathaway

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

During Women’s History Month, it’s appropriate to start this weekend’s Almanac with a tribute to American conductor and opera director Sarah Caldwell, born on March 6, 1924 in Maryville, MO. After studies at the New England Conservatory and the Berkshire Music Center, Caldwell launched her career as assistant to Boris Goldovsky, and founded the Opera Company of Boston in 1957.

Her colorful career is touched upon in an episode of Virginia Eskin’s  “First Ladies of Music,” and related in some detail in Richard Dyer’s Boston Globe obituary of March 25, 2006 following her death at the age of 82.

Stories about Caldwell’s brilliance and eccentricities abound. I recall hearing about an almost nightly ritual when her staff fanned out to try to find where she had parked her car that day. And I showed up with hundreds of other ticket holders for a performance of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron only to discover a note taped to the theater door announcing the indefinite postponement of the production. (Dyer notes that she “once sold tickets for Verdi’s spectacular and popular Aida, but offered Mozart’s intimate and little-known La Finta Giardiniera instead”).

Continuing with famous women in music, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was born on March 6, 1944 in Gisborne, New Zealand. After studies at the London Opera Centre, she made an auspicious American debut as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at the Santa Fe Opera in July of 1971, a production that also featured the debut of Frederica von Stade as Cherbino.

Her later career included her appearance as Maria in the “Operatic” version of West Side Story, along with José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice. Here, she’s featured in a 1986 Montreal Symphony Concert led by Charles Dutoit in arias by Handel, Mozart, Bellini, Gounod, Boito, Puccini and Charpentier.

English composer John Wilbye was baptized on March 7, 1574 in Diss, Norfolk. He settled in London, earning a reputation as a first-class composer of madrigals through two books totaling 64 pieces published in 1598 and 1609.

Watch Ars Nova Copenhagen perform one of his most famous works, Draw on Sweet Night, and follow that up with his My Throat is Sore, recorded by the English Vocal Consort of Helsinki during the  COVID-19 lockdown.

And on March 7, 1875, French composer Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure. Franz Welser-Möst led his La valse during The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial celebrations in 2018, and violinist Jessica Lee and cellist Mark Kosower recently performed his Sonata for Violin and Cello on the Orchestra’s Music Medicine series.

It’s difficult to tip the hat to Ravel without mentioning his most famous piece, Bolero. Since former Cleveland Orchestra music director Lorin Maazel was born on March 6, 1930 in Neuilly, France, we can combine two celebrations with Maazel’s performance of the piece with the Vienna Philharmonic. Or perhaps you’ll prefer this version by Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the ensemble he founded to bring together two normally disparate factions in the Middle East.

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

On Saturday, Oberlin Stage Left features the Conservatory’s large ensembles in four newly recorded performances, and classical guitarist Ana Vidovic performs on the 92nd St. Y series from New York.

On Sunday, Boston’s A Far Cry chamber orchestra offers a far-ranging menu of music by Josquin, Jessie Montgomery, Matana Roberts, Caroline Shaw, and Beethoven.  In VOCES8’s Live from London, pianist Joanna MacGregor hosts a program that includes Florence Price’s spirituals, Margaret Bond’s Troubled Water, Mary Lou Williams’ jazz solos from Zodiac Suite, and Eleanor Alberga’s work based on Pushkin’s ‘It’s time, my friend, it’s time’, as well as Nina Simone’s Blackbird, Little Girl Blue and Good Bait, a melding of Bach, Liszt, and jazz.

On the local scene, Sunday also brings a recital from Fairlawn Lutheran Church by young organists Nicholas Stackpole and Daniel Colaner, and 88bit, the alter ego of composer/pianist Rob Kovacs, who plays note-for-note piano arrangements of Nintendo soundtracks live from Silver Hall at the Maltz Performing Arts Center at CWRU. And WCLV’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio features an archive performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo led by Franz Welser-Möst.

Details in our Concert Listings.

by Daniel Hathaway

NEW IN FOCUS EPISODES ON THE WAY:

The Cleveland Orchestra will be filming four new episodes for its In Focus series in March and April for release in April and May. Franz Welser-Möst will lead three of them, and Associate Conductor Vinay Parameswaren the fourth. The mix of orchestral and chamber music repertoire will feature principal flute Joshua Smith in solo works by Takemitsu and Debussy, organist Paul Jacobs in the Poulenc Concerto, principal percussionist Marc Damoulakis in John Corigliano’s Conjurer, principal oboe Frank Rosenwein with pianist Carolyn Gadiel Warner in Ravel’s Sonatine, and principal clarinet Afendi Yusuf in the Mozart Quintet. More details here.

INTERESTING READS:

The passing of Cleveland native Roger Englander, who produced all 53 of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, among other groundbreaking classical television shows, is noted in obituaries in both The New York Times (by Richard Sandomir) and The Washington Post (by Tim Page).

Washington Post critic Michael Andor Brodeur writes about his virtual reality experience at Detroit’s Symphony Hall when he attended a rehearsal of Anna Clyne’s Stride through the eyes and ears of “Ted,” “a standard-issue mannequin head, purchased off the Internet and outfitted with a 360-degree camera and an array of microphones by creator, audio engineer and Clyne’s husband, Jody Elff.”

And in separate New Yorker articles, jazz pianist Dan Tepfer (due to play on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series on April 18) talks about his experiences with tweaking technology so he could play online with other musicians in quarantine, and music critic Alex Ross weighs in on the podcast “Switched On Pop.” Ross writes, “I gave up trying to follow current pop years ago, but I soon found myself absorbed in disquisitions on the creative arc of Taylor Swift. Perhaps the ultimate test of good music criticism is whether it can keep you interested in music you don’t know, even in music you don’t think you like.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

March 5 marks the birthdates of American composer Arthur Foote (1853 in Salem, MA), Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887 in Rio de Janiero), and Australian conductor and virtuoso hornist Barry Tuckwell (1931, in Melbourne). And the departure of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1953 in Moscow, notably upstaged by Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, who died on the same day).

And before jazz pianist Dan Tepfer was experimenting with online rehearsals in 2021, Lee De Forest became the first DeeJay on this date in 1907 when he successfully transmitted Rossini’s William Tell Overture on a radio signal from Telharmonic Hall at Broadway and 40th Street in New York City, to a the receiver at the US Naval Yard — less than eight miles away.

Foote, who was a member of the “Boston Six” along with George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker, was the first American composer to have been entirely trained in the United States. Watch a performance of his Night Piece for flute and strings by Joshua Smith and the Cavani Quartet at the Cleveland Institute of Music in December, 2008.

Among Villa-Lobos’ many compositions are his Bachianas Brasileras pieces in which he evoked the spirit of J.S. Bach. Here’s a performance of No. 5 for soprano (Natasha Simmons) and twelve cellos (students of Mark Kosower) at the Cleveland Institute of Music in February, 2016.

Lots to choose from to celebrate Prokofiev. Let’s start with his Symphony No. 1, nicknamed “Classical,” in a live performance by George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra in 1968. It’s either amusing or maddening to read YouTube comments, but in this case there are only two: “Best I’ve ever heard of the piece!” and “The forces were too large, the tempo too fast. It’s sloppy, by Szell’s standard.” Your thoughts?

For a second tribute, how about another digital road trip — tonight at 9:00 pm to Minneapolis to hear James Ehnes play Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Also on the program: Jesse Montgomery’s string quartets Voodoo Dolls and Source Code, and Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony. Juraj Valčuha conducts the Minnesota Orchestra. Book your tickets here

by Daniel Hathaway

HEADS UP FOR COSTANZO:

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is the next guest artist to appear on the Virtual Donald P. Pipino Performing Arts Series at Youngstown State University this week. The Metropolitan Opera headliner and Musical America 2019 Vocalist of the Year, Costanza has said, “Music written before 1750 or after 1950. That’s my Life,” and has demonstrated that in his CD, ARC, where he brings music by Handel and Philip Glass into the same vocal arena, and through his title role in Glass’s Akhnaten at the Met.

Costanzo will deliver a presentation on Wednesday, March  3 at 7:00 pm and give a master class on Thursday, March 4 at 4:00 pm, both events to be streamed without charge on the Cliffe College YouTube channel.

In advance of those events, you can get to know Costanza through his interview with Zsolt Bognár, recorded in May, 2017 as episode 43 of Living the Classical Life. “In a surprisingly lighthearted conversation about the world of countertenors, Anthony describes how he stumbled into singing and acting, what is unusual and powerful about falsetto singing, and what it feels like to be naked on stage, literally and figuratively.” He begins by fearlessly interacting with a group of sixth graders from the Bronx. Watch here.

ONLINE TODAY:

Feel like a day trip out of town? Take a little excursion to Dallas this afternoon, when Fabbio Luisi leads the downsized Dallas Symphony in Klaus Simon’s 1920 chamber ensemble version of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Click here at start time. Pay $10, and you can view it on-demand until May 31.

And CIM’s Music For Food Benefit Concert makes its third and final appearance, this time as a re-broadcast on The Violin Channel. Faculty members Jaime Laredo, Lynne Ramsey, Antonio Pompa Baldi, and Sharon Robinson join student musicians. Click here at 5:00 pm. Donations welcome.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1824, Bohemian composer Bedřich Smetana was born in Litomyšl. Our reference to Smetana in a Diary entry last May brought this response from Chicago friend David Reithoffer:

I saw with interest in your recent pub that one of the Cleveland Orchestra’s “Mindful Music Moments” is excerpts from Má Vlast, and there’s a recording of The Moldau available as well.

This made me think of a wonderful moment I experienced last May in Prague.  I was a guest of the Prague Marathon. I was advised ahead of time by the founder of the Berlin Marathon who was also present that at the start of the race I would hear the Moldau played over and over. I could hardly believe it, but it was true. I had tears in my eyes as the music swelled to the thousands of runners passing across the start line. I was positioned close, so here’s a 2 minute video I took that shows the start with the music immediately beginning. It takes a moment before you can hear the music well. Keep listening.

In the world of musical theater, subcategory political, Kurt Weill was born in Dessau, Germany on March 2, 1900, and Marc Blitzstein wasn’t far behind, entering the scene in Philadelphia on March 2, 1905

Weill, who was naturalized as a U.S. Citizen in 1943, collaborated early on with playwright Berthold Brecht, and wrote works that crossed the permeable border between opera and musical theater (his strangest collaboration just might have been with Odgen Nash for One Touch of Venus.)

Christoph von Dohnányi led a live performance of Brecht & Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins at the Salzburg Festival in 1992 with soprano Anja Silja. Listen here.

Locally, Oberlin Opera Theater devoted a whole week to Weill in 2014, centered around a production of Street Scene, and Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater and Cleveland Opera Theater created a joint production of Threepenny Opera at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in 2017.

Blitzstein gained national attention for his 1937 pro-union play, The Cradle Will Rock, which was shut down by the Works Progress Administration and hastily moved to a different theater. Leonard Bernstein revived it at Harvard in 1939 in that stripped-down format. Blitztein discusses his musical here.

And composer Bernard Rands was a newborn on this date in 1934 in Sheffield, England.

Last April, Oberlin Music released the album Rands at Oberlin, featuring the recorded premiere of the English horn concerto Rands wrote for Cleveland Orchestra English hornist (and Oberlin Oboe Professor) Robert Walters in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Oberlin Conservatory. Read an article and watch a video here.

Rands’ music was also featured in a concert by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in December, 2014, and in an album by Edwin London and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.

Finally, are any of our readers aware of Finnish composer Leif Segerstam, born in Vaasa on this date in 1944, and author — at last count — of 342 symphonies, some 100 of which have received performances? News to us, but it makes you want to look him up. Here’s No. 288, played by the Turku Philharmonic.

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society has posted the latest Front Row National program from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center featuring violinist Arnaud Sussmann with pianists Hyeyeon Park and Wu Han, violinists Francisco Fullana, Bella Hristova and Kristin Lee, violists Yura Lee and Richard O’Neill, cellists Dmitri Atapine and Nicholas Canellakis, bassist Xavieer Foley, and flutists Sooyun Kim and Tara Helen O’Connor, flutes. You can summon up J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and Ernest Chausson’s Concerto in D for violin, piano and string quartet for free any time you like through March 2.

In more news from the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, two forthcoming concerts have now been cancelled due to the pandemic: the Takács Quartet on March 16 and the Pavel Hass Quartet on April 13.

Also online on Friday: the CIM Orchestra, saxophonist Howie Smith at the Bop Stop, and Stile Antico sponsored by the Boston Early Music Festival.

Saturday’s lineup includes Australian artist Stephanie Jones on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society’s International Series (pre-recorded), and the Cleveland Orchestra’s archived performance of Hansel and Gretel.

Sunday brings a Close Encounter from Heights Arts, the final Oberlin Black History Month event — a faculty recital — and, in case you missed it the first time around, a rebroadcast of CIM’s Music for Food benefit concert.

Details about these performances are to be found in our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 26 saw the births of French Bohemian composer Anton Reicha (Prague, in 1770, who went on to teach Liszt, Berlioz and Franck at the Paris Conservatory and write early wind quintets) and English composer Frank Bridge (Brighton 1879, who taught Benjamin Britten), as well as the death of Italian composer Giuseppi Tartini (Padua, 1770, the first known owner of a Stradivari violin and author of the “Devil’s Trill” Sonata which still frightens modern fiddlers).

And Howard Hanson, American conductor, composer, and longtime director of the Eastman School of Music, died on this date in 1981 in Rochester, NY.

An unrepentant Romantic, Hanson left a legacy of expressive works that deserve more performances than they receive these days. His Second Symphony, subtitled “Romantic” sets the tone here in a performance by the Peabody Symphony led by Joseph Young.

Flutist Erika Boysen illustrates a performance of his Serenade for flute, harp, and strings with American artwork here, and organist Thomas Sheehan is featured in his Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Harp in a concert from Harvard’s Memorial Church led by University Organist Edward Elwyn Jones.

And here’s a performance of Hanson’s mystical Cherubic Hymn led by the composer.

On February 26 of 2013, French organist Marie-Claire Alain made her sortie at the age of 86 in the Paris suburb of Le Pecq. She succeeded her father as organist of the church of Sain-Germain-en-Laye, playing there for 40 years. 

Among her 260 recordings are three complete cycles of the works of J.S. Bach. Watch a brief documentary here, and hear her perform his Fantasia in G (aka Pièce d’Orgue) here. And be a fly on the wall as she gives a lesson to a Czech organ student in 2006.

Some big names to mention for February 27: Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, born either on the 27th or the 25th in 1873 in Naples, Russian composer Alexander Borodin, who died during a ballroom concert in St. Petersburg in 1887, German soprano Lotte Lehmann, born in Perleberg in 1883, and Texas pianist Van Cliburn, who lost his struggle with bone cancer in Fort Worth in 2013 at the age of 78.

Cliburn helped take the chill off the Cold War in 1958 when he won the inaugural Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. Cheered by Muscovites and given the first New York ticker tape parade for a classical musician when he returned to the U.S., Cliburn founded his own competition in his hometown of Fort Worth later that year.

Click here to listen to a live recording of his winning performance of Tchikovsky’s First Concerto. A 58-minute film by Peter Rosen on Medici-TV documents that event for subscribers (watch a free trailer here).

To wrap up an eventful weekend in the milestones department, Gioachino Rossini was born on February 29 in 1792 (we’ll relax the date criteria in this non-leap year). [Read more…]