by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:
Halloween events include The Cleveland Orchestra’s Halloween Spooktacular: Heroes & Villains! (Saturday at 2 — a “relaxed, sensory-friendly” version — and Sunday at 2 at Severance Music Center,) and a screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with organ score played by David Blazer (Sunday at 7 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River).
Multiple performances (take your choice) include Cleveland Chamber Choir in “Meditations and Mysticism” (Saturday at 7 in Trinity Cathedral, Sunday at 4 at First Lutheran Church in Lorain), CityMusic Cleveland featuring violist Eleisha Nelson in a concerto by Margaret Brouwer (Saturday at 7:30 at St. Stanislaus Shrine, Sunday at 4:30 in Our Lady of Angels in Rocky River).
Single events on Saturday: BW Faculty Recital by flutist Kaleb Checnic (Noon in Gamble Auditorium), the Canton Symphony’s “Star Wars and its Influences” (3 pm at Zimmermann Symphony Center), BW Percussion Ensemble (7 pm in Gamble Auditorium), Trobár Medieval (7 pm at Inlet Dance Theatre), classical guitarist Jorge Caballero (pictured, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society series, 7:30 at the Maltz PAC), and TrueNorth Chorale and Chamber Orchestra (7:30 in Bay Methodist Church in Bay Village).
And on Sunday, Music from the Western Reserve presents Singers Companye (5 pm, Christ Church in Hudson), and the BW New Music Series unveils new works by composition majors (7 pm in Gamble Auditorium).
For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
SERIES ANNOUNCEMENT:
Tri-C Classical Piano Series director Emanuela Friscioni has announced a three-concert lineup for 2024-2025, all events to be held on Sundays at 2 pm in its Metropolitan Campus Auditorium. Admission is free but tickets are required. Details here.
November 17: Chelsea Guo (both a pianist and a soprano soloist)
January 26: Roman Rabinovich (co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland, program to include Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition)
April 6 – Clayton Stephenson (2022 Gilmore Young Artist)
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
October 26:
This date in classical music history provides a grab bag of births and departures to mention, and a couple to dwell on.
The prolific keyboard composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on this date in 1685, the son of composer Alessandro Scarlatti, and the third eminent member of the Class of ‘85 that includes Handel and J.S. Bach. Scarlatti spent most of his career in Spain churning out some of the most imaginative keyboard music of the period — his 555 Sonatas, which have become favorite program starters for keyboardists ranging from Liszt to Horowitz to Hamelin.
Thanks to the online Petrucci Music Library, all of them are available here in eleven volumes edited by Kenneth Gilbert. Keyboardists: hone your sight reading by taking on one sonata every day, a challenge that will either thrill or frustrate you for the next year and a half!
Singers Mahalia Jackson and Christine Brewer made their natal debuts in 1911 (New Orleans) and 1955 (Grand Tower, Illinois) respectively.
Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto received its premiere on this date in 1919 in London’s Queen’s Hall by Felix Salmond and the London Symphony with the composer on the podium. That under-rehearsed event has gone down as one of the more embarrassing debuts in music history. Ernest Newman wrote in The Observer, “never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself.”
Later, in the 1960s, the work became inseparably linked to Jacqueline Du Pré, who performs it here in a historic performance conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
And on this date in 1965, The Beatles kissed hands at Buckingham Palace and emerged as Sir John, Sir Paul, Sir George, and Sir Ringo, Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Lennon later returned his medal — read the story here.
October 27:
By Jarrett Hoffman
Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini was born on this date in 1782 in Genoa. The most famous virtuoso of his time — it was rumored that he acquired his talents through a pact with the devil — his skill as a player is plainly evident in his 24 Caprices for Solo Violin. Hilary Hahn, for one, dispels any wicked associations by playing the Caprice No. 24 in front of a large cross in this video, where you can also follow along with the score.
Where Paganini’s works push the limits of human ability, American-born Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow went even further through the use of automation. Nancarrow, who was born on this date in 1912 in Texarkana, Arkansas, was one of the first composers to write for self-playing instruments. The results can be fascinating, as in his famous Studies for Player Piano, a set of 49 etudes. Listen to No. 37 here — as performed by a Bösendorfer-Ampico instrument restored under the composer’s supervision — and watch the piano roll go by.
