by Daniel Hathaway
ONLINE TODAY:
Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will live stream a performance today at 2:15 pm EDT from its customary venue, but the Concertgebouw has reconfigured its floor area so the musicians can perform with the recommended physical distancing — and without an audience present. Watch a clip from a rehearsal of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 under Gustavo Gimeno here, and click here at concert time for the life stream. [Note: the information we received from another listing was incorrect. This concert actually takes place on Friday, June 5 at 2:15. We regret the error.]
Today at 1:00 pm on IDAGIOLive, baritone Thomas Hampson hosts a conversation with clarinetist Anthony McGill, and soprano Julia Bullock, “The Arts + Artists Answer Racial Unrest: Enough is Enough.” Hampson says “We will talk about race relations in the US and beyond, and what we in the arts world can do to inspire meaningful change. Click here at start time.
Tonight at 7:30 pm, the latest episode of Oberlin Stage Left features the Oberlin Conservatory’s TIMARA Program (Technology in Music and Related Arts), which is marking its 50th anniversary. Professors Peter Swendsen, Tom Lopez, and Aurie Hsu will do a show-and-tell about the program and talk about combining electroacoustic composition with dance. Watch here.
Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra at noon on WCLV 104.9 Ideastream brings you Haydn’s Symphony No. 73, the Adagio from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 arranged for the full string section, and Ravel’s Bolero.
And the MET Opera — which just announced the cancellation of its entire fall season for 2020 — continues its free, nightly HD archive performances. Tonight at 7:30 pm, it’s Tosca with Shirley Verrett and Luciano Pavarotti.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On June 4, 1951, Russian-American conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who led the Boston Symphony for a quarter of a century, died in Boston. A double bassist by training, Koussevitzky launched a publishing house before he left Russia, and was responsible through his foundations for the commissioning of numerous important works, including Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, and Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Perhaps the most-performed work for which Koussevitzky was responsible is Randall Thompson’s Alleluia, commissioned for the opening of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in 1940. Here’s a rare, 1950 video of Koussevitzky conducting another Thompson work he commissioned, The Last Words of David.
Click here to listen to Koussevitzky conducting the first recorded public performance of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on December 30, 1944 — including the original ending.
Another historical recording of the Bartók was made at the Palace of Culture in Kyiv during The Cleveland Orchestra’s 1965 Russian tour. George Szell is on the podium for a concert that includes music by Mozart and Dvořák, as well as a rare performance of William Grant Still’s In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy. Listen here.