by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
2:00 pm – Ohio Light Opera presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel in Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster. Tickets available online.
7:30 pm – ChamberFest Cleveland presents “Mood Swings.” Eight festival artists perform Mozart’s Ganz kleine Nachtmusik and Richard Strauss’ Piano Quartet in C minor. Then, composer-vocalist-pianist Errollyn Wallen joins them to perform selections from The Errollyn Wallen Songbook. Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music.
NEWS BRIEFS:
R.I.P. Alfred Brendel
Barry Millington writes in a Guardian obituary for Alfred Brendel, who has died at the age of 94, that “the pianist’s art was characterised by a paradox. On the one hand lay an intellectual discipline, academic rigour and search for perfection; on the other a delight in the absurd. He once listed “laughing” as his favourite occupation and was fond of observing that “humour is the sublime in reverse.”
“In a performing career that spanned six decades Brendel commanded a respect that came, especially in the later years, to border on reverence. His authoritative interpretations of the classical repertoire – primarily Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert – were second to none, though in his earlier years he was also a fine Lisztian and helped to establish Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto in the concert repertoire. Read the obituary here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1843, Austrian cellist and composer David Popper was born in Prague. Author of a large quantity of cello music, Popper was among the last of the great cellists to perform without using an endpin. Click here to watch a performance of his Requiem for three cellos and piano performed by CityMusic Cleveland music director Amit Peled and two of his students from the Peabody Institute.
On June 18, 1942, Paul McCartney (Sir Paul since 1965, when The Beatles were inducted into the Order of the British Empire) was born in Liverpool, England. In addition to his career with his groundbreaking Liverpudlian band, who memorably played Cleveland in 1964 and 1966, he made a foray into classical music with his Liverpool Oratorio, featuring Kiri Te Kanawa. Watch a recording here of its dress rehearsal and premiere in Liverpool Cathedral in 1991.
