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Review: Cleveland Orchestra — Schumann 2 and 4 with Christoph von Dohnányi (March 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO-DohnanyiThe latest Saturday night snow massacre did little to keep patrons away from music director laureate Christoph von Dohnányi’s return to Severance Hall on March 29 and his looked-strange-on-paper program of two Schumann symphonies with The Cleveland Orchestra. As it turned out, the pairing of the two symphonies was an insightful idea and Dohnányi drew playing of both sweeping grandeur and arresting detail from the ensemble he led with such distinction from 1984-2002.

As usual, Dohnányi moved the furniture for his weekend performances, reseating the strings with second violins on stage left with cellos next to the firsts (basses behind) and violas next to the seconds, a move which subtly changed balances among the string sections, sometimes at the expense of presence from the seconds, whose tone holes were facing inward rather than toward the audience. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra announces its 2014-2015 season

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CLEVELAND—March 16, 2014

TCO102413-MastroianniThe Cleveland Orchestra has released program details for its 97th season in 2014-2015.

Highlights include performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in b-minor, a three-program celebration of Pierre Boulez’s 90th birthday, and Strauss’s opera Daphne, all conducted by music director Franz Welser-Möst, and Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, led by guest conductor Charles Dutoit.

Guest artists include pianists Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Mitsuko Uchida, Jorge Federico Osorio, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, Jeremy Denk and Marc-André Hamelin, violinists Hilary Hahn, Vadim Gluzman, Alina Ibragimova and Christian Tetzlaff, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Gautier Capuçon, and conductors Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, Fabio Luisi, James Gaffigan, Robin Ticciati, Giancarlo Guerrero, Jakub Hrůša, Tugan Sokhiev, Juanjo Mena, Lionel Bringuier, Susanna Mälkki and Bernard Labadie. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra & Choruses with Franz Welser-Möst & Rudolf Buchbinder (March 6)

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by Guytano Parks

BuchbinderSpringtime was heralded in at Severance Hall last Thursday evening when music director Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra, soprano Kate Royal, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor John Tessier and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Children’s Chorus (prepared by Robert Porco and Ann Usher) in Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony. Earlier on the program came Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, Sibelius’s Lemminkainen’s Return, and Ryan Wigglesworth’s Locke’s Theatre.

Welser-Möstled a bold and sweeping account of the Sibelius (No. 4, from Legends, Op. 22) to begin the program. Emphasizing the dark, serious nature of its opening bars, he coaxed expressive, colorful sounds from the orchestra, full of rhythmic vigor and effective dynamic contrasts.

Buchbinder played Rachmaninoff’s popular Rhapsody in a straightforward manner, but still full of interest and excitement. [Read more…]

Preview: Rudolf Buchbinder returns to Severance Hall this weekend

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by Mike Telin

BuchbinderThis week at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus & Children’s Chorus in concerts featuring Sibelius’s Lemminkäinen’s Return (Legends) Wigglesworth’s Locke’s Theatre and Britten’s Spring Symphony. Soloists include Kate Royal, soprano, Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano and John Tessier, tenor.

The concerts also include Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and mark the return of famed Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder to Severance Hall for the first time since 1998. We spoke to the fascinating pianist by telephone at his home in Vienna.

We talked about a few of his hobbies like collecting movie DVDs and scores of Beethoven, and his recent release of the five Beethoven concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic on DVD/Blu-ray as well as his secret to a well balanced life. We began by asking him why he thinks Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody is so wildly popular?

Rudolf Buchbinder: First of all for me, this piece is one of the greatest variation compositions. You have the Goldberg, the Diabelli, and Paganini by Rachmaninoff. It’s a really great piece. It was one of the first piano concertos I studied at age 14 and the amazing thing is all of the Russian conductors that I work with all want to play Rachmaninoff with me. Not Beethoven or Brahms. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra — Mahler & Schoenberg with Marc Albrecht and Sasha Cooke (February 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

ALBRECHT-MarcGuest conductor Marc Albrecht brought an interesting musical portfolio with him to Severance Hall last weekend. First came two Mahler works, one an orphaned movement spun out from an early version of his first symphony, the other his short but dramatic song-cycle, Songs of a Wayfarer. Then to end the program, Arnold Schoenberg’s drastic transformation of Brahms’s Piano Quartet in g into an exuberant piece for large orchestra.

It was a weekend of replacements. Albrecht agreed some weeks ago to step in for Pierre Boulez, necessitating a complete change in repertoire, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke filled in on much shorter notice for Alice Coote, who had to cancel due to a family illness. I heard the Thursday concert.

Mahler’s Blumine is an unassuming, sentimental little piece that seems to have wandered in from a cabaret — or maybe from the pit of a theater orchestra, judging by its instrumentation. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra releases 2014 Blossom Schedule

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CLEVELAND, February 16

TCO@BlossomThe Cleveland Orchestra has announced the 2014 Blossom Music Festival season, a total of 18 concerts between July 3 and August 31, including 15 by The Cleveland Orchestra, two Blossom Festival Band concerts, and one concert by the Blossom Festival Orchestra. The complete schedule follows.

* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting
** Blossom Debut *** Cleveland Orchestra Debut

Thursday, July 3, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.*
Friday, July 4, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.*
Blossom Festival Band
Loras John Schissel, conductor

A Salute to America
Music by Bernstein, Gershwin, and John Philip Sousa, with Tchaikovky’s “1812” Overture and fireworks, weather permitting. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra — a conversation with guest conductor Marc Albrecht

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by Mike Telin

ALBRECHT-Marc“My Cleveland Orchestra debut, yes it’s very exciting for me,” conductor Marc Albrecht said during a recent telephone conversation. “And I think it’s an interesting program too.” Beginning on Thursday at 7:30 pm in Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Marc Albrecht will present three performances featuring Mahler’s Blumine and Songs of a Wayfarer with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote*, as well as Brahms’s Piano Quartet arranged by Arnold Schoenberg.

Marc Albrecht was born into an artistic family in Hanover, Germany, although finding his own musical voice was always important to him. And it was the late Claudio Abbado who helped him do that. You can read about all of his professional accomplishments here, but let’s proceed to the conversation, because Marc Albrecht is fascinating. We reached him in Amsterdam and began by asking him about this weekend’s program.

Marc Albrecht: I’m very fond of Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’s Quartet in g minor. I’ve known it for many years and conducted it several times. It’s a miracle what Schoenberg does with it. He knew it so well because he was a talented cellist and had played the original version several times. So he knew it backwards and forwards. Later in America, where he had immigrated to escape the Nazis, he was desperately in search of work and it was there that he started to write this so called ‘Symphony No. 5’. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst, Yefim Bronfman, and a Widmann premiere (January 16)

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by Daniel Hathaway

hereFor the second of his January homestand weekends before the orchestra travels to Miami for its residency, Franz Welser-Möst gave Severance Hall audiences a Mozart symphony, a Beethoven piano concerto and the United States premiere of a substantial and brilliant new work that has been making the rounds of European and Asian concert halls.

Replacing Radu Lupu, the superb pianist Yefim Bronfman returned to Severance Hall on Thursday for a memorable reunion with the orchestra in Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto. Playing calmly and with a perfect sense of proportion and scale, Bronfman made this most engaging of concertos sound like an easy piece of work (which it really is not).

Welser-Möst and the orchestra provided a warm cocoon of sound around the soloist and arrived at tricky meeting points with pinpoint timing. The wind section achieved a particularly impressive blend. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra MLK Celebration — a conversation with Sphinx Competition laureate, cellist Lev Mamuya

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by Mike Telin

MAMUYA-Lev-(Susan-Wilson)On Sunday, January 19, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Severance Hall The Cleveland Orchestra, under the direction of Chelsea Tipton, will perform its 34th annual concert in celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. The concert will feature the 165-member volunteer Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Chorus, prepared by William Henry Caldwell. Although the concert is sold out, the performance will be broadcast live on WCLV (104.9 FM) and WCPN (90.3 FM). A free Prelude Concert begins at 6 p.m. performed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.

In keeping with recent tradition, Sunday’s concert also features a laureate of the Sphinx Competition as soloist. “I’m definitely excited,” sixteen year-old cellist Lev Mamuya, said during a recent telephone conversation. “Obviously getting a chance to work with an orchestra like The Cleveland Orchestra is amazing and I’m looking forward to learning a lot.”

For his debut, Mamuya (pronounced MA-mu-ya) will perform the first movement of Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Concerto in B-flat major, a work he performed on his way to winning First Place in the Junior Division at the 2013 Sphinx Competition. [Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra — All Brahms concert with Julia Fischer and Franz Welser-Möst (January 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Julia Fischer

Circled by video cameras — including a giraffe-like “jib” that hovered ominously over the front seats on stage right — Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra played the first in a split set of four all-Brahms concerts with the outstanding violin soloist Julia Fischer on Thursday evening at Severance Hall.

The first pair of performances were being recorded for eventual release on DVD and television and over the course of four days, the concerts would include two different overtures and symphonies and four iterations of the violin concerto. Thursday’s concert featured works written in the seven-year period between 1878 and 1885: the Academic Festival Overture, the Violin Concerto, and the Symphony No. 4 in e minor.

Sometimes concert programs are designed to challenge the audience or to juxtapose works in interesting and revelatory ways. Sometimes — as in a retrospective art exhibition — programs are curated for the sheer pleasure of enjoying a body of work brought together in one place. [Read more…]

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