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Music From The Western Reserve: pianists Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni (Nov. 14)

by Peter Feher

Even the best pianists only share a keyboard in performance with someone they trust. Fortunately for Cleveland audiences, the bond between two players doesn’t get much deeper than the duo of Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni.

The husband-and-wife piano team gave a spectacular four-hands recital at Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson on November 14, part of Music From The Western Reserve’s 2021–2022 concert series.

You could see the relationship at work on a practical level. Repertoire for two players at the same piano requires a certain choreography. There’s just one of each pedal to share, and the hand crossings left and right — which can be so fun to watch a soloist pull off — get more complicated when another person’s involved. At times, Pompa-Baldi drew a hand away from the keyboard and into his body, making room for Friscioni, and at the close of a few delicate phrases, the two were crouched together over the same final notes at one end of the instrument. [Read on…]

Cleveland Pops: “A Salute to John Williams” (Nov. 12)

by Peter Feher

“And now for the two notes that changed the course of music history.” Conductor Carl Topilow was half-joking in his introduction to the “Shark Theme” from Jaws, just one of many recognizable movie moments from the Cleveland Pops Orchestra’s “Salute to John Williams” on November 12.

But he was also hinting at the composer’s influential, all-too-easy-to-imitate style, and piece after piece proved this true, immersing the audience at Severance Music Center in Williams’ sometimes repetitive but always satisfying musical world.

The signature sounds of these famous film scores are not so much John Williams’ invention as allusions to other classical pieces. The foreboding half-step from Jaws, growing more and more furious in the cellos and basses, shares something with Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony and Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin. [Read on…]

Rocky River Chamber Music Society: Arsentiy Kharitonov, piano (Nov. 15)

by Daniel Hathaway

Russian pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov played the second concert in the Rocky River Chamber Music Society Series on Monday evening, November 15, not in the Society’s home venue — West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church — but at Lakewood Congregational Church, due to COVID-19 concerns. I watched the recital, a hybrid event with in-person attendance permitted, via the live stream.

Unlike most concert pianists, who seem to have taken to the keyboard while they were still learning to walk, Kharitonov only began his studies at the age of 16. But he plays with such naturalness and easy virtuosity that you’d never imagine he came late to the party. [Read on…]

Arts Renaissance Tremont: Cavani assume directorship with Beethoven & Montgomery (Nov. 21)

by Daniel Hathaway

The Cavani Quartet’s well-attended concert on Sunday, November 21 at St. Wendelin Church marked the sixth of eight performances in the ensemble’s roaming “Beethoven and Beyond” series, as well as the beginning of the 30th season of the Arts Renaissance Tremont series.

Now under the Cavani’s artistic direction following the passing of its founder, Christine Haff-Paluck, ART also introduced a new venue for its concerts, previously presented at Pilgrim UCC.

Each concert in “Beethoven and Beyond” includes two of LvB’s string quartets with a contemporary work in between, usually by way of contrast, although in her introductory remarks, primo violinist Annie Fullard drew thematic connections between the pizzicati in Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet and Jessie Montgomery’s Strum. [Read on…]

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