by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today at 12 noon, organist Chase Olson will divide his Tuesday noon program at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle between the Covenant’s 17th-century-style gallery instrument (music by Heinrich Scheidemann, Melchior Schildt, and Dietrich Buxtehude), and its American classic-style chancel instrument (music by Olson, Charles-Marie Widor, and Franz Liszt).
And at 7:30 pm – CIM Perspectives will present pianist Inna Faliks in Mixon Hall,
For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Yesterday’s Diary mentioned the first performance of Handel’s Messiah in Dublin in April of 1742. Seven years later, in 1759, the composer died on this date at the age of 74. A crowd of 3,000 attended his funeral and burial in London’s Westminster Abbey on April 20, a service led by the Bishop of Rochester with music provided by the combined choirs of the Abbey, the Chapel Royal, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
What did they sing? The Funeral Sentences by William Croft, organist of the Abbey from 1708-1727, thereby launching a tradition that has persisted at every British state funeral since. Click here to hear them sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge under Sir David Willcocks in 1966. (Croft included one piece by his predecessor Henry Purcell, humbly explaining that ”The reason why I did not compose that verse anew (so as to render the whole service entirely of my own composition) is obvious to every Artist.”
For interesting glimpses into the personal finances of one of the Baroque period’s most successful composers, here’s a detailed list of what Handel left to whom in his will and its four codicils. And in 2013, University of Texas music librarian David Hunter came across evidence that Handel had invested in the slave trade through his financial dealings with the Royal African Company.
In an article in Musicology Now, Hunter writes, “The main question for both sides of the Atlantic (and not just the Anglophone countries) is how did the profits of the broad slave economy find their way into musical activity?
