by Daniel Hathaway
CONCERTS TODAY:
Baldwin Wallace’s Bach Haus, part of the reconfiguring of the BW Bach Festival returns for a 7 pm concert by Front Porch, cellist Khari Joyner, saxophonist Gabriel Pique, and BW Music Theatre students at the Knowlton Center on the Berea campus. On the docket: Bluegrass, Broadway, Jazz, and, of course, Bach, plus coffee and desserts.
At the same hour, the Bowling Green State University Men’s Chorus is scheduled for a concert at St. Christopher’s Church in Rocky River.
Two conservatory orchestras go nearly head-to-head tonight. At 7 pm, the CIM Orchestra will feature Cleveland Orchestra musicians as principals in music by Purcell and Stravinsky, Half an hour later, Oberlin’s Fridays@Finney presents the Oberlin Orchestra & Contemporary Music Ensemble, Rafael Jiménez & Timothy Weiss, conducting, with NEXUS Chamber Music, Robert Walters, English horn, Jacqui Armbruster, viola & Amy Owens, soprano, in music by Jessica Meyers, Augusta Read Thomas, Michel Foumal, and Tebogo Monnakgotia. Both performances will offer the option of live streams.
And the once-a-month Oberlin Friday Night Organ Pump (pictured), will be the Halloween Edition of this popular midnight show that features conservatory organ majors playing the C.B. Fisk Op. 116 instrument. Anything could be on tap. It starts at 11:59 pm.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Whatever happened to Maria Anna Mozart, “Nannerl,” the composer’s beloved older sister, who died on this date in 1829? An accomplished pianist in her own right, she is said to have written music herself, although none survives. Her life was re-imagined in René Féret’s 2010 French language film, Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart. Watch a trailer here, and learn how you can rent the movie.
On October 29, 1911, Hungarian-born newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer died in Charleston, South Carolina. His estate endowed the Pulitzer Prizes, which, beginning in 1943, included an annual award for a classical musical composition by an American composer. In the late 1990s, the entry rules were expanded to include a wider range of American music, and the first such prize recognized Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 Blood on the Fields. George Gershwin and Duke Ellington were subsequently honored on their anniversary years in 1998 and 1999.
It’s interesting to read down the list of Pulitzer Prize winners in music, both to see what works have passed into wide use and which seem to have fallen by the wayside. Click here to view the list.
For an early start on your Halloween celebrations, have a listen to Edward Burlingame Hill’s The Fall of the House of Usher, based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem, which received its first performance on this date in 1920 by Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony. In lieu of a recording of the piece, how about listening to Basil Rathbone’s inimitable reading of Poe’s chiller. Click here if you have 23 minutes to spare.
Finally, on this day in 1929, dubbed “Black Tuesday,” the New York Stock Exchange crashed, launching the Great Depression. YouTube will take you back to some popular music of the period via this playlist.
