by Mike Telin
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 7:30 pm at St. Paschal Baylon in Highland Hts, Jay White will lead Quire Cleveland in the first of three concerts titled Carols for Quire XI: Mary’s Song. The program features four sixteenth-century settings of the Magnificat, the virgin Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel, by Giovanni Pierluigi di Palestrina (Italy), Tomás Luis de Victoria (Spain), and the Britons, Robert Fayrfax and Robert Parsons. Carols of the season, including Gabriel’s Message, The Cherry Tree Carol, and Silent Night, along with familiar carols inviting audience participation round out the evening. Freewill offering. Open seating, no reservations or tickets required, but masks are mandatory for all attendees, regardless of vaccination status. Read our preview article here. Check our Concert Listings for times and locations on Friday and Saturday.
Also at 7:30 pm, the Oberlin Trio — David Bowlin, violin, Dmitry Kouzov, cello and Haewon Song, piano (pictured) — perform Haydn’s Trio in g, XV:19, Takemitsu’s Between Tides and Dvořák’s Trio No. 3 in f, Op. 65 in Oberlin’s Kulas Recital Hall. The concert is free. Click here to access the webcast.
And through December, Les Délices’ Holiday show “Noel, Noel” is available on Marquee TV. That virtual concert is a repeat from last year, when Timothy Robson described it in a review as “a highly enjoyable blend of English, French, and German carols, interspersed with Christmas-themed poetry from authors as diverse as Christina Rosetti and e.e. cummings.” Not to mention recent work by Northeast Ohio poets Dave Lucas, Diane Kendig, and Julie Warther, all read by Dee Perry. Read more about it in Mike Telin’s preview, and get tickets here.
IN THE NEWS:
We are saddened to learn that experimental composer Alvin Lucier passed away on Wednesday at his home in Middletown, Conn at the age of 90. Allan Kozinn writes in his New York Times obituary that “Unlike composers who have the goal of painting an aural picture, evoking particular emotions, creating a dramatic narrative or exploring carefully plotted rhythmic interactions, Mr. Lucier seemed to approach his works as experiments that might yield unpredictable soundscapes.
“A finished work could sound like howling feedback, electronic crackling or — in the case of his best-known piece, “I Am Sitting in a Room” (1969) — a spoken text that with repetition becomes increasingly distorted and overlaid with reverberation until it is transformed into a symphony of dancing overtones.” Read the full obituary here.
Regarding that work’s text, in a June 2014 interview with The Guardian, Lucier explained that he created it in the moment: “I sat there and thought, ‘I’ve got to say something…I’ll tell them what’s happening.’ I just wrote it out and that was it. It could have been anything,” the composer recalled.
And as a reminder, Tuesday Musical’s concert by The Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass on Tuesday, December 7 has been canceled because of the artists’ health concerns.
If you purchased single tickets, refunds will be issued within a few days. If you’re a subscriber, you have the option of transferring tickets to another concert this season, donating the cost of tickets to Tuesday Musical, or receiving a refund. Indicate your choice by December 15 by emailing kjenkins@tuesdaymusical.org or calling 330-761-3460.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this day in 1931, French composer and teacher Vincent d’Indy died in Paris at the age of 80. Born in Paris as well, d’Indy began studying the piano with his grandmother at an early age. He began his studies in harmony with Albert Lavignac at 14 and at 16 was introduced to Berlioz’s treatise on orchestration.
d’Indy’s talents as a composer caught the attention of César Franck, and In 1872, he became Franck’s pupil at the Paris Conservatory where he remained until he joined the percussion section of the orchestra at the Châtelet Theatre in 1875. Along with Charles Bordes and Alexandre Guilmant, d’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum de Paris in 1894, becoming principal in 1904. Of the school’s teaching, The Oxford Companion to Music says that “A solid grounding in technique was encouraged, rather than originality.”
d’Indy’s students included Albert Roussel, Joseph Canteloube, who would later write his biography, Arthur Honegger, and Darius Milhaud. His student roster also included Cole Porter — who left the school after a few months, and Erik Satie. Satie would later write: “Why on earth had I gone to d’Indy? The things I had written before were so full of charm. And now? What nonsense! What dullness!”
d’Indy created controversy at the Société nationale de musique after becoming its joint secretary in 1885, and managed to succeed in overturning its French-music-only rule, prompting the Society’s founders Romain Bussine and Camille Saint-Saëns to resign in protest.
Although few of d’Indy’s works have become staples of the repertoire, his best known pieces include the Symphony on a French Mountain Air for piano and orchestra and Istar, a symphonic poem in the form of a set of variations. He also was responsible for reviving forgotten Baroque works — he created his own edition of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.
In his 1906 composer profile for The Etude, Edward Burlingame Hill writes that: “D’Indy’s principles as an artist are developed from the teachings of César Franck, of whom he was the ardent disciple, not only as a teacher of composition, but as an artist and as a man.”
Hill goes on to say that “It is too soon even to predict d’Indy’s ultimate rank as a composer. In mastery of technique, in vividness of expression, he stands very high; his originality and power are incontestable, while his reverent devotion to the memory of Cesar Franck by word and deed is without parallel in this self-seeking age.”
Perhaps history has been the judge.
Click here to listen to Symphony on a French Mountain Air. Recorded in 1958, the performance features pianist Robert Casadesus and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy.