by Daniel Hathaway
ON TODAY:
For “Allure,” its second run of subscription concerts, Apollo’s Fire gathers three fine sopranos, all Amandas (Forsythe, Powell, and Crider) for virtuoso trios composed for the famous Three Ladies at the Court of the Duke of Ferrara, plus music by Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, and Monteverdi. Eight instrumentalists add dances from the palace of the Dukes and the countryside. In-person performances begin today and run through Sunday (check availability here), and a video will be available to subscribers a week later.
And Christ Church, Hudson organist Mario Buchanan will stream a recital on the fine Noack organ tonight at 7. Check the Concert Listings for details.
Speaking of organ recitals, if you missed Nicole Keller’s Brownbag Concert program yesterday on the Flentrop instrument in Trinity Cathedral, a video is still available to watch on demand.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1494, German Meistersinger Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg. A shoemaker by trade, he wrote over 4,000 Meisterlieder, poems, tragedies, comedies, fables, and religious tracts, having become an enthusiastic follower of Martin Luther. That earned him the opprobrium of the town council until Nuremberg signed on to join the Reformation.
Sachs is portrayed in Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. Watch the Act I scene, “Beckmesser’s Judgment and Sachs’ Rebuttal,” from a 1970 Hamburg State Opera production in which Giorgio Tozzi plays Hans Sachs.
November 5, 1989 marked the death of Ukrainian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz. He gave up his concert career two years earlier at the age of 84, but not before giving spectacular recitals in Vienna (Klavierabend in the Goldener Saal at the Musikverein) and Hamburg (his last public appearance).
And American composer Elliott Carter died on this date in 2012, in New York at the age of 103, having written more than 20 works since reaching the century mark. He was the subject of a Classical Nerd episode, The Uncompromising Elliott Carter (watch here), and his last interview was a conversation with cellist Alisa Weilerstein.
For a taste of Carter’s later, modernist works, follow along with the score while pianist Ursula Oppens plays his 1980 Night Fantasies, and watch 2009 Cleveland International Piano Competition laureate Sean Chen perform his Caténaires.
CIM New Music Ensemble flutist Alexandria Hoffman, oboist Devin Hinzo, cellist Joseph Teeter, and harpsichordist Taylor Flowers performed his 1952 Sonata in Mixon Hall on February 7, 2018.
While many admire the composer’s later works, others find charm in Carter’s earlier, neoclassical pieces. Here are two:
The USC Thornton Chamber Singers programmed his 1945 setting of Emily Dickinson’s Musicians Wrestle Everywhere on its May 2, 2013 concert, “Americans in Paris: The Legacy of Nadia Boulanger.”
And the Harvard Glee Club recorded Carter’s 1947 work, Emblems, on poetry of Alan Tate, on its 150th Anniversary Tour in Cincinnati in March, 2010. Carter dedicated the work to G. Wallace Woodworth and the HGC. Here, assistant conductor Michael McGaghie conducts the ensemble.
