by Daniel Hathaway
In this entry:
• On today: Eric Charnofsky hosts an unusual playlist from CWRU, Rocky River Chamber Music Society concert features Oberlin clarinet professor & friends
• Concert updates from Tuesday Musical & the ReSound Festival
• An amusing story about pianist Richard Goode’s trip to the dentist
• Anniversaries of a composer who bred famous horses and another who retired at the age of 37 after penning 34 stage works since he turned 18
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today’s edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music from Case Western Reserve university visits a violin concerto by Michael Torke, Piano Preludes by William Grant Still, a Rossini String Sonata, Paul Harvey’s Concertino for tenor saxophone and piano, and John Alden Carpenter’s jazz ballet score Krazy Kat, inspired by a famous cartoon strip.
Monday evenings are traditionally “dark nights” (no shows) in the entertainment world, but the Rocky River Chamber Music Society likes to seize the opportunity to present their concerts on the first evening of the week at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church. Their 63rd season continues tonight at 7:30 pm with a concert by Oberlin clarinet professor Richard Hawkins and his faculty colleagues Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin, Kirsten Docter, viola, James Howsmon, piano, Dmitry Kouzov, cello, Drew Pattison, bassoon and Jeff Scott, horn.
They’ll be playing Franz Schreker’s Der Wind, Michael Kibbe’s Trio, Op. 65 for Clarinet, Horn, and Bassoon & Ernὄ Dohnányi’s Sextet in C, Op. 37. Read a preview article here and either enjoy the concert live (masked, of course) or online. Either way, it’s free.
CONCERT UPDATES:
Tuesday Musical has added a matinee performance of the film, Los Hermanos/The Brothers today at 3:00 pm to their calendar in advance of the Harlem Quartet’s performance tomorrow night. It takes place at the Nightlight Cinema in downtown Akron (tickets here.) A 7 pm screening is sold out.
Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project has announced the lineup for its Re:Sound Festival of new and experimental music, which will take place between June 9 and 12, 2022. View the schedule here.
AMUSING READ:
Pianist Richard Goode, who played a recital for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society last week, had a surprising experience during a recent trip to his dentist. The Chicago Symphony tells the story here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
One birthday to report, and another to advance from February 29 to today in deference to all those who were birthed on that date and either missed out on many birthday parties or were able to lop 3/4 off their age — mixed blessing.
The February 28 birthday boy (born in 1747 in West Springfield, Massachusetts) is Justin Morgan, who had the distinction of being one of America’s earliest composers as well as a noted horse breeder. His stallion Figure became the sire of the Morgan horse line.
As a composer, Morgan’s works resembled those of another early American tunesmith, William Billings. Their “fuguing tunes” were folklike and contrapuntally primitive. Here’s his shape-note hymn Amanda sung by Ensemble Inversus, and click here to listen to Thomas Canning’s fantasy on one of Morgan’s hymns performed by the Indianapolis Symphony led by Raymond Leppard. And click here for more about the Morgan horse.
And the movable feast is the birthdate of Gioachino Rossini, born on February 29 in 1792. He wrote his first opera at the age of 18, and a total of 34 stage works before either burning out or ceding the field to Meyerbeer. After finishing Guillaume Tell in 1829, he laid his pen down for the next 40 years, having amassed enough of a fortune to sustain a life of luxury in which he inspired the invention of such truffle and foie-gras-rich culinary excesses as Crema alla Rossini, Frittata alla Rossini, and Tournedos Rossini.
His final composition, the Petite messe solenelle, for chorus, soloists, two pianos and harmonium (which has been described as ‘neither small nor solemn’), was completed in 1863, whereupon the composer drafted a note to the Deity:
Dear God, here it is finished, this poor little Mass. Is it sacred music I have written, or damned music? I was born for opera buffa, as you know well. A little technique, a little heart, that’s all. Be blessed then, and grant me Paradise.
Click here to watch a live performance of the Mass.