by Daniel Hathaway
LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS:
Piano Cleveland has now posted biographies and repertoire for the 30 pianists who will participate remotely in its Virtu(al)oso Competition beginning on July 30. Competitors will be recording two sets of pieces of their choice in Steinway Galleries in Cleveland, New York, London Hamburg, and Beijing. Click here to get to know the players.
The Canton Symphony has announced the postponement of its next season, which is now scheduled to begin in March, 2021. Previously announced concerts for the fall 40 Years of Gerhardt and A Planet’s Odyssey, will be moved to June of 2021. In the meantime, the Orchestra’s online programming can be accessed here.
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
Hornist Richard King is featured in Strauss’ First Concerto on today’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, the MET Opera pulls a 1982 performance of Wagner’s Tannhäuser from its archives, and the American Guild of Organists’ OrganFest 2020 highlights a Finnish improviser, the Choir and Baroque Orchestra of Trinity Wall Street, and the premiere of a new work by Brenda Portman. Details here.
NEW ONLINE CHORAL FESTIVAL DEBUTS AUGUST 1:
“Live from London,” a new online choral festival, will host some of the world’s most distinguished vocal ensembles on ten Saturdays beginning August 1. Participants in the HD broadcasts from the Voces8 Centre (St Anne & St Agnes Church) include Voces8, I Fagiolini, Stile Antico, The Swingles, The Sixteen (performing from Kings Place), The Gesualdo Six, Apollo 5, Chanticleer (performing from San Francisco), and the Academy of Ancient Music.
The series is designed “to raise money for artists, venues and promoters to cover their COVID-19 losses, and to reunite the world’s many singers, and audiences with much needed live concerts.” A proportion of ticket sales will go to the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, NZ Youth Choir and Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir. Details here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1838, Bavarian inventor Johann Maelzel died on a ship in a Venezuelan harbor enroute to Philadelphia, reportedly of alcohol poisoning. Developer — if not actually the inventor — of the metronome, that bane of beginning piano students, essential tool of professional musicians, and questionable witness to Beethoven’s tempo intentions, Maelzel and the composer had an on-and-off friendship partly centered around Maelzel’s automated musical instruments and Beethoven’s forgettable 1813 work, The Battle of Vitoria.
There’s a funny little canon that refers to Maelzel and his metronome. Although it was attributed to Beethoven by his secretary and biographer Anton Schindler, it’s almost certainly not by LvB — although it mysteriously shares material with the scherzo movement of Symphony No. 8. Listen to Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra perform Beethoven’s “Little Symphony” in the recently-released TCO Classics series. Scroll down to May 12, 2018.