by Jarrett Hoffman
TODAY ON THE WEB:
Lots of intriguing music fills the calendar today. We’ll start with three free events happening live and available via streaming.
At noon, Trinity Cathedral’s Virtual Brownbag series will feature pianist Yeongseo Chloe Kim in a program highlighted by Robert Schumann’s Sonata No. 2 in g, and also including Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in d, BWV 875, and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D, Op. 10, No. 3. Click here at start time. Freewill offering.
At 7:30 pm, the Verona String Quartet plays Dvořák’s Echo of Songs (“Cypresses”), Karol Szymanowski’s Quartet No. 2, Op. 56 (1927), and Beethoven’s Quartet in c-sharp, Op. 131, in an Oberlin Conservatory faculty recital. Watch here.
At that same time, but 500 miles east, saxophonist and composer Steven Banks will make his Young Concert Artists debut at Merkin Hall in New York City. He’ll be joined by pianist Xak Bjerken and the Zorá Quartet in a program that includes transcriptions (Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F and Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 73) and world premieres by Carlos Simon, Saad Haddad, and Banks himself. Watch here.
(Banks, a former faculty member at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, previewed his Young Concert Artists program during a recent — and stellar — visit to the Rocky River Chamber Music Society. Read our review here.)
A different form of brand-new material comes by way of Apollo’s Fire, who release their latest concert video tonight at 8:00 pm. “Elegance: The Harper’s Voice” features Anna O’Connell (Baroque and Celtic harps, and soprano), Amanda Powell (soprano), and an ensemble of six instrumentalists in music by Dowland, Purcell, and Ireland’s legendary blind harper Turlough O’Carolan, as well as Scottish and Irish folk songs. Purchase tickets here, allowing you to watch anytime for 30 days.
Finally, in the category of re-broadcasts, WCLV serves up its daily “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra” at noon. Today’s menu includes Johann Strauss Jr.’s Annen Polka, Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, the “Finale” from Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C, and the Overture to Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Listen here.
And at 7:30 pm, the Met Opera delivers its latest nightly stream: Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, Piotr Beczała, and Ambrogio Maestri, and conducted by Gianandrea Noseda in a 2019 production by Sir David McVicar. Watch here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Pablo de Sarasate — who was born on March 10, 1844 — is known for his virtuosic and pure-toned violin playing, as well as the pieces he wrote to show it off. Most famous among those is his Zigeunerweisen. Listen to that piece in two versions: first, as written for violin and orchestra, from Itzhak Perlman and the Lawrence Foster-led Abbey Road Ensemble. And second, more unconventionally, from double bassist Edgar Meyer with mandolinist Mike Marshall on the 1997 album Uncommon Ritual.
(Speaking of Meyer, be on the lookout for his upcoming appearance on the Tuesday Musical series on April 20, when he’ll play Bach’s First Cello Suite as well as his own Work In Progress. Read more about that here.)
Composer Arthur Honegger was born in France — to Swiss parents — on this date in 1892, and lived most of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, he is known for merging the French avant-garde style of the first half of the 20th century with elements of German Romanticism — more so than his fellow members of that group, who turned away from that tradition. One listening recommendation: his Symphony No. 3, a commentary on the horrors of World War II, and an inventive combination of tonality and harsh, expressive language. Listen here to a famous recording by the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan.
And pour one out for Carl Reinecke, the German composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher who died on this date in 1910 at age 85. Some of the highlights of his resume include long tenures conducting Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, teaching piano and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, and eventually serving as director of that institution. His list of students is impressive, including Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Leoš Janáček, Isaac Albéniz, and Max Bruch. Listen to his famous Sonata Undine for flute, heard here in a performance by Sir James Galway and pianist Phillip Moll.