by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY ONLINE:
The new music ensemble No Exit once again joins forces with Zeitgeist, its frequent collaborators from Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The agenda is mostly solo works — the pandemic is still calling the shots — but the final piece, Coincident Episode 4 by Minnesota composer Scott Miller, brings everybody into the picture. Read a preview here.
Usually held during a packed weekend at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival marks its 21st season with a series of videos presented each Friday evening from May 21 through June 6. Tonight’s episode features lutenist Nigel North and Cleveland-based guitarist Robert Gruca (read previews here and here). The broadcasts are free.
Also online today, the Academy of Ancient Music traces the development of the Harmonie or Wind Band, Opera Saratoga celebrates Langston Hughes, and the University of Chicago presents the contemporary vocal ensemble Quince in David Lang’s love fail.
Details in our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
We’ll keep the list short today because we should really be abandoning our screens and enjoying the premature, summery weather!
So we’ll raise a virtual glass to celebrate two European soloists born on the 21st of May: French trumpeter Maurice André who greeted the world in 1933 in Alès in the Cévennes, and Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger, who followed him six years later in Langenthal.
André espoused the piccolo trumpet, a small, modern instrument invented to allow players to negotiate the high trumpet parts favored by Baroque composers. Since then, the period instrument movement has spawned players who have mastered the art of playing clarino parts — like Steven Marquardt, who recently joined Amanda Forsythe and Apollo’s Fire in a wonderful performance of J.S. Bach’s cantata Jauchzet Gott.
Watch a video of André performing Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s concerto in E-flat in Madrid in 1986.
For listeners who have grown up with the French school of oboe playing represented locally by the late John Mack of The Cleveland Orchestra, Holliger’s European sound takes a bit of getting used to. Watch a video here where he performs several works with the Swiss Chamber Soloists in Geneva in 2021.
Holliger was also a composer who studied with Pierre Boulez. Listen along with the scrolling score to his Studie II from 1981 performed by Tamás Bartók. Judging from the comments, both the piece and Bartók’s playing made a strong impression.
