by Mike Telin

TODAY’S ALMANAC: 

Today we celebrate the 95th birthday of Franco-American composer Betsy Jolas. Born in Paris, her mother was a translator and singer, her father a poet and journalist and the founder of the magazine transition. Along with her family, Jolis settled in the United States in late 1940.

While living in the States, she studied music at Bennington, but upon returning to Paris in 1946 she continued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, where she was a student of  Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. Jolis served as Messiaen’s assistant at the Conservatoire from 1971 to 1974, and was appointed to the faculty in 1975.

An active composer since 1945, her output includes Opera, works for Orchestra and solo works with orchestra or ensemble, pieces for large ensemble, chamber music, and choral and vocal works which have been performed by Kent Nagano, Anssi Karttunen, William Christie, Håkan Hardenberger, and Sir Simon Rattle, as well as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Jolas also has amassed a collection of awards from the Copley Foundation of Chicago, ORTF, the American Academy of Arts, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Grand Prix National de la Musique, Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris, and the Grand Prix de la SACEM (Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique).

In 1983 she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held teaching positions at Yale, Harvard, Mills College, Berkeley, USC and San Diego University, Tanglewood, and the University of Michigan.

In recent years, her career has enjoyed a resurgence after she was “rediscovered” by Sir Simon Rattle. Click here to listen to a thoroughly engaging conversation with Berlin Philharmonic hornist Fergus McWilliam.

Click here for a performance of A Little Summer Suite (2015) and here for Letters from Bachville for orchestra (2019). Both performances are by the Boston Symphony under the direction of Andris Nelsons.

by Stephanie Manning

EVENTS TODAY:

The Chamber Round of the Cleveland International Piano Competition continues tonight at 7:00 pm with Session 2. Finalists Lovre Marušić & Martín García García will both perform Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in g, Op. 57 with the Escher String Quartet. Tickets available online both for the in-person concert (in the Gartner Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art) and the live stream.

Also at 7:00 pm is an online concert from the Cleveland Composers Guild. Small chamber music groups made up of wind players, string players, pianists, and a vocalist from the Guild will present works by Ty Alan Emerson, Larry Baker, Karen Grieblin, William Rayer, Dolores White, & Maxwell Lowery. Click here to view. Freewill offering accepted online.

Tonight at 8:00 pm, catch a radio broadcast from Apollo’s Fire on 104.9 WCLV. The program, Virtuosity: Fireworks from J.S. Bach, includes the Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, the Violin Concerto in d Minor with Alan Choo, and “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” featuring acclaimed soprano Amanda Forsythe and virtuoso trumpeter Steven Marquardt.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this day in 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married his wife Constanze, née Weber (pictured). One of four daughters, all of them singers, Weber was a musician in her own right and would later go on to inspire some of Mozart’s most renowned compositions.

Intelligent and musically trained, Weber made a great match for Mozart. The composer wrote the soprano solos in his Mass in c minor for her, and she sang them in the premiere of the unfinished work. Additionally, her love for Baroque counterpoint influenced many of her husband’s works in that style.

“My dear Constanze is really the cause of this fugue’s coming into the world,” Mozart wrote to his sister Nannerl, attached to a copy of his Fantasy and Fugue, K. 394. “She scolded me roundly for not recording some of my compositions in this most artistically beautiful of all musical forms and never ceased to entreat me until I wrote down a fugue for her.”

When Mozart died in 1791, his 29-year-old widow stepped up to save herself and their two children from financial ruin. Proving herself to be a shrewd businesswoman, Weber paid off Mozart’s debts and became quite wealthy by obtaining a pension from the emperor, organizing memorial concerts, and publishing many of her husband’s works.

Mozart’s connection to the Weber family extended beyond his wife. Years before falling in love with Constanze Weber, he became smitten with (and was rejected by) older daughter Aloysia Weber, who later became a renowned singer and performed in multiple Mozart operas. The eldest daughter of the family, Josepha Weber, became Mozart’s first Queen of the Night.

When it came to his marriage to Constanze Weber, Mozart was hesitant to tell his father, who often disapproved of his romantic affairs. Eventually, however, Mozart wrote him a letter announcing his intentions.

“But who’s the girl I love? Well, don’t blow your top. ‘Surely not one of the Webers?’ Yes, actually, one of the Webers. Not Josepha, not Sophie… Constanze!”

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS:

Do they play well with others? Now that the solo rounds have shown the audiences and jury what they’re individually capable of producing from those 88 keys, four finalists in the Cleveland International Piano Competition will play piano quintets with the Escher String Quartet to test their mettle as ensemble players.

The first session takes place tonight at 7 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, when Byeol Kim joins the Escher in César Franck’s Quintet in f, followed by Yedam Kim in Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Both in-person and virtual tickets are available. Click here. The second session happens on Wednesday, same time, same place.

Garage Opera? At noon today, Lyric Opera Chicago presents a filmed version of Yuval Sharon’s drive-through reimagining of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, produced last April in Millennium Lakeside Parking Garage. You may have read about its debut in October of 2020 by Michigan Opera in Detroit, and Cleveland Orchestra patrons will remember Sharon’s stagings of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande in Severance Hall. Register here to view Raphael S. Nash’s 70-minute digital feature until October 29. It’s free.

Support your local principal cello! The Cleveland Orchestra’s Mark Kosower joins other prominent musicians at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival in Stewart Goodyear’s Piano Quartet and Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1. The performance debuts at 10 pm this evening and will be available here and on demand. Tickets are $25.

MAKE NO SMALL PLANS:

London’s 600-seat Wigmore Hall, which has to be one of the busiest recital halls in the world, has announced that its forthcoming season will feature 2,500 artists from more than 30 countries performing in 500 concerts. 150 of those will be live-streamed — a service that some 7 million viewers enjoyed during the past 18 months. Read more here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

It’s a slow day for mentioning milestones in classical music, but here are two.

On June 3, 1929, German-born inventor Emile Berliner died in New York City of a heart attack at the age of 78. Like many second-wave innovators, Berliner has largely gone unmentioned for his pair of contributions to the classical music recording industry. The first was his development of the circular disk that replaced Edison’s cylinders and made the mass production of recordings possible. To that end, he founded several companies, including Deutsche Grammophon and the Victor Talking Machine Company.

Berliner was also among those responsible for the invention of the microphone. His achievements are on display at the Library of Congress (click here to view), including such non-musical inventions as a loom for mass producing cloth and an early version of the helicopter. Somewhere in between falls his invention of a type of acoustical tile.

The second milestone for which we can thank August 3 is the introduction of the Tandy Corporation’s TRS-80 personal computer through Radio Shack, a model that was snapped up by thousands of early adopters within weeks of its release in 1977 for $600  each (some $2,600 in today’s currency).

Lacking such mod cons as the ability to render lower case letters, the machine eventually became a device for tinkerers, even though until 1982, it outsold the Apple II series five to one. Most importantly, the TRS-80 presaged today’s ubiquitous PCs through which we’ve been notating and streaming music, attending classes on Zoom, and conducting our business affairs throughout the Pandemic. It’s difficult to imagine 1977 without access to that magic box, much less 2021.

by Stephanie Manning

IN THE NEWS:

Starting August 6, the Bard Music Festival — on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York — will present “Nadia Boulanger and Her World,” a two-week exploration of the composer and pedagogue’s life and legacy. The most renowned composition teacher of the 20th century, Boulanger was also a talented composer and conductor. In addition to her music, the twelve concerts of the Festival will also feature the music of her precursors, contemporaries and students as well as works by her sister Lili. Read more in the New York Times here.

SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Rocky River Chamber Music Society has announced its 63rd season, which will begin in October. The lineup includes the Auryn String Quartet, Russian pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov, Oberlin Clarinet Professor Richard Hawkins and Faculty Friends, Bob Sneider and Friends from the Eastman School of Music, and the Grigoryan Brothers Guitar Duo. All concerts are free and will take place both in person at the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church (health conditions permitting) and online. Learn more here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today marks one year since pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher died in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 92. A child prodigy, Fleisher performed at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 16.

But it was the Cleveland Orchestra with which the pianist formed the strongest relationship. Fleisher became known for his outstanding recordings with the Orchestra and George Szell from the 1950s and 60s — particularly the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms. Listen to his recording of Beethoven’s five piano concertos here.

Focal dystonia in his right hand created a major setback for the pianist in the 1960s, but Fleisher persevered, turning to one-handed works like Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand. His career path expanded into conducting and teaching, and he eventually made a triumphant return to two-handed playing in the 1990s.

Fleischer returned to Cleveland time and time again, resulting in the longest relationship of any visiting artist with the Orchestra. In 2013, he took to the podium for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Beethoven’s second and third piano concertos. His student Jonathan Biss stepped in to replace Mitsuko Uchida, a testament to Fleisher’s teaching legacy.

In our interview before that concert, Biss (pictured below left, with Fleisher) said of his former teacher: “He really has earned his legend. Not through any razzle dazzle or publicity, but just because he is so inarguably great.”

Photo by Roger Mastroianni

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND EVENTS:

Today at 2:00 pm, the Semifinal rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition continue in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art (pictured: Thursday’s duo photo by Gregory Wilson). 

Rafael Skorka (32, Israel) performs Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story (arr. Kurbatov), Leighton’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica, Op. 24 (“Homage to Bach”) (1956) and Brahms’ Sieben Fantasien, Op. 116.

Martín García García (24, Spain) will play Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie in C, D. 760, Liszt’s “Les cloches de Genève (Nocturne)” from Années de Pèlerinage I, S. 160, Étude de Concert, S. 145, No. 2 (“Gnomenreigen”) and Transcendental Etude, S. 139, No. 10. Skorka and García García will then team up for Schubert’s Fantasie in f. Tickets are available online.

The Semifinal rounds continue on Sunday at 2:00 pm in Gartner Auditorium. Byeol Kim (31, South Korea) performs Clara Schumann’s Notturno in F, Op. 6, No. 2, Robert Schumann’s Arabeske in C, Op. 18, Gottschalk’s The Union, Op. 48, Mendelssohn’s Fantasie in f-sharp, Op. 28, Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. Kurbatov) and Jalbert’s Toccata (2001).

Lovre Marušić (28, Croatia) plays Scarlatti’s Sonata in E, K. 380, Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. Kurbatov). Kim and Marušić will conclude with Mozart’s Sonata in D for two pianos. Tickets are available online.

On Sunday at 7:00 pm at Blossom Music Center it’s The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt. Garrick Ohlsson plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Blomstedt leads the Orchestra in the composer’s Symphony No. 7. Tickets are available online.

At 7:00 pm at Guzzetta Lawn, outside Guzzetta Hall on Buchtel Common, University of Akron, Tucker Jolly leads the 21st Annual TubaSummer. The program features summer favorites performed by tuba, sousaphone, baritone and euphonium players from throughout the region. Lawn chairs and blankets are welcome. The event is free.

Then at 7:30 pm, the Akron Symphony continues its Outside Voices Concert Series at Goodyear Heights Metro Park. Christopher Wilkins leads the ASO Virtuosi in orks by Scott Joplin, Miguel del Águila, W.C. Handy and John Philip Sousa. The concert is free.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC: 

On July 31, 1886, Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt died in Bayreuth, Germany at the age of 74. The 19th-century classical equivalent of a 20th-century rock star, Liszt’s solo piano performances gave rise to such pan-European fame that the poet Heinrich Heine characterized audience acclaim as “Lisztomania.” The composer ended his career as “the Abbé Liszt” after taking minor orders in the Catholic Church.

Listen to two Cleveland performances that feature his forward-looking piano music. Vladimir Horowitz played Liszt’s B-Minor Sonata at Severance Hall on October 31 of 1976, and third-place winner François Dumont programmed his tone poem, Vallée d’Obermann, for his semi-final round in the 2013 Cleveland International Piano Competition.

There are no special Cleveland connections to celebrate for August 1 but how about a little quiz that references classical music figures who died on the first day of August?

1. English pianist John Ogdon died on August 1 in 1952. Which of these composers did he especially promote? a) Alkan. b) Reinecke. c) Busoni. c) Scriabin.
2. Russian pianist Svyatoslav Richter died of a heart attack on August 1, 1997. True or false: In 1952, Richter was invited to play Franz Liszt in a film based on the life of Tchaikovsky.

Click here for the answers to the quiz.

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 7:00 pm, Semifinal rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition continue in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Jiarui Cheng (22, China) will play Scarlatti’s Sonata in b, K. 87, Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp, Op. 60, Rachmaninoff‘s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 and Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story (arr. Kurbatov). Yedam Kim (32, South Korea) will perform Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat, Op. 61, Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 4 in c, Op. 29, and Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. Kurbatov). Chen and Kim will then team up for Mozart’s Sonata in D for two pianos. Tickets are available online. You can attend in person, or watch remotely.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this day in 1970, George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra music director for 24 years, died in Hannah House at University Hospitals — during a Blossom concert conducted by Pierre Boulez.

In his book, The Cleveland Orchestra Story “Second to None,” Donald Rosenberg recounted the evening.

That night at Blossom, the musicians were applying their efforts to Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Mischa Dichther as soloist and Boulez on the podium, when the phone rang backstage. Szell had just died at 9:50 p.m., of complications from a heart attack he had suffered the previous month. News of Szell’s deteriorating health had spread throughout the day, but the orchestra wouldn’t learn of his death until after the concert. 

Rosenberg continues — The Plain Dealer saluted him in an editorial the next day: “Few men did more to enhance Cleveland’s reputation than did the late Groege Szell. To many people around the world he and the Cleveland Orchestra symbolized the city . . . . Szell will be best remembered for what he leaves behind — the Cleveland Orchestra. Seldom has a richer legacy been left to a city.”    

It is in the spirit of legacy that I share some of my favorite Szell recordings. I’m sure many of you have your own list, so spend some time listening. And if possible, share them with a young person who may not have had the opportunity to hear the Orchestra under the direction of the late maestro.

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra 

Janáček: Sinfonietta

Dvořák: Symphony No. 7

Mahler:  Symphony No 4 (Judith Raskin, soprano)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4  (Leon Fleisher)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 ( Robert Casadesus)

Dvořák: Slavonic Dances Op. 72 No. 2 

Beethoven: Symphony No. 4

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Choral)

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Gary Graffman)

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S EVENTS:

At 6:30 pm, the Canton Symphony Woodwind Quintet will present “Summer Serenade” at Tam O’Shanter Park, Hills & Dales Rd. NW, Canton. The event is free but reservations are required. Click  here to RSVP.

At 7:00 pm Semifinal rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition get underway in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ling Ye (23, China) performs Mozart’s Sonata No. 13 in B-flat, K. 333, Richard Strauss’ “Ramble on Love” from Der Rosenkavalier (arr. Grainger), and Bartók’s Sonata, Sz. 80, and Themes from Mission Impossible (arr. Kurbatov). Honggi Kim (29, South Korea) Plays Schifrin’s Themes from Mission Impossible (arr. Kurbatov) and Chopin’s Twelve Etudes, Op. 25. Ye and Kim (pictured) will join forces for Schubert’s Fantasie in f. Tickets available online. You can attend in person, or watch remotely.

IN THE NEWS:

Tuesday Musical has announced its 2021-22 season which will feature VOCES8 (Oct. 19),  Naughton Piano Duo (Nov. 16), The Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass (Dec. 7), Violinist Joshua Bell and soprano Larisa Martinez (Feb. 8), Harlem Quartet with pianist Aldo López-Gavilán (March 1), and Nu Deco Ensemble (May 4). Click here for details.

Following the successful debut of its early music variety show, SalonEra, Les Délices has announced details for the twelve episode 2021-22 season line-up. Read the press release here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

July 29 saw the passing of composer Robert Schumann in 1856, but we’ll begin by remembering British conductor Sir John Barbirolli, who died on this day in 1970.

Born into a musical family in London, Barbirolli began his professional life as a cellist. As a young freelancer, he played in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and in the pit of the Beecham and Carl Rosa opera companies. Never turning down a gig, Barbirolli played with orchestras in theatres, cinemas, hotels, and dance-halls.

His first conducting experience occurred during WWI while he was serving as a lance-corporal in the Suffolk Regiment. In a 1969 Gramophone interview Barbirolli told Alan Blyth:

…. In our battalion of the Suffolks we had a number of professional musicians. So we formed an orchestra and played in the equivalent of the NAAFI [Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes] during our spare time. I was the principal cello and we were conducted by the bandmaster, one Lieutenant Bonham. The other boys knew that I was longing to conduct and one day when Bonham fell ill with flu, they thought “old Barby” – as I was known – should have a go. It was really rather romantic — I was scrubbing the floor in the Officers’ Mess when they came and invited me to take over. We did the Light Cavalry overture and Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite de Concert but I can’t say I recall the rest of the programme.

His early conduing gigs included the Guild of Singers and Players Chamber Orchestra which he helped establish in 1924, and was soon invited to lead performances of the British National Opera Company, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1928. He would go on to be named Arturo Toscanini’s successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943, when he was asked by the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester — which was in danger of becoming extinct — to become its conductor. Barbirolli jumped at the opportunity to help revive the orchestra. He remained there for the rest of his life.

Click here to listen to a 9144 recording of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5 with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli.

Another recording Barbirolli is remembered for is the Elgar Cello Concerto with Jacqueline Du Pre and the London Symphony Orchestra. The album also includes the composer’s Sea Pictures with mezzo-soprano Janet Baker. Click here to listen.

We visit our Daily Diary archives to remember Robert Schumann, who died on this day in 1856 at the age of 46 after spending two years in an asylum in Bonn, having been taken there at his own request after he attempted suicide by throwing himself off a bridge into the Rhine River. [Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

IN THE NEWS:

The Sphinx Organization has announced pianist Michelle Cann, violinist Randall Goosby, and soprano Karen Slack as the recipients of the 2022 Sphinx Medals of Excellence. These three acclaimed musicians will receive a career grant of $50,000. Cann, who recently performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, said that “With this award, I hope to inspire and motivate new generations of musicians by celebrating and advancing works by great Black composers.” Read more here.

EVENTS TODAY:

The Kent Blossom Music Festival concludes tonight at 7:30 pm with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, who will present an evening of chamber music in Ludwig Recital Hall. The first half of the concert will feature Joela Jones (accordion), Yun-Ting Lee (violin), and Richard Weiss (cello) in arrangements of works by Handel, Puccini, Seiber, Morricone, and Piazzolla. In the second half, an eight-piece wind ensemble will perform Mozart’s Serenade in c, K. 388. Click here for tickets & here for link to the free live stream.

INTERESTING READS:

Ever wonder why “moon” and “book” don’t rhyme? Or why we say “unhappy,” but not “unsad”? Check out these two articles on the oddities of the English language from Literary Hub and Aeon.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

July 28 marks the death of a titan of Baroque music: Johann Sebastian Bach, who died in Leipzig, Germany in 1750.

A prolific composer, Bach left behind more than a thousand surviving works, many of them staples in both modern and historical performances. As his eyesight declined in the late 1740s, the composer put the finishing touches on one of his most famous pieces — one he had started working on decades earlier.

In 1724, Bach wrote the first piece that would later become a part of the Mass in b minor, but he didn’t complete the work until the last few years of his life. Though parts of it were performed in Bach’s lifetime, it was not until 1859 — more than a century after his death — that the complete work was first performed in Leipzig. Enjoy this Grammy-winning recording by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra here.

Sir Georg Solti conducted that performance in 1990, but since 2010, the Chicago Symphony has been led by Riccardo Muti (pictured), who turns 80 today. Before his current appointment with Chicago, the acclaimed Italian conductor was music director at La Scala and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Muti is a specialist in the music of Verdi. ​​“Each of Verdi’s operas expresses human nature in such a profound way that we often recognize ourselves in Verdi’s characters,” he said in an interview. “That’s why Verdi will always be of the moment, and he will never become old-fashioned.” Listen to him conduct the CSO in Act 2, Scene 2 of Aida on YouTube.

And on July 28, 1951, the film with the most songs of any Disney feature was released — Alice in Wonderland. Though now regarded as a classic, the film was initially met with a lackluster reception, leading Decca Records to decide against releasing a soundtrack album.

Five years later, the newly formed Disneyland Records and producer Tutti Camarata set out to record a new, non-soundtrack version of the score. Camarata, who arranged and conducted the music, assembled an orchestra and chorus to create this recording (pictured), which was released in 1957. The 13-song album stars child actress Darlene Gillespie, who gives a wonderful performance as Alice. Learn more about that story here, and listen to the album on Spotify.

by Daniel Hathaway

CHANTICLEER UPDATE:

San Francisco’s celebrated 12-voice male choir stops in Akron tonight on their first tour since the pandemic shut singing down for over a year. Read about how the ensemble coped with the situation in this interview with music director Tim Keeler.

Tuesday Musical, the sponsor for the 7:30 pm performance in E.J. Thomas Hall, has emailed these details to ticket holders and prospective attendees:

Seats in the orchestra level start at $19. For the best selection, order on-line now. If seats are still available, tickets will also be sold at the door. 

After the concert, we’ll celebrate with a festive drinks-&-desserts reception for the entire audience!

Complimentary parking in the EJ Parking Deck and adjacent surface lots.

Are you a student? Receive a free ticket! Simply bring your student ID to the EJ Ticket Office that evening.

EJ Ticket Office opens at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. Program begins at 7:30 p.m.

The singers of Chanticleer ask that everyone wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. Complimentary disposable masks will be available at the door.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

This is the week when the Cleveland International Piano Competition moves into a new phase with the arrival of eight pianists who will enter the Semifinal Round two-by-two, live and in person beginning on Thursday at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We’ll concentrate today on keyboard composers and performers who mark anniversaries on July 27.

French composer and harpsichordist Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre entered the Elysian Fields in Paris on this date in 1729. Born into a prominent family of musicians and artisans, she was educated by her father on an equal basis with her brothers, and became an early favorite of Louis XIV at Versailles. She composed in all contemporary forms, although not all of her works have survived.

Click here to watch Cleveland’s Burning River Baroque perform her cantata, Judith. Soprano Malina Rauschenfels and harpsichordist Paula Maust are joined by Sarah Lynn, baroque flute, and Glenna Curren, baroque cello, for a concert in Foxburg, PA in March, 2019.

For a sampling of her keyboard music, listen here to Elisabetta Guglielmin’s performances of several suites for the clavecin. Follow along with the score to see how one harpsichordist realizes the notation of the prélude non-mensuré, a popular way of encouraging a quasi-improvisatory performance.

Another death to report on July 27: Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi in Vienna. An odd feature of his legacy is that the “Red Priest” who authored more than 500 concertos wrote none that featured keyboard instruments. That hasn’t stopped others from arranging various concertos for performance by keyboardists, beginning with Johann Gottfried Walther, who repurposed several for organ solo. Click here to watch Bálint Karosi play Vivaldi’s RV 275 concerto in Walther’s arrangement (oddly attributed to a ‘Sigr. Meck’) on the organ of the Kreuzkirche in Suhl, Thuringia (Germany).

And the harpsichord duet of Tom Pixton and Edward Parmentier have recorded several Vivaldi concerto arrangements for Titanic Records. Listen here to their performances on instruments built by Pixton and Keith Hill.

Moving on to more recent, piano virtuoso-influenced times, July 27 marks the birth of Russian pianist Vladimir de Pachman in Odessa in 1848, and the death of Italian-German composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin in 1924 at the age of 58.

Pachman specialized in playing the works of Chopin, as well as for a long list of performing eccentricities. He was an early adopter of new recording technologies that emerged in the first decade of the 20th century. This RCA Victor Red Seal 12-inch recording from January 17, 1911 preserves his take on Liszt’s concert paraphrase of Verdi’s Rigoletto. And in posting his 1925 rendition of the “Minute” Waltz, YouTube contributor Beckmesser2 commented, “This recorded performance is probably the best documentation of what it was like to attend a Pachmann recital during the pianist’s final years.”

Pachman’s life, career, and eccentricities are documented in exquisite detail in this spreadsheet, compiled by Nigel Nettheim, which provides an interesting rabbit hole for piano addicts to explore.

We featured Busoni in the Diary on this date in 2020. Click here to listen to his recordings of several works captured in London in 1922. Known especially for his Romantic piano elaborations of works by Bach (click here to watch Antonio Pompa-Baldi play his arrangement of the great Chaconne in Mixon Hall at CIM in October of 2020), Busoni crowned his keyboard works with his immense Piano Concerto. Pianist Garrick Ohsson recorded it in the late 1980s with Christoph von Dohnányi, The Cleveland Orchestra and the men of the Orchestra Chorus. Thirty years later, Ohlsson revisited the piece with the Orchestra in February, 2019, and prefaced the performance with some of his thoughts.

by Stephanie Manning

INTERESTING READS:

In light of recent attacks against the Asian American community, prominent Asian classical musicians are speaking out in two recent articles in the New York Times.

In “A Violinist on How to Empower Asian Musicians,” Jennifer Koh (pictured) calls on the classical music industry to do better when it comes to artists of Asian descent. The renowned soloist, who graduated from Oberlin, details her experience as an Asian American woman in classical music, writing: “It is highly misleading to say that Asian Americans are overrepresented in what remains an overwhelmingly white and male field.” Read the full article here.

And in “Asian Composers Reflect on Careers in Western Classical Music,” Tan Dun, Du Yun, Bright Sheng, Unsuk Chin, and Huang Ruo discuss both their shared experiences and individual stories from their time in the Western classical world. Two of the five artists, Du Yun and Huang Ruo, are also graduates of Oberlin Conservatory. Read these powerful interviews here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this day in 1882, Richard Wagner‘s opera Parsifal premiered in Bayreuth, Germany. The German composer’s last completed opera, Parsifal (or Parzifal, as it was originally spelled) is based on an epic poem from the 13th century that tells the story of the knight Parzifal and his search for the Holy Grail.

This was the first work Wagner composed specifically for the acoustic of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which had opened seven years earlier. This year, in partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, the Bayreuth Festival will stream its 2016 performance of Parsifal online for free on August 10. Learn more here.

One of the many orchestral conductors to record the music from Parsifal was Serge Koussevitzky (pictured), who was born on this date in 1874. Listen to his Boston Symphony Orchestra recording of the “Prelude” from Act I and “Good Friday Spell” from Act III here.

These recordings were made during the Russian-American conductor’s final years with the Orchestra, which he led from 1924 to 1949. His tenure was an exciting time of change, as the conductor commissioned works from major composers such as Stravinsky (Symphony of Psalms), Hindemith, Barber, and Copland.

Before his conducting career, however, Koussevitzky was a double-bassist who performed as principal bass at the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. He also gave solo recitals around Europe, and his repertoire included his own double bass concerto, composed in 1902. Listen to a performance by Luis Cabrera Martin and the Netherlands Philharmonic here.

Born in Berkeley, CA on this date in 1921, oboist John de Lancie (pictured) is well-known for his 30-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra. However, his path to get there was not without detours — while serving as principal of the Pittsburgh Symphony, he was drafted into the army during World War II.

While in Germany, de Lancie repeatedly visited Richard Strauss in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and suggested the composer write an oboe concerto. Strauss initially refused, but published one soon after, which is widely regarded as one of the best solo oboe works of the 20th century. The autograph of the score bears the inscription “Oboe Concerto – 1945 – suggested by an American soldier.” Read more about that story here. 

After returning to America, de Lancie joined Philadelphia as second oboe and succeeded Marcel Tabuteau — his former teacher — as principal when Tabuteau retired. He remained in that position for 23 years, from 1954 to 1977, before passing off the seat to his student Richard Woodhams — extending the Tabuteau oboe lineage into the next generation.