by Daniel Hathaway
IT’S SPRING!
No snow on the crocuses and daffodils this time around in Northeast Ohio. To celebrate, we recommend a few poems by e.e. cummings, for whom spring was a recurring theme. Revisit (or discover for the first time) [in Just-], Spring is like a perhaps hand, and [O sweet spontaneous], or listen to the first movement of Vincent Persichetti’s Spring Cantata for soprano and alto voices and piano sung by the Dr. Phillips High School Cora Bella ensemble at the March 2012 Southern Division ACDA Conference in Winston-Salem, NC. There are three more cummings poems that Persichetti set to music in the cantata, but no recording of the complete set seems to exist. A shame.
ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:
The schedule is teeming with concerts this weekend. Here are some highlights, but check our Concert Listings for a more extensive list:
On Saturday, Oberlin Stage Left’s large ensemble performances include Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and Italian classical guitarist Emanuele Buono plays on the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series.
On Sunday, take a day trip to Baltimore for the 45th Annual Bach Marathon, hear Caroline Oltmanns on the Tri-C Classical Piano series, catch the Cleveland Composers Guild’s 60th anniversary concert from the Maltz PAC, virtually attend a recital by organist Steven Young in Huron or by the Strasera Duo at Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran arts series, or hear the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra’s Early Music Day Concert.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
Overshadowing the birth of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter on March 20, 1915, and the 1948 duel on that date between CBS and NBC to broadcast the first symphony orchestra concert (CBS won by 90 minutes with a Philadelphia Orchestra program, and NBC was the runner up with a Toscanini-led NBC Symphony performance), German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685.
Bach’s output was so extensive that there’s no paucity of music to recommend to mark his birthday, But because he was occasionally called upon to create birthday or name-day cantatas for his employers, let’s spin his cantata Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208, written for the 31st birthday of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels in February, 1713. Here’s a complete performance led by Helmuth Rilling.
It’s fun to run down a list of available arrangements of the most famous movement in BWV 208, “Schafe können sicher weiden,” or “Sheep may safely graze.” The original, sung by the character of Pales, is a charmingly simple thing scored for soprano and continuo with two obligato recorders.
Although it’s most frequently performed by pianists including Leon Fleischer, Lang Lang and Gina Alice, and Murray Perahia, you can also find the “Sheep” aria in versions sung by Kirsten Flagstad, played by classical guitarist Christopher Parkening, or the Canadian Brass, or in a full orchestral elaboration by Leopold Stokowski. What would Bach have thought? Had he lived in the 21st century, would he have earned royalties?
Organizations over the globe have scheduled Bach Birthday Bashes this weekend. Here’s one from the South Dakota Chapter of the American Guild of Organists that took place last Friday evening. Watch here and view the complete program here.
