by Mike Telin
TODAY’S EVENTS:
At 7:00 pm, Semifinal rounds of the Cleveland International Piano Competition continue in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Jiarui Cheng (22, China) will play Scarlatti’s Sonata in b, K. 87, Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp, Op. 60, Rachmaninoff‘s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 and Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story (arr. Kurbatov). Yedam Kim (32, South Korea) will perform Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat, Op. 61, Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 4 in c, Op. 29, and Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. Kurbatov). Chen and Kim will then team up for Mozart’s Sonata in D for two pianos. Tickets are available online. You can attend in person, or watch remotely.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this day in 1970, George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra music director for 24 years, died in Hannah House at University Hospitals — during a Blossom concert conducted by Pierre Boulez.
In his book, The Cleveland Orchestra Story “Second to None,” Donald Rosenberg recounted the evening.
That night at Blossom, the musicians were applying their efforts to Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Mischa Dichther as soloist and Boulez on the podium, when the phone rang backstage. Szell had just died at 9:50 p.m., of complications from a heart attack he had suffered the previous month. News of Szell’s deteriorating health had spread throughout the day, but the orchestra wouldn’t learn of his death until after the concert.
Rosenberg continues — The Plain Dealer saluted him in an editorial the next day: “Few men did more to enhance Cleveland’s reputation than did the late Groege Szell. To many people around the world he and the Cleveland Orchestra symbolized the city . . . . Szell will be best remembered for what he leaves behind — the Cleveland Orchestra. Seldom has a richer legacy been left to a city.”
It is in the spirit of legacy that I share some of my favorite Szell recordings. I’m sure many of you have your own list, so spend some time listening. And if possible, share them with a young person who may not have had the opportunity to hear the Orchestra under the direction of the late maestro.
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Janáček: Sinfonietta
Dvořák: Symphony No. 7
Mahler: Symphony No 4 (Judith Raskin, soprano)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 (Leon Fleisher)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 ( Robert Casadesus)
Dvořák: Slavonic Dances Op. 72 No. 2
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Choral)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Gary Graffman)
