by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Some highlights in a busy weekend (see all events and details in our Concert Listings):
The Cleveland Orchestra continues its unveiling of Allison Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory. (a co-commission, composer pictured) on Friday at 11 am, and Saturday at 8.
A Heights Arts Close Encounters open rehearsal on Friday at 6 pm involves pianist Yaron Kohlberg, violinist Amy Lee, and cellist Dane Johansen, who are preparing Antonìn Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 4 and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat for performance on Sunday, May 11 at 3 pm at Heights Theater.
A virtual trip to Italy on Friday at 7:30 will take you to hear Ottorino Respighi’s The Pines of Rome performed by Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra, and Yubo Deng soloing in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, plus the premiere of Katharina Mueller’s Elements. It’s free, and will be live streamed from Warner Concert Hall..
Unless you’re a woodwind player, the name of composer Anton Reicha may not ring any bells, and neither might Josef Eybler or Manual Canales. Allow Wit’s Folly to introduce you to three of their string quartets on Saturday at 7 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop (suggested donation $20).
And on Saturday at 7:30 pm, Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony and Chorus will raise the roof of E.J. Thomas Hall with Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic Requiem. Tickets available online.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Akron’s Tuesday Musical has announced its 2025-2026 subscription series at E.J. Thomas Hall. Performances include Marc-André Hamelin, piano (October 21), Les Arts Florissants with Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin (November 18), Christmas with Cantus (November 30), Imani Winds & Boston Brass (February 20), Marsalis-McAllister-Ames Trio (March 3), & Soprano Renée Fleming — Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene (April 21). Click here for subscription packages.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
May 10: by Jarrett Hoffman:
Today. we turn to “the father of film music” and a revolutionary score.
Born on May 10, 1888 in Vienna to a family prominent in theater — and with Richard Strauss as his godfather — Max Steiner was keeping busy in music by age six with several piano lessons a week and an interest in improvisation. Studies with Robert Fuchs and Gustav Mahler at the Imperial Academy of Music made way for work writing and conducting operettas and musicals in London and New York, followed by a move to Hollywood in 1929.
Steiner went on to write over 300 film scores, including The Informer, Little Women, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind, but our focus today is on 1933’s King Kong. The first American “talkie” to include a feature-length score, and one of the first to feature a 46-piece orchestra, Kong was also revolutionary for Steiner’s use of leitmotif, a technique that would become standard in the language of film music.
And this music might easily have never been written. The production company, RKO Radio Pictures, sought to save money by having Steiner reuse music from other films rather than write anything new. Not pleased with that decision, one of the film’s co-directors, Merian C. Cooper, reached into his own pocket (later to be reimbursed by the studio), paying Steiner fifty grand to do the real thing.
As a side note, not only did the film introduce the public to the character of King Kong, but it also provided an early cinematic sight of the Empire State Building, which had only opened two years earlier. Watch that iconic monster climb that iconic skyscraper in this iconic clip.
By the way, when is an orchestra going to dust off this score for a live movie screening? It might not be the most important issue in programming, but listen to the music for the opening titles here and tell me you don’t want some of that in your life.
