by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Today’s free noon concert at the Church of the Covenant features North German Advent Music of the late 17th century. Tenor Mark Laseter, violinists Jonathan Goya and Addi Liu, violist da gamba Jane Leggiero, and organist Jonathan Moyer will perform music by Dietrich Buxtehude, Nicolaus Bruhns, and Johann Adam Reincken.
We’ve been remiss in recommending Eric Charnofsky’s radio programs, “Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music,” which air from 2:00 to 4:00 pm on Mondays on Case Western Reserve University’s internet stream. Himself a composer and a collaborative pianist, Charnofsky (pictured) likes to hunt out not-so-often performed music by well-known composers. The current edition features works by Frederick Delius, Kile Smith, Julius Eastman, Paul Hindemith, Aaron Coland, Poldowski (the pseudonym for Régine Wieniawski), and Shih-Hui Chen. Need assistance connecting? Help is only a click away.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
For those who recoiled a bit last Friday morning at the all-too-early dominance of Christmas and Holiday music on the airwaves, we’ll seek out alternatives during these last weeks of 2021 and note the anniversaries of some works that received their premieres on these dates in classical music history.
On November 30, 1913 (with some wiggle room due to the conversion of Russian calendar dates), Sergei Rachmaninov conducted the first performance of his choral symphonic poem, The Bells, in St. Petersburg.
The composer, who had been seeking out a likely text to set to follow his cantata, Spring, was on holiday in Rome in 1907when he received an anonymous letter suggesting Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells, in a translation by the Russian symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont.
The original poem, read here by Basil Rathbone with an underlay of Mahler, is highly onomatopoetic, something that doesn’t translate well. But Rachmaninoff took to it enthusiastically, regarding the finished work — along with his All-Night Vigil — as one of his two favorite compositions. Click here to listen to a 2015 live performance on AVROTROS with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus led by James Gaffigan, former assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra.
- Allegro ma non tanto: The Silver Sleigh Bells
- Lento: The Mellow Wedding Bells
- Presto: The Loud Alarm Bells
- Lento lugubre: The Mournful Iron Bells”
