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Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Joshua Bell (January 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

WhenBELL-Joshua violinist Joshua Bell last played in Northeast Ohio two years ago with pianist Jeremy Denk, he packed Finney Chapel in Oberlin and E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron (causing a major traffic jam outside the 2,900-seat Akron venue, whose ushers ran out of programs early on). His return to Severance Hall after an absence of a decade to play the Beethoven concerto last night with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra also produced long lines of cars looking for parking and the excitement of a full house — something that doesn’t happen too often for a Thursday evening concert.

The crowd had to wait for the second half to enjoy Bell’s luminous performance of the 40-minute concerto, but what went before was anything but mere program filler. Jörg Widmann’s Lied [Song] and Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite offered exciting contributions all their own. [Read more…]

Review: Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Rarities from the Utrecht String Quartet (January 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TheUtrecht-SQ Utrecht String Quartet made Rocky River the first stop on its brief tour of the US on Monday evening, January 14, in a fresh and fascinating program of little-heard repertory by Verhulst, Mendelssohn and Sibelius at the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. Though only violist Joël Waterman is Dutch by birth, all of the ensemble’s members (violinists Eeva Koskinen, from Finland, Katherine Routley, from Australia and cellist Sebastian Koloski, from Germany) gravitated to the Netherlands and to the charming canal city of Utrecht, where they teach and play in other groups when not appearing as a quartet. When they do, to judge by Monday evening’s performance, their playing is always thoughtful, lively and infectious. The near-capacity audience was obviously captivated.

The program began with a charming quartet by the 19th century Dutch composer Johannes Verhulst (1816-1891), a friend and admirer of Schumann and Mendelssohn who spent his career keeping the “Music of the Future” of Liszt and Wagner at bay. The first of Verhulst’s three quartets — cellist Sebastian Koloski noted that the group had discovered it “in a library” — pays homage to both of his heroes. The second movement Adagio is songlike in the style of R.S. and the third movement Scherzo — the first of several on Monday’s program — owes its genes to F.M. The sweet and skittery opening Allegro and the energetic Presto con fuoco put the quartet’s virtuosity and ensemble playing to the test, and they rose to the challenge skilfully. A few moments of gratuitous chromaticism left only a small blotch on Verhulst’s musical character. (Players looking for new repertory can download parts for all three of his quartets here). [Read more…]

CD Review: Piano two ways: new recordings by Alexander Schimpf and Jenny Lin

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by Daniel Hathaway

OnSchimpf-CD February 1, shortly after his appearance with the Akron Symphony this weekend, 2011 Cleveland International Piano Competition winner Alexander Schimpf will release his new CD on the OEHMS Classics label. Simply titled “Ravel, Scriabin, Schubert” and recorded at the Munich studios of Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio) not far from Schimpf’s home in Würtzburg, the album is devoted to three works: Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, Scriabin’s Five Preludes, op. 74, and Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat.

Though Schimpf confesses in his thoughtful liner notes that “the only determining idea for this CD” was “recording works that are particularly dear to my heart”, once his program was chosen, he noticed interesting bits of connective tissue between the pieces. They happen to be each composer’s final compositions for the piano, “late works” even for those who, like Schubert, died young. For Scriabin, op. 74 was the last music he wrote. Additionally, Ravel and Scriabin’s pieces date from 1914, “a highly charged period in Central Europe in every respect — socially, artistically and philosophically.” And the “dance-like elements” in Ravel’s suite “also determine large sections of the 3rd and 4th movements of the Schubert Sonata.”  [Read more…]

Review: Organist James Feddeck at Cleveland Museum of Art (January 13)

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 by Daniel Hathaway

ForFeddeck-at-organ many decades, regular organ concerts were part of the weekly routine at the Cleveland Museum of Art, both when the 1920 E.M. Skinner instrument could be heard throughout the building from its position in the loggia of the Garden Court and then after the organ, completely rebuilt by the Holtkamp company, came to live in the new Gartner Auditorium in 1971.

In 2010, after spending five years in mothballs during the Gartner renovation, the organ played out once again in a rededication recital by David Higgs, but except for a special recital by former musical arts curator Karel Paukert a month later and a young artist competition sponsored by the American Guild of Organists last Spring, the instrument has been more often seen than heard. [Read more…]

Review: Canton Symphony principals strike an exotic chord (January 11)

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by Tom Wachunas

TheDeJongh-&-Beck January 11 Casual Series chamber concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra at Cable Recital Hall was an utterly fascinating aural adventure. Principal flutist Katherine DeJong and principal percussionist Matthew Beck combined their remarkable skills to deliver a captivating program of works with scintillating textures, intriguing melodies, and infectious rhythms.

Two of the seven works on the program were duets for flute and percussion: Henri Tomasi’s Le Tombeau de Mireille, and Lou Harrison’s First Concerto for Flute and Percussion. The Tomasi piece, with Beck steady on drum and DeJong pure and piercing on piccolo, is at many points a frolicsome dance, at others a slow, solemn march. The performance conjured the spirit of medieval troubadours traversing the French countryside. [Read more…]

Review: Quire Cleveland: Carols for Quire from the Old and New Worlds at Trinity Cathedral (December 23)

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by Nicholas Jones

QuireTrinityThose of us who love choral music have much to be grateful for at the holidays. When else in the year do we hear so much wonderful ensemble singing?

For at least six hundred years, Christmas has been the occasion for composers to write for choirs. Last weekend, Ross Duffin and Quire Cleveland brought us a rich program of mostly unfamiliar treasures. I attended Sunday afternoon’s concert, for which Trinity Cathedral’s seats were mostly full, and during which the sun streamed through the stained-glass windows.

Quire, now in its fifth year, is an ensemble of twenty highly accomplished singers. Their sound was crystal clear, with crisp diction and uniform vowels. They sang with remarkable ease in five languages—Latin, German, French, Spanish, and English—sometimes at breakneck speed, as in Michael Praetorius’s delightful German/Latin “patter song,” Psallite, unigenito. [Read more…]

Review: Pink Martini returns to Severance Hall for joy-filled evening with The Cleveland Orchestra (December 18)

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by Daniel Hathaway

pink-martiniPortland’s “Little Orchestra,” Pink Martini, made a big impression when they first appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra in March of 2010. The ensemble, anchored by the inimitable pianist Thomas Lauderdale and the charismatic vocalist China Forbes (back after a successful operation on her vocal chords) returned to spread a lot of sophisticated holiday cheer last night at Severance Hall with The Cleveland Orchestra as its distinguished backup band. The delectable program, stylishly conducted by James Feddeck (and to be repeated on Wednesday evening), was enhanced by two special guests with Portland roots: NPR commentator Ari Shapiro and clarinetist Norman Leyden, whose performances added special personality to some of the nearly twenty songs — music both for the season and for all seasons. [Read more…]

Review: No Exit at the Maltz Museum (December 12)

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by Mike Telin

Currently onNoExit view at The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is Bezalel on Tour, an exhibition that celebrates the 106th anniversary of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Israel’s oldest institute of higher education and a leading international academy of art, design and architecture. On Wednesday, December 12, members of the No Exit New Music Ensemble and guest performers presented an engaging concert of music by Shulamit Ran, Morton Feldman, Andrew Rindfleisch and Corey Rubin, all of whom are Jewish and/or Israeli composers.

The only non-Jewish composer represented on the program was Maurice Ravel, whose setting of Kaddish, arranged for cello and piano by Nick Diodore, was given a heartfelt performance by Diodore and pianist Nick Underhill to open the program. For some reason it seems as though the area has recently enjoyed a number of recitals of works for solo cello; Diodore continued the program with a vibrant performance of the first and second movements of Ernst Bloch’s Second Suite for Cello. [Read more…]

Review: CityMusic Cleveland with Stefan Willich, Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew and Mount Zion Choir at Fairmount Church (December 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

CityMusic Cleveland’sCityMusicFairmountPews free sets of orchestral concerts — each given in multiple locations around town — have proven to be so popular that Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights began filling up forty-five minutes before curtain time on Wednesday evening, December 12. Anybody who arrived shortly before the downbeat and expected to find a place in the pews was out of luck. Extra chairs in the church’s narthex permitted overflow listeners to hear the concert through opened windows.

The crowd on Wednesday evening came out to hear an overture and a concerto by Mozart and a symphony by Mendelssohn, with a holiday add-on of spirituals and “Holiday Songs” sung by the Mount Zion Choir. The excellent soloist was principal oboist Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew. Guest conductor for the evening was Stefan Willich, whose day job is Professor of Medicine in Berlin, but who moonlights as conductor of the World Doctors Orchestra, an ensemble of a hundred physicians from twenty countries who gather twice a year to play benefit concerts — the ensemble made its U.S. debut in Severance Hall in February, 2009. [Read more…]

Review: Apollo’s Fire: Handel’s Messiah in Rocky River (December 16)

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by Nicholas Jones

Handel’s MessiahApollo'sFireOutside premiered in a music hall, not in a church. The lead singers included at that first Dublin benefit included some of the most important eighteenth-century names in musical theater. And yet we continue to think of the work as if it belonged in a church service.

This year’s performance by Apollo’s Fire shook off that preconception about Messiah. Jeannette Sorrell led a highly dramatic rendering of the piece that made the most of the theatrical basis of the music.]

In the very first recitative, the expressive tenor Karim Sulayman (singing, as did all the soloists, from memory) embodied the contrast between the salvation that Messiah was to bring—”Comfort ye,” he sang, with heart-piercing compassion—and the world’s “iniquity” that is in such need of salvation. [Read more…]

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