by Jarrett Hoffman
It wasn’t unexpected that Bach and jazz improvisation went back and forth. After all, Dan Tepfer is known for not only playing the Goldbergs, but also using the work’s thirty variations as a jumping-off point into his own spontaneity. In this case, for a pre-recorded recital that debuted on April 18 on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series, he limited himself to the aria and the nine canons.
What was unexpected came after that ninth canon and ninth improvisation. Here Tepfer transitioned into free improv, then tied that off in just such a way to set up a seamless reentry into Bach — specifically that aria that opens and closes the Goldbergs, heard here in an especially heavenly form. The only way I can describe that ingenious maneuver, which brought this special journey full circle, is that it felt like Tepfer had stabbed you in the heart, in a good way.
Cuban-American guitarist Edel Muñoz made his third rendezvous with the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society on Saturday, April 17. The first was a recital at Plymouth Church in November of 2012, the second a two-part engagement in July of 2014 when he performed for a CCGS benefit and gave a master class. Most recently, his appearance was virtual. At home in Puerto Rico, he recorded a 45-minute recital and connected online with guitar students from the Society’s educational programs.
Wind players have arguably been the most frustrated instrumentalists during the pandemic. When you pursue your art and livelihood by forcing air from your lungs through an instrument, you’re among the most likely candidates to spread the novel coronavirus, thus your near exile from concert halls.
Les Délices has once again joined forces with Boston’s Blue Heron, this time to produce the impressive video “Machaut’s Lai of the Fountain,” which debuted on Vimeo on April 8, and remains available on-demand until April 19.
As the classical music community knows, wind instruments have been fairly quiet over the past year. But knowing is different from feeling, and a pre-recorded concert by the Black Squirrel Winds on Sunday, April 11 turned out to be even more welcome than expected. Not only was it a rare showcase these days of the beautiful, colorful combination of sounds that make up the wind quintet, but it was played in an impressive fashion that’s far less common than a black squirrel sighting in Kent.
With each of its themed programs, Apollo’s Fire is becoming more than just a period instrument ensemble that gives concerts. Its March program, “Tapestry — Jewish Ghettos of Baroque Italy,” which replaces performances of Handel’s Israel in Egypt, finds Jeannette Sorrell and her colleagues moving seamlessly out of their usual roles to morph into singing actors and dancers, all in order to bring the subject at hand to vibrant life.
Episode 7 of The Cleveland Orchestra’s pre-recorded In Focus series is the shortest so far, clocking in at only 37 minutes. But the emotional impact of Dmitri Shostakovich’s bleak Chamber Symphony in c followed by the calm, shimmering hopefulness of Olivier Messiaen’s Le Christ, lumière du Paradis (from Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà) is out of all proportion to the length of the music.
When my colleagues and I have the opportunity to both interview and review an artist, it becomes interesting to see whether the ideas behind their program translate to the actual performance. Sometimes, from my perspective, they don’t, but the concert might still flourish in some other, unforeseen way.
Over the years, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society has presented a seemingly endless roster of outstanding players on their International Series. That tradition continued on Saturday, March 20 when Emanuele Buono made his series debut with an impressive pre-recorded concert that left you wondering if the Italian guitarist was born with the instrument in his hands.