by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä (pictured) flies in to lead the Cleveland Orchestra and choruses with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 (7:30 at Severance Music Center, repeated Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 8).
No Exit New Music begins its new season with a triptych of concerts and a trio of world premieres tonight at 7 pm in CSU’s Drinko Recital Hall (repeated Friday at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday at SPACES Gallery, both at 7:30.)
The Oberlin College Choir and Musical Union sing a joint concert directed by Brian Bailey and Jami Lercher (7:30 in Warner Concert Hall), and Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project presents James Ilgenfritz & Matthew Goodheart/Heather Mease (8 pm in Calicchia Gallery Studio, Cleveland).
For details of these and other concerts, visit our Concert Listings page.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On October 17, 1849 Frederic Chopin died in Paris. Having planned ahead, his coffin was sprinkled with earth he had brought from Poland and his remains were interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery, where you can visit his grave along with those of such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and Édith Piaf.)
On this date in 1943, Naumburg prize winning violinist, violist, conductor, and soprano Susan Davenny Wyner was born in New Haven. She made her Met Opera debut — her only performance in that house — in October of 1981 as Woglinde in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and later settled in Ohio to lead the Warren Philharmonic and Opera Western Reserve.
And shockingly, a trio of promising composers — Victor Ulmann, Pavel Haas, and Hans Krasa — were murdered on this date in 1944 by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
In a happier event, British composer Herbert Howells was born on this date in 1892 in Lydney, Gloucestershire. Howells’ reputation is based on his large output of Anglican church music — ecstatic and elegiac works that celebrate particular cathedrals and choirs, many of which commemorate Howells’ son Michael, who died of polio at the age of nine. Howells’ Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral is a good example of his lofty tone and special harmonic language: this performance by St. Paul’s Choir in Christopher Wren’s monumental building is led by Barry Rose, with Christopher Dearnley at the organ.
But today would also be a good opportunity to take a dip into Howells’ catalog of chamber music. Follow along with the score of his Piano Quartet in a minor here.
Pavel Haas’ String Quartet No. 2, “From the Monkey Mountains” was performed by the ensemble that bears his name on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on April 17, 2012. Listen to their recording here. His Wind Quintet has been featured locally on concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet (CCMS series), CIM faculty and students (“Violins of Hope” series), and CityMusic Cleveland (“The Composers of Theresienstadt,” including Viktor Ullmann’s Quartet No. 3).