by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
If you were a medieval monk, today’s agenda would include the singing of the first of eight daily “Great O Antiphons” at Vespers, marking the beginning of a crescendo into Christmas Day on December 25. Each is based on a text from the Hebrew prophets and Wisdom books and describes an attribute of Christ (O Wisdom, O Lord, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of Nations, O Emmanuel).
The tradition lives on. Contemporary composer Nico Muhly has written organ pieces based on the Eight Antiphons, a set that recent Clevelander Buck McDaniel performed last Sunday at New York’s Church of St. John in the Village. They’re still available as part of the program he gave with tenor Matt Jones. Watch here (minimum donation of $5).
If you missed the debut of the fourth episode of The Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus series led by Nicholas McGegan, or Les Délice’s Noel, Noel Christmas program, they’re still available on demand (follow the hyperlinks). And heads up: Apollo’s Fire’s Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain, recorded last year at the Cleveland Museum of Art becomes available online on Friday the 18th.
And the most recent Cleveland Orchestra “On a Personal Note” podcast finds pianist Mitsuko Uchida remembering the “familial nature” of her long relationship with the ensemble.
Events on the web today include the latest episode of Local 4 Music Fund’s “Tuning In,” featuring Eric Charnofsky’s piano quintet 5 by 5, and a holiday program by “Portland’s Little Orchestra” Pink Martini, a group that has delighted Cleveland audiences in seasons past. Details in our Concert Listings.
Moving farther afield, Musical America’s Guide to (mostly free streams) points us to a special program by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard from The Gilmore that links Beethoven’s avant-garde tendencies to works by Messiaen, Stockhausen, and Kurtág (a premiere), and a concert from the Detroit Symphony led by its new music director Jader Bignamini that includes Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
By some calendars, the first Saturnalia festival was held on this date in Rome in 497 BCE, just one of the ancient Winter Solstice-centered events that might have influenced modern Christmas celebrations way down the line, including such traditions as the Christmas card, the first example having been commissioned on this date in 1843 by Henry Cole, founder of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
Ballet legend Vaslav Nijinsky was born on this day in 1889 in Kviv, but considered himself to be Polish. Admired for his athletic leaps and his ability to dance en pointe, he joined Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1909 just in time to choreograph Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune in 1912 (he wrote a sexually suggestive final scene for himself), and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913. Sadly, he spent the last three decades of his life in and out of mental institutions. Watch a digital reconstruction by Christian Compte of Nijinsky dancing the role of the Faun here.
And Arthur Fiedler, who conducted the Boston Pops for just short of five decades beginning in 1930, was born on December 17 in 1894. His vast list of recordings includes the premiere of Danish composer Jacob Gade’s Jalousie ‘Tango Tzigane,’ which sold more than a million copies, and the first complete performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Fiedler’s hobbies included a lifetime fascination with fire engines, which won him the title of “Honorary Captain” in the Boston Fire Department.
Finally, British composer, critic, and all-around colorful literary figure Philip Heseltine took his own life on this date in 1930 at the age of 36. He wrote music under the nom de plume of Peter Warlock, and we’ll remember him with some of his jollier music: the Three Carols, colorfully orchestrated by the composer and ebulliently performed by the City of London Choir and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Click on the links to hear “Tyrley trylow,” “Balulalow,” and “As I Sat Under a Sycamore Tree.”