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DIARY: Friday, May 1, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

VIRTUAL PIANO COMPETITION:

Piano Cleveland announced this morning that its Cleveland International Piano Competition, postponed until 2021, will be replaced this summer with a special online contest. Virtu(al)oso will allow contestants to record their performances at Steinway Galleries in Cleveland, New York, London, Hamburg, and Beijing for broadcast online from July 30 through August 9. Applications to fill the 30 available slots will be accepted beginning today. Go here for more information. [Read more…]

DIARY: Thursday, April 30, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

UPDATES ON TWO SUMMER FESTIVALS:

Franklin and Diana Cohen announced this morning that Carte Blanche!, the 2020 edition of ChamberFest Cleveland, will be rescheduled for 2021. Noting that every performance ChamberFest has given has been captured in audio and video recordings, the founders added, “While we cannot be with you in the concert hall this June we can come to you in your homes via our Digital Performance Library on YouTube, on radio station WCLV, and with other new and fun ways to connect. With your help nothing will deter us from the mission that inspired us: “to nurture a deep family-like connection between musicians and audiences of all ages.” [Read more…]

DIARY: Wednesday, April 29, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM DAVID BOE & LYNN  HARRELL:

Yesterday brought news of the passing of long-time Oberlin Conservatory dean and organ professor David Boe (84, in Chicago, of complications of COVID-19), and cellist Lynn Harrell (76, of undisclosed causes) who served as principal cello of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1964-1971 (he took up the post under George Szell at the age of 18).

Boe focused more on pedagogy than performing (he retired in May 2008 after 46 years of teaching at Oberlin). Recordings of his playing are few and include performances of C.P.E. Bach and Mendelssohn on the 1982, 2-LP Gasparo recording Organs of Oberlin. He did make an appearance on the 1986 Nebraska Public Television documentary, Wind at One’s Fingertips, about Lincoln organbuilder Gene Bedient’s new instrument for Grand Rapids, Michigan (watch here). Click here to read the Oberlin Conservatory obituary by Erich Burnett. [Read more…]

DIARY: Tuesday, April 28, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

CHRIS HAFF-PALUCK TRIBUTES:

We’re collecting tributes to the late Christine Haff-Paluck to be published on a dedicated page of the website. That includes many heartfelt comments we’ve culled from Facebook posts. Those who knew Chris and would like to submit a remembrance or a photo should send them by email here.

Among her many accomplishments was the founding of Arts Renaissance Tremont. That concert series brought distinguished area musicians to its free Sunday afternoon concerts at Pilgrim United Church of Christ, and was nearing the end of its 29th season when the novel coronavirus arrived. Here are two examples from ART’s video archives: cellist Darrett Adkins and pianist Cicilia Yudha performing the Chopin Sonata (watch here), and members of The Cleveland Orchestra bass section — the double bass was Chris’s instrument — playing François Rabbath’s Kobalds here. [Read more…]

Revisiting a persistent Beethoven myth: was the composer really stone deaf?

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by Daniel Hathaway

By 2020, the 250th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth in 1770, you’d think that every aspect of the composer’s life would already have been minutely examined by multiple scholars. Not quite so. There’s the issue of the composer’s hearing problems, which began to affect him as early as 1798 and progressed to the point in May of 1824 that some eyewitnesses at the debut of the Ninth Symphony reported that Beethoven was oblivious to the ardent applause that greeted the performance.

Kent State University musicology professor Theodore Albrecht, who is deep into translating relatively unexplored Beethoven documents, has turned up some surprises. Among them is the suggestion that Beethoven could still hear — if not well — at the premiere of the Ninth. “All the stone-deaf Beethoven stories go out the window,” the scholar said in a recent telephone interview.

That and other discoveries have come to light in the course of Albrecht’s current research project: translating Beethoven’s 139 “Conversation Books” for the first-ever English edition. [Read more…]

DIARY: Monday, April 27, 2020

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by Daniel Hathaway

IN MEMORIAM CHRIS HAFF-PALUCK:

In a message posted on Sunday, Arts Renaissance Tremont Board President Fred Calatrello wrote:

“It is with great regret and a heavy heart that I must inform you that Chris, our friend, colleague and the moving spirit behind ART, passed away last night with her husband at her bedside. I don’t have to tell any of you what a great loss this is not only for us but also for her many former students, her numberless friends in the musical community and, indeed, anyone who had the good fortune to know and work with her over the many years she lived in and served this community. We all know that in addition to husband, family and friends, Chris’ great passion over the past three decades has been ARTS RENAISSANCE TREMONT; not only did she create the organization but she worked year in and year out to secure funding and artists so that each year we could bring great music to audiences in N.E.Ohio. For Chis, this was truly a labour of love.”

Arrangements are pending. A tribute to Chris will be published on ClevelandClassical.com later this week. [Read more…]

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