by Daniel Hathaway
Joseph Haydn’s two great oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, came along late in his life after the composer had visited London and was impressed by Handel’s large dramatic works for chorus and orchestra. After bravely performing a stripped-down version of The Seasons on Thursday — two of the soloists were ailing — Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in an enthralling performance of the complete oratorio on Saturday evening. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Orchestra has been tweaking the format for its Fridays@7 concerts. They were originally conceived as hour-long, straight-through performances preceded and followed by non-classical genres of music performed in the lobbies in a party ambiance with food and drink. On January 19, the concert — all-Beethoven — was nearly full-length and included an intermission, but as an innovation, it introduced informal conversations between orchestra musicians and Franz Welser-Möst. Severance Hall was packed with a multigenerational audience whose energy helped make the evening a celebration. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Stevens
In a series of letters around the turn of the 20th century, playwright Anton Chekhov advised colleagues on a key dramatic principle of his: if one directs the audience’s attention toward a loaded gun on the stage in Act I, then the weapon should fire by the end of the play. A performance by Ars Futura last week recalled this rule. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland-based period instrument ensemble Les Délices generally traffics in French Baroque music. That national repertoire overlays special mannerisms onto forms and harmonic progressions that are otherwise relatively familiar to our ears. But when Debra Nagy takes her colleagues and audiences back another three or four hundred years on an excursion into the French 14th century, we enter a musical world that operates under very different rules. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
Last Tuesday evening the Cleveland Orchestra under new Assistant Conductor Vinay Parameswaran performed Danny Elfman’s imaginative score to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas live with visuals and sound track. Paramesaran’s coordination was impeccable and the orchestra sparkled with beautiful timbres and ensemble. Burton wrote the original poem that inspired the movie in 1982. Disney began considering its development as a horror short or 30-minute television special, and ultimately released the full-length movie in 1993. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The ninth annual edition of Quire Cleveland’s “Carols for Quire IX from the Old and New Worlds” offered a pleasing respite from both the British cathedral and collegiate chapel carol traditions so commonly emulated in the United States, as well as the popular symphonic Christmas concerts. At first glance, the program seemed quite austere: at least in the U.S., names like Lully, Rameau, and DuFay are not normally associated with Christmas music. I attended the first of three performances, on Friday, December 15 at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Cleveland. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Russian pianist Nikita Mndoyants chose 29 short works — the longest just over four minutes — for his debut recording on the Steinway & Sons label, proving that sublimity can be achieved in very small stretches of time. The composers would agree. Beethoven’s Op. 126 Bagatelles, Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, and Prokofiev’s Sarcasms were highly thought of by their creators, even though their formats left little room for the development of ideas. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Recorded live at performances in April of 2017, Ross W. Duffin’s reconstruction of Richard Davy’s St. Matthew Passion was three decades in the making. The original work, the earliest polyphonic passion setting by a known composer, is uniquely but only partially preserved at the end of the early 15th-century Eton Choirbook. Duffin supplied music for eleven missing movements at the beginning of the work, as well as the missing voices for the next dozen movements for which only alto and bass parts survive. [Read more…]
by Hannah Schoepe
Capturing the essence of human emotions, Brahms’s cello sonatas are undeniable gems. Cleveland Orchestra cellist Brian Thornton and pianist Spencer Myer share a beautiful interpretation of the sonatas in their new album Johannes Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano, released on the Steinway & Sons record label. The playing on the album is magnificent, and the balance between the players is beautiful. [Read more…]
by Hannah Schoepe
In their latest album, Magnum Mysterium: Advent & Christmas Music for Lute and Voice, the Cleveland-based Duo Mignarda creates a sense of historical purity — the perfect tranquil holiday setting. Released on the group’s personal label, the CD was recorded in Immaculate Conception Church and the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Cleveland in 2016. Mezzo-soprano Dona Stewart and lutenist Ron Andrico are joined by double harpist Frederick Lautzenheiser, who adds texture and color to several tracks. [Read more…]