by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Composer and conductor Gustav Mahler was born on this date in Kalischt, Bohemia. Instead of remembering him with one of his enormous works, why not watch cellist Oliver Herbert and pianist Teddy Abrams play Abrams’ lovely arrangement of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at WQXR New York’s Greene Space on June 3, 2019.
Conductor, composer, and double bass virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini left the world on this date in 1889. He took up the instrument that made him famous in order to win a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory, later endearing himself to opera patrons by playing fantasies on opera tunes from the stage at intermission of shows he conducted. Enjoy a rare performance of his Gran Duetto No. 1 played by Cleveland Orchestra principal Max Dimoff and his student Russell Thompson in 2013 at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
In 1897, composer and educator Quincy Porter was born on July 7 in New Haven, Connecticut, and later studied in his home town at Yale. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music twice with a sojourn in Italy in between, moving on to Vassar and the New England Conservatory before returning to Yale. Cleveland Orchestra member Eliesha Nelson performed his 1948 Viola Concerto on her all-Quincy Porter album in 2009. Listen to her performance here with John McLaughlin Williams and the Northwest Sinfonia, and click here to hear the violist and the conductor answer some questions.
Opera composer Gian-Carlo Menotti was born on July 6 in Cadegliano, Italy. His theater pieces are well-known, but not so often performed is his delightful fable, The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore for chorus, dancers and chamber ensemble. In the days when network television was interested in cultural programming, the piece was telecast in November of 1957. A more recent performance in February, 2019, combined The Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, Colorado Ballet Society, and the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble, conducted by Thomas Wilson.
And on this date in 1968, American composer and organist Leo Sowerby died in Port Clinton, Ohio while teaching at a summer choir camp. The Grand Rapids, Michigan native made his career in Chicago, where his works appeared on programs of the Chicago Symphony every season from 1917 through 1945, save two. As organist and choirmaster of Chicago’s St. James Cathedral for 35 years, and as founding director of the College of Church Musicians at Washington Cathedral from 1962-1968, he produced a large body of organ and liturgical music.
Watch a St. James Cathedral video narrated by Stephen Buzard celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sowerby’s birth in May of 2020, check out a performance of his organ work, Pageant, by the fleet-footed Ken Cowan at St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego, and hear Cleveland’s Trinity Chamber Singers sing his anthem, I Was Glad, during their week of services in England’s Chichester Cathedral in 2016 (Todd Wilson conducts and Nicolas Haigh is at the organ).
FEATURED VIDEO:
Pianist Daniil Trifonov, who polished his prodigious talents at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Sergei Babayan, talks with Emanuel Ax about his meteoric rise over the last decade on an episode of Live With Carnegie Hall. Watch here.
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
Time travel to the Vienna Woods on WCLV 104.9 Idestream’s Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra (Bach and Brahms, too), catch Verdi’s Il Trovatore from the MET Opera, and watch the first of two CREDO Chamber Music Faculty Recitals (David Bowlin and Tony Cho play violin works by William Grant Still, Aaron Copland, and Richard Strauss. Click through to the Concert Listings for details. Also take note what’s streaming worldwide this week in the Musical America listings.
