by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
The last unhosted weekly episode of WRUW’s Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music airs today between 2:00 & 4:00 pm (Eric Charnovsky returns in February). Today’s program includes George Walker’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, William C. Banfield’s Symphony No. 3, C.P.E. Bach’s Clavichord Sonata in f-sharp, Martin Scherzinger’s Etudes for Piano (selections), Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 20 (“Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain,”) Nicolo Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo (arr. for trumpet), Paul Ben-Haim’s Three Songs Without Words (violin and piano) & Igor Stravinsky’s Scènes de Ballet (orchestra). Free on WRUW, Case Western Reserve University. Click here to listen to the internet feed.
COVID-19 UPDATES:
The Cleveland Chamber Music Society regrets that the concert by the Danish String Quartet scheduled for Tuesday, January 25 has been cancelled due to positive COVID-19 test results from one of the performers. The concert will not be rescheduled this season. Patrons who purchased tickets with a credit card (online or by phone) will receive an automatic refund to that card. Those who purchased tickets by mail should contact the office to receive a refund. Those who prefer to exchange their ticket(s) for another concert this season should be in touch by the end of this week.
NEWS BRIEFS:
Jazz organist Eddie Baccus Sr. (pictured above), passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, January 23, the very day he was to be honored with a concert at the Bop Stop. That event turned into a tribute evening and a benefit for his family.
Announcing the change of plans, the jazz club wrote
Eddie Baccus Sr. has been a beloved part of the Cleveland music scene since just about forever (the 60s). He met a fellow blind musician, the great flute/sax player Roland Kirk, at the Ohio State School for the Blind in late 40s, but chose a different path and opted to stay closer to home than Kirk. While Kirk toured the world and died young at age 41 of a stroke in 1977, Baccus has continued to roll his Hammond B-3 into area clubs, performing in a range of jazz styles, and collaborating with and mentoring other players, such as Joe Lovano, Ernie Krivda and his sax-playing son Eddie Baccus Jr.
Donations can be made here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Among the entrances and exits on the classical music stage on January 24: the births of Frederick the Great (in 1712 in Berlin, the flute-playing king of Prussia who challenged the father of his court musician C.P.E. Bach to improvise a fugue on the spot during a visit in 1747. Also of the English oboist Evelyn Barbirroli in 1911 (spouse of conductor Sir John), and of Klaus George Roy in 1924, long-time program editor and annotator for the Cleveland Orchestra.
This is a good time to revisit Johann Sebastian Bach’s Musical Offering, a collection of canons, fugues, ricercars and a trio sonata inspired by the elder Bach’s visit to Potsdam, where Frederick proudly showed off his new-fangled fortepianos by Gottfried Silbermann and challenged the Cantor of Leizig to improvise a six-voice fugue on his own royal theme.
Click here to listen to a 2013 lecture by Michael Parloff from Music at Menlo on the subject of the Musical Offering — the first part of a two-part discussion about Bach’s late contrapuntal tours de force.
And here are two performances to enjoy and compare. Click here for a version by the Kuijken brothers — Sigiswald, flute, Wieland, violin, and Robert, viola da gamba, with harpsichordist Robert Kohnen — from the Old Town Hall in Leipzig during the Bach anniversary year in 2000. And click here for a version by Le Consort de Nations led by Jordi Savall with harpsichordist Pierre Hantal.
