by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Tonight, the second episode in the Kent Blossom Virtual Music Festival revisits Kulas Guest Artist Jennifer Koh’s solo violin recital from June 28, 2017, when she played works by J.S. Bach, Missy Mazzoli, and Luciano Berio.

And WCLV’s Cleveland Ovations rewinds Cleveland Chamber Choir’s program from February and March. “We March On: Music of Social Justice,” led by Scott MacPherson, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings.

WCLV, 104.9 Ideastream, also serves up Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra, a program of Beethoven, Wagner and Schumann, while the MET Opera Archives unearths a production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte from April, 2014. Details on these programs are in the Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READS AND LISTENING:

In his New York Times article, “Lifting the Cone of Silence From Black Composers,” Columbia University Musicology Professor and composer George E. Lewis invites readers to “Listen to how artists have explored what it means — and could mean — to be American,” with musical examples by William Grant Still, Alvin Singleton, Tania Léon, Nathalie Joachim, Courtney Bryan, Thomas Wiggins, Wadada Leo Smith, Ornette Coleman, and Anthony Davis. Read and listen here.

Alarm Will Sound director Alan Pierson talks with the Paris Review about his adaptation of John Luther Adams’ Ten Thousand Birds for 26, staged at home by Pierson and Paul Melnikow “as a tribute to far away friends during a time of social distancing.” Click here to read the interview, and here to watch “Ten Thousand Birds / Ten Thousand Screens.” [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Composer and conductor Gustav Mahler was born on this date in Kalischt, Bohemia. Instead of remembering him with one of his enormous works, why not watch cellist Oliver Herbert and pianist Teddy Abrams play Abrams’ lovely arrangement of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at WQXR New York’s Greene Space on June 3, 2019.

Conductor, composer, and double bass virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini left the world on this date in 1889. He took up the instrument that made him famous in order to win a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory, later endearing himself to opera patrons by playing fantasies on opera tunes from the stage at intermission of shows he conducted. Enjoy a rare performance of his Gran Duetto No. 1 played by Cleveland Orchestra principal Max Dimoff and his student Russell Thompson in 2013 at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

In 1897, composer and educator Quincy Porter was born on July 7 in New Haven, Connecticut, and later studied in his home town at Yale. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music twice with a sojourn in Italy in between, moving on to Vassar and the New England Conservatory before returning to Yale. Cleveland Orchestra member Eliesha Nelson performed his 1948 Viola Concerto on her all-Quincy Porter album in 2009. Listen to her performance here with John McLaughlin Williams and the Northwest Sinfonia, and click here to hear the violist and the conductor answer some questions.

Opera composer Gian-Carlo Menotti was born on July 6 in Cadegliano, Italy. His theater pieces are well-known, but not so often performed is his delightful fable, The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore for chorus, dancers and chamber ensemble. In the days when network television was interested in cultural programming, the piece was telecast in November of 1957. A more recent performance in February, 2019, combined The Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, Colorado Ballet Society, and the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble, conducted by Thomas Wilson.

And on this date in 1968, American composer and organist Leo Sowerby died in Port Clinton, Ohio while teaching at a summer choir camp. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

MUSIC FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY WEEKEND:

Saturday’s edition of WCLV’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio reaches into the ensemble’s archives for a 1976 Bicentennial concert, “The Sounds of America,” led by Lorin Maazel and featuring narrators Dorothy and Ruben Silver and baritone William Dempsey. And Ohio Light Opera continues its virtual summer festival on Saturday with a Fourth of July Celebration (check the Concert Listings for details).

Missing fireworks this year? We talked on Thursday about Frederick Fennell’s historic digital recording for Telarc in Severance Hall with the Cleveland Symphonic Winds. In addition to the Holst Suites and a J.S. Bach Fantasia, the eventual release included Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. Listen to the entire album here (Handel begins at 27:22).

Or here’s a 2012 performance of the Fireworks Music from the BBC’s Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Led by Hervé Niquet, Le Concert Spirituel performs on period instruments using Handel’s original specifications. Count all those oboes and bassoons!

To celebrate the contribution of one Black composer to the American canon, consider New York Times music critic Seth Colter Walls’ Independence Day weekend recommendation. William L. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was recorded by Leopold Stokowski in 1952, by Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony in the 1990s, and in June on the Naxos label by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony led by Arthur Fagen. Read Wells’ comments here.

ALSO ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES THIS WEEKEND:

The MET Opera streams Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Saturday), Rossini’s La Donna del Lago (Sunday), and Puccini’s La Bohème (Monday). Sunday afternoon’s Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio features pianist Uri Caine in his arrangement of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, plus Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Walter Piston’s Suite from The Incredible Flutist. The first episode of Best of ChamberFest Cleveland on WCLV includes performances of Haydn, Kodály, and Schoenfeld from 2014. And a CREDO Chamber Music faculty recital by cellist Dmitri Kousov and pianist Yulia Fedoseeva streams on Monday evening. Details here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1854, Czech composer Leoš Janáček was born in Hukvaldy. Though steeped in Moravian folklore, his strikingly original music continues to sound fresh and modern. ChamberFest Cleveland programmed his String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”) during its 2016 season. Watch a performance in Mixon Hall at CIM with violinists Alexei Kenney and David Bowlin, violist Dimitry Murrath, and cellist Julie Albers.

Janáček’s Sinfonietta was most recently performed by Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra last January. Enjoy earlier interpretations led by George Szell (October, 1965) and Christoph von Dohnányi (September, 1988) here and here.

Music lovers of a certain age may recall hearing Deems Taylor’s intermission features on broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic, and others may recall his commentary as emcee for the 1940 version Walt Disney’s Fantasia (for which he helped choose musical selections). The writer, broadcaster, and music critic who died on this date in 1966, was also a composer whose operas were enormously popular for a time on the stage of the Met. Click here to listen to one of his most celebrated works, Through the Looking Glass, on subjects from Lewis Carroll, played by the Columbia Symphony under Howard Barlow in 1938.

And click here to enjoy Taylor’s analysis of Strauss’ tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony, Haydn’s “Military” Symphony, and a Johann Strauss Jr. Quadrille are on the menu for Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra on WCLV, and this evening, Ohio Light Opera veterans and current company members share messages and songs, while the MET Opera offers a 2011 production of Don Giovanni led by Fabio Luisi. Details here.

Want to go exploring on the web this weekend? Click here to consult Music America’s listing of classical music streams — both free and ticketed. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1914, conductor Frederick Fennell was born in Cleveland (he died in 2004 in Florida). He played timpani in the John Adams High School band before going on to study at Interlochen, then at the Eastman School of Music, where he founded the Eastman Symphonic Wind Ensemble and launched a long career reinventing and directing wind bands. Fennell also studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood (with classmates Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss), and served on the conducting staffs of the Minnesota Orchestra, the University of Miami and the Miami Philharmonic, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Dallas Wind Symphony.

One of America’s most-recorded conductors, Fennell’s credits include 29 recordings on the Mercury label. He also made history for his collaboration with Jack Renner and Robert Woods, founders of Cleveland’s Telarc Records, who made the first-ever symphonic digital recording with Fennell conducting the Cleveland Symphonic Winds — including the wind, brass, and percussion sections of The Cleveland Orchestra — in Severance Hall in April, 1978. The recording of Gustav Holst’s Suites for Military Band similarly made history in 1983 when it became part of one of the first recordings to be released in the new compact disc format.

Read the history of making that recording in an article on Engineering and Technology Wiki, and listen to those performances of Holst’s Suite No. 1 in E-flat and Suite No. 2 in F here and here (where you can follow along with the reduced conductor’s score). And watch Frederick Fennell in action rehearsing the Indiana State University Wind Ensemble in 1997.

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

At noon, WCLV 104.9 Ideastream features music by Beethoven, Piston, and Mozart on Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra. This evening, Oberlin Stage Left presents David Bowlin and Tony Cho performing Aaron Copland’s Violin Sonata (a conversation with the artists and ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin considers why the work has been neglected and its enduring resonance). And it’s Carmen from the MET Opera Archives this evening, in a performance from 2014. Details here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE MTT TRIBUTE:

The celebration of Michael Tilson Thomas’ retirement from the San Francisco Symphony after 25 years was supposed to be a big public blowout, but all of that changed with the pandemic. Instead, MTT25: An Online Tribute, takes a look back at “25 years of memories with the San Francisco Symphony’s iconic Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas. Hosted by vocalists Audra McDonald and Susan Graham, the virtual event showcases personal stories, memories, and performances by a star-studded guest list of friends and musical colleagues of Michael Tilson Thomas.” Watch the 75-minute tribute here.

Tilson Thomas brought the San Francisco Symphony to Severance Hall in 2014, and most recently guest conducted The Cleveland Orchestra last February. The photo by Roger Mastroianni shows the conductor with Daniil Trifonov and The Cleveland Orchestra in March of 2018. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

LOCAL NEWS:

The Canton Symphony goes online on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm for an interlocking series of educational programs. This week, on July 1, Assistant Conductor Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz talks in the second program in a six-part series about how music is constructed. The following Wednesday, July 8, in “Beyond the Music,” Executive Director Michelle Charles, Music Director Gerhardt Zimmerman, and Jaroszewicz discuss what goes into creating an orchestral season. Episodes alternate through August 26. Click here for more information and to register for the individual sessions.

Apollo’s Fire goes live for the first time since the shutdown, with a “Blues Café 1610 Renaissance-Folk Jam Session” on July 18 at Music Box Supper Club with Amanda Powell, vocals, Brian Kay, plucked instruments, and Tina Bergmann, hammered dulcimer. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

NEW ONLINE SERIES FROM EHNES & LES DÉLICES:

Violinist James Ehnes, whose third concert of all the Beethoven sonatas for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society — along with his many other scheduled performances — was nixed by the pandemic, has seized the opportunity to start something new. As he writes on his website,

While giving some online masterclasses in April, I found myself telling students over and over to create their own opportunities to share their music, and how that was more important than ever during these unprecedented times. I realized that for me as well, making my own opportunities was tremendously important, not just to keep artistically engaged, but also to hopefully find a model that can be sustainable for performing musicians during this extended time of upheaval in the industry.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Staying indoors at noon? Tune in to WCLV 104.9 Ideastream for Bruckner, Ravel, and Johann Strauss, Jr. on Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra. Venturing outdoors at mid-day? Stop (or walk around) in University Circle to enjoy a carillon concert by George Leggiero from the McGaffin Tower on Euclid Avenue. This evening, your choice of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, with Kathleen Battle and Luciano Pavarotti from the MET Opera’s HD archives, or a virtual Oberlin Summer Organ Institute concert by Jonathan Moyer and Christa Rakich on four organs in three concert halls. Details here.

VIDEOS OF NOTE:

Social media has been crackling with superlatives about 79-year-old Argentine pianist Martha Argerich’s performance this week of Chopin’s B-Minor Sonata in an empty hall in Hamburg for “Die liebe Erde allüberall” (‘Everywhere the beloved Earth’), an project by the Hamburg Symphony that aims to rethink the relationship between classical music and the Internet. Watch the performance here.

In the latest episode of One on One, Musical America interviews Trey Devey, president of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, about the five interlocking divisions of the Northern Michigan center, and how each is dealing with the pandemic. “Interlochen’s flagship, the Summer Arts Camp, founded in 1928, opens online June 28. The boarding school —  Interlochen Arts Academy — will welcome students in August in person, under a very specific re-entry plan.” Watch here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Today you can have lunch with The Cleveland Orchestra (Wagner and Brahms with Yefim Bronfman), coffee with cornettist Bruce Dickey, and dessert with Ohio Light Opera (selections from Let ‘Em Eat Cake), take a video tour of Oberlin’s organ fleet on Oberlin Stage Left, watch Massenet’s Manon from the MET Opera, and join Northeast Ohio artists in support of UNICEF. Check our Concert Listings for details.

RYAN ANTHONY OBITUARY:

Dallas-based music critic Scott Cantrell’s extensive obituary for trumpeter Ryan Anthony appears in the Dallas Morning News. Read it here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1767, the super-prolific German composer George Philipp Telemann died in Hamburg, where he had earlier used his pending appointment to cantorships in Leipzig to negotiate a raise from the Hamburg authorities (J.S. Bach, Leipzig’s third choice after No. 2 had turned them down, remained a friend). [Read more…]