by Daniel Hathaway
A LITTLE OUTDOOR MUSIC:
An article in today’s New York Times about the Peace Tower bells in Ottawa, Ontario reminds us that as we emerge into the great outdoors, some forms of music are tailor-made for al fresco listening. “With Canada’s Parliament eager for the bells to sound during the outbreak — for reasons of morale and to provide a touch of normalcy — Dr. [Andrea] McCrady’s performances have become the only sanctioned musical events for a live audience in Canada’s capital during the shutdown.” Click here to access Dominion carillonneur McCrady’s YouTube playlist.
While non-essential travel to Canada is impossible at the moment, you can enjoy local bells by visiting the McGaffin carillon at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle. On Friday, May 29 from 12:15-12:45 pm. University Circle Carillonneur George Leggiero will play music by J.S. Bach, Corelli, Mozart, and Albert de Klerk on the 47-bell instrument, one of about 200 cast bell carillons in North America. You can even send in requests, and the Friends of the McGaffin Carillon note that picnics are welcome, “your car is also a place to hear the concert, and horn honking is an accepted form of applause at the end of the program.” Concerts happen every Friday through November 22. Read more about the carillon and its carillonneur here.
TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:
Herbert Blomstedt led magnificent Bruckner 5 performances with The Cleveland Orchestra in late February. Dial the calendar back three years and watch his 90th Birthday Concert with Staatskapelle Dresden here, when Blomstedt led Bruckner 4 and Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with András Schiff.
Also today, Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra features Stravinsky, Respighi, and Mozart, Oberlin visiting professor Christa Rakich gives a live clavichord recital, a Zoom webinar hosted by Arts Midwest and The Alliance of Performing Arts Conferences considers “Disruption and Innovation — Creative Performing Arts Responses,” the last week of performances from CIM’s archives features the Callisto Quartet, and the MET Opera resurrects a 1980 performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. Details here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Italian composer and violinist Nicolo Paganini died on this date in 1840 in Nice on the French Riviera. His virtuosic caprices are ubiquitous encore pieces, but Augustin Hadelich tempers the fireworks of No. 17 with humor in Fantasia dei Gatti, an animation by Tam King.
May 27, 1928 is the birthdate of Scottish composer Thea Musgrave, whose music has been programmed locally by Tim Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Multiple performers heralded her 90th birthday in May, 2018 with a concert at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York. Watch that tribute here, and get to know her in interviews here and here.
And another contemporary composer, Luciano Berio, died in Rome on this date in 2003, leaving a body of work that has been performed more frequently and by various ensembles in Northeast Ohio. Listen here to a performance of his Sinfonia by Pierre Boulez, the Chicago Symphony, and the Swingle Singers in Tokyo in 1995.
It may not be widely known that Berio is one of several composers who undertook the completion of Puccini’s Turandot. A few weeks before he died, the composer played what he had completed for conductor Arturio Toscanini, saying, “If I don’t succeed in finishing it, at this point someone will come to the footlights and will say: ‘The author composed until here, and then he died.’” Toscanini respected his wishes on opening night. Working from extensive sketches, Berio finished the work in his own fashion. Listen here to a performance of the ending by Riccardo Chaily and the chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Milan, and read a review of Berio’s work by Anthony Tommasini here.