by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
12 Noon — Chamber Music in the Atrium hosted by Piano Cleveland and featuring pianist Zhu Wang. Ames Family Atrium, Cleveland Museum of Art.
Also at 12 Noon – Organist Owen Metz plays Marcel Dupré’s Symphonie-Passion, Op. 23 on the Tuesday Noon Concerts at the Church of the Covenant, University Circle.
For details of these and other events, please visit our Concert Listings page.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Mike Telin
We begin today’s birthday celebrations back in 1688 when German violinist and composer Johann Friedrich Fasch entered this world on April 15 in Buttelstedt, Thuringia.
Fasch’s work took him to Prague, where for two years he served as Kapellmeister and court composer to Count Morzin. In 1722, he accepted the same position at Zerbst, where he remained until his death. Also in 1722, Fasch was recruited for the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, but withdrew his name for consideration. The position was later filled by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.
Fasch, a prolific composer whose music was often performed in his lifetime, wrote cantatas, concertos, symphonies, and chamber music. Sadly, most of his catalogue has been lost.
Johann Friedrich Fasch did leave us with a lovely bassoon sonata. Click here to hear the 4th movement performed by Katarzyna Zdybel (bassoon) and Katarzyna Kluczewska (piano).
This date in 1894 saw the birth of American blues singer Bessie Smith in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues,” Smith was one of, if not the most popular female blues singers of the ‘20s and ‘30s.
After the death of her parents, Smith and her siblings earned money by performing on street corners. She later toured in a group that included Ma Rainey before setting out on her own. Smith was signed to Columbia Records in the 1920s, and her songs such as Jail House Blues, Prison Blues, and Send Me to the Lectric Chair addressed social issues including chain gangs, the convict lease system, and capital punishment. Unfortunately her life was cut short when she was killed in a car accident at the age of 43. Click here to listen to a 1929 recording of Smith singing St. Louis Blues.
We conclude today’s birthday celebrations in the year 1924 when English conductor and violinist Sir Neville Marriner entered the world in Lincoln. As a violinist, Marriner played with the Philharmonia and London Symphony orchestras. He also performed with the chamber orchestras of Reginald Jacques, Boyd Neel, and the London Mozart Players.
Marriner is best known as the founder of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, of which the ensemble’s discography is legendary. He was also the founder and first music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, and principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Click here to read more about his productive career, and here to listen to Marriner conduct the ASMF in the Orchestral Suites of J.S. Bach.
