by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ENTRIES:
. Hello Dolly! at Ohio Light Opera
. Almanac: Sir Peter Pears, Jeffrey Mumford, and Darius Milhaud celebrate anniversaries of their debuts
ON TODAY:
At 2:00 pm Ohio Light Opera presents Cinderella, music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II at Freedlander Theatre, 329 E. University St., Wooster. Purchase tickets here.
To check out live concerts happening this week in Northeast Ohio, see our Concert Listings.
NEWS BRIEFS:
South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, 18, has won first prize at the 16th Van Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth. Lim, who takes home a cash prize of $100k, came in second at the Cleveland International Competition for Young Artists in 2018. Read more here.
INTERESTING READS:
EuroNews probes the secrets behind the unique sound of the Vienna Philharmonic. “The special thing and somehow what the whole world envies us for is the rhythm and how we sense it. The anticipation of the second note that comes a bit earlier, and the third note that comes a little later. And that’s combined with a beautiful melody that’s been tailor-made for our orchestra,” says the Vienna Philharmonic’s First Violin and Chairman, Daniel Froschauer.” That and how their instruments are crafted and their sound is shaped. Read the article here
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Today’s debuts on the world stage include English tenor Sir Peter Pears (born in Farnham, Surrey in 1910), and Cleveland composer Jeffrey Mumford (born in Washington, D.C. in 1955), and finales on this date in history include French composer Darius Milhaud (who died in Geneva in 1974). Now that it’s summer, I’ll trim my suggested listening list to one item for each honoree.
Pears was the life partner of composer Benjamin Britten, and their musical collaborations included Pears’ wonderful choices of texts set brilliantly by Britten and often performed by the two with Britten at the piano. One of Britten’s most superb song cycles is the Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, performed here by Pears, hornist Dennis Brain (playing natural horn in the Prologue and Epilogue), and the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by John Hollingsworth. The playlist with start times:
Prologue 0:00 Pastoral – The Evening Quatrains (Charles Cotton) 1:19 Nocturne – Blow, bugle, blow (Alfred Tennyson) 5:16 Elegy – The Sick Rose (William Blake) 8:51 Dirge – Lyke-Wake Dirge (Anonymous) 13:45 Hymn – Hymn to Diana (Ben Jonson) 17:42 Sonnet – To Sleep (John Keats) 19:42 Epilogue 23:37.
Mumford is a prolific composer with a predilection for colorful titles like an expanding distance of multiple voices. Here’s a performance of his 2015 work becoming… at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Shuai Wang, piano, Ethan Ramaly, flute, Susannah Greenslit, horn, James Thompson, violin, Julian Maddox, violin, Tess Krope, viola, Daniel Blumhard, cello, Tristen Jarvis, double bass, Grace Cross, harp, Matt Moore, vibraphone, and Charles Renneker, marimba. Dean Buck conducts.
Milhaud, a diplomat as well as a composer, was also prolific, and some will remember attending summertime performances of his operas at the Central City Opera House in Colorado with the composer in attendance. Here’s a strange little “Visit With Darius Milhaud” documentary, much of it in French, that “shows him with former student Dave Brubeck in an informal jazz session at his home and watches Milhaud compose a sonatina for violin and cello.” There are also some highlights of his sonatinas and operas.
And now that people are contemplating travel again even as fuel prices are rising, if Philadelphia is on your road trip itinerary, you might consider visiting the Grand Court of the former John Wanamaker department store (now Macy’s) in City Center, where the world’s largest operational pipe organ was first played on this date in 1911. Its curious story is woven into this guided tour (there’s a second part, too!)
If it were all in working order, you could hear the largest pipe organ in the world not far away in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. It’s being gradually restored and is worth a visit. Here’s a performance by John Wanamaker organist Peter Richard Conte, who knows his way around such outrageous instruments. The seven-manual console alone is a daunting prospect (pictured here on a recent visit by Organ Clearing House CEO John Bishop, left, and curator Nathan Bryson).