By Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
12:00 pm – Tuesday Noon Organ Plus Concert: Students from the Oberlin Conservatory Department of Historic Performance Practice. Program to be announced. Church of the Covenant, 11205 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Freewill offering.
7:30 pm – Tuesday Musical Association: Cuarteto Latinoamericano. “Mexico: A Musical Journey.” Cuarteto Latinoamericano and scholar Benjamin Juarez explore connections in Mexican visual art, history, and culture through the music of six iconic composers, alongside a narrated multimedia presentation of paintings. E.J. Thomas Hall, University of Akron, 198 Hill St. Tickets available online.
For details, visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
English Renaissance composer Thomas Weelkes was born on October 24 in 1575. One of the most brilliant madrigalists of the era of Elizabeth I, his name appeared recently in the playlist of VOCES8, who sang his As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending on the Tuesday Musical Series.
That was one of 25 part-songs by 23 composers published in 1601 by Thomas Morley in The Triumphs of Oriana, apparently a tribute to “The Virgin Queen,” though its connection to Elizabeth has been disputed. In any case, the collection marshals the talents of British composers in its depiction of an idealized England where nymphs and shepherds cavort in the countryside. Each madrigal ends with the refrain, “Thus sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana: long live fair Oriana.”
Click here to listen to the entire collection, with some interpolated dance pieces, performed by the British ensemble i Fagiolini.
Centuries and worlds away, composer Sofia Gubaidulina was born on October 24, 1931 in the Tatar region of Russia. The New York Times took notice of the celebrations planned for her 90th birthday in a 2021 online article, At 90, a Composer Is Still Sending Out Blasts (click here to read). And go here to listen to Gidon Kremer play her Offertorium — Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, with Charles Dutoit and the Boston Symphony. “…the moving piece established Gubaidulina’s international reputation as something of a spiritualist.”
