by Daniel Hathaway
WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:
MARCH 20 – FRIDAY
11:00 am – The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance. Elim Chan, conductor, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin. Repeated on Saturday at 7:30 pm.
7:00 pm – Cleveland Chamber Choir, BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, & Cleveland Ballet. Gregory Ristow leads a choreographed version of Handel’s Messiah. Repeated Saturday at 7, and Sunday at 2.
7:00 pm – Cleveland Cello Society. i Cellisti! Duos and trios for cello and other instruments performed by Cleveland Orchestra members at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights.
MARCH 21 – SATURDAY
3:00 pm – Studio Espressivo: Piano Portraits. Favorites from Baroque to Modern and hidden Italian gems. 2026 Murray Hill Rd. #111, Cleveland. Continued tonight at 7.
7:00 pm – CLE Concierto. celebrating Women’s History Month in Federated Church, Chagrin Falls.
8:00 pm – Studio Espressivo: Piano Portraits. Favorites from Baroque to Modern and hidden Italian gems. Music by Bach, Respighi, Saint-Saens, Mozart, Chaminade, Rachmaninoff, Boccerini, Einaud, and Corticelli. Studio Espressivo,. Repeated Sunday at 3.
MARCH 22 – SUNDAY
1:00-5:00 pm – Bach’s 341st Birthday Marathon, celebrating the composer’s 341st birthday. Come and go as you please. Church of the Covenant in University Circle.
3:00 pm – Cleveland Museum of Art. Les Délices illuminates the story of Marianne Mozart, who shared the spotlight with her younger brother through her teenage years.
3:00 pm – CIM Perspectives. Third Coast Percussion. Time Pieces: The New Classical, celebrating 20 years of genre-defying, award-winning music in Mixon Hall, Cleveland Institute of Music.
3:00 pm – Studio Espressivo: Piano Portraits. Favorites from Baroque to Modern and hidden Italian gems. 2026 Murray Hill Rd. #111, Cleveland.
3:30 pm – Heights Chamber Orchestra. Travis Jürgens, conductor, and Mark Kosower, cello. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd., Cleveland Heights. Free.
For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings.
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
Overshadowing the birth of Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter on this date in 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 the late Helmuth Rilling, and another by ARTEK from 2020 led by Gwendolyn Toth.
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 that casts the Duke as the faithful shepherd who protects his flock.
Although Sheep is most frequently performed by such pianists as Leon Fleischer, Lang Lang and Gina Alice, and Murray Perahia, you can also find the 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?
