by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Beginning tonight at 7:30 pm at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, Apollo’s Fire — under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell — reaches back a mere 300 years to celebrate Easter with the closest Johann Sebastian Bach came to penning opera: the Easter Oratorio and an Easter Cantata with soloists Andréa Walker, soprano, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor, Haitham Haidar, tenor, and Edward Vogel, baritone, taking on dramatic roles. Festive baroque trumpets add to the celebration. Performances continue on Friday (7:30 at St. Raphael, Bay Village), Saturday (8 pm at St. Paul’s, Akron), and Sunday (5 pm at Church of the Gesu, University Hts.) Tickets available online.
For more performances, visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
By Jarrett Hoffman
One of the lesser-known women in composition from the Romantic era is Luise Adolpha Le Beau, who was born on this date in 1850 in Rastatt, in what is now Germany.
She began her career as a pianist, studying for a summer with Clara Schumann and then with Josef Rheinberger at the Royal Music School in Munich, where school regulations required that she be tutored separately from the male students. Speaking of gender-based restrictions, later on she was nominated for a high-level teaching position only to have that opportunity vanish because it was not allowed to be given to women.
Her studies in Munich proved to be a productive time for her, including a notable tour performing her own trios and a period of time working as a music critic (she stopped after her editor repeatedly modified and shortened her articles). And as for writing, in her later life she also penned an autobiography titled Lebenserinnerungen einer Komponistin (“Memoirs of a Female Composer”).
Over the years, her musical recognition spread wide and far, with performances in Sydney and Istanbul. In an oeuvre of over 100 works, her most notable pieces occupy a range of genres, from her prize-winning Op. 17 Cello Sonata to the Op. 28 Piano Quartet (which was premiered at the Gewandhaus), the Op. 54 String Quintet, a work for chorus and orchestra titled Ruth – Biblical Scenes, the Op. 37 Piano Concerto, the Op. 41 Symphony, the tone poem Hohenbaden, and the opera Hadumoth.
In addition to Munich, Le Beau also spent significant periods of her life in Wiesbaden, Berlin, and Baden-Baden — where a music library is now graced with her name, and where a memorial plaque in her honor can be found at the building where she lived and passed away.
Click here to listen to her Cello Sonata as performed by cellist Katharina Deserno and pianist Nenad Lecic. And here for the Piano Concerto, performed by the Kammersymphonie Berlin, conductor Jürgen Bruns, and pianist Katia Tchemberdji.
