by Daniel Hathaway
In this entry:
• Concerts at YSU, CIM, and CMA
• In the news: more sanctions for Gergiev, a new recording by guitarist Jason Vieaux (pictured), and coming events at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
• Almanac: celebrating composers Kurt Weill, Marc Blitzstein, and Bernard Rands, and the founder of the world’s oldest music publisher (they’re still in business).
TODAY’S EVENTS:
Today’s agenda begins and ends at Youngstown State University, where Dana School of Music faculty Misook Yun, soprano, Caroline Oltmanns, piano, and Sean Yancer, horn, perform at 12:15 noon at the Butler Institute of American Art, and where Texas A&M University (Kingsville) piano professor Joachim Reinhuber plays a guest recital in Bliss Hall at 7:30 pm.
In between at 7 pm comes a Cleveland Institute of Music faculty recital by Olga Dubossarskaya Kaler, violin, and Anita Pontremoli, piano, in Mixon Hall (also available online), and down the street at 7:30 pm, Malian singer and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara makes a pandemic-postponed appearance in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Details in our Concert Listings.
IN THE NEWS:
As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know. Adding to a growing list of cancellations and censures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, conductor Valery Gergiev has now been fired from his post in Munich because of his close association with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. Read more from the New York Times here. In a related article, New York’s Metropolitan Opera is moving to sever ties with pro-Putin artists.
Guitarist Jason Vieaux will release his second Bach album on Azica Records on April 1. The first disc, recorded 13 years ago, comprised works for lute. The second will feature transcriptions of violin works: Partita No. 3 in E, BWV 1006 — which is both the Violin Partita No. 3 and Lute Suite No. 4 — Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005, and Sonata No. 1 in g, BWV 1001.
In a press release, Vieux said, “The idea Azica and I had back then was that there would eventually be a Volume 2, which would complete the ‘lute’ set by making a ‘violin’ record that included BWV 1006… Well, ‘eventually’ turned out to be about 13 years, 2 kids, 700 more gigs, and over 8 hours of commercial releases later.”
The Cleveland Museum of Art has announced a special installation and a collaborative concert in March.
“Migrations of Memory––The Poetry and Power of Music” will run through May 1 in the Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art. “Surrounded by classical Chinese paintings and instruments from the museum’s collection, the central installation Migrations of Memory — Wild Geese Descend on Level Sands (平沙落雁) by contemporary Chinese artist Peng Wei addresses the vital role of music and the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Made of music stands, letters by Western composers and paintings, Peng Wei’s installation is dedicated to the Cleveland Orchestra and musicians worldwide.”
And on Wednesday, March 16, the Museum will join Piano Cleveland and the Cleveland School for the Arts to present a 7:30 pm performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals in Gartner Auditorium.
“For this event, music, art and dance students from CSA will perform alongside local professional musicians from Piano Cleveland’s artist roster. Props, scenery and costume pieces by the art students and stylized choreography from students of CSA’s dance department will bring the performance to life. The program will showcase creativity in music, dance and design with an interactive and inspiring performance of the 14 different animals depicted in the movements of Carnival of the Animals.” Free tickets will be available at the north lobby doors.
ALMANAC:
On this day in 1695, Bernhard Breifkopf, founder of the music publishing company that became Breitkopf and Härtel, was born in Clausthal. After moving to Leipzig, he inherited a print shop that he rescued from bankruptcy, and launched his publishing career with the 1723 publication of a manual of the Hebrew Bible. The oldest music publisher in the world that’s still in business, Breitkopf and Härtel’s catalog includes over a thousand composers, eight thousand works, and 15,000 music editions or music books.
Although B&H’s early history coincided with J.S. Bach’s arrival in Leipzig, Breitkopf and Bach never seem to have collaborated, although the company published the Bach-Gesellschaft edition of the composer’s complete works beginning in 1850. Visit the company’s website to learn more.
In the world of musical theater, subcategory political, German composer Kurt Weill was born in Dessau, Germany on March 2, 1900, and American composer Marc Blitzstein wasn’t far behind, entering the scene in Philadelphia on March 2, 1905
Weill, who was naturalized as a U.S. Citizen in 1943, collaborated early on with playwright Berthold Brecht, and wrote works that crossed the permeable border between opera and musical theater (his strangest collaboration just might have been with Odgen Nash for One Touch of Venus.)
Christoph von Dohnányi led a live performance of Brecht & Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins at the Salzburg Festival in 1992 with soprano Anja Silja. Listen here.
Locally, Oberlin Opera Theater devoted a whole week to Weill in 2014, centered around a production of Street Scene, and Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater and Cleveland Opera Theater created a joint production of Threepenny Opera at the Maltz Performing Arts Center in 2017.
Blitzstein gained national attention for his 1937 pro-union play, The Cradle Will Rock, which was shut down by the Works Progress Administration and hastily moved to a different theater. Leonard Bernstein revived it at Harvard in 1939 in that stripped-down format. Blitztein discusses his musical here.
And composer Bernard Rands was a newborn on this date in 1934 in Sheffield, England.
Last April, Oberlin Music released the album Rands at Oberlin, featuring the recorded premiere of the English horn concerto Rands wrote for Cleveland Orchestra English hornist (and Oberlin Oboe Professor) Robert Walters in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Oberlin Conservatory. Read an article and watch a video here.
Rands’ music was also featured in a concert by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in December, 2014, and in an album by Edwin London and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.
