by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
On Friday, the Cleveland Cello Society produces its annual extravaganza, i Cellisti, YSU presents the Imani Winds, Apollo’s Fire (pictured) gives the first of four performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in b in Akron, and Oberlin Sinfonietta performs under Kenneth Bean.
On Saturday, join a “Carillon Crawl” in Cleveland Heights, hear the Andrew Sords Quintet at Bath Church, experience the debut of the Cleveland Photoplayers creating a live score for a 1929 Hitchcock silent film, go on the road with Journey and the Canton Symphony, and catch up with Apollo’s Fire at Trinity Cathedral.
On Sunday, enjoy Clayton Stephenson on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series, hear the CIM New Music Ensemble at the Art Museum or the Firelands Symphony Chorale in Sandusky, follow Apollo’s Fire or the Andrew Sords Quintet to Rocky River, immerse yourself in the music of Five Composers and a Pianist on the Kent Keyboard Series, and experience the Martha Redbone Roots Project at Oberlin.
See our Concert Listings for more information about these and other events.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Cleveland Orchestra will present Grammy Award–winning composer and jazz musician Herbie Hancock at Severance Music Center on November 4. “Now in the seventh decade of his professional life, Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world culture, technology, business, and music. He has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s.” Read more here.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
April 4:
On today’s date in 1739, George Frideric Handel premiered his oratorio Israel in Egypt in London. Having built his reputation as a man of the theater, the composer had to admit that he’d misjudged his audience — who were apparently not ready for a Biblical epic presented in double choruses and introduced by a 30-minute dirge, and he shut the run down after only three performances. Handel brought the work back, adding some Italian arias, and more recently, Jeannette Sorrell has made her own version for Apollo’s Fire, which was nominated for Grammy awards in two categories this year.
Speaking of Biblical epics, one of the most successful film scores of the 20th century was composed by Elmer Bernstein (born on this date in 1922) for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). Watch Moses receiving the commandments on the mountain while the Hebrews are constructing a golden calf down below. And here, Moses parts the Red Sea.
Bernstein (no relation to Leonard) wrote or arranged scores for some hundred films. An interesting look into his technique is provided in Paul Thomson’s film scoring master class, where he compares Bernard Herrmann’s 1962 score to the psychopathic thriller Cape Fear with Elmer Bernstein’s 1992 remake, directed by Martin Scorsese. Probably best not to watch alone in the dark…
April 5 — by Jarrett Hoffman
German composer Louis Spohr, born on this date in 1784, was a major figure during his lifetime, during which he amassed an oeuvre including eighteen violin concertos, ten symphonies, ten operas, four clarinet concertos, and four oratorios. But his legacy lives on most ubiquitously in two little inventions related to his violin playing and his conducting: the chinrest, and rehearsal letters that marked points in the score. He was also an early adopter of the baton.
Despite playing and teaching the violin, and composing so frequently for it, Spohr is best-known today for his clarinet concertos. All four were written for Johann Simon Hermstedt, a court musician and the wind band director under the Duke of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (to whom Hermstedt also taught the clarinet).
April 6:
There are two birthdays and two passings to highlight in today’s calendar.
French-American harpist and composer Carlos Salzedo (official name, Charles Moïse Léon Salzedo) was born in 1885 in Arcachon. And German American conductor, composer and pianist André Previn entered the world in Berlin in 1929 (under a slightly different name: Andreas Ludwig Priwin).
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky took his final curtain call in New York on this date in 1971 (he was buried in Venice), as did the great blind American singer-songwriter Ray Charles in Beverly Hills in 2015 (official name: Ray Charles Robinson).
Salzedo single-handedly created the role of the modern virtuoso concert harpist, establishing a summer harp colony in Camden, Maine, founding the harp department at the Curtis Institute of Music, and teaching at the Juilliard School. Listen to the master himself play his Variations on a Theme in Ancient Style.
If Stravinsky needs any introduction, here’s one that Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst provided before the Orchestra’s all-Stravinsky concerts in Severance Hall in March of 2017. And anyone concerned about the younger generation carrying the classical music torch forward should give a listen to Brett Mitchell leading the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the 1947 version of Petrushka in March, 2016.
Equally at home in symphonic music, Hollywood scores, and jazz, Previn had serial relationships with the London and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and the Los Angeles, Royal, Oslo, and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras.
His opera based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire was produced by Scott Skiba and Cleveland Opera Theater in December 2015. Listen to Benjamin Czarnota singing Stanley Kowalski’s aria “It’s gonna be all right” here. And here’s a recording of Previn’s live performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on a 1966 episode of the Bell Telephone Hour.
Ray Charles was blinded by glaucoma in childhood, but he didn’t let that hold him back in his distinguished career. Watch him here rehearsing in Bourges, France in 1987, introducing Nat “King” Cole at the 2000 Rock Hall Induction Ceremony, and joining Gospel diva Sarah Jordan Powell in “Christmas in Ettal” in Germany in 1979.
