by Daniel Hathaway
ON TODAY:
Today from 2 to 4 pm on WRUW from Case Western Reserve University, Eric Charnofsky continues to explore highways and byways of classical music with a program that includes Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Symphonic Poem “Spring,” “Poem of April” for baritone and piano by Jules Massenet, the first symphony of Arvo Pärt, plus a Sonata for violin and piano by Lejaren Hiller and music by Theresa Wong and Louis Couperin. Click here to listen to the internet feed.
And tonight at 7:30 pm, the Rocky River Chamber Music Society ventures into jazz with Bob Sneider & Friends, a five-member jazz ensemble led by Sneider, who is associate professor of jazz studies and contemporary media at the Eastman School of Music. It’s a hybrid event that you can either attend in person at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 20401 Hilliard Blvd. in Rocky River, or watch via live stream.
GRAMMY NOMINATIONS:
A quick pass through the list of GRAMMY nominees looking for artists with Northeast Ohio connections includes (so far):
Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella
Meta Knight’s Revenge (From Kirby Superstar) — WINNER
Charlie Rosen & Jake Silverman, arrangers (The 8-Bit Big Band Featuring Button Masher)
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Alone Together (Jennifer Koh) — WINNER
Best Folk Album
They’re Calling Me Home – WINNER
Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
The most important anniversary to mark today is the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Watch the CBS special report anchored by Walter Cronkite here. The day before, King gave his “Mountain top” speech, one of his most famous, an event that nearly didn’t happen. As a Brittanica article reports,
On April 3 King was back in Memphis, where the city government had sought an injunction to prevent him from leading another march…That night a rally was scheduled at Bishop Charles Mason Temple, a Memphis Pentecostal church. King was exhausted, had a sore throat, and was feeling ill. With a thunderstorm raging that was anticipated to hold down the turnout, he sent his best friend and chief lieutenant, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, to speak in his stead. When Abernathy arrived at the church, he found a larger-than-expected crowd buzzing with excitement at the prospect of hearing King. Abernathy telephoned King, asked him to come, and promised that he would give the major address, leaving King to say but a few words, and King agreed.
At the event, King spoke for more than 40 minutes, almost completely off the cuff, gathering energy and energizing his audience as he went, ultimately delivering one of his most emotionally soaring and rhetorically brilliant speeches. He began the address, which became known as the “Mountaintop Speech,” by considering his moment in history versus other times that he might have lived and concluded that the last half of the 20th century was where he wanted to be. … Finally, as he wound to a close, his speech became prophetic:
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.…I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!…I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
Both the audience and King himself were deeply moved. When he finished speaking, King returned to his seat next to civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks, who said he saw tears rolling down King’s cheeks.
At King’s funeral, Mahalia Jackson offered Precious Lord in honor of the fallen civil rights leader (at about 54:00), and at a memorial service, Aretha Franklin sang another version. Looking on in the second clip are Coretta Scott King and the children, which reminds me that King’s wife was herself a singer and pianist with degrees from the New England Conservatory. In an interview, she talks about giving up her own career to become the wife of a Baptist minister.
On today’s date in 1739, George Frideric Handel premiered his oratorio Israel in Egypt in London. Having built his reputation as a man of the theater, the composer had to admit that he’d misjudged his audience — who were apparently not ready for a Biblical epic presented in double choruses and introduced by a 30-minute dirge, and he shut the run down after only three performances. Handel brought the work back, adding some Italian arias, and more recently, Jeannette Sorrell has made her own version for Apollo’s Fire, which was presented for the second time in Northeast Ohio in February.
Speaking of Biblical epics, one of the most successful film scores of the 20th century was composed by Elmer Bernstein (born on this date in 1922) for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). Watch Moses receiving the commandments on the mountain while the Hebrews are constructing a golden calf down below. And here, Moses parts the Red Sea.
Bernstein (no relation to Leonard) wrote or arranged scores for some hundred films. An interesting look into his technique is provided in Paul Thomson’s film scoring master class, where he compares Bernard Herrmann’s 1962 score to the psychopathic thriller Cape Fear with Elmer Bernstein’s 1992 remake, directed by Martin Scorsese. Probably best not to watch alone in the dark…
And on this date in 1954, ten days after his 87th birthday, conductor Arturo Toscanini gave his final concert with the NBC Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, concluding a tenure of 17 years. Watch a restored NBC simulcast of Toscanini performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony live on April 3, 1948, with chorus prepared by Robert Shaw. (Before the symphony, we hear one of the conductor’s famous rehearsal meltdowns.)
