by Daniel Hathaway
MUSIC FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY WEEKEND:
Saturday’s edition of WCLV’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio reaches into the ensemble’s archives for a 1976 Bicentennial concert, “The Sounds of America,” led by Lorin Maazel and featuring narrators Dorothy and Ruben Silver and baritone William Dempsey. And Ohio Light Opera continues its virtual summer festival on Saturday with a Fourth of July Celebration (check the Concert Listings for details).
Missing fireworks this year? We talked on Thursday about Frederick Fennell’s historic digital recording for Telarc in Severance Hall with the Cleveland Symphonic Winds. In addition to the Holst Suites and a J.S. Bach Fantasia, the eventual release included Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. Listen to the entire album here (Handel begins at 27:22).
Or here’s a 2012 performance of the Fireworks Music from the BBC’s Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Led by Hervé Niquet, Le Concert Spirituel performs on period instruments using Handel’s original specifications. Count all those oboes and bassoons!
To celebrate the contribution of one Black composer to the American canon, consider New York Times music critic Seth Colter Walls’ Independence Day weekend recommendation. William L. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was recorded by Leopold Stokowski in 1952, by Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony in the 1990s, and in June on the Naxos label by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony led by Arthur Fagen. Read Wells’ comments here.
ALSO ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES THIS WEEKEND:
The MET Opera streams Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Saturday), Rossini’s La Donna del Lago (Sunday), and Puccini’s La Bohème (Monday). Sunday afternoon’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio features pianist Uri Caine in his arrangement of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, plus Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Walter Piston’s Suite from The Incredible Flutist. The first episode of Best of ChamberFest Cleveland on WCLV includes performances of Haydn, Kodály, and Schoenfeld from 2014. And a CREDO Chamber Music faculty recital by cellist Dmitri Kousov and pianist Yulia Fedoseeva streams on Monday evening. Details here.
THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:
English composer William Byrd died on July 4, 1623, leaving a legacy of English and Latin Church music and secular works. A practicing Catholic during the zigzag religious wars of the English Reformation, he managed to preserve his status as a courtier and keep his head on his shoulders. Cleveland’s Mignarda sings the Agnus Dei from his Mass for Four Voices in a performance at Immaculate Conception Church.
On July 4 (or 5) of 1992, Argentine bandeonist and tango nuevo composer Astor Piazzolla died in Buenos Aires. Watch him perform his Adiós Nonino with the Cologne Radio Orchestra here.
Polish pianist and harpsichordist Wanda Landowska was born on July 5, 1877 (or according to some sources, 1879) in Warsaw. An early contributor to the harpsichord revival, Landowska promoted the heavily-built instruments of Pleyel. Click here and here to watch excerpts from the DVD Landowska — Uncommon Visionary, in which she plays a few pieces from her home in Lakeville, Connecticut in 1953. In the second clip, Skip Sempé and William F. Buckley, Jr. (the former a professional harpsichordist, the latter an amateur) comment in cameo appearances.
On July 6, 1937, Russian pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy was born in what is now Nizhny Novgorod. A frequent guest at Severance Hall, Ashkenazy recorded all of the Beethoven concertos from the keyboard. He talked about his life and career with host Zsolt Bognár in the 62nd episode of Living the Classical Life. watch the interview here.
And on July 6, 1952, composer Stephen Hartke was born in Orange, New Jersey. Two years before he became head of Oberlin’s composition department in 2015, he won a Grammy for his Meanwhile – Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays. Listen here to a performance of the work by eighth blackbird on Naxos. And listen to a podcast interview in Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan here.