by Daniel Hathaway
NOT HAPPENING TODAY:
The concert by pianists Emanuela Friscioni & Julia Russ (pictured) at St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills has been RESCHEDULED for Saturday, January 27 at 6pm due to weather. The recital by organist Joshua Stafford on the Schantz instrument at Christ Presbyterian in Canton has been POSTPONED due to weather.
For details, visit our Concert Listings.
IN THE NEWS:
Turmoil continues at Cleveland Ballet. Ideastream reports that “The Cleveland School of Dance is now Cleveland Ballet Theatre. It was started in 2000 by Gladisa Guadalupe, who subsequently founded Cleveland Ballet in 2015. The two entities later became partners, but are now severing any ties. Earlier this month, Guadalupe dismissed instructors connected to the Cleveland Ballet. The company responded with the announcement of its own in-house school, the Academy of Cleveland Ballet. Read the story here.
And Chicago is losing an early music ensemble. The Chicago Tribune reports that Third Coast Baroque is ceasing operations. Read story here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
What? Tchaikovsky wrote a third piano concerto? Partly true. He revised material intended for a Symphony in E-flat into a concerto for a friend, but died before completing the project. On this date in 1895, the first movement of the incomplete concerto received its first performance in St. Petersburg. The second and third movements have been hypothetically reconstructed by Sergei Taneyev and published as Tchaikovsky’s Op. 79 in 1897. Now and again, the three are performed together as they are here.
And on this date in 1949 — somewhat late to the subject — Chicago Symphony musicians refused to play for guest conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, accusing him of being a Nazi collaborator. The complicated issues surrounding “Hitler’s favorite conductor” are the subject of a long 2019 New Yorker article by Alex Ross and a 2021 New York Times essay by David Allen.
by Jarrett Hoffman
Many notable premieres have taken place on this date in music history, beginning in the 18th century with Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony (1787), continuing into the 19th century with a pair of operas — Verdi’s Il Trovatore (1853) and Massenet’s Manon (1884) — as well as Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 (1873), and moving into the 20th century with Shulamit Ran’s O, the Chimneys (1970), Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum (1985), and John Adams’ Violin Concerto (1994).
Another birthday on the docket is that of British-German conductor Simon Rattle, so how about a pairing of premiere and birthday? Click here to listen to Rattle lead Berlin in the Mozart, a performance from New Year’s Eve, 2005.
Rattle rose to fame during his 18-year tenure as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, subsequently taking on the post of principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, followed by the music directorship of the London Symphony.
Starting with the 2023-24 season, Rattle has returned to Germany to lead the Bavarian Radio Symphony, which will allow him to be closer to his family in Berlin. COVID lockdowns helped him make that decision: as was the case for a number of prominent musicians, that additional time at home with loved ones helped him set his priorities straight with regards to the extent of his globe-trotting.
For a taste of that partnership to come, listen to this recording of Haydn’s Symphony No. 91 from 2012.
