by Daniel Hathaway
CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA — WARNER PODCAST OUT:
Episode 4 of the second season of The Cleveland Orchestra’s “On A Personal Note” podcasts is available today. In “Love Notes,” pianist and violinist Carolyn Gadiel Warner talks about falling in love — with her husband of 40 years, with Bruckner Symphonies, and with her profession. Listen here.
LES DÉLICES PREVIEW VIDEO:
“Bewitched” is the title of the first of four concerts in Les Délices’ all-online season. The period instrument ensemble offers a sneak preview of the October 22 premiere program here.
CLEVELAND OPERA THEATER HIP-HOPERA:
In partnership with Refresh Collective, Cleveland Opera Theater is expanding its after-school program, “Stories of Struggle and Success,” into a month-long virtual intensive for teens 13-18. “Students will engage in an overview of music history from the time opera originated in the 1600s to the present day with an emphasis on storytelling through music, highlighting the similarities between opera and hip-hop.” Details and registration here.
ANOTHER INNOVATION FROM THE DSO:
One nagging defect of virtual performances is the deafening silence at the end of pieces and concerts. The Detroit Symphony, an institution that has been way out front in providing digital content in the absence of live, in-person concerts, is now inviting its viewers to submit applause videos. “Film yourself (family members and pets welcome!) clapping and cheering on the orchestra. No spoken words of thanks, please. Use the landscape mode on your recording device (a cell phone will work just fine), and don’t forget the audio!” The Orchestra will take it from there and the finished product will premiere at the end of a forthcoming concert. Submit here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
There are only a handful of obscure candidates for tributes today, so let’s focus on another aspect of September 29: Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels falls on this date each year, and marks the beginning of autumn in many Christian cultures.
It lends its name to the fall term in British universities, and gives rise to a number of folk customs, including making Michaelmas Bannock on the eve of the Feast of Saint Michael from equal parts of barley, oats, and rye without employing any metal implements. And Michaelmas draws the line after which you should stop picking blackberries. That last piece of advice derives from the legend that when the Archangel Michael expelled the rebellious Lucifer from heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush (ouch!), which he cursed and defiled in a special way. Don’t eat the berries.
Angels — divine messengers charged with delivering news good and bad to humans — are part of the rich mythology of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike. The archangels Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel join a trio in “The Heavens are telling” in Haydn’s The Creation (sung here by the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus under Robert Shaw). Later, Gabriel returns to the story to bring surprising news to Mary of Nazareth (listen to Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria sung by Chanticleer). He’s also likely to have been part of the heavenly host that sends the shepherds to the stable in Bethlehem (as re-enacted by Kiera Duffy and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chorale). And Gabriel may even have taken up a viol to entertain the bystanders as in Matthias Grünewald’s altarpiece that Hindemith turned into “The Angel Concert” in Mathis der Maler (here played by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt).
Celebrate Michaelmas with a recent service of Choral Evensong for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels from Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. As pianist Stephen Hough has written, “Evensong hangs on the wall of life like an old, familiar cloak passed through the generations. Rich with prayer and scripture, it is nevertheless totally nonthreatening. It is a service into which all can stumble without censure – a rambling old house where everyone can find some corner to sit and think, to listen with half-attention, trailing a few absentminded fingers of faith or doubt in its passing stream.”
Burrow deeper with Herbert Howells’ Sequence for St. Michael, written for Sir George Guest and the choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and dedicated to the memory of Howells’ son Michael, who died as a child. Click here for the text by Alcuin.