by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
At 12 Noon, the Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert series will present Lea Marra and The River Boys.
Tonight at 7:30 in Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art will host trio El Khat performing original Arabic tunes from Yemen on self-made instruments.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was first performed on Good Friday, April 15, 1729 in Leipzig. One of the composer’s most astonishing feats is its opening chorus (manuscript pictured below), which employs two orchestras, two choirs, and a boy’s choir and weaves the chorale melody O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig into its complex tapestry of sound. Finally, both choirs come together, intensifying the inexorable progress of the movement. Click here to watch a performance by the Netherlands Bach Society at the Grote Kerk in Naarden led by Jos van Veldhoven.
One of the most moving arias in the Matthew-Passion is Erbarme dich, sung just after Peter betrays Jesus for the third time. Philippe Herreweghe, who recently made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra, leads countertenor Damien Guillon and members of the Orchestra of Collegium Vocale Ghent. Click here to view.
On a similarly solemn note, April 15 is also the day when Abraham Lincoln died in 1865 and the Titanic sank in 1912.
Robert Shaw, who was George Szell’s assistant with The Cleveland Orchestra and its celebrated choral director for eleven seasons, had previously commissioned Paul Hindemith to write a work for his Collegiate Chorale in 1945. The result was When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d: A Requiem for Those We Love, based on poems by Walt Whitman and inspired by the American Civil War and the death of its wartime President. Watch a video commissioned by Carnegie Hall in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the conductor’s birth in 2016 documenting Shaw’s preparations for a performance of the work.
Modern recordings of Edwardian-era music that would have been performed by the ship’s band on the Titanic’s fateful maiden voyage give a cheerful picture of the era. Listen here (and watch excellent photos of the ocean liner as the music plays on).
