by Daniel Hathaway

McGEGAN RESCHEDULED:

The Cleveland Orchestra’s fourth In Focus episode featuring guest conductor Nicholas McGegan, previously announced for today, has been rescheduled for viewing beginning on Thursday, December 10. Meanwhile, read Mike Telin’s interview with the always charming McGegan here. The wide-ranging conversation touches on such subjects as “Bach, Mendelssohn, Masks, and Mysteries.”

CHRISTMAS CHANGES:

Since radio stations are already dipping toes into Christmas music, the time is ripe to note some changes to long-established traditions this season due to the pandemic.

We read in an article in England’s The Guardian that the annual King’s College Cambridge Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will be presented as usual on Christmas Eve, but to an empty chapel for the first time since the service began in 1928. “We broadcast all the way through the second world war,” said Dean Stephen Cherry. “The location wasn’t disclosed but it was an open secret that it was King’s, partly because people said they could hear paper flapping in the windows where the glass had been removed [in case of bomb damage].”

The article includes updates on John Ruttter’s annual Royal Albert Hall Christmas Concerts (moved to St. Alban’ Cathedral, but no audience permitted) and changes to Christmas musical traditions at London’s Church of St. Martin in the Fields.

On the local scene, we’ve already reported that The Cleveland Orchestra has cancelled its popular Christmas Concerts at Severance Hall, and that Apollo’s Fire’s Christmas On Sugarloaf Mountain concerts will be replaced with a video recorded at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2018.

Summit Choral Society’s Candlelight Concerts will also go digital, and the Western Reserve Chorale is turning to its archives for three Friday evening winter concerts.

And Trinity Cathedral’s well-attended annual Messiah Sing will be replaced in these days of physically distancing with excerpts from that Brownbag Concert event from previous years.

Speaking of Messiah Sings, Toronto’s period instrument orchestra Tafelmusik has announced the rebroadcast of its Sing-Along Messiah, captured live at Koerner Hall in 2010, when “Mr. Handel himself” conducted the Orchestra, soloists, and “an audience of 1000 enthusiastic ‘sing-alongers.’ It airs on YouTube during a watch party on December 17 and remains available through December 26.

NEW MUSIC FOR VOICE AND PERIOD INSTRUMENTS:

Cornetto virtuoso Bruce Dickey writes from Bologna that he has commissioned two new works for a new CD, On the Breath of Angels, featuring his Breathtaking Collective and soprano Hana Blažíková, and due for release in January. “We have made a video of one of them, a gorgeous piece by Julian Wachner on a poem from 1906 by Rupert Brooke.” Wachner, who directs the music at Trinity Church, Wall Street in New York, guest conducted Apollo’s Fire in cantatas from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in December, 2019.

MEET DAME ETHEL SMYTH:

Another current article in The Guardian introduces a composer almost unknown to American audiences. “Expanding the classical canon brings us incredible music and extraordinary stories, not least that of Ethel Smyth, whose compositions and pioneering energy filled England in the interwar years.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Italian luthier Nicola Amati was born on this date in 1596 in Cremona. The most prominent member of the Amati dynasty, Nicola is said to have greatly influenced the work of Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, although his cellos and violins appear more frequently in museum exhibits than in the hands of today’s artists.

Austrian composer Anton Webern was born on December 3, 1883 in Vienna, and died in Mittersill in 1945. An American soldier accidentally shot him when he lit up a cigar outside his daughter’s house during the postwar Allied occupation. Webern’s life and compositional history are impossible to describe in a few paragraphs. Suffice to say that he came onto the scene writing late-Romantic music like the Langsamer Satz (played here in a follow-the-score performance by the Emerson String Quartet), and ended up crafting exquisite, pointillistic works like his Five Pieces (played here by the Ensemble Intercontemporain under the direction of Matthias Pintscher in April, 2018 — total performance time: six minutes). Cleveland’s BlueWater Chamber Orchestra played the Langsamer Satz during its recent collaboration with Verb Ballets.

And on this date in 1914, American composer Irving Fine was born in Boston. We marked the anniversary of his death in the August 22-23 diary last summer: “His music hasn’t been played often outside the Boston area, but his Serious Song, Lament for String Orchestra, composed in 1955, seems appropriate for the anniversary of his premature leave-taking. Listen here to a recording by Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony from 1962.

Two more historical events pop up on December 3. That was the date in 1833 when Oberlin College opened its doors for classes, making the Ohio school the first “coed” institution of higher learning in the United States. And on this date in 1992 — for better or for worse — an engineer for the Sema Group used his personal computer to send the first-ever text message to a colleague over the Vodafone network.

by Jarrett Hoffman

‘TIS THE SEASON:

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas officially occupy single dates in the calendar, but that doesn’t stop anyone from squeezing all the juice they can from the festivities, maybe for as long as a full month each. No complaints here, especially in 2020.

On that note, several of the area’s musicians and arts organizations are beyond just revving their engines when it comes to Christmas music.

Today at noon in a Virtual Brownbag Concert from Trinity Cathedral, vocalist Jennifer Cochran and The Gateway Band start things off with some carols for “A Jazzy Christmas.”

Fun videos are also in full swing. Watch Firelands Symphony principal horn Greg Hillis use his instrument to celebrate yesterday’s snowfall in Chardon here. (He kept things going today with another popular snowy tune.)

And Opus 216 has been at it for a while already. Check out their recent collaboration with vocalist Ashley Nemeh in a cover of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You on YouTube, then head to their Facebook page to scroll through a seasonal #PandemicPlaylist in which violinist Ariel Clayton Karas plays a variety of holiday favorites.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Composer and baritone Harry Thacker Burleigh and soprano Maria Callas were born on December 2 in 1866 and 1923, respectively, while composer Aaron Copland passed away on this date in 1990.

Thinking of Christmas and love (that other potent ingredient in holiday music, as Mariah Carey demonstrates above), one opera that comes to mind is Puccini’s La bohème. In particular, I’m thinking of the moment when Rodolfo meets Mimi on Christmas Eve entirely by chance — a knock on the door when he happened to stay home for a moment longer than his friends. Let’s just say that things don’t quite end happily, but sticking with that promising moment, here’s Callas singing the Act I aria Sì, mi chiamano Mimì.

by Daniel Hathaway

REMEMBRANCES ON DECEMBER 1:

As we turn the calendar page to the last month of 2020, my inbox has replaced notices about Black Friday deals with reminders of what we might have missed buying on Cyber Monday, and added Giving Tuesday appeals (a fine opportunity to support your favorite non-profit organizations). But in the middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we shouldn’t forget the continuing plague that led to the establishment of World AIDS Day, observed on December 1 each year since 1989.

In May, 2019, the New York Philharmonic dedicated an end-of-season concert to John Corigliano’s First Symphony, his 1990 tribute to those who lost their lives to AIDS. (Watch a Nashville Symphony video where the composer talks about the work, and hear a full performance by the Chicago Symphony under Daniel Barenboim).

In a New York Times article, Joshua Barone notes that a “Nightcap” Series performance at the same time remembered five young composers whose voices were silenced before they reached their full musical maturity. Corigliano, who arranged the program of music by  Robert Savage, Deolus W. Husband Jr., Robert Chesley, Kevin Oldham, and Chris DeBlasio, said, “The Philharmonic is playing my First Symphony, but it is not a complete evening until you hear the music of the young composers who didn’t make it. The real people who died need a voice, too.”

One Northeast Ohio-raised composer who didn’t make it was Calvin Hampton, who grew up in Ravenna, graduated from Oberlin in 1960, and enjoyed a distinguished career on the New York church music scene before his untimely death in 1984.  Known for his Friday midnight organ concerts at the Parish of Calvary, Holy Communion and St. George’s in Manhattan and for his imaginative hymn tunes, Hampton was “a prolific and eclectic composer, utilizing such diverse elements as rock, gospel hymns, synthesizers and quarter tones in his works. In 1977, the New York Philharmonic performed the local premiere of Mr. Hampton’s Concerto for Saxophone Quartet, Strings and Percussion” (Times obituary).

Listen to Hampton’s Alexander Variations for two organs as performed by Brian Harlow and Christopher Jennings at the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Convention of the American Guild of Organists at Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh.

And did you know that December 1 is Rosa Parks Day in Ohio? (I didn’t). The unassuming seamstress was arrested in 1955 for breaking Montgomery Alabama’s segregation laws, leading to a bus boycott that rocketed her to fame as a civil rights icon. Parks talked about that event at the City Club of Cleveland thirty years later on March 8, 1985. Watch here.

But wait — there’s more. On this date in 1707, British organist and composer Jeremiah Clarke took his own life in London at the age of 33, perhaps as the consequence of an unhappy love affair. Countless brides in happier relationships have marched down the aisle to his Prince of Denmark March (often titled Trumpet Voluntary and mis-attributed to Henry Purcell).

And among today’s death anniversaries, British-Irish composer E.J. Moeran died in Kenmare, County Derry, Ireland in 1950, as did American choreographer Alvin Ailey in New York in 1989 at 58, and French classical and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli in Paris in 1997 at 89.

We’ll just suggest one work or performance to honor each of those figures. For Moeran, that would be his “somber and Sibelian” Symphony in g (1934-1937), performed live by the Ulster Orchestra in 2000. For Ailey, his frequently performed ballet Revelations, preceded by Chroma, Grace, and Takademe in a full-length program by his American Dance Theatre from Lincoln Center. And for Grappelli, his performance at the Montréal Jazz Festival in 1984 with Martin Taylor.

TUESDAY MUSICAL SCHOLARSHIPS

Akron’s Tuesday Musical Association announces that applications are being accepted beginning today for its 65th annual Scholarship Competition, which offers $26,000 in awards to university students embarking on careers as music educators and performers. This year’s competition will be conducted entirely online. Visit the TMA website for application details.

INTERESTING READS:

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross considers the many different ways that orchestras are reacting to the challenges of the pandemic. Read What Does It Mean to “Reimagine” an Orchestra Season here.

And British pianist and polymath Stephen Hough hopes that the ubiquitous pre-COVID formula of two hour performances interrupted by an intermission (“interval” in England) won’t survive the pandemic. Read Don’t go breaking my art: it’s time to axe the mood-ruining, bar-scrambling interval in The Guardian here.

by Jarrett Hoffman

SALONERA TONIGHT AND IN THE SPRING:

Master improvisers come together in “Unwritten Traditions,” the latest episode of Les Délices’ early-music talk show SalonEra, which airs tonight at 7:30 — see our Concert Listings for a link and details. Plus, the ensemble has now announced that the series will continue in the spring with eight more episodes.

OTHER FEATURES FROM THE AREA:

The Cleveland Orchestra visits the kitchen of Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream (above) in the latest video in the ensemble’s Music Medicine Initiative with the Cleveland Clinic. Hear the Orchestra’s associate and assistant concertmasters play Telemann’s Concerto for Four Violins in D.

And the Canton Symphony has shared a couple of projects over the last week. First, a young people’s concert titled The Cycles of Life and Music, which “will challenge students to see how music has evolved over time just like the world around them.” Click here to view (and use the password “YPC2020” which the orchestra shared on Facebook).

Second, the CSO has launched a series of lectures called Music History with M.J. featuring Canton native M.J. Albacete. Episodes released so far have focused on Black composers and Handel’s Messiah. Click here and scroll down to listen (or to read the included transcripts, if that’s more up your alley).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

From the passage of the first German beer purity law (1487 — it had to be just water, malt, and hops), to the only known instance of someone being struck by a meteorite (1954 — it left Ann Hodges with a big bruise, some legal complications, and a bit of celebrity), this date in history certainly has its oddness.

It also brings celebrity. Big names in all sorts of fields have come and gone on November 30: James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Evel Knievel, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Jonathan Swift, Dick Clark, George H.W. Bush.

There’s not quite as much star power on the classical music side, but here’s one important figure to note: English composer and organist Thomas Weelkes, who died on November 30, 1623. Here I’ll pass the mic to Daniel Hathaway, who shared a strong list of listening and watching recommendations on the anniversary of that musician’s birth:

And Thomas Weelkes, one of the greatest madrigalists and church music composers of the Elizabethan period was also one its most colorful personalities. Listen here to his Hark, all ye lovely saints above, in a performance by the Sidonia-Ensemble, and here to his Gloria in excelsis Deo as sung by King’s College Choir in 2000. For insights into the craft of the English madrigalists, watch Texting With Madrigals, an Early Music America lecture by retired Oberlin English professor (and ClevelandClassical.com board member) Nicholas Jones.

by Jarrett Hoffman

CONCERTS THIS WEEKEND:

In the words of Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, “Gone fishin’ — there’s a sign upon our door.” We’re taking a break from our Diary until Monday, so here are a few musical recommendations looking ahead to this weekend.

On Friday at 7, No Exit goes miniature in several ways. The concert will last about half the length of their normal performances, and will consist of solos and duos of five minutes or less by Iannis Xenakis, Kaija Saariaho, György Ligeti, Leo Ornstein, Betsy Jolas, and Charles Delaney. More info here.

Then on Sunday at 8 — live as part of the Silver Hall series — Daniel Shapiro continues his journey through the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas with the Sonatina in G (Op. 79), Sonata No. 4 (Op. 7), the famous “Moonlight” Sonata, and its lesser-known bunkmate in Op. 27. Click here at start time.

Speaking of Beethoven cycles, we’ll have to wait until May 2021 for James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong to finish up their three-part series covering the composer’s complete violin sonatas for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society. But, as an alternative, artistic director Eric Charnofsky caught up with the duo to find out what they’ve been up to since COVID struck, and to hear some music — movements from Beethoven sonatas, yes, but also works by Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov. Listen here on the Society’s “Safe With Sound” series.

GRAMMY NOMINATIONS HAVE BEEN RELEASED…

…and Cleveland’s Azica Records is on the list. They’re represented by the Dover Quartet’s October 2019 album The Schumann Quartets in the category of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. (Listen on Spotify or Apple Music, and see the complete list of nominations here.)

The album was produced by Alan Bise (right) and engineered by Azica’s founder Bruce Egre (left), who sadly passed away in September of this year. Bise wrote to us yesterday: “It’s very bittersweet not to be able to celebrate with Bruce — I’m really missing him today.” Read an obituary for Egre here from Brown-Forward Funeral Home.

Back in 2015, Bise and Egre spoke to ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin about the fascinating and ever-evolving recording industry — streaming, physical CDs, and more. We also got a taste of their humble personalities:

Why did Bruce Egre start Azica Records? “Perhaps I was a little ignorant,” he answered with a laugh.

Read that interview here.

AS FOR THANKSGIVING DAY:

No history or musical recommendations this time, just our very best wishes for the holiday — and a reminder that Zoom is lifting its 40-minute limit for group calls starting at midnight on November 26, and lasting through 6 am ET on November 27. So enjoy your screen time with anyone who’s out of reach, and if needed, start planning ahead for a new excuse to hang up.

by Daniel Hathaway

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA POWER OF MUSIC VIDEOS:

A series of videos to be released weekly over social media for the next 7-10 weeks finds Assistant Concertmaster Jessica Lee and her colleagues fanning out through the community to play in various businesses in Greater Cleveland, “to bring these places back into people’s lives while we are less able to visit and enjoy them.” The series is part of the Music Medicine Initiative: The Power of Music for Health and Well-Being, a community collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Clinic’s Art + Design Institute.

In the first video, released on Monday, Lee joins Yun-Ting Lee, Wesley Collins, and Dane Johansen at Luna Bakery in Cleveland Heights for the third movement of Debussy’s String Quartet.

BW ROCK OPERA FEATURED IN AMERICAN THEATRE:

Not one to be deterred by a mere pandemic, Baldwin Wallace Musical Theatre Director Victoria Bussert forged ahead with plans to produce Spring Awakening last week.

“What would a pandemic-era production look like, and how would people see it? How could you perform group numbers when unmasked group singing is verboten? What about kissing? And most importantly, how would you keep everyone safe?” Read the article here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On November 24, 1868, American composer and pianist Scott Joplin was born near Marshall, Texas. Most famous for single-handedly inventing ragtime — a syncopated American genre revived by William Bolcom and William Albright, who introduced the young musicologist Joshua Rifin to Joplin’s music in 1968, and further popularized in the movie The Sting — Joplin wrote two operas as well. The materials for A Guest of Honor have been lost, probably seized by a rooming house owner in lieu of rent during a tour in 1904, but Treemonisha enjoyed a full production by Houston Grand Opera in May, 1975. Watch a video (with subtitles in Portuguese!) here.

Back to ragtime: Joplin made seven pianola rolls in 1916 including his most famous piece, the Maple Leaf Rag. In 1970, Rifkin’s Nonesuch recording of Joplin piano rags was the label’s first to sell a million copies.

Also born on November 24 (in 1934), Russian composer Alfred Schnittke adopted what he called his polystylistic technique in works like his remarkable Concerto Grosso No. 1, performed live in Moscow in 2004 by Gidon Kremer, Tatiana Grindenko and Kremerata Baltica.

On November 24, 1940, American jazz composer Wendell Logan was born in Thompson, Georgia. He joined the Oberlin Conservatory Faculty and founded the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble in 1973, later developing a jazz curriculum for the school, which adopted admission standards for jazz students in 1991. Watch a shaky cell phone video of Logan speaking at the dedication of the Kohl Jazz Studies Building in 2010 (he died later that year).

And listen to a February, 1991 recording of Logan’s Roots, Branches, Shapes and Shades (of Green), commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, composed for pianist Neal Creque, and first performed under the direction of Edwin London in February, 1991.

Finally, multi-genre double bass phenomenon and composer Edgar Meyer was born on this date in 1960. ChamferFest Cleveland violinist David Bowlin and bassist Nathan Farrington performed the third movement of his Concerto Duo at The Wine Spot in June, 2014. Watch here.

by Jarrett Hoffman

LOCAL 4 & ASO: BRIDGETOWER & “KREUTZER”

Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata has recently cropped up in a couple places in the area. First, violinist Emily Cornelius (above, left) played it during last week’s recital sponsored by the Local 4 Music Fund. She also shared some of its complicated and frankly strange history.

That includes how Beethoven finished it so late that violinist George Bridgetower (center) had to sight-read the premiere — which turned out to be very well received. Soon afterwards, the two had a falling out, and the violinist’s name was withdrawn from the work’s dedication. (That story involves some alcohol, and an off-color remark about a woman Beethoven admired.)

Details aside, the fact is that as a result of that argument, history has largely lost sight of an important Black violinist. Instead, the name that lives on in the piece is that of Rodolphe Kreutzer — one of the great virtuosos of his era, to be sure, but who never actually played the sonata, and who even looked down upon it.

The fraught relationship between Bridgetower and Beethoven is the backdrop for the first several entries in the Akron Symphony’s new podcast, Unorchestrated, co-hosted by music director Christopher Wilkins and director of marketing Thomas Moore.

Joining them in the opening 14-part series is Akron-born poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove (above, right). They discuss her book of poems Sonata Mulattica, which uses fact and fiction to tell the story of Bridgetower and to explore the nature of fame and of public memory. Three episodes have been released so far — click here to find out where you can listen, and here to watch last week’s Local 4 concert.

ONLINE TODAY:

Locally, tonight brings two live-streamed performances from area music schools: check out the CIM Orchestra or the Kent State Percussion Ensemble, both at 7. And if you’re curious about any streamed events further afield, check out the weekly guide from Musical America.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

It doesn’t often take long to be drawn into the flavorful and expressive, yet stylistically very different, music of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla and Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who were both born on this date in history — in 1876 and 1933, respectively. That’s certainly the case in the two works with which we’ll commemorate them today, which don’t waste any time ramping up their energy.

Listen to Penderecki’s Duo Concertante in a performance by violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti and bassist Nathan Farrington from ChamberFest Cleveland’s 2018 season. And as for de Falla, here’s a unique arrangement of selections from his El amor brujo, thanks to the Davin-Levin Duo (CIM faculty guitarist Colin Davin and Dallas Symphony principal harp Emily Levin).

Photo of Rita Dove by Fred Viebahn

by Daniel Hathaway

STREAMING HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEKEND:

Locally-sponsored events you can enjoy from the comfort of your domicile include a choral concert from the University of Akron, an International Series recital by Raphael Feuillatre from the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society (read Jarrett Hoffman’s preview interview here), the first collaboration between BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Verb Ballets (read my conversation with BlueWater Artistic Director Daniel Meyer here), an Oberlin Stage Left concert by the Oberlin Orchestra, Sinfonietta, and Contemporary Music Ensemble, and a concert by the Lunaris, the University of Akron’s graduate woodwind quintet. See the Concert Listings for details

Moving to the southern end of the state, on Saturday evening at 8:00 pm, the Cincinnati Symphony will stream a free digital concert featuring New York Philharmonic principal Anthony McGill in the premiere of You Have the Right to Remain Silent, a new clarinet concerto by Anthony Davis, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in music for his opera The Central Park Five. (Rehearsal photo above.) It’s part of a program led by Louis Langree that also includes Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 and Julia Perry’s Homunculus C.F. In a preview article in WVXU News, Julie Coppens writes

Seasoned as he is, “You Have the Right to Remain Silent” handed McGill some new challenges: it’s his first major performance on the super-sized (and much deeper-voiced) contra-alto clarinet; his first time improvising a solo against a Kurzweil synthesizer, which lends some otherworldly effects; and a rare musical exploration of racism in the American criminal justice system. He’s certainly never been Mirandized on stage before—but this weekend’s free “Live From Music Hall” streaming concert will take viewers deep into all those experiences and more, combining the gritty intimacy of a TV police drama with the transcendence of symphonic creation and collaboration.

MORE COVID-19 UPDATES:

Following the announcement of a new, statewide public health advisory, Apollo’s Fire has announced that its December performances, originally planned to be hybrids offering patrons the choice of in-person attendance or high-quality videos to be available the week after the live concerts, will now go entirely digital.

And the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is closed to the public beginning on November 20 for an indefinite period of time. For information about online programs and other services, visit the museum’s website.

WEEKEND ALMANAC:

November 22 marks the feast day of Cecilia, a Roman Empire-era virgin martyr who has somehow become the patron saint of musicians, and in whose name celebratory odes have been penned by poets and composers over the last few centuries.

Both Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten — England’s most celebrated composers — had the honor of being born on St. Cecilia’s Day, as did Arthur Seymour Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan and D’Oyly Carte Opera fame.

Purcell straddled the old era of viols and the new age of violins at the British royal court, steeping himself in the long tradition of viol consort music before continuing his career as a church and theater composer who wholeheartedly embraced the new instrumental tastes imported from the French court, and managed to jam as much music into his brief lifespan as Mozart did — both died in their mid-30s.

Before her recent retirement, Oberlin viola da gamba and cello professor Catharina Meints gathered a consort of guests to present an entire concert devoted to Purcell’s Fantasias for viols on September 13, 2019. Read about it here, and watch the concert on the June 18, 2020 episode of Oberlin Stage Left here. (The viols segment begins at 20:48.)

Purcell served as organist of Westminster Abbey, where he wrote and performed such modern works as his verse-anthem Rejoice in the Lord Alway, sung here with organ accompaniment in Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral on October 5, 2015 on the program “The Remarkable Mr. Henry Purcell.” David Acres conducts Contrapunctus Cleveland.

Benjamin Britten wrote his Hymn to St. Cecilia in 1942 on the high seas while returning from a sojourn in America, setting a striking poem by W.H. Auden. Listen to a performance by Britain’s Voces 8 here.

Previously unreleased works by Britten have regularly shown up since his death in 1976, among them his Gerard Manley Hopkins settings in A.M.D.G. (“Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam”, the motto of the Jesuit order to which Hopkins belonged). One of the most beguiling movements is “Rosa Mystica,” sung here by Cleveland Chamber Choir under the direction of Scott MacPherson in March, 2019.

And for listeners who only know the theater music of Arthur Sullivan, here are two little gems to enjoy (we’ll spare you The Lost Chord!)

His solo song, Orpheus With His Lute, from a suite of Shakespeare settings, celebrates another patron saint of music, the god who could make mountaintops and trees “bow their heads when he did sing.” Dame Janet Baker sings it here with Gerald Moore at the piano.

Then there’s Sullivan’s The Long Day Closes, a quintessentially Victorian meditation on death composed in 1868 that was often sung at funerals for members of the D’Oyly Carte Company. The King’s Singers perform it here on the BBC Proms in 2008.

by Daniel Hathaway

TWO CHEERS FOR A.I.:

Viewers who hopped onto the Cleveland Musicians Local 4  “Tuning In” performance by violinist Emily Cornelius and Pianist Eric Charnofsky last night witnessed a jarring interruption when the Facebook Live stream was shut down — more than once. It seems that the FB bots that spread out over the network to nab copyright infringements mistook the live performance for a commercial recording. Local 4 Music Fund Executive Director Amber Rogers writes, “If you want to hear the performance SO GOOD that Facebook shut it down TWICE, it’s here, for you.”

MUSEUM TO CLOSE TEMPORARILY:

The Cleveland Museum of Art is responding to the new surge in COVID-19 cases by closing its doors for the second time. The current interruption is planned to last from today through December 16. In the meanwhile, the Museum notes that “the CMA will continue to offer dynamic, online art experiences. Remember: Home Is Where the Art Is offers visitors a chance to explore the wealth of digital resources that the CMA has to offer.”

HAPPENING ONLINE TODAY:

Streamed concerts by students in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Advanced Trio Program and CWRU’s Symphonic Winds are available today. See the Concert Listings for details.

And while staying home in accordance with the most recent state guidelines, have a look at the wealth of online performances listed in Musical America’s Guide (follow the link at the top of our Concert Listings). Among today’s highlights, pianist Lang Lang plays J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations from Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, where the composer is buried.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

November 20 obits include the passing of Renaissance composer Pierre de la Rue in Courtrai, Belgium in 1518 and Russian composer Anton Rubenstein in Peterhof in 1894, as well as that of English musician John Shore in 1752, who had invented the tuning fork in 1711 and presented one to Handel.

On the other end of the life cycle, American multimedia composer and innovative singer Meredith Monk was born in Lima, Peru on this date in 1942. Alan Pierson, Artistic Director of Alarm Will Sound talks to her about her piece Anthem in a recent interview. Watch 21 remote performers play the piece here in real time thanks to a platform Alarm Will Sound has developed during the pandemic.

Finally, on this date in 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale attacked and sank the Nantucket whaling ship Essex 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America. That event inspired Herman Melville’s 1851 more-than-a-novel, Moby-Dick, and in turn, moved American composer Jake Heggie to write his opera of the same name on commission from Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, State Opera of South Australia and Calgary Opera. I saw the premiere in Dallas in April, 2010 along with colleagues from the Music Critics Association of North America.

Heggie talked about the process of composing the work in a University of California TV interview in 2012. No time like the present to crack open Melville’s magnum opus, which may be one of those classics we’ve never gotten around to reading. (The author’s Billy Budd also inspired the eponymous opera by Benjamin Britten.)

by Daniel Hathaway

THE VIRUS THAT STOLE CHRISTMAS:

Early on Wednesday afternoon, The Cleveland Orchestra announced that its entire series of Christmas Concerts — already scaled down to eliminate choral music — will be cancelled “due to the recent and continued rise of positive cases of Covid-19 across the state in order to maintain the health and safety of audiences, musicians, staff and volunteers.”

Ticket holders for the fifteen performances scheduled from December 10-23 have the option of donating their tickets back to the Orchestra and receiving a tax receipt, exchanging their tickets for a gift certificate, or receiving a refund. Orchestra President and CEO André Gremillet explains the decision in a video.

ONLINE TODAY — LOCALLY AND NATIONALLY:

Check our Concert Listings for details about today’s Intensive Duo Recital from CIM, a program of chamber music by the Case Western Baroque Chamber Ensembles, Local 4’s latest “Tuning In” performance by violinist Emily Cornelius and Pianist Eric Charnofsky, an Oberlin master class with Lawrence Brownlee, and Baldwin Wallace’s rock opera, A Spring Awakening.

Farther afield, ChamberFest Cleveland wants to tip you off to a performance by pianist Roman Rabinovich on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series. And fans of Cleveland guest performers and composers may want to catch a program of music by George Walker at the Baruch College Performing Arts Center, and a 92nd St. Y recital by the Emerson String Quartet with Yefim Bronfman. And then there’s a Live at Carnegie Hall program remembering the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. See the Musica America guide linked at the top of our Concert Listings page for more information.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two eminent composers left this life on November 19, due in both cases to microbes: German Johann Hermann Schein (of the plague) in 1630 in Leipzig, and Franz Peter Schubert (of typhus) in 1828 in Vienna.

Schein, a friend of Heinrich Schütz who was likewise influenced by early Italian Baroque music, preceded J.S. Bach at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, and wrote equal quantities of vocal and instrumental music. His instrumental suites, collected in the 1617 publication Banchetto musicale, were meant to be played during dinner, as the title suggests.

Visit the special sound world of Schein’s era with Intrada 21, played on the wonderful, buzzy instruments of the curtal and rackett family by the Unholy Rackett ensemble.

Schein’s sacred music is replete with madrigalesque word painting, as you can hear in his 1623 cycle Israelis Brünnlein, performed by Gli Angeli Genève at the Geertekerk in Utrecht in 2011. Zero in on one of the movements, the motet Die mit Tränen säen (“Those who sow with tears”), with Philip Herreweghe and the Ensemble Vocal Européen in this follow-along-with-the-score performance. 

Schubert is so ubiquitous in the concert hall that we’ll just give a tip of the hat to his wonderful cello quintet, performed here (first movement only) on a ChamberFest Cleveland concert in Harkness Chapel in 2015, before we move on to less-familiar repertoire.

Those works would include Schubert’s songs for male chorus, which imbibe the spirit of Austro-German Romanticism (quite literally — many of them are drinking songs). Robert Shaw recorded ten of them in 1992 with an ensemble drawn from the Robert Shaw Chorale. Listen here.

The spirit of the forest is invoked both musically and instrumentally in Schubert’s Nachtgesang im Walde for male voices and four valve horns, performed here by members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Vienna Symphony.

Even more emblematic of Schubert’s philosophical world are his three settings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (“The soul of mankind is like water”). One is for unaccompanied male chorus, an entirely different setting that the composer left unfinished adds piano, and the remarkable third version — again completely different — adds an ensemble of low strings. Listen to No. 3 as performed in 2011 by the Norwegian Soloist Choir and the Oslo Camerata, directed by Grete Pedersen.