by Daniel Hathaway
It doesn’t require close proximity to Halloween to make the combination of Webern, Berg, and Schoenberg sound a bit scary for some potential concertgoers. That might account for the slim Thursday audience at Severance Hall on October 25, when Ingo Metzmacher and Christian Tetzlaff visited music of the Second Viennese School with The Cleveland Orchestra. Those who came got an earful of ravishing music fully as expressive as Brahms, just in a different way. [Read more…]
by Tom Wachunas
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
After hearing the very eclectic program offered by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Umstattdt Performing Arts Hall on October 27, I was finally convinced of something I had suspected on numerous previous occasions: every member of this ensemble, including music director Gerhardt Zimmermann, is an alchemist. What else could explain the transmutation of the instruments they play and the scores they read into vessels of such profound spirituality? [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
I’ve just returned from a trip to Germany, where I encountered three fine conductors, two superb orchestras (in two extraordinary halls), and one stellar opera. My visit was arranged by Road Scholar, a company that offers educational travel, mostly for retirees. I was travelling with twelve other classical music fans, and much of what I am writing here was developed in discussions over dinner or beer. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
In recent years, Northeast Ohioans have had many opportunities to explore the overlaps between early music and certain folk traditions. In the “crossover” program Sugarloaf Mountain, Apollo’s Fire zeroed in on Appalachia as a region where British music of centuries past seemed to reappear transfigured, thanks to oral traditions of Scots-Irish migrants. In its touring program “Adew Dundee,” the Baltimore Consort traces a similar path, with emphasis on the Scots part of the lineage. At Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron last weekend, they treated music from the Scottish Renaissance with charm and virtuosity — and melded the repertoire with grooves and tunes from later folk idioms. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
After serving their country, many veterans are faced with multiple challenges as they re-adjust to civilian life. At the top of that list is reconnecting with and re-establishing a role in the family. These issues were brought to the forefront on Friday, October 19 when Baldwin Wallace Opera presented the Midwest premiere of Tom Cipullo’s two-act, 77-minute chamber opera Glory Denied at Red Space in Cleveland. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
The average classical musician’s biography is a thinly veiled list of names. A performer’s teachers, schools, venues, festivals, grants, and roles may impress when dressed up in prose, but they sit side by side haloed by auras of significance, like hieroglyphs. How refreshing, then, to read a bio that sums up the appeal of a group in plain terms by the third sentence: “Since its inception, the ensemble has been defined by its unique sound, appealing as much through the personality of each timbre as it does through the color and the uniformity of the voices.” This honesty in advertising is hardly the only thing for which Northeast Ohioans can thank Vox Luminis, the Baroque-focused vocal ensemble who performed in Cleveland last week.
by David Kulma
If given a single choice for the first major figure of musical modernism, my choice would be the succulent weirdness of French composer Claude Debussy, who died 100 years ago. Unlike other candidates, Debussy’s revolt threw off received musical ideas in the name of more beauty rather than the ugly truth. He made music more intoxicating rather than more disturbing. French pianist Hughes Leclère connected works by living composers to Debussy’s 1915 Études in his Tri-C Classical Piano Series recital on Sunday afternoon, October 28 at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The purpose of a “New Music” ensemble seems obvious at first glance: to play recent music. But new music in an academic context like the Cleveland Institute of Music is actually about a specific tradition. It is an outgrowth of the high modernist, post-war avant-garde, and traces its lineage back to the second decade of the 20th century. So it is no surprise that the CIM New Music Ensemble’s director Keith Fitch chose to celebrate Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 L’Histoire du soldat on Friday night, October 26 in Mixon Hall. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The towering Trinity mosaic behind the altar at Collinwood’s St. Jerome Church was an apt image to frame CityMusic Cleveland’s 15th season opener on Wednesday, October 24. Featuring violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Edward Arron, this peripatetic orchestra led by music director Avner Dorman enlivened this holy space with two grandiose, yet intricate works by one of classical music’s own trinity of B’s: Johannes Brahms.
by David Kulma
Burning River Baroque’s October 20 performance at St. Alban’s Church in Cleveland Heights was a case study in thoughtfully-programmed, politically-inspired concerts. Titled “Destructive Desires” and framed by informed program notes and remarks, the performance invoked the ongoing #MeToo movement. Soprano and Baroque cellist Malina Rauschenfels and harpsichordist Paula Maust also spoke about their own thoughts and experiences, bringing the feminist slogan “The Personal Is Political” to life.