by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Continuing the celebration of the reopening of its newly-renovated Kulas Hall, tonight at 7:30 The Cleveland Institute of Music will host Sphinx Virtuosi, the flagship ensemble of the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, in a program that highlights the breadth and depth of music by Black and Latino composers.
For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Today’s calendar mostly records historic finales, perhaps none so tragic as that of French Baroque composer Jean-Marie Leclair. On this date in 1764, he was murdered in his home, supposedly by his jealous nephew, although no one was ever tried for the crime.
Making a more natural departure, Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti, father of the prolific keyboard composer Domenico, died on this date in 1725 in Naples at the age of 65. In his memory, we suggest listening to his extraordinary setting of Stabat Mater for ten solo voices and organ, performed here by Ars Nova Copenhagen, led by Paul Hillier and recorded in the Garnisonskirken in April, 2014.
Another in memoriam is due to Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, who was welcomed into the heavenly cello section on this date in 1973 at the age of 96. In a 1955 documentary filmed at his home in Prades, France, he talks with a former student about various subjects including his exile during the Franco regime, and plays one of Bach’s solo suites, in the revival of which he played a central role.
Casals and his colleagues Alexander Schneider, piano, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski, violin, played at the White House during the Kennedy Administration on November 13, 1961, a performance captured here on an LP recording.
Franz Liszt Fantasizing at the Piano (1840), by Josef Danhauser.
Enough departures! Our birthday boy is Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Ferenc (Franz) Liszt, born near Bayreuth on October 22, 1811. His eventful life and career included his single-handed invention of the solo piano recital, for which he wrote an enormous number of pieces to challenge keyboardists and make listeners swoon.
One prime example from that repertoire is his Mephisto Waltz No. 1, played here by Megan-Geoffrey Prinz at the Cleveland Institute of Music on May 20, 2018 (the fantastic story behind the piece is included in the notes).
Liszt also invented and championed the tone poem, of which he wrote a dozen during his years in Weimar. Orpheus tells the tale of the singing poet and lyre player who learned his art from Apollo himself. It was first performed as an orchestral introduction to Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, but Liszt later made a transcription for organ. So did Jean Guillou, who played the work in 1977 at Notre-Dame in Paris. Listen here.
