By Daniel Hathaway

CONCERTS THIS WEEKEND:

If the current trends continue, we’ll be posting an increasing number of in-person events in the Concert Listings. There are two on Sunday: CityMusic Cleveland at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus at 3:00 pm, and French chamber music on the Sacred Heart Concert Series in Oberlin (pictured) at 5:00 pm.

Online only events on Saturday include NPR’s Amplify with Lara Downes, Oberlin Conservatory Large Ensembles, and the JACK Quartet with Shai Wosner.

On Sunday, there’s the New World Symphony with Matthias Pintscher and pianist Inon Bartanan, the CIM New Music Ensemble, Kent’s Black Squirrel Winds on Hudson’s Music from the Western Reserve series, violinist Jennifer Koh, and Chanticleer.

See our Concert Listings for details.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are only birthdates to honor this weekend. For April 10, that includes French jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling (1930, in Cannes), and Uzbek pianist Yefim Bronfman (1958 in Tashkent).

For April 11, it’s a longer list: French composer Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682 in Avignon), Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni (in 1866 in Empoli, near Florence), American composer, conductor, organist, and music critic Harvey B. Gaul (1881, in New York), Czech conductor Karel Ancerl (1908 in Tucapy), and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916 in Buenos Aires).

We’ll concentrate on Ginastera, the most prominent composer on the list, who like many Porteños (denizens of Buenos Aires) was of mixed Spanish and Italian ancestry — his father was Catalan, his mother Italian. He spent most of his career in Argentina, with brief sojourns in the U.S. (the first in 1945-47 to study with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood) before moving to Europe in 1970. (Photo: Ginastera with his wife, Argentine cellist Aurora Natola, and Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.)

Ginastera’s compositions incorporated varying elements of traditional Argentine music in the course of his career, though those influences became more abstract over the decades.

Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower recorded the First Cello Concerto with his former orchestra, Germany’s Bamberg Symphony (follow along with the score), and played the Second Concerto with Cleveland in October of 2018 (here’s a brief excerpt from a Severance Hall  rehearsal with guest conductor Gustavo Gimeno).

In other Cleveland Orchestra performances, George Szell led Pampeana No. 3 in a live concert in November, 1956, and Louis Lane conducted the Variaciones Concertantes in a live radio broadcast in 1969.

More recently, Oberlin Harp Professor Yolanda Kondonassis recorded the Ginastera Harp Concerto on the Oberlin Music CD Ginastera: One Hundred. Her performance of the work with Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra was also featured in the inaugural edition of Oberlin Stage Left, where she talks about the piece with Conservatory Dean William Quillen.

By Daniel Hathaway

UPDATES FROM CLEVELAND CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY & APOLLO’S FIRE:

The Cleveland Chamber Music Society announced today that the last three performances of its season will be presented live at St. Paschal Baylon in Highland Heights, where social distancing protocols will be followed and face masks required. Free livestream access will be announced when information becomes available. Performances include violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Renana Gutman on April 27, the Junction Trio on May 11, and the last of three programs of Beethoven sonatas by violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong on May 18. Check the CCMS website for ticketing details.

Apollo’s Fire has added a fifth performance to its all-Bach season finale on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:30 pm at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. Details here.

STREAMING ONLINE TODAY:

Former Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor James Gaffigan, who also led CityMusic Cleveland, guest conducts the Orchestra of Berlin’s Comic Opera today at 2:00 pm, but you can hear the performances of Webern’s Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30, Friedrich Gulda’s Concerto for Cello & Winds with soloist Felik Nickel, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 on-demand through April 15.

Ilya Kaler leads the CIM Orchestra in Arensky’s Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a & Herbert’s Serenade for String Orchestra tonight at 7.

And at 7:30pm — from the Wellspring Theater in Kalamazoo — the Aaron Diehl Trio plays works in the early jazz tradition courtesy of The Gilmore.

Details in our Concert Listings.

AN INTERESTING READ:

The New York Times’ obituary for Lois Kirschenbaum, who died on March 27, at the age of 88  tells the extraordinary story of one of the Metropolitan Opera’s most loyal followers. “In New York opera circles, an autograph request from her, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade said, was considered ‘a special type of approval.’” Read about “the Ultimate Opera Superfan” here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Three memorable dates in Black American classical music history appear on today’s calendar: the birth of composer Florence Beatrice Price in 1887, the birth of bass and actor Paul Robeson in 1898, and Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial, sponsored by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, that drew a crowd of 75,000. The performance (pictured) protested the decision of the Daughters of the American Revolution to prevent the contralto from performing at the DAR’s Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

Having been neglected for decades, the music of Florence Price is now appearing on concert programs everywhere. We devoted much of the Diary on June 3, 2020 to Price on the anniversary of her death, and Lilyana D’Amato wrote about her in our Legacy of Black Musicians series on July 29, 2020. As more and more of her music is being re-engraved and re-issued, programmers will want to keep up with the progress of that project by visiting the Wisemusic catalog here.

Robeson had an eventful career that included venturing into the troubled political waters of mid-20th century America, where he fought against facism but got close enough to the communist party to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. His life is summarized in the documentary Here I Stand, and a sample of his vocal artistry is available in this 1936, second version of Old Man River (note both versions of the lyrics in the notes).

And Marian Anderson, the first Black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, thrilled a huge audience on Easter Day, April 9, 1939 with this performance, accompanied by Finnish pianist Kosti Vehanen. The occasion is treated at somewhat greater length in this short documentary, and the press had much to say about the incident.

The Philadelphia Tribune wrote, “A group of tottering old ladies, who don’t know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness.” The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote, “In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.’s ban … seems all the more deplorable.” — Wikipedia article on Marian Anderson

Other April  9 milestones to note in passing: the birth of impresario Sol Hurok (Russia, 1888), of conductor Antal Dorati (Hungary, 1906), and New York Pro Musica founder Noah Greenberg (USA, 1919), and the death of post-Romantic composer Siegfried Karg-Elert (Leipzig, 1933), who gave a much-anticipated but disastrous organ recital at the Cleveland Museum of Art shortly before his demise. We’ll catch them the next time around.

By Mike Telin 

STREAMING ON THE WEB TODAY:

At 7:00 pm The Cleveland Orchestra debuts “Visions & Impressions,” Episode 8 of the In Focus series. Franz Welser-Möst leads performances of Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives, Opus 22a (15 movements for piano arranged by Rudolf Barshai for string orchestra) and Paul Jacobs is the soloist in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto (for organ, strings, and timpani). Filmed March 18-20 at Severance Hall, the playlist also features principal flute Joshua Smith in Takemitsu’s Air and Debussy’s Syrinx. Click  here for ticket information.

Also at 7:00 pm, it’s “Tuning In” presented by the Local 4 Music Fund. The ensemble “Nous,” features Howie Smith (sax), Theron Brown (keyboards), and Aidan Plank (bass) in a program to be announced. The Bop Stop event is free but donations are welcome. Click here at start time.

A half-hour later at 7:30 pm, Les Délices debuts Machaut’s Lai of the Fountain. Guillaume de Machaut’s flowing melodies become brilliant rainbows when refracted into three-voice canons in this 14th century piece. The program also features works by Johannes Ciconia and others to aid your exploration of the Medieval garden’s subtle beauty in this collaboration with Boston’s Blue Heron. There’s also a pre-concert conversation with Machaut scholar Domenic Leo and projection designer Camilla Tassi, and a live Q&A with the artists. Click here to read our preview article and here for tickets.

In other news, the Akron Symphony Orchestra has announced the debut of a new podcast channel, Symphosium, which will focus on all things related to classical music. The first podcast episode, ASO Goes Electric: Sam Petrey, is part of a collaboration with Akron-based EarthQuaker Devices where ASO musicians visited EarthQuaker’s studio to be recorded performing with a variety of effects pedals. The series includes Sam’s video, which you can view on EarthQuaker’s YouTube page.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we remember three composers of note who took their leave of this world on April 8.

In 1848 Italian bel canto composer Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti died of neurosyphilis at the age of 50. A prolific composer best-known for his operatic works, he also wrote church music, a number of string quartets, and some orchestral pieces. Altogether, he composed some 75 operas, 16 symphonies, 19 string quartets, 193 songs, 45 duets, 3 oratorios, 28 cantatas, instrumental concertos, sonatas, and other chamber pieces.

Who doesn’t like a Donizetti aria? One crowd pleaser is “Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme” (the one with nine high Cs) from La Fille du Régiment. Click here to witness the rare encore performance at the Metropolitan Opera by tenor Javier Camarena (that brings the total count of high Cs to eighteen). Read the New York Times review here.

Another aria sure to inspire the crowd is the “Mad Scene” from Lucia di Lammermoor. Natalie Dessay gives a stunning performance here.

It was the Spanish Flu that took composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes’ life in 1920 at the age of 35 in New York City. His most famous work is his 1915 piano piece, White Peacock, which he then orchestrated in 1919. Other compositions include his Piano Sonata, The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan (based on a poetic fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and Poem for Flute and Orchestra.

In addition to many programmatic pieces for piano, chamber ensembles, and voice, it is his unpublished Sho-jo (1917) — a one-act pantomimic drama based on Japanese themes —  that makes him one of the first American composers to draw direct inspiration from Japanese music. Pianist Michael Lewin plays The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan here.

Last but not least, we pay our respects to American organist and composer Arthur William Foote, who died in Boston in 1937 at age 84. Foote was a member of the select group of composers known as the Boston Six which included George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker.

Foote was appointed organist of the First Church in Boston (Unitarian) in 1878, a position he held for 32 years. During his tenure he was an editor of Hymns of the Church Universal, published in 1890. He was also a founder of the American Guild of Organists.

Most of his catalogue is chamber music — A Night Piece for flute and string quartet immediately comes to mind (here’s a performance by Joshua Smith and the Cavani Quartet at CIM in 2008). But his Second String Quartet from 1893 is a gem. Listen to a performance by the Da Vinci Quartet here.

by Daniel Hathaway

IN THE NEWS:

Now that people are beginning to venture out again after a long stint of pandemic cocooning, summer festivals are beckoning. Musical America has just released their guide to over 100 of them. “We’ve asked each about their COVID-19 safety protocols, along with their dates, places, artists, and assorted platforms. Many heading outside: Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood already have outdoor venues [Blossom too!] Those that don’t are finding them: Central City Opera Festival, for instance, is taking Carousel and Rigoletto to a nearby Garden Center and staging Dido & Aeneas in its backyard.” Read more here.

Summit Choral Society’s “Sing WIth Me,” a comprehensive early childhood music program for children from birth to age 5 (Pre-K) and their parents and caregivers, begins on Thursday, April 8. The Akron-based program is directed by Principal Conductor Heather J. Cooper. Find out more here.

More from Akron: Tuesday Musical is seeking applicants with proven abilities in artistic operations, development, and educational programming for their full-time position of Director of Artistic Operations and Educational Engagement in May. Read the position description and application requirements here. Applications received by April 26 will receive priority consideration, but will be accepted for consideration until the position is filled.

New Music USA announces the creation of the New Music Creator Development Fund, which offers grants to individuals who need support to reach the next stage in their creative practice during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Read more here.

And many have reacted with surprise and disappointment to the news that Oakland, California’s Mills College will likely cease granting degrees in 2023 and establish an Institute on its Oakland, California campus.

In a New York Times article, Geeta Dayal writes, “The school’s faculty over the years has been practically an index of maverick artists, including Darius Milhaud, at Mills for three decades beginning during World War II; Luciano Berio, who came at Milhaud’s invitation; Lou Harrison, who built an American version of the Indonesian gamelan percussion orchestra; the “deep listening” pioneer Pauline Oliveros; Robert Ashley, an innovator in opera; Terry Riley, a progenitor of Minimalism; the influential composer and improviser Anthony Braxton; James Fei, a saxophonist and clarinetist who works with electronic sounds; and Maggi Payne, a longtime director of the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills’s laboratory for electronic work since the 1960s, when Oliveros was its first leader.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two birthdays and two passings to highlight in today’s calendar. French-American harpist and composer Carlos Salzedo was born in 1885 in Arachon (official name, Charles Moïse Léon Salzedo), and German American conductor, composer and pianist André Previn entered the world in Berlin in 1929 (under a slightly different name:  Andreas Ludwig Priwin).

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky took his final bow in New York on this date in 1971, as did the great American blind singer-songwriter Ray Charles in Beverly Hills in 2015 (official name: Ray Charles Robinson).

Salzedo single-handedly created the role of the modern virtuoso concert harpist, establishing a summer harp colony in Camden, Maine, founding the harp department at the Curtis Institute of Music, and teaching at the Juilliard School. Listen to the master himself play his Variations on a Theme in Ancient Style, as well as to Debussy’s Danse Profane performed by Alice Chalifoux, and to a performance of his Steel by the Salzedo Harp Duo (Nancy Lendrim and  Jody Guinn) on the April 11, 2018 Brownbag Concert at Trinity Cathedral.

If Stravinsky needs an introduction, here’s one that Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst provided before the Orchestra’s all-Stravinsky concerts in Severance Hall in March of 2017. And anyone concerned about the younger generation carrying the classical music torch forward should give a listen to Brett Mitchell leading the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in the 1947 version of Petrushka in March, 2016.

Equally at home in symphonic music, Hollywood scores, and jazz, Previn had serial relationships with the London and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and the Los Angeles, Royal, Oslo, and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras.

His opera based on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire was produced by Scott Skiba and Cleveland Opera Theater in December 2015. Listen to Benjamin Czarnota singing Stanley Kowalski’s aria “It’s gonna be all right” here. And here’s a recording of Previn’s live performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on a 1966 episode of the Bell Telephone Hour.

Ray Charles was blinded by glaucoma in childhood, but that scarcely held him back in his distinguished career. Watch him here rehearsing in Bourges, France in 1987, introducing Nat “King” Cole at the 2000 Rock Hall Induction Ceremony, and joining Gospel diva Sarah Jordan Powell in “Christmas in Ettal” in Germany in 1979.

by Jarrett Hoffman

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Louis Spohr (1784) and Herbert von Karajan (1908) might be the biggest birthdays to celebrate today. But another historical figure — French instrument maker Sébastien Érard, born on this date in 1752 in Strasbourg — offers up the possibility of a tantalizing tangent, and who can say no to that?

First, the background, which is interesting in itself: Érard is famous for making several important innovations for the harp and the piano. Those included a double escapement mechanism allowing for faster repetition of notes on the piano, and a double-action pedal harp which made it easier to change keys. In the first year following that popular advancement — a mechanism still used by modern harp manufacturers — he reportedly made £25,000 (in one conversion, over two million dollars by today’s standards).

A few other interesting tidbits: Érard was the first instrument maker in Paris to fit pedals on the piano, and not just the usual pedals we have today. His instruments (like others in Europe) had several, including a bassoon pedal, which brought leather into contact with the strings to create a buzzing sound. Finally, among the musicians who owned Érard pianos were Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Verdi, Ravel, and Liszt — who was for a time sponsored by Érard.

Now, onto that tasty tangent: the name Érard pops up in a very charming audio play, Elena’s Dream, in which the character of Elena travels back in time, meeting harpsichords — talking harpsichords — from various eras.

In the late 18th century, she encounters the eccentric Thomas Taskin (named after another instrument maker, Pascal Taskin). But moving into the 19th century, she finds that her harpsichord-friend Taskin has been left for dead, tossed into a storage closet at the Paris Conservatory. Harpsichords have been set aside for the new “88-keyed monster” (Thomas Taskin’s words), the piano.

That is, until 1892, when the closet door opens, and Taskin finds himself carried to a stage, cleaned, repaired, and set side by side with a grand piano — Érard. Bickering and name-calling ensue, back and forth between the two proud personalities.

A large audience arrives, and the keyboardist Louis Diémer steps onstage, explaining his “passion for historic instruments” before giving the world premiere of something rare: a “modern” piece for harpsichord, Francis Thomé’s Rigodon (recorded here by Elaine Funaro, like all the harpsichord pieces in the play).

Then Diémer switches over to the piano for Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (recorded by Randall Love). Taskin and Érard earn each other’s admiration and respect — and even get a little flirty in Eric Love’s hilarious writing and voice acting.

Listen to the whole play here (scroll to the very bottom), or watch a video reading of the children’s book which the play evolved into, The Harpsichord Diaries, which adds in beautiful illustrations (Andrea Love) and haiku (Funaro). You can also learn more about both of these projects in a story from Early Music America focusing on the talented family trio of Funaro, Eric, and Andrea.

TODAY ON THE WEB:

Several virtual options across the globe today: a Holy Week Festival from St. John’s Smith Square and Tenebrae, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion from Tokyo via Virtual Circle, 92nd St. Y’s celebration of Mimouna, and CMS Lincoln Center’s exploration of Pablo Casals. See our Concert Listings for details.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

So many arrivals and departures to note this weekend.

Debuts include on April 3: pianist Garrick Ohlsson (born in Bronxville, NY, 1948). On April 4: French conductor Pierre Monteux (Paris, 1875), and American film composer Elmer Bernstein (New York, 1922).

Denouements include on April 3: German composer Johannes Brahms (died in Vienna, 1897), British empresario Richard O’Oyly Carte (London, 1901), German composer Kurt Weill (New York, 1950), American composer and arranger Ferde Grofé (Santa Monica, 1972), and British tenor Peter Pears (Aldeburgh, 1986). And on April 4: American composer George Whitefield Chadwick (Boston, 1931).

For Monteux’ 80th birthday in 1955, Igor Stravinsky wrote a Greeting Prelude, “a sort of sung telegram” to be performed by the Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony. Let’s raise the curtain with a performance of the 45-second work by the Radio Philharmonisch Orkest (Hilversum, Netherlands), conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

Then, because it’s Easter weekend, the culmination of Passover, and the beginning of spring, three musical selections seem especially apropos.

The 6th movement of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem represents what Easter is all about. Listen here (at 52:46) to “Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende statt” with Tom Krause, baritone, and The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, George Szell, conducting recorded live on April 24, 1969 in Severance Hall, Cleveland.

Passover is all about the exodus of the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt, and what music first comes to mind? For many of us, Elmer Bernstein’s film score to The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille and released in 1956, starring Charleton Heston and Yul Brynner. Here’s the Parting of the Red Sea scene, created during the era of Hollywood’s great biblical epics, with music from the composer who also wrote the score to The Magnificent Seven.

And Easter is also all about spring – which in Cleveland can mix snowflakes with daffodils as Mother Nature did for April Fool’s Day. The idea of the annual thaw and the sudden appearance of new flora and fauna must be intimately linked to Easter for Russians. Sergei Rachmaninoff (whose birthday Mike Telin noted in last Thursday’s Diary) captured the mood of Russian Easter with its cheerful din of bells in his Pâques. Pianists Marta Argerich and Lilya Zilberstein play it here.

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

Apollo’s Fire has made its full concert video of Bach’s St. John Passion available for viewing here. The performance was recorded in Trinity Cathedral in 2016with Nicholas Phan as the Evangelist.

Tune in today, for the Jupiter Quartet in concert, the Verona Quartet in an Oberlin master class, and Oberlin’s large ensembles in a Stage Left presentation.

On Sunday, London’s VOCES8 presents the Academy for Ancient Music in J.S. Bach’s B-minor Mass, CIM’s airs its annual Milhaud performance competition, and a CWRU curtain raiser for Daniel Shapiro’s final performance in his season-long cycle of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas features fortepianists Meng Yuan and Mikhail Grazhdanov.

Check the Concert Listings for details.

by Mike Telin

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today we honor two composer/pianists who came into the world on April Fools Day: Ferruccio Busoni in 1866 and Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff in 1873.

Born in Empoli, Italy, Busoni revealed himself to be a pianist and composer of note at an early age. After holding several teaching positions he dedicated himself to writing music and touring. Also a musicologist, Busoni’s visits to the United States sparked his interest in the music of North American Indigenous people. In addition to the Piano Concerto, his  transcriptions of works by J.S. Bach are legendary.

Prior to his 2019 performances of the monumental Piano Concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra, Garrick Ohlsson — who won the Busoni Competition in 1966 — told Clevelandclassical.com that during his lifetime, Busoni was a leading teacher, composer, and theorist as well as a great pianist. “People were drawn to him. He was in the middle of musical and artistic society. He taught in all sorts of places including the United States, Finland, and Russia — he was a true internationalist. But one of the problems with Busoni as a composer is that he’s very eclectic in his choice of language. If you see his name on the program, you don’t know if you’re going to have a tonal neoclassical, a completely atonal piece, or an overripe Romantic one like this.” Click here to read the preview.

Olhsson recorded Busoni’s five-movement concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra and Men’s Chorus under the direction of Christoph von Dohnányi in 1989. Click here for part one and here for part two.

Born in Semyonovo, near Novgorod, in northwestern Russia, Rachmaninoff’s life and celebrated career are well-documented. What people may not know is that he had a long relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra. Rachmaninoff first came to Cleveland in 1923 to perform his second piano concerto at the Masonic Auditorium on March 29 and 31, an event that coincided with the 25th anniversary of Adella Prentiss Hughes’ reign as Cleveland’s musical impresario. He returned in 1932 just after the Orchestra moved to Severance Hall, and four more personal appearances followed: November, 1937 (the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini), October, 1939 (Piano Concerto No. 1), March, 1941 (Beethoven Concerto No. 1 & the Paganini Rhapsody) and January, 1942 (Piano Concerto No. 2). The 1923 and 1932 engagements were led by Nikolai Sokoloff, the rest by Artur Rodzinski.

The January, 1942 Severance Hall concert also included his symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead (1907), and the recently composed Symphonic Dances, Op. 45. (1940). His return was highly anticipated. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland Press, Cleveland News and Akron Beacon Journal, as well as local foreign language publications, all ran previews announcing the concerts.

How was the almost 69-year-old pianist’s performance of his concerto received by the local critics?

Plain Dealer critic Herbert Elwell wrote, “There was even more enthusiasm when Rachmaninoff appeared in the concerto. As usual he gave to his own music luster and animation that only his brilliant pianism can give it. And it was with evident pleasure that listeners heard from his own hands the drooping wistful melodies that have now reached the domain of popular music.”

However, Cleveland Press critic Arthur Loesser was unfavorably impressed by the tempos. “It must be said that much of Mr. Rachmaninoff’s performance was on the streamlined side, some of it even seemed to be functioning with a tailwind. Those of us who know this concerto pretty thoroughly had trouble recognizing our friendly note-figures in the rush.”

Loesser went on to say, “Great praise must be bestowed upon Dr. Rodzinski…for the highly skilled accommodation of his beat to Mr. Rachmaninoff’s frequent willfulnesses as well as for his success in keeping the occasionally heavy scoring in good balance.” Click here to read our “From the Archives” preview and here for our “What would Rachmaninoff post on Facebook” feature.

On a more somber note, today we are reminded of the reality in which we live. It was one year ago that Jazz greats Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (85), and John “Bucky” Pizzarelli (94) died of COVID 19. Although both artists enjoyed long, fruitful careers, they still had a lot more to say — more concerts to play, music to write, and young people to inspire.

Click here for a concert from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Center on December 15, 2018 featuring Ellis Marsalis, Gerald Watkins, Jason Stewart, Andrew Bahan, and Derek Douget.

Click here to enjoy an evening of jazz and conversation with Bucky and John Pizzarelli — father-son virtuosos of the seven string guitar — recorded live in concert in 2014.

by Daniel Hathaway

R.I.P. MICHAEL BISHOP:

News has reached us of the death of Telarc and 5/4 Productions recording engineer Michael Bishop in an accident on March 29. Details and tributes to follow.

ONLINE TODAY:

The Baldwin Wallace Bachcast today features BachFest artistic director Dirk Garner in conversation with alumni choir members. Though the debut went live at breakfast time this morning, you can still view the live stream of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater from London’s Wigmore Hall. Tonight, it’s Trio Tuesday at the Bop Stop with Dominick Farinacci, the CWRU Orchestra plays from Silver Hall at the Maltz PAC, and a University of Akron faculty recital features Jim Johnson, trumpet, with Kiirsi Maunula Johnson, horn, and Randy Frye, piano.

Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

A well written guest obituary by Alex Vadukul in today’s New York Times profiles old-style oboe craftsman Paul Laubin, who died at his workbench in Peekskill, New York on March 1. “One of the last true artisans of the oboe, he made each of his instruments by hand, and the waiting list for a new Laubin could extend a decade.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Compiling the Almanac portion of the Daily Diary begins with a search for noteworthy events that happened on the date in question in classical music history. Sometimes there’s a mighty list of composers, conductors, and artists to sift through, and on other occasions like today, March 30, there’s next to nothing of import to write about — except the founding of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in 1815.

Or so our usual go-to source for historical dates told us. Wanting to be accurate and thorough, we always check out dates before setting electrons in motion and choosing music to celebrate milestones.

So we were surprised to read on bach-cantatas.com that “The Handel and Haydn Society was founded as an oratorio society in Boston on April 20, 1815, by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, Amasa Winchester, and Matthew S. Parker, a group of Boston merchants and musicians who were eager to improve the performance of choral music in a city that, at the time, offered very little music of any kind.”

Pressing the search further, we learned from a New York Times article marking the 200th anniversary of the Society, that “The society was born from the peace festivities after news reached Boston of the end of the War of 1812, when musicians presented highlights from “The Creation” and Handel’s “Messiah.” After newspaper correspondents wrote of a need to hear more European works, a group of 44 amateur choristers and instrumentalists formed the Handel and Haydn Society, on April 13, 1815.”

Then there’s this notice from the City of Boston: “The exhibition The Handel and Haydn Society: Bringing Music to Life for 200 Years opens at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square in the Cheverus Room on Tuesday, March 24, and runs through Saturday, September 5….The opening date of the exhibition coincides with the 200th anniversary of H+H’s founding and “Handel and Haydn Society Day” in the City of Boston.”

Well, if you’re over 200 years old, what do those few days’ difference matter? We’ll just pretend it’s H+H’s 206th Birthday and list some interesting facts about the organization.

• The Society, the oldest continuously performing organization in the U.S., made its debut on Christmas Night of 1815, when a chorus of 90 men and 10 women sang at King’s Chapel.

• The Society saw the first American edition of Handel’s Messiah into print in 1816, and gave the U.S. premiere of the work in 1818, followed by Haydn’s The Creation in 1819.

• The organization sought to commission a work from Beethoven around 1823, but the project never came to fruition.

• Fast forwarding, Handel and Haydn underwent a sea change in the 20th century when it began adopting historically informed performance practices under Thomas Dunn at the behest of Boston Globe critic Michael Steinberg, and Christopher Hogwood transformed it into a professional chorus and period instrument ensemble beginning in 1986.

Check our H+H’s COV-19 Era Messiah for Our Time (Part I and Hallelujah Chorus), led by Ian Watson, to see how a 200+ year old organization adapts to new realities. There are 183 other videos on the organization’s YouTube channel to enjoy as well.