by Daniel Hathaway

MISSING THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA:

This weekend, Russian-German pianist Igor Levit was scheduled to play Beethoven’s Third Concerto on The Cleveland Orchestra’s final Severance Hall concerts of the season. Instead, the outspoken winner of the Gilmore Award (sometimes dubbed the pianists’ version of the McArthur Awards) will be busy elsewhere. Playing live from Berlin on The Gilmore’s series, on Saturday at 8:00 am, Levit will begin a 20-hour marathon performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, a theme and two variations which are repeated 840 times. Watch here (probably intermittently!)

The Orchestra’s “On a Personal Note” podcast series continues with yesterday’s release of A Musician’s Journey, Part 1. Assistant Principal Second Violin Emilio Llinás, who has played an astonishing 52 seasons with The Cleveland Orchestra, talks about his journey from Cuba to Cleveland. Listen here.

Today at Noon, WCLV spends its Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra in the company of Bartók, Haydn, and Beethoven, and the weekend’s archive broadcasts on 104.9 Ideastream begin on Saturday at 8:00 pm with a May 2004 concert of Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, Dvořák’s Piano Concerto in g with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 in A. On Sunday at 4:00 pm, it’s the Verdi Requiem from June 2004, with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and soloists Twyla Robinson, soprano, Nancy Maultsby, mezzo-soprano, Piotr Beczala, tenor, and Raymond Aceto, bass. Franz Welser-Möst is on the podium for both weekend rebroadcasts. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

INTERNATIONAL NEWS FROM IDAGIO AND VIENNA:

Idagio, the Berlin-based classical music streaming platform, will offer the first performance in its new Global Concert Hall on May 29 with a recital by Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelson, with performances by such artists as baritone Thomas Hampson, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soprano Kristine Opolais, and pianist Garrick Ohlsson to follow.

Performances will be ticketed, with 80% of proceeds going directly to the artists. Founder Till Janczukowicz wrote in a press release, “The pandemic has led to an unprecedented increase in the popularity of classical music streaming, but almost all of the digital concerts are offered for free.

“In the near future artists will rely on earning an income online, and audiences want more programmatic variety — both now and whenever the current restrictions are lifted. The internet should provide more than archived broadcasts of old recordings: it’s a medium that offers new opportunities, and we want to use these for classical music. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

A LITTLE OUTDOOR MUSIC:

An article in today’s New York Times about the Peace Tower bells in Ottawa, Ontario reminds us that as we emerge into the great outdoors, some forms of music are tailor-made for al fresco listening. “With Canada’s Parliament eager for the bells to sound during the outbreak — for reasons of morale and to provide a touch of normalcy — Dr. [Andrea] McCrady’s performances have become the only sanctioned musical events for a live audience in Canada’s capital during the shutdown.” Click here to access Dominion carillonneur McCrady’s YouTube playlist.

While non-essential travel to Canada is impossible at the moment, you can enjoy local bells by visiting the McGaffin carillon at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle. On Friday, May 29 from 12:15-12:45 pm. University Circle Carillonneur George Leggiero will play music by J.S. Bach, Corelli, Mozart, and Albert de Klerk on the 47-bell instrument, one of about 200 cast bell carillons in North America. You can even send in requests, and the Friends of the McGaffin Carillon note that picnics are welcome, “your car is also a place to hear the concert, and horn honking is an accepted form of applause at the end of the program.” Concerts happen every Friday through November 22. Read more about the carillon and its carillonneur here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEBINAR FOR SINGERS TODAY:

Earlier this month a webinar hosted by The National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, Barbershop Harmony Society, and Performing Arts Medical Association (PAMA) addressed the near-term future of singing during the pandemic in terms that caused widespread alarm among soloists, choirs, and vocal teachers. The video of that panel discussion has received 107,344 views to date.

Today at 5:00 pm EDT, NATS and associated organizations will present a followup panel discussion, “Singing: What We Can Do,” moderated by Brian Newhouse of Minnesota Public Radio, and focusing on “examples of how singers and singing ensembles are producing their art now, as physical distancing guidelines continue to be in place. A variety of guests will share promising projects and existing and emerging technologies that keep us connected and singing.” Watch here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CELEBRATING MEMORIAL DAY THIS YEAR:

Parades and mass gatherings normally take place on Memorial Day — originally “Decoration Day,” a tribute to those who fell in the American Civil War that was first established in 1868 and grew into a national holiday assigned by Congress in 1968 to the last Monday in May. At a moment when the nation is opening up at various rates of speed and with different levels of confidence, how to mark the occasion?

One way is getting outside, while observing safety protocols, of course. Relatively balmy temperatures encourage us to emerge into fresh air and open spaces. In Northeast Ohio, Lake Erie beckons, and it’s a great time to remind ourselves of the enormous resources we enjoy by living in the Great Lakes region. Click here to watch a brief Nature Conservancy video, Incredible by Any Measure…The Great Lakes, and here to see a live performance of Part I of Cleveland composer Margaret Brouwer’s oratorio, Voice of the Lake (the other three acts can be found close by).

On the other hand, some rain is in the weekend forecast, so here are suggestions for indoor watching based on anniversaries that fall on these three days.

Charles Ives captured the special qualities of Decoration Day in the middle movement of his Holidays Symphony. Click here to watch an episode in the San Francisco Symphony’s “Keeping Score” series with Michael Tilson Thomas. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

AT HOME WITH KIDS? A VIDEO FOR YOU:

Today’s 2:00 pm Detroit Symphony Watch Party is an educational program featuring two of the Orchestra’s percussionists in Steve Reich’s Clapping Music and excerpts from Andrew Norman’s Play, which reimagines orchestral music as levels in a video game. Cristian Mačelaru conducts the Norman and percussionists Joseph Becker and Andrés Pichardo-Rosenthal provide the hands for the Reich. Watch here.

ALSO STREAMING TODAY:

On today’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, WCLV 104.9 Ideastream marks Richard Wagner’s birthday with The Ride of the Valkyries plus some Bartók and Beethoven. CIM’s archives yield an interesting arrangement of J.S. Bach’s E-minor Lute Suite for marimba performed by James Leonard. And James Morris and Joan Sutherland star in the MET Opera’s Don Giovanni from a performance way back in 1978. Details here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1874, Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem was first performed at the church of San Marco in Milan, ending a long requiem saga for the composer, who had originally proposed a collaborative work by several Italian composers to honor Gioachino Rossini after his death in 1868. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

CARNEGIE HALL REMEMBERS LYNN HARRELL:

This afternoon’s Live with Carnegie Hall program is a tribute to Lynn Harrell, the celebrated cellist who died unexpectedly at the age of 76 on April 27. The event features Gautier Capuçon, Evelyn De Silva-Maisky, Amanda Forsyth, Zlatomir Fung, Alban Gerhardt, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Johannes Moser, Daniel Müller-Schott, Christian Poltéra, Jan Vogler, and Alisa Weilerstein, with pianist Inon Barnatan.

Click here to watch Harrell’s appearance in one of Leonard Bernstein Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. On the broadcast of March 19, 1961, the 16-year-old cellist played the last movement of the Dvořák concerto.

Two years later, in an audition arranged by his godfather Robert Shaw, Harrell played the Dvořák for George Szell. As Donald Rosenberg writes in The Cleveland Orchestra Story, the young cellist didn’t receive a warm reception from the autocratic music director. “He took one look at the robust cellist before his Severance Hall audition and said, ‘I’ve heard so much about you. I’m bound to be disappointed.’” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1896, Clara Wieck Schumann died in Frankfurt am Main. The pianist, teacher, and wife of Robert Schumann was known principally as a concert pianist, a career she pursued for more than six decades — four of them after Robert’s death in 1856.

She also composed sporadically through most of her life, including two piano concertos (the second unfinished), choral and vocal pieces, and other occasional works. Two chamber works stand out: her Three Romances, op. 22 and the Piano Trio in g, written in 1846 just before she turned 27.

Click here to watch a performance of the Romances by Rebecca Benjamin and Christine Hill in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and here for a performance of the g-minor work by the Atos Trio (Annette von Hehn, violin, Thomas Hoppe, piano, and Stefan Heinemeyer, cello) in a live concert at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S FEATURED VIDEO:

While on exile from Severance Hall, Cleveland Orchestra musicians are keeping up their chops at home in interesting ways both musical and technological. Assistant Principal Trombone Shachar Israel has produced a delightful video featuring seven players that passes the prelude from J.S. Bach’s Third Cello Suite off seamlessly from Mark Kosower to Alan Harrell, Max Dimoff, Brian Thornton, Israel himself, Derek Zadinsky, Jonathan Sherwin, and back to Kosower. The Bach suites provide primary practice, warmup, and interpretational material for a variety of instrumentalists, but some of these performances may surprise you. Watch here (and enjoy other episodes of the Orchestra’s Living Room Concert videos nearby).

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Today’s playlist includes Dvořák, J.S. Bach, and Debussy on WCLV’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, an Oberlin Stage Left conversation with four Oberlin Conservatory faculty members about teaching virtually this semester, Wagner’s Lohengrin from the MET Opera, and, a Live from Carnegie Hall episode hosted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin about the Philadelphia Orchestra’s history at the New York venue. Details here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

MISSING THE ART SONG FESTIVAL:

This would have been an “on” year for the biennial Cleveland Art Song Festival at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and its cancellation has been made more poignant because of the passing earlier this year of its founder, George Vassos (read a remembrance here).

One of the featured artists who would have given master classes and a recital this week is countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. Watch his interview in Episode 43 of Cleveland pianist and host Zsolt Bognár’s Living the Classical Life series. Costanzo 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.” And catch him in action here in a masterclass last February at the Manhattan School of Music, of which he’s an alumnus.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

The Rocky River Chamber Music Society’s final concert of the season will be live streamed without audience from West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church tonight. [Read more…]