By Daniel Hathaway
UPDATES FROM CLEVELAND CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY & APOLLO’S FIRE:
The Cleveland Chamber Music Society announced today that the last three performances of its season will be presented live at St. Paschal Baylon in Highland Heights, where social distancing protocols will be followed and face masks required. Free livestream access will be announced when information becomes available. Performances include violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Renana Gutman on April 27, the Junction Trio on May 11, and the last of three programs of Beethoven sonatas by violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong on May 18. Check the CCMS website for ticketing details.
Apollo’s Fire has added a fifth performance to its all-Bach season finale on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:30 pm at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. Details here.
STREAMING ONLINE TODAY:
Former Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor James Gaffigan, who also led CityMusic Cleveland, guest conducts the Orchestra of Berlin’s Comic Opera today at 2:00 pm, but you can hear the performances of Webern’s Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30, Friedrich Gulda’s Concerto for Cello & Winds with soloist Felik Nickel, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 on-demand through April 15.
Ilya Kaler leads the CIM Orchestra in Arensky’s Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a & Herbert’s Serenade for String Orchestra tonight at 7.
And at 7:30pm — from the Wellspring Theater in Kalamazoo — the Aaron Diehl Trio plays works in the early jazz tradition courtesy of The Gilmore.
Details in our Concert Listings.
AN INTERESTING READ:
The New York Times’ obituary for Lois Kirschenbaum, who died on March 27, at the age of 88 tells the extraordinary story of one of the Metropolitan Opera’s most loyal followers. “In New York opera circles, an autograph request from her, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade said, was considered ‘a special type of approval.’” Read about “the Ultimate Opera Superfan” here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Three memorable dates in Black American classical music history appear on today’s calendar: the birth of composer Florence Beatrice Price in 1887, the birth of bass and actor Paul Robeson in 1898, and Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial, sponsored by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, that drew a crowd of 75,000. The performance (pictured) protested the decision of the Daughters of the American Revolution to prevent the contralto from performing at the DAR’s Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.
Having been neglected for decades, the music of Florence Price is now appearing on concert programs everywhere. We devoted much of the Diary on June 3, 2020 to Price on the anniversary of her death, and Lilyana D’Amato wrote about her in our Legacy of Black Musicians series on July 29, 2020. As more and more of her music is being re-engraved and re-issued, programmers will want to keep up with the progress of that project by visiting the Wisemusic catalog here.
Robeson had an eventful career that included venturing into the troubled political waters of mid-20th century America, where he fought against facism but got close enough to the communist party to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. His life is summarized in the documentary Here I Stand, and a sample of his vocal artistry is available in this 1936, second version of Old Man River (note both versions of the lyrics in the notes).
And Marian Anderson, the first Black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, thrilled a huge audience on Easter Day, April 9, 1939 with this performance, accompanied by Finnish pianist Kosti Vehanen. The occasion is treated at somewhat greater length in this short documentary, and the press had much to say about the incident.
The Philadelphia Tribune wrote, “A group of tottering old ladies, who don’t know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness.” The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote, “In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.’s ban … seems all the more deplorable.” — Wikipedia article on Marian Anderson
Other April 9 milestones to note in passing: the birth of impresario Sol Hurok (Russia, 1888), of conductor Antal Dorati (Hungary, 1906), and New York Pro Musica founder Noah Greenberg (USA, 1919), and the death of post-Romantic composer Siegfried Karg-Elert (Leipzig, 1933), who gave a much-anticipated but disastrous organ recital at the Cleveland Museum of Art shortly before his demise. We’ll catch them the next time around.