by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
ON SATURDAY, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo sticks around after his recital last night for an 11:30 am master class at CSU, violinist Francesca de Pasquale and pianist Reiko Uchida play an Oberlin faculty/guest recital at 4:30 pm followed by a 7:30 pm Oberlin TIMARA recital by Aaron Dilloway and Stephan Haluska, and at 8, No Exit takes its “Music from The Collective” program to the Bop Stop.
Saturday’s Holiday Concerts include a 2:30 matinee and a 7:30 evening concert by The Cleveland Orchestra, 7 pm concerts by Cleveland Chamber Choir at Old Stone Church and by Singers Companye at the Church of the Western Reserve and a 7:30 pm Cleveland Philharmonic program featuring Cleveland Orchestra cellist Charles Bernard at Westlake PAC, and Apollo’s Fire takes Messiah to First Baptist Church at 8.
ON SUNDAY, Holiday Concerts by The Cleveland Orchestra start at 2:30 and 7:30, Apollo’s Fire finishes its run of Handel’s Messiah in Bay Village and the Cleveland Philharmonic repeats its Saturday program at CSU, both at 3. Close behind, the Suburban Symphony features Klezmer fiddler Steven Greenman at 3:30 in Beachwood, and at 4, Cleveland Chamber Choir reprises Saturday’s program at Christ Church in Hudson. The busy day ends with Oberlin’s annual Messiah Sing-Along (pictured) in Finney Chapel at 7, led by Peter Slowik.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Here’s a trio of “firsts” in classical music history to memorialize this weekend.
On December 11, 1918, Russian conductor Nikolai Sokoloff led the debut concert of the Cleveland Orchestra in Grays Armory. The program, a benefit for St. Ann’s Church, included Liszt’s Les Préludes, Victor Herbert’s American Fantasy, Bizet’s Carmen Suite, excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and Liadov’s Enchanted Lake.
The Grays, whose third building on Bolivar was completed in 1893, deserve a bit of historical background. Founded in 1837 as The Cleveland City Guards, the organization dated from the era when the constitutional militias referenced in the Second Amendment were foundering due to neglect from state politicians.
The private military company’s purpose was both to assist local law enforcement and to defend the city should Canada’s Rebellions of 1837 cross the border and instigate a new war with the United Kingdom. After serving in the Civil and Spanish American wars, and with the reorganization of the U.S. Military, the Grays were subsumed into the Ohio National Guard, and their participation in military operations ended with World War I.
The Armory subsequently became a center for Cleveland social and cultural events — like early concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra. In the summer of 1970, a Wurlitzer cinema organ from the Warner Theater in Erie, PA was reinstalled in the armory, and concerts have been scheduled from time to time by the Western Reserve Theatre Organ Society. (Watch a brief clip here.)
Jumping ahead, December 11, 1950 saw the debut of Paul Hindemith’s Clarinet Concerto by Benny Goodman with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Two years later, some 70,000 viewers in more than 30 theaters witnessed the first Pay-TV presentation of an opera (Richard Tucker in Carmen).
To dig a little deeper, take a 2-½ minute video tour of Grays Armory here, watch a performance of the Hindemith Clarinet Concerto by Adrián Hernández Altelarrea and the Brussels Symphony here, and update your calendars here for the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD Series for 2021-2022.
