by Daniel Hathaway
Today at noon, the Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concerts at the Church of the Covenant in university circle will feature soprano Virginia Grabovsky and harpsichordist Jonathan Bolena in works by Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Giulio Caccini. Church of the Covenant, University Circle. Freewill offering.
And tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will host Quinn Kelsey, baritone and Craig Ketter, piano, for a recital of songs by Vaughan Williams, Finzi, and Copland, and settings of Langston Hughes’ poetry by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and John Alden Carpenter at the Cultural Arts Center at Disciples Church in Cleveland Heights.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Piano Cleveland announces First Round contestants for its 2026 Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists
Click here to read the press release.
Tuesday Musical extends scholarship deadlines to February 9
Click here to read the announcement.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On February 3, 1809, German composer and conductor Felix Mendelssohn began his short tenure in the world in Hamburg, where he also passed on in 1847 at the age of 38. Historically famous for reviving J.S. Bach’s Matthew-Passion in a performance in Berlin at the age of 20, he revisited that work at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig a dozen years later, revising some of his earlier revisions (read a Gramophone review here).
An organist (he wrote six sonatas for the instrument) as well as a symphonist and composer of concertos, oratorio and chamber music, Mendelssohn was a popular recitalist during visits to London, and a palace guest of keen amateur musicians Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (pictured above).
But in a Northeast Ohio mid-winter, perhaps the best way to celebrate Mendelssohn’s birthday is with a listen to his altogether charming incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for which he penned a concert overture at the age of 17, and later added more movements. Here’s a performance from Montréal’s McGill University led by Alexis Hauser that underscores Mendelssohn’s particular success in writing music that invokes the imaginary world of fairies.
And French composer Jehan Alain, born on this date in 1911, is most famous for his organ music. On the anniversary of the composer’s untimely passing during World War II, we honored Alain by offering two recommendations: his Trois Danses (which were played by Vincent Dubois during an appearance at the Cleveland Museum of Art) and a selection of his unjustly neglected choral music (performed here by the Camerata Saint-Louis and the Ensemble Vocal Sequenza 9.3).
