by Mike Telin
If you follow the stream of distinguished chamber music ensembles that tour Northeast Ohio each year, you get the feeling that many of them are making the area their second home. However, when the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet made their fifth appearance on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on February 8, their splendid, refined performance made you wish they would come through town more often. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It’s a great time of year for woodwind quintets in Northeast Ohio. Last week, Tuesday Musical brought the Imani Winds to E.J. Thomas Hall, and on Tuesday, February 7, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will welcome the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet back to Plymouth Church for their latest appearance on the Society’s series.
The Berliners — Michael Hasel, flute, Andreas Wittmann, oboe, Walter Seyfarth, clarinet, Fergus McWilliam, horn, and Marion Reinhard, bassoon — will play a far-reaching program that includes Anton Reicha’s Andante arioso for English Horn and Woodwind Quartet, Kalevi Aho’s Quintet No. 2, György Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, and Carl Nielsen’s Quintet, Op. 43.
I recently spoke with Fergus McWilliam by telephone from Berlin. Born in the Scottish Highlands, McWilliam was enraptured by the horn as a small child when he attended his first orchestral concert at the Edinburgh Festival. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
For its 67th season, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will present its customary lineup of seven world-class chamber music groups — plus a young artists showcase and a young artists competition. You won’t see the names of any new ensembles on the roster for 2016-2017, but there’s a major personnel change and an interesting realignment of musicians that will be of primary interest to chamber music lovers.
“I’m looking forward to the new configuration of the Juilliard String Quartet (pictured left),” said CCMS president Barbara Green in a telephone conversation last weekend. “It’s the first time the Juilliard have included a woman [cellist Astrid Schween, who replaces Joel Krosnick], and I’ve heard every permutation since the very beginning. And then there’s the Cleveland debut of the Montrose Piano Trio, which includes violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith — the two remaining members of the Tokyo Quartet — plus pianist Jon Kimura Parker, who played for CCMS some years ago with the Berlin Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
After a season well-provisioned with string quartets — the bread and butter of chamber music presenters — it was refreshing to have the Cleveland Chamber Music Society re-invite the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet to end its subscription season at Plymouth Church on April 30. This concert marked their third appearance on the series.
String quartets are homogenous — three different-sized members of the same family. A woodwind quintet celebrates un-likeness: five different-hued instruments — a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon and a horn (isn’t that a brass instrument?) — all of which are expected to blend together into an expressive ensemble and keep the ear engaged during a full-length concert. Only the best ensembles can achieve that end, and the Berliners are very good at it, harmoniously melding their sound while still preserving the individual personalities of their instruments, some of which in the case of this quintet feature distinct regional timbres. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
When the excellent Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet plays the last regular season concert of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Plymouth Church on April 30 at 7:30, they’ll repeat the Pavel Haas Quintet they played here in 2010. The rest of the program will be devoted to music by Jean Françaix (Quintet No. 1), Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster (Quintet in D, op. 95) and three curiosities by Mozart: the three Fantasies for mechanical organ, K. 594, K. 616 and K.608 as arranged by the quintet’s flutist, Michael Hasel, who studied the organ before he took up the flute.
Mankind has been fascinated with producing music by mechanical means since the middle ages, and a fine collection of its most clever inventions can be seen and heard at the Museum Spielklok (Musical Clock Museum) in the Dutch city of Utrecht, ranging from street organs to recording grand pianos to a device that cleverly plays multiple violins that lean into a circulating bow.
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were all persuaded to write music for mechanical organs, Haydn for a real musical clock (thirty-two lovely miniatures), Beethoven (a potboiler, the Battle Symphony) for the “Panharmonium” built by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, who invented the metronome. [Read more…]