by Daniel Hathaway
UPDATES FROM OBERLIN & APOLLO’S FIRE:
News is coming in about Oberlin’s summer programs. BPI, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, will be held online from June 22-28, focusing on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and will offer three levels of access — one of them free. See details here. The Organ Academy, designed for students middle school and up, will also be held online from June 21-16 (go here for details). The Flute Academy, Hinton Bass Institute, Piano Festival, Sonic Arts Workshop, Trumpet Workshop, and Vocal Academy are cancelled. Credo Chamber Music, a guest event, will be held online (details here).
In its first announcement about the 2020-2021 subscription season, Apollo’s Fire is anticipating adjustments to future concerts due to the pandemic. Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra is planning to launch its 29th season with live performances beginning on October 7, noting that subscriptions or tickets will allow listeners either to attend concerts in person or receive a password to watch an exclusive concert video at home one week later.
The Orchestra adds that “Live attendance may include social distancing, facial masks, capacity limits, and quick temperature checks at the door (using non-contact digital forehead scanners).” Download a season preview (pdf) that also details Apollo’s Fire’s no-risk subscription policy here.
ONLINE & ON THE AIRWAVES TODAY:
There are several piano streams available today: performances by Conrad Tao (replacing a Miami recital with a live feed from New York), Roman Rabinovich (on the 92nd St. Y Series, ticket required), Marshall Griffith (with flutist Virginia Crabtree in the last concert of Piano Cleveland’s Quarantine Series), and jazz artist Sullivan Fortner (on the latest Oberlin Stage Left event). And the MET Opera reaches into its HD archives for a 2011 performance of Strauss’s Capriccio. See our Concert Listings for details.
TODAY’S FEATURED VIDEOS:
Out today: the fourth episode in The Cleveland Orchestra’s “On a Personal Note” podcasts features cellist Martha Baldwin. In Rediscovering Joy, she talks about the restorative power of Beethoven’s second piano concerto after a difficult diagnosis. Listen here.
First Lutheran Lorain organist Brian Wentzel remembers his predecessor David Boe in a special video. Boe, who died last week, was organist of the church for 40 years while teaching and serving as dean at the Oberlin Conservatory. A little sound clip recalls Boe’s mildly mischievous argument for a new organ, resulting in a commission to John Brombaugh. That instrument was destroyed in a 2014 fire. Wentzel plays Sweelinck on the recently completed Paul Fritts organ in the new church building. Watch and listen here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On May 7, 1747, Johann Sebastian Bach paid a visit to King Frederick II (“The Great”) of Prussia at his palace in Potsdam — where his son Carl Philipp Emanuel was a court musician. The King, a keen amateur flutist, knew about the elder Bach’s prowess as a contrapuntalist and improviser, and challenged him to create a fugue on a theme created by the royal hand. Bach complied with a three-voice ricercar, using a fortepiano, and some time after returning to Leipzig, sent Frederick Ein musikalisches Opfer, a collection of fugues and canons — some of them puzzles to be solved — based on Frederick’s tune.
Here’s the whole work as performed by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations. Or enjoy the six-voice Ricercar played by The Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi.
On this date in 1824, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was first performed at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna. (Beethoven was reported to be so deaf by this time that he couldn’t hear the noisy ovation — but check out this article for another opinion.)
Recordings abound (the work is so popular that it gave rise to the myth that Beethoven 9 determined the capacity of the newly-invented compact disc). Here’s a community-oriented performance of the fourth movement from 2014 in Severance Hall by the CIM Orchestra, Cleveland School of the Arts Chorus, Singers’ Club of Cleveland, and Antioch Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir, led by Joel Smirnoff.
Also light a birthday candle today for Johannes Brahms (born in Hamburg in 1833), and Pytor Tchaikovsky (in Votkinsk, 1840).
And for American conductor Robert Spano, born in 1961. The Oberlin grad went on to lead the Atlanta Symphony and teach conducting at the Aspen Festival. Listen here to his 2012 talk at TEDxAtlanta, “The Universal Role of Music.” He explores history to show the connection of music and community, and reveals his ability to merge classical with contemporary by playing an original composition.