by Mike Telin
Happy Thursday.
TODAY ON THE WEB:
At 12:00 pm it’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra on WCLV 104.9 Ideastream & on the web. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leads performances of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto (Michael Sachs), Beethoven’s Scherzo and Finale from String Quartet No. 10 ‘Harp’ and Strauss’s Polka française Kreuzfidel.
At 5:00 pm The Violin Channel presents Tessa Lark, violin (pictured), Amy Yang, piano, and Frank Vignola, guitar. The set-list includes Kreisler’s Syncopation, Praeludium and Allegro, and Liebesleid, Telemann’s Fantasia No. 4 in D, Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 4 in e, Michael Torke’s Milk from Spoon Bread, and the fifth movement from Avner Dorman’s Violin Sonata No. 4. View here. (Free)
There’s more Cleveland Orchestra at 7:00 pm with the debut of In Focus Episode 7: “Memory & Transformation.” Franz Welser-Möst leads Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in c and Messiaen’s “Le Christ, lumière du Paradis” (Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà). Online only on the Orchestra’s Adella streaming platform. Free to subscribers and Orchestra donors of more than $300/year. Adella subscriptions available.
A half-hour later, the 92nd St Y presents Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan. The cellist and pianist perform Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole and Rachmaninoff’s Sonata. Tickets $20. View here.
Also at 7:30 pm, the University of Akron School of Music presents A Tribute to Women in Music, in celebration of Women’s History Month. Solo and ensemble works by Jenni Brandon, Johanna Magdalena Beyer, Amy Cheney Beach, Libby Larsen, Florence Price, Clara Schumann and more. Online only. Click here at start time. (Free)
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
We begin by paying respects to composer (Achille) Claude Debussy who died of cancer at 55 on March 25, 1918 at his home in Paris. Influenced by the Symbolist poets of the late 19th century, Debussy was a leader in the impressionist movement, although he rejected the notion of being called an impressionist composer.
Click here to listen to Debussy play “Clair de Lune” from Suite bergamasque.
Click here to listen to Pierre Boulez lead the Philharmonia Orchestra in a performance of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.
Debussy’s music influenced many composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Bill Evans, and Béla Bartók — which brings us to our birthday celebration.
On March 25, 1881 composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and teacher Béla Viktor János Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania.
Bartók began studying piano with his mother, and at age nine started composing dance pieces. From 1899 to 1903, he studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. It was there that he met Zoltán Kodály and the two became lifelong friends and colleagues — they both shared an interest in folk music.
In 1908 Bartók and Kodály traveled into the farthest regions of the country to collect folk tunes, but what they discovered was that the Maygar folk melodies popularized by Franz Liszt they had previously thought of as Gypsy music were based on a pentatonic scale similar to that found in Asian folk melodies.
Although one doesn’t need to be an expert on all of this to enjoy Bartók’s music, here are a couple important things to remember:
- Bartók catalogued more than 9,600 melodies of Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovakian origin.
- Bartók incorporated these melodies into his compositions, often quoting them note for note.
- Bartók’s musical style is a mixture of folk music, classicism, and modernism.
If you’re so inclined, click here to listen to Thomas Little (AKA The Classical Nerd) explain all you need to know about the composer in seven and a half minutes.
If you’re looking for something a little more in-depth, click here to watch A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts’ beautiful documentary about the composer.
If you want to know more about the theory behind Bartók’s musical practices, click here to watch Axis Theory make the complicated simple — it really is quite fun.
On a personal note, my introduction to Bartók’s music came early in my teens when my junior high school band director gifted me an LP of George Szell conducting The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of the Concerto for Orchestra. From then on I was seriously hooked.
Click here to listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky give the Broadcast premiere of the piece (with its original ending) on December 30, 1944.
If you’re looking for something special to do on that first Zoom date, click here to enjoy Bluebeard’s Castle (you’ll need to scroll down a bit).
Click here to listen to Pierre Boulez and the Philharmonia Orchestra play The Miraculous Mandarin (you can follow along with the score).
Click here to get a bird’s-eye view of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
And finally, click here for a performance of the Sixth Quartet played by the Hungarian String Quartet (again, you can follow along with the score).