by Daniel Hathaway
Pietism and fatalism inspired the disquieting poetic images that soprano Yulia Van Doren and the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus presented in works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms last Thursday night in Severance Hall. Those depressing thoughts might have put a damper on the proceedings, had not the music in both cases been so appealing. [Read more…]
by J.D. Goddard
On Friday evening, October 17, a standing-room only crowd gathered in the sanctuary of Saint John’s Cathedral to hear the magnificent Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst in a free concert that featured Bach’s Missa Brevis, BWV 232. [Read more…]
On the advice of her physician, violinist Hilary Hahn has withdrawn from this weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts with guest conductor James Gaffigan. She will be replaced by soprano Yulia van Doren, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo cantata, Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199 will be substituted for the previously-scheduled Bach violin concertos. The program also includes Johannes Brahms’s Schicksalslied with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5, “Reformation.”
Jung-Min Amy Lee, associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra, will replace Hahn for the masterclass with students from area colleges and universities in Reinberger Chamber Hall on Tuesday, October 21 at 4:00 pm. The event is free and open to music teachers, students and parents, but tickets are required.
by Daniel Hathaway
As Johann Sebastian Bach neared the end of his career, he took care to put his musical legacy in order, making archival-quality copies of Passions and completing what his son, C.P.E. Bach, called his “grosse catholische Messe.” [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Orchestra built its second subscription weekend around the phenomenal Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, who treated Severance Hall audiences to Richard Strauss’s Burleske on Thursday and Friday evenings and Sunday afternoon, Chopin’s Andante spianato & Grand Polonaise brillante on Thursday and Sunday, and no doubt blew the patrons of the Orchestra’s annual benefit evening away with the first Tchaikovsky concerto on Saturday. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
In conjunction with performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor (October 16 and 18) and one of his solo cantatas by soprano Yulia van Doren (October 23, 24 & 24), The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Youth Chorus will offer a free concert of the Kyrie and Gloria from the Mass at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on Friday, October 17 at 8:00 pm, and a “Make Music! Marathon” at Severance Hall on Saturday afternoon, October 18. [Read more…]
The Cleveland Orchestra announced on October 2 that its music director, Franz Welser-Most, has extended his contract until 2022, reaching beyond the Orchestra’s centennial season (2017-2018) and, at the end of 20 years, becoming its second longest-serving music director after George Szell.
The Orchestra noted that Welser-Möst is looking forward to increasing the institution’s emphasis on education and community engagement.
Describing the special qualities of the region, Welser-Möst said, “We have a highly sophisticated audience in Northeast Ohio…whose enthusiasm for their hometown orchestra is matched by their understanding of the work and support needed to maintain such an ensemble.”
Of the orchestra itself, Welser-Möst said, “I love the spirit of The Cleveland Orchestra, and there is no greater joy for me than collaborating with these musicians. Their collective dedication to excellence at every performance is inspiring and humbling.”
by Daniel Hathaway
As the normally-resident birds gave way to the end-of-summer locusts, The Cleveland Orchestra bade farewell to Blossom on Sunday evening in a season closer that also served as a send-off for the ensemble’s forthcoming European tour. Like Friday evening’s Summers @ Severance performance, the repertoire was a condensed version of what audiences in London, Lucerne, Berlin, Linz, Vienna, Paris and Amsterdam will enjoy in thirteen performances from September 7-22: works by Johannes Brahms and Jörg Widmann, the orchestra’s former Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow (an entire concert in Berlin’s Philharmonie on September 11 will be devoted to Widmann’s music).
Widmann’s Con brio: Concert Overture began Sunday evening’s concert on many witty notes. Commissioned by conductor Mariss Jansons to headline a concert of Beethoven’s seventh and eighth symphonies and scored for those orchestral forces, the overture was first performed by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall performances led by Christoph von Dohnányi in January of 2011. [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
As a prelude to its three-week European tour, Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra previewed some of their tour repertoire in the third of the 2014 Summers @ Severance concerts on Friday, August 29. This was no summertime “orchestra-lite” concert, but featured two demanding and arresting works by Jörg Widmann, the orchestra’s former Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow, as well as that monument of the orchestral repertoire, Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68. Severance Hall was well filled with a very diverse audience of Cleveland Orchestra fans.
Jörg Widmann’s music brilliantly combines skillful use of orchestration with modernist compositional techniques, at the same time retaining just enough references to recognizable musical styles to make his music appealing to a wide audience. [Read more…]
by Robert Rollin
A packed house and lawn at Blossom on August 24 (photo by Roger Mastroianni)
On Sunday evening August 24, the Cleveland Orchestra, with guest conductor and Philadelphia Pops Orchestra director, Michael Krajewski, celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Beatles coming to America. Classical Mystery Tour, a group that transcribed and performed note for note over two dozen well-known Beatles songs, made the concert truly exciting.
The four musicians played accurate versions of many songs originally created in the studio with orchestral arrangements, but never fully played live during the original group’s performing days. Producer/arranger George Martin helped create many of these intricate works in consultation with The Beatles. [Read more…]