by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Reaching back into the 15th century, we’ll begin by marking the death of Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem in Tours on February 6, 1497. The most important composer between Dufay and Josquin, his name has been spelled in creative ways (Ogkegum, Okchem, Hocquegam, and Ockeghama, to name a few variants).
Cleveland Chamber Choir featured his Alma redemptoris mater, paired with a setting of the same words by contemporary British composer Cecilia McDowall in its December, 2019 concert at First Baptist Church.
The 16th century painting above shows the composer (wearing eyeglasses!) with his choir singing from a large choirbook — standard practice before the invention of music printing and copy machines. Schola Cantorum Brabantiae performed Ockeghem’s Missa l’Homme Armé in authentic style in a 2005 concert in Slovenia. Watch here.
Ockeghem also left a significant number of secular pieces, collected in this LP by the Medieval Ensemble of London.
French organist André Marchal was born blind on February 6 in 1894, an affliction that didn’t prevent him from becoming a skilled improviser and teacher. Hear him play improvisations on three different instruments — at the Palais de Chaillot, the Royal Festival Hall in London, and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris here.
Marchal’s most important post was the Eglise Sainte-Eustache, situated in Les Halles, the medieval market neighborhood of Paris, where he recorded Franck’s Grand pièce symphonique in 1958. He resigned over a disagreement with the authorities about which builder should be entrusted with the renovation of the instrument.
And February 6, 2005 marked the demise of Karl Haas, the German-born commentator who hosted “Adventures in Good Music,” one of the longest running daily programs in classical music broadcasting.
On February 7, 1652, Italian composer and Papal Chapel singer Gregorio Allegri breathed his last in Rome. His noble setting with ornate embellishments of Psalm 51, Miserere mei, Dei, was closely guarded by the chapel singers until 14-year-old Wolfgang Amadé Mozart heard and transcribed it. Not to diminish his achievement, but the setting is repetitive enough that few trained ears should have any problem reconstructing the work. Here’s a video that tells the story of the work and includes a performance by Harry Christopher’s The Sixteen.
American composer Quincy Porter was born on February 7, 1897 in New Haven, going on to teach on two separate occasions at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as serving on the faculties of Vassar, the New England Conservatory, and Yale. Cleveland Orchestra violist Eliesha Nelson chose to include his 1948 Viola Concerto on her 2009 all-Quincy Porter album. Listen to her performance here with John McLaughlin Williams and the Northwest Sinfonia, and click here to hear the violist and the conductor answer some questions.
And Polish composer and conductor Witold Lutoslawski died in Warsaw on February 7, 1994. The BBC joined other news sources to produce a documentary about his life and work in 1990. Watch his conversation with Krzysztof Zanussi here.
When the composer fled Warsaw in 1944, he left most of his manuscripts behind, and those were lost in the almost complete destruction of the city by the Germans. His 1954 Concerto for Orchestra established his prominence as a composer. Listen to a Cleveland Orchestra performance of the work under Christoph von Dohnányi here. (The recording pairs the Lutoslawski piece with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.)
ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:
Saturday’s highlights include the opening panel discussion that prefaces Oberlin’s Black History Month events, a concert from the Boston Early Music Festival by Quicksilver featuring Cleveland violinist Julie Andrijeski, and WCLV’s archive recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
On Sunday, watch Boston’s A Far Cry chamber orchestra perform Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings from memory, along with works by Arvo Pärt and Chevalier de Saint-Georges, catch the Isaiah J. Thompson Quartet from The Gilmore in Kalamazoo and an Oberlin faculty recital by violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson and pianist Peter Takács, watch Rachel Barton Pine talk about the solo part of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and enjoy another extended work on WCLV — this time, a concert performance of Verdi’s Falstaff.
