by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S EVENTS:
Before the megastorm arrived, eleven events were scheduled for Friday.
Most of them have now either been cancelled or postponed, with the exception of The Cleveland Orchestra’s performance with guest conductor John Adams and pianist Jeremy Denk (pictured)— already rescheduled from Thursday to today.
There may be more changes! Keep an eye on this space and on our Concert Listings for further updates.
ONLINE TODAY:
The second season of The Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus series begins on the ensemble’s Adella streaming platform tonight at 7. Aftersilence features conductor Franz Welser-Möst, and pianist Igor Levit in the premiere recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s Vers le Silence, along with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat. The episode includes interviews with Welser-Möst, principal horn Nathaniel Silberschlag and tracks Abrahamsen from his composing base in Denmark through the first performance in Cleveland.
ALMANAC FOR FEBRUARY 4:
One anniversary today comes with interesting archival recordings.
On this date in 1912, conductor Erich Leinsdorf was born in Vienna. The vicissitudes of history took him to New York’s Metropolitan Opera in November, 1937, a few months before Hitler’s Anschluss made a return to Austria impossible. Freshman U.S. Representative Lyndon B Johnson took Leinsdorf under his wing and he eventually became a naturalized U.S. Citizen in 1942. (Read the oral history transcript of an interview where Leinsdorf recalls his experiences with Johnson and the federal government.)
He became the third conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1943 by vote of the board of directors (who chose him over another candidate, Georg Szell). But Leinsdorf received and decided not to challenge a draft notice in October of that year, and joined the U.S. Army for barely a year. By the time he was discharged in September, 1944, sentiments in Cleveland had changed, and Szell had made an impressive debut with the Orchestra. Leinsdorf, still under contract, submitted his resignation. After Szell died, Leinsdorf began appearing frequently as guest conductor in the 1980s. He died
Here are three live Cleveland Orchestra performances led by Erich Leinsdorf: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Schumann’s Third Symphony, and the conductor’s own suite from Debussy’s opera, Pelleas et Melisande.
I can’t resist telling a Leinsdorf story. When I was in college in the 60s, the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society frequently sang with the Boston Symphony under his direction. One memorable performance was Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust’ in 1966 with the New England Conservatory Chorus and a starry cast of soloists: Hermann Prey, Beverly Sills, Charles Bressler, Thomas Paul, Veronica Tyler, Tatiana Troyanos, Florence Kopleff, and Batyah Godfrey.
The first chorus/piano rehearsal on the Symphony Hall stage did not go well. Leinsdorf had the flu and we were singing from scores that only printed our individual voice lines with cues like instrumental parts. Leinsdorf grew more and more impatient and finally said, “I am going to leave you in the hands of your chorus masters and if you can’t learn the music, we’ll replace it with … the Brahms Academic Festival Overture.” And he strode offstage through the central door between the two halves of the chorus — after which we terrified singers spent another hour and a half drilling cues.
I learned only years later that Leinsdorf had never used that door before — which only led to a room where they stored timpani and the organ console. Having made a dramatic exit, he could hardly have crept back onstage again, so he paced for 90 minutes until the stage was clear. (The performances went beautifully, by the way. Listen to one of them here.)
