by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Blossom this summer have normally been scheduled for Sunday evenings, but one exception is tonight’s performance featuring pianist Jonathan Biss in Caroline Shaw’s Watermark (read a preview here). Also on tap, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Elgar’s Enigma Variations, with associate conductor Vinay Parameswarn on the podium, replacing Elim Chan, a victim of pandemic travel complications.
Also on for Saturday: Cleveland Opera Theater’s annual Opera for All concert returns to the Dunham Tavern Museum.
Sunday is packed with mostly outdoor events: Tuesday Musical’s al Fresco Passport series (two concerts featuring Opus 216 in fiddle music at Akron’s historic Barder House), Canton Symphony musicians popping up at the Beach Creek Botanical Garden in Alliance, a University of Akron faculty recital by clarinetist Stanislav Golovin, a Stars in the Classics Garden Concert in Orange Village, the Cavani Quartet with the Amici String Quartet on Tremont’s Arts in August Festival, and at Cain Park, the world premiere of Caliban Ascendant, a new ballet with music by Ty Alan Emerson choreographed by Bill Wade for Inlet Dance Theatre and performed — along with other works — by Cleveland Chamber Collective (rehearsal photo above). Read a preview article here.
For details, check our Concert Listings.
ONLINE SATURDAY:
Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year Festival returns for a second day of online performances by the world-class ensembles nominated for the magazine’s 2021 Orchestra of the Year Award — including The Cleveland Orchestra. Today’s program begins at 2 pm Eastern time, and will be available to watch for 24 hours on the British magazine’s website.
Saturday’s 2 pm lineup includes music by Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Shostakovich, Florence Price, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi and Smetana performed by Paavo Järvi and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Santtu Matias-Rouvali with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jakub Hrůša with Bamberger Symphoniker, and Richard Egarr with the Academy of Ancient Music.
INTERESTING READ:
In the Diary for Tuesday, August 17, we relinked to video interviews we conducted eight years ago with Colin Davin from Kabul, where the classical guitarist was serving as guest teacher at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (click here to watch). Now, the BBC considers the future of the school in an article by Tiffany Wertheimer. Read Afghan music school falls silent under Taliban rule here.
THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC
Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival and School was founded on August 28, 1949 as a two-week event celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of German social philosopher and dramatist Johann Wolgang von Goethe, who entered the world on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt.
Watch A Bridge to Beethoven, a live performance by violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Shai Wosner from the 2015 Festival, and, from the Aspen School, a faculty-student showcase led by oboist Elaine Douvas.
Goethe’s most celebrated work is his tragic play, Faust, which became a German cultural monument, and whose mystical final lines have inspired settings by Schumann (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust), Liszt (Faust Symphony), and Mahler (Symphony No. 8).
And August 29, 1952, saw the premiere by pianist David Tudor in Woodstock, Vermont of one of the most controversial — and misunderstood — works of the 20th century: John Cage’s 4’33.” Usually characterized as four and a half minutes of silence, Cage actually intended the three-movement piece to allow listeners to tune in to the ambient sounds around them.
In the last performance on October 31, 2020 before the government mandated COVID shutdown, Berlin Philharmonic music director Kirill Petrenko used Cage’s piece (playable by any instrument) “to draw attention to the plight of artists following the lockdown of cultural institutions.” Watch the performance here. (Petrenko obviously took fast tempos — the entire video clocks in at 3:42!)
Finally, we should mention the anniversaries of some tragic events this weekend. Hungarian conductor Istvan Kertesz, born on August 28, 1929, drowned while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel in April, 1973 during a concert tour. In tribute, the Vienna Philharmonic completed the recording of Brahms’ Haydn Variations they had been making with Kertesz by performing the last movement without a conductor. Listen here.
And on the same date in 1767, German composer and harpsichordist Johann Schobert, his household, and his entire family perished in Nuremberg after eating poison mushrooms. Click here for a live performance from Early Music Alberta of Schobert’s Harpsichord Trio in F, Opus 16, No. 4.