by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
7:30 pm – Les Délices plays excerpts from Papa Johann Sebastian Bach’s ingenious Musical Offering along with his son C.P.E. Bach’s expressive, galant music at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Akron.
8:00 pm – Zade Dirani Live in Concert, Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center.
For details of these and other classical music events, please visit the ClevelandClassical.com concert listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1965, French composer Paul Dukas was born in Paris. It’s a good time to search out one of the versions of Disney’s Fantasia to reconnect with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Who can listen to Dukas’ orchestral fantasy without conjuring visions of Mickey Mouse? You can test that out while listening to a performance by the Detroit Symphony under Jader Bignamini.
The celebrated Russian American pianist Vladimir Horowitz
was born on this date either in 1903 or 1904. Among his personal quirks: he ate only Dover Sole, and only played recitals (if he didn’t cancel) on Sundays at 4:00 pm. Watch a documentary of his life in the film The Last Romantic, and a video of his famous return to Moscow concert in 1986. There’s also a live recording of his recital in Cleveland in 1974.
Austrian American composer Ernst Toch died in Santa Monica, California on October 1, 1964. Although he wrote film music in Hollywood after escaping the Third Reich, perhaps he’s best known for his experimental works, including Gesprochene Musik (Spoken Music) suite, and its catchy “Geographical Fugue.”
The suite was meant to be recorded on a 78 rpm record and played at a higher speed in concert. As Toch wrote in a program note, “increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level … created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking.”
The Fugue is performed here by Tobias Schepers, Mathijs Maas, Thijs Vogels, and Willem van den Boom.
And on October 1, 1979, American composer Roy Harris died — also in Santa Monica. Born in rural Oklahoma, he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger with the help of Aaron Copland, and went on to write numerous works on American themes. His big breakthrough was his Third Symphony, captured here in a live performance by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra in 2010.
