by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
This evening at 7:30 the LCCC Signature Recital Series will present the Poiesis Quartet in 20th and 21st-century music in Cinema Hall at Lorain County Community College in Elyria.
For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Cleveland Orchestra has announced a change of conductor for its forthcoming performances of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Due to family reasons, Daniel Harding has withdrawn and Klaus Mäkelä will step in to lead the April 23, 25, and 26 performances by The Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus, and Children’s Chorus, and vocalists Tamara Wilson, Andrew Staples, and Ludwig Mittelhammer.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Medieval French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut died in April of 1377, presumably on this day. He ably straddled the worlds of sacred and secular music, as shown by two selections. Click here to listen to the Gloria from his Messe de Nostre Dame sung by the Gesualdo Six in Ely Cathedral. And Les Délice’s artistic director Debra Nagy channeled Machaut to create her Estampie Dame, vostre dous viaire for a live performance in January, 2018. Watch here.
Although Handel’s great oratorio Messiah is inextricably linked to the Christmas season in many parts of the world, it was actually composed for an Eastertime performance at a theater in Dublin on this day in 1742 (the management of the Music Hall on Fishamble Street advised patrons to avoid wearing swords and hoop skirts in order to save seating space). As a reminder of the Easter theme in Messiah, here’s an Apollo’s Fire performance of “The Trumpet Shall Sound” by baritone Jeffrey Strauss and Baroque trumpeter Josh Cohen. Jeannette Sorrell conducts.
And on April 13, 1959, conductor Eduard van Beinum died of a heart attack while rehearsing Mahler’s Third Symphony with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. What a way to make your exit! Here’s a performance of the Bell Chorus from Mahler 3, which celebrates St. Peter’s entrance into heaven (and maybe van Beinum’s as well), in a live performance by the Philharmonia Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen, conducting, at Royal Festival Hall, London on October 1, 2017.
