by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7:30 pm, Celia Hatton plays works for solo viola by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Gyorgy Ligeti, Jeffrey Mumford, Reena Esmail, Garth Knox, and Benjamin Britten on the LCCC Signature Series in the Cirigliano Studio Theatre at Lorain County Community College in Elyria. Free admission.
For details of this and other events, please visit our Concert Listings page.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Piano Cleveland reminds us of two back-to-back events this week featuring 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition Semi-Finalist, Zhu Wang. On Tuesday at noon, he’ll play a lunchtime concert in the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and on Wednesday at 6, he’ll be joined by Cleveland Play House artists Madalyn Baker and Nathan Nelson in a medley of favorites at Hofbräuhaus Cleveland.
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s free summer concert series, City Stages, will present acts from two different countries on Wednesdays, July 9 and 23, outside Transformer Station in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood. Click on the links to learn more about Yeison Landero and Las Karamba.
And Cuyahoga Arts & Culture’s Board of Trustees will hold its annual meeting on Wednesday, April 16, at the Cleveland Public Library’s Martin Luther King Branch. The meeting will be open to the public and will also be livestreamed on CAC’s YouTube page. More information here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Jarrett Hoffman (reprinted from 2021, during the COVID pandemic)
What was the last performance that George Frideric Handel attended, eight days before his death on this date in 1759? Somewhat fittingly, that would be his own Messiah, our focus today. Of course, there are a number of ways to delve into such an extensive and beloved work, let alone one that comes with a complex interpretive history.
We can start with some listening. One pair of contrasting options: an intimate performance here by Boston Baroque led by Thomas Pearlman (a video which also comes with a poignant message from one listener in the comments, posted during the pandemic), and a larger-scale take on the piece here from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Heard side by side, those recordings almost sound like two different pieces at the beginning, thanks to differences in the number of instruments, in the key, and even more so in tempo.
It’s also interesting to hear from a Messiah master such as conductor Jane Glover, who celebrated her 100th performance of the work during a slate of appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra in 2018. Before those dates, ClevelandClassical.com’s Daniel Hathaway spoke to Glover about an array of topics surrounding the piece:
The range of performing forces she’s led, from choirs of 24 up to 450? (“Whatever you do with this remarkable piece, it comes up fresh as paint.”)
Condensing the work just slightly, as she prefers? (“I love every number, but I know that it becomes a very long evening if one is doing every golden note of it, so we have to make the odd nip and tuck.”)
Her preparation as a conductor? (She brings her own set of marked parts to every Messiah gig, which works out wonderfully — except for the one time they all got lost in the mail and never turned up.)
What Handel might think of the piece’s popularity these days? (“Even for someone as confident and outgoing as he was, he would be astonished to learn what it has meant to every single generation of music lovers ever since.”)
It might also be fun to touch on one strange fact about the premiere, and one strange, possible myth about the piece. First the fact: a crowd of 700 people watched the first performance, on April 13, 1742 in Dublin, and to create space for seating, men were asked to remove their swords, while women were requested to wear dresses without hoops. I think it’s safe to say those aren’t such common problems today, but in their place, we have the phenomenon of manspreading. (“Hallelujah.”)
And now to that possible myth: that the custom of standing for the “Hallelujah” chorus dates back to Messiah’s London premiere in 1743, when King George II supposedly and suddenly stood up, and the rest of the audience followed suit to avoid offending him. The first mention of that occurrence doesn’t come until thirteen years later, raising doubts about whether that’s true at all.
But supposing it is true, it’s fun to run through the different reasons the king might have had for doing that. All sorts of theories have popped up. Was he simply moved by the music, more so there than at any other moment in the piece? Was he coming down with a bothersome case of pins and needles — relatable — or could it have been an attack of gout? Might he have just wanted to stretch his limbs after sitting for a couple hours? Had he been sleeping and startled awake by the chorus? Was he acknowledging what he somehow thought to be a tribute to him — the words “And He shall reign for ever and ever”?
Whatever the case, enjoy this performance of the “Hallelujah” Chorus by the Royal Choral Society and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and although we can’t see the audience stand up, you’ll hear it about fifteen seconds in. It’s accompanied by plenty of rustling, and at least one big cough — that joy of in-person concerts we’ll someday be reacquainted with.
The Baldwin Wallace BachFestival presented Messiah for the first time last Friday evening.
