by Daniel Hathaway
NEWS BRIEFS:
ChamberFest Cleveland and WCLV are collaborating on a series of broadcasts featuring performances from ChamberFest’s 2012-2019 seasons, including three Wednesday programs on WCLV’s Ovations Series (June 24, August 5 and August 12), and a series of Sunday evening programs of highlights from concerts, many being broadcast for the first time. See tomorrow’s edition for a detailed schedule.
Oberlin Conservatory has announced a virtual memorial service for the late David Boe, Professor of Organ and former Dean of the Conservatory. The event on June 14 at 4:00 pm will be live streamed from Fairchild Chapel. Details here.
Today is the deadline for registration for the online Oberlin Summer Organ Academy 2020, which includes Zoom lessons, organ demos, harpsichord and clavichord demos, classes on organ design and constructions, organ literature, sacred music, and a live-streamed faculty concert. The Academy is accepting all levels of instruction, ages middle school and up (adults too). Information here.
In response to recent events, on New Music Box, Will Robin asks the question, “How can Artists Respond to Injustice?” and collects thoughts from seven musicians. Read the article here.
National Public Radio writes: “As protests against police brutality continue around the country, Americans are looking to educate themselves about systemic racism more than ever before. NPR curated a podcast playlist to amplify conversations from NPR about law enforcement, racial injustice, and the black American experience to help guide the process.” Go here for links.
ONLINE EVENTS TODAY:
At breakfast time in Cleveland his week, early risers can enjoy live streams of lunchtime concerts from London’s Wigmore Hall (no audience present, and videos will be available on-demand after the original broadcasts at 8am Eastern Time). Lunchtime? WCLV’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio features a movement from Brahms’s A German Requiem, and a Mozart symphony and aria from soprano Malin Hartelius. Stick around for a 1pm Early Music America stream of its Young Performers Festival, with more to come this week.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Composer Robert Schumann was born on this date in 1810 in the German Saxon town of Zwickau. Pianist Roberto Plano wrote today on Facebook, “To remind you, I propose a little known composition: Variationen über ein Nocturne von Chopin. Chopin’s theme variations were allegedly composed in the mid-s, and unfinished. They were recently published and completed by Joachim Draheim. The composition consists of three variations on the Nocturne op. 15, no. 3 by Chopin and as per the manuscript, consists of 89 jokes (including the theme). Watch Plano’s performance here.
A few years before Schumann’s birth, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published the first part of his play Faust, which became one of the urtexts of early German Romanticism. Schumann, who is the poster boy for German Romantic music, wrote his Szenen aus Goethes Faust backwards from 1844-1853, beginning with the ‘Chorus Mysticus’ finale and ending with the overture, a period during which he became less and less mentally stable.
The Scenes are infrequently performed these days — a pity because the music is glorious. I can recommend a performance by Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony from 1966, in which I happen to be singing as a member of the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society (joining with the New England Conservatory Chorus). The soloists — Hermann Prey, Beverly Sills, Charles Bressler, Thomas Paul, Veronica Tyler, Tatiana Troyanos, Florence Kopleff, and Batyah Godfrey — are spectacular.
I can’t resist telling a story. The first chorus/piano rehearsal on the Symphony Hall stage did not go well. Leinsdorf had the flu and we were singing from scores that only printed our individual voice lines with cues like instrumental parts. Leinsdorf grew more and more impatient and finally said, “I am going to leave you in the hands of your chorus masters and if you can’t learn the music, we’ll replace it with the Brahms Academic Festival Overture.” And he strode offstage through the central door between the two halves of the chorus — after which we terrified singers spent another hour and a half drilling cues.
I learned only years later that Leinsdorf had never used that door before — which only led to a room where they stored timpani and the organ console. Having made a dramatic exit, he could hardly have crept back onstage again, so he paced for 90 minutes until the stage was clear. (The performances went beautifully, by the way!)
