by Stephanie Manning

IN THE NEWS:

Jaap van Zweden, the New York Philharmonic’s music director, has announced that he will leave his post at the end of the 2023-24 season. The Dutch conductor and violinist started with the Philharmonic just three years ago, but the pandemic derailed his second season. His agreement to stay on an extra year than his contract required gives the ensemble ample time to search for a successor.

Van Zweden said the experiences of the past year and a half led him to rethink his priorities. “So much has changed because of COVID, including thoughts about my own future, my life, and my family,” he wrote in a letter to the musicians. “In life, I think timing is critical: it’s important to know when to say yes and when to move on.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

As any music fan who still listens to music in a physical format might tell you: vinyl is making a comeback, and in a big way. In 2020, vinyl records trumped the annual revenue of CDs for the first time in 34 years.

On this day in 1931, record company RCA Victor introduced a new product to the consumer market: the long-playing 33 1/3 rpm vinyl. These discs were called Project Transcription, and they represent one of the earliest efforts to bring the long-playing (or LP) record to market.

With the capacity to hold fifteen minutes of music per side, these discs were a prime opportunity for classical music content like symphonies. The first record in this format to be released was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski.

Despite the economic pressures for hiring large orchestras caused by the Great Depression, RCA Victor continued to record the Philadelphia Orchestra during the 1930s. To save money, many of these sessions were moved to the Victor Camden Church Studio and involved less musicians than normal  — the Beethoven, however, was recorded in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia (pictured below) with the full orchestra. Though the audio quality was limited by the current technology, this performance is impressive for how it was recorded in extended first takes. Listen to that recording here.

[Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

LOCAL NEWS:

Public radio in Northeast Ohio is about to undergo a dramatic change. Ideastream Public Radio and WKSU have announced they will enter an operating agreement, which will go into effect on October 1. This collaboration will create one of Northeast Ohio’s largest news organizations, and in 2022, WKSU will become the area’s sole NPR and local news station.

As a result, 104.9 FM (WCLV), Ideastream’s classical service, will move to 90.3 FM. In addition to WCLV’s usual coverage of The Cleveland Orchestra and other local ensembles, “90.3 FM programming will spotlight more performances by musicians in Akron and Kent as well.” For now, however, the two stations will continue to operate separately. Learn more here.

CONCERT UPDATE:

The Canton Symphony String Quartet concert, originally scheduled for tonight at 7:30 at The Auricle, has been postponed. No news yet on when and where a potential rescheduled concert will be, but we will keep you updated.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Composing, conducting, and pedagogy — Nadia Boulanger did all three, and she did them incredibly well.

Born on this date in 1887 in her home country of France, Boulanger (pictured left with her sister Lili) is well-known for influencing an entire generation of composers, with her list of students including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Astor Piazzolla. Her conducting career was equally impressive, as she was the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and other major ensembles.

Though she was also a composer, Boulanger stepped back from writing music after the untimely death of her younger sister Lili. However, Nadia Boulanger would go on to program and share both her and her sister’s music in concert throughout her life. Enjoy this performance of her Fantaisie pour piano et orchestre on YouTube, and check out the Boulanger Initiative for more resources about women in music.

On this day in 1966, the Metropolitan Opera opened its doors at the company’s new opera house at Lincoln Center. Fitting for the occasion, the Met kicked off the season with a world premiere — Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, starring soprano Leontyne Price. Librettist, designer, and director Franco Zefferelli staged an extravagant production, but technical issues, “gaudy” costuming, and an overall clash between Zeffirelli and Barber’s artistic visions resulted in a rocky start for the Met’s new era.

[Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

ON TODAY IN PERSON:

First, two early-afternoon options. On the Music at Noon series, the Dana School of Music presents the final concert of the Northeast Ohio Keyboard Festival at 12:15 pm at the Butler Institute of American Art at Youngstown State. Also at 12:15, Florence Mustric takes to the Beckerath organ at Trinity Lutheran Church in Cleveland for “A Tribute to Karl Hass.”

Then at 7, it’s back to Youngstown — to Harrison Commons Field — for the YSU Wind Ensemble Outdoor Pops Concert. Conductors Michael S. Butler and Kate Ferguson will lead you through music by Gershwin, Ticheli, and Sousa. If it rains, the concert moves to Ford Theater in Bliss Hall.

More details in our Concert Listings.

LOCAL NEWS:

Last week, CityMusic Cleveland announced its 2021-22 chamber music series, titled Justice, Equality, and Hope. One highlight of the ten-concert series is the abundance of newly-commissioned works by women composers: Denise Ondishko, Kotoka Suzuki, Michi Wiancko, Elena Ruehr, Jungyoon Wie, Daixuan Ai, Jasmine Barnes, Jessica Meyer, Margaret Brouwer, Fusun Koksal, and Dawn Avery (all pictured above).

The opening concert, “American Dream,” takes place on Friday, September 24 at 7:00 pm at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus, when the Pantheon Ensemble — Masha Andreini and Mari Sato, violins, Yael Senamaud-Cohen, viola, Helen Hawersaat, cello, Tracy Rowell, bass, and Elizabeth DeMio, piano — will play works by Gershwin, Ondishko, Boulanger, and Dvorák.

See the full season schedule here. All concerts are free, no registration needed. Masks and social distancing are required. For those unable to attend in person, select programs will also be recorded for release on CityMusic’s YouTube Channel.

One last bit of news: individual tickets for the 2021-22 Cleveland Orchestra season, which opens October 14, are now on sale. An update to the docket of guest artists: pianist Jeremy Denk replaces previously-announced soloist Yuja Wang in the Cleveland Orchestra premiere of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? with Adams on the podium at Severance Hall on February 3, 5, and 6, 2022.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this day last year, we paid tribute to four musicians who entered or exited from this world on September 15 in music history: Swiss composer Frank Martin (born in Geneva in 1890), Austrian organist, conductor, composer, and influential teacher Anton Heiller (born in Vienna in 1923), American soprano Jessye Norman (born in Augusta, Georgia in 1945), and Austrian composer Anton Webern (died in Mittersill, Austria in 1945).

This go-around, we’ll add one name to that list: French composer and pianist Louise Dumont Farrenc, who died on this date in Paris in 1875.

Farrenc built up a stellar reputation at the keyboard during the 1830s, leading to her appointment in 1842 as piano professor at the Paris Conservatory, a position in which she remained for 30 years — making her the only female tenured professor at the Conservatory during the entire 19th century.

As a composer, it was in chamber music where she left her strongest legacy. Her two piano quintets, Op. 30 and 31, were especially renowned, and she won the Académie des Beaux-Arts’ Chartier Prize twice.

Her chamber music even played an important role in helping her beat the gender pay gap. Despite being known as an excellent teacher, one of the best in Europe, she was paid less than her male colleagues — that is, until the triumphant premiere of her 1849 Nonet in E-flat, Op. 38, when she was finally granted equal pay.

If only she didn’t have to go above and beyond for that to be the case.

by Stephanie Manning

LOCAL NEWS:

Youngstown State University has announced the fourth season of the Pipino Performing Arts Series, hosted by the University’s Cliffe College of Creative Arts. The six performances, one per month starting this month, will kick off on September 22 with a virtual presentation by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. Learn more here.

THE NATIONAL CONVERSATION:

As a companion to yesterday’s diary, which included a New York Times piece exploring the careers of women conductors in the country’s top orchestras, this article in the Los Angeles Times explores a particular program where many of these up-and-coming conductors have received training. That is Gustavo Dudamel’s Fellowship Program, established in 2009.

“A striking aspect of the former fellows, however, is how little they are like Dudamel — or each other,” writes Mark Swed. He goes on to note that out of the five conductors from the program that made their Hollywood Bowl debuts this summer, four were women — including Marta Gardolinska (pictured). “The glass ceiling doesn’t stand a chance.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Artists, it looks like September 14 could be a good day to finish that project you’ve been working on — just ask George Frideric Handel or Francis Scott Key.

On this day in 1741, Handel (pictured) put the finishing touches on his Messiah, a composition he had been working on non-stop for the last 23 days. This great oratorio, now a fixture of the Christmas season, was first proposed to him by librettist Charles Jennens in July of that year.

Jennens, who had previously worked with Handel on the oratorio Saul, wrote to a friend that “I hope [Handel] will lay out his whole Genius & Skill upon it, that the Composition may excel all his former Compositions, as the Subject excels every other Subject.” Surely the librettist would have been pleased to know that the composer worked on it morning and night until its completion, and that it would eventually become Handel’s best-known work.

The well-known recordings of Messiah are almost too many to list, so let’s focus on a specific type of performance that’s uniquely connected to this piece — the “sing-along Messiah.” Open to singers of all skill levels, these performances prioritize the joy of singing over musical perfection.

In Northeast Ohio, Credo Music has made a Messiah sing-along an annual tradition. Hosted at Oberlin Conservatory, this year’s event is on December 12. Learn more, and take a listen to the “Hallelujah” chorus from the 2017 performance, here.

[Read more…]

by Stephanie Manning

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

There are plenty of concerts to enjoy over the weekend — let’s break it down day by day.

Saturday, September 11

The Cleveland Orchestra concludes its 2021 Blossom season tonight at 7:30 with drummer Stewart Copeland (pictured). The founder of legendary rock band The Police will perform his work Police Deranged for Orchestra, which features some of the group’s biggest hits. Tickets available online.

The Tri-C Jazz Fest begins today at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. The Mainstage, Colonnade Stage, and Talk Tent will feature a variety of performances throughout the day, including the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, A Moment in Cleveland, and The Funky 8. Read more details in our concert listings and buy tickets here.

Trinity Cathedral will host its 9/11 Twentieth Anniversary Commemoration Concert tonight at 7:30 pm. The program includes poetry, prose, and music by American composers Copland, Barber, Hampton, Hancock, and Paulus. Reserve your free ticket for in-person attendance or click here for the live stream.

In the afternoon, enjoy a free concert from Music at Main at the Cleveland Public Library at 2:00 pm. Pianist Roman Rudnytsky will play a program featuring pieces by Herrarte, Brahms, Prokofiev, Holst, and Bach.

Sunday, September 12

The Tri-C Jazz Fest continues today with a full slate of programming across all stages. Highlights include Harp vs Harp (Edmar Castaneda and Grégoire Maret), Upside of Medium, and Catherine Russell. Read more details in our concert listings and buy tickets here.

The front lawn of the Historic Barder House in Akron will host Tuesday Musical’s Music al Fresco Passport Series at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. Brazilian guitarist, vocalist and storyteller Moises Borges and his quartet will interpret classic samba and bossa nova songs as well as Moises’s own work. Tickets available online.

At 3:00 pm, check out the latest concert from the Cleveland Composers Guild. “Creativity: Learning Through Experience” will feature area music students performing original compositions by Guild members. Click here to watch the free live stream.

For those interested in an in-person offering at the same time, The University of Akron will host the opening concert for the Seventh Annual Northeast Ohio Keyboard Festival. Guest pianist Henry Kelder teams up with faculty from Youngstown State University and UA in works for solo piano, duets, and eight hands on two pianos.

REMEMBERING 9/11:

Today, as we honor the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks that changed our world, take a moment to read about and listen to the classical music works which were shaped by that tragedy. An article published by WQXR ten years ago today details the way that composers were affected and how it shaped the musical responses they would create.

[Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

LOCAL NEWS & FEATURES:

The Akron Symphony’s Unorchestrated podcast continues its four-part series on the Akron Symphony Chorus with a discussion about Haydn’s The Creation, including excerpts of the work as performed by the ASO and Chorus themselves. Listen here.

And whether you are 3 years old or 103, the Canton Symphony invites you to learn more about music and make it part of your life through the ensemble’s education programs (one such event pictured). See this season’s list of programs here.

INTERESTING READS:

The New York Times interviews 31-year-old Swiss maestro Lorenzo Viotti, chief conductor of the Dutch National Opera and Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, whose “action-man social media posts are part of a plan to shake up perceptions about people who enjoy classical music.”

On a much darker note, Reuters tells the story of Afghanistan’s all-female Zohra Orchestra in the days following the Taliban’s recent conquest. “The story of the orchestra… encapsulates the sense of shock felt by young Afghans…particularly women.”

And BBC Music Magazine celebrates six historic women “who defied social norms to perform, compose, teach and conduct classical music.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

One celebrity of early music, and one lesser-known visual-musical artist.

The more internationally famous name today is Christopher Hogwood (born September 10, 1941), the English conductor, harpsichordist, and musicologist who was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement in the late 20th century. He passed away in 2014.

Among his most important positions, he was a co-founder of the Early Music Consort in 1967, and six years later started up the Academy of Ancient Music. The ‘80s began taking him more and more frequently across the pond, including what became a 15-year tenure as artistic director of Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society (1986-2001), and four years in Minnesota as music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (‘88 to ’92).

Just as one place to start, hop around the six-hour playlist of one of his biggest recording projects, the complete Beethoven Symphonies with the Academy of Ancient Music, here on Spotify.

Our other Almanac Inductee™ is under-recognized outside of his home country: Lithuanian painter, composer, and writer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, born on this date in 1875 (Old Style calendar). Though he died at age 35, his oeuvre totaled hundreds of paintings and works of music, and he is considered a key figure in the development of European abstract art.

Perhaps it’s not surprising with those crossed artistic wires that Čiurlionis had synesthesia — in this case with colors and music. It’s also notable that several of his paintings are titled after musical forms, such as sonatas, preludes, and fugues.

Two listening and two viewing suggestions: first, his symphonic poem Miške (In the Forest) and one of his many works for solo piano, the Prelude in b-flat (“Dedication”), the latter performed by Gintaras Januševičius live at the 66th International Chopin Festival.

Then his two paintings under the umbrella of SONATA VI: Stellar Sonata (Allegro), pictured left, and Stellar Sonata (Andante), right. Just a quick glance and you can feel the difference in speed.

by Stephanie Manning

IN THE NEWS:

This fall’s classical music season is hard to predict — pandemic precautions, combined with questions about diversity and inclusion, will no doubt make a difference in programming and the audience experience. “The status quo will no longer suffice,” writes Anthony Tomassini in The New York Times. Read more here.

Amidst all these challenges, composer Jessie Montgomery (pictured) and her “personal yet widely resonant music” are set to make an impact in concert seasons around the country. A recent article in The New York Times reports the violinist’s compositions are expected to be programmed nearly 400 times this year, including with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. One thing’s for sure — Montgomery’s work “will be difficult to miss in the coming season.”

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Up until 1995, the Cleveland International Piano Competition — which awarded its 2021 prizes one month ago today — was known by a different name. When pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet arrived in Cleveland in 1979, it was to participate in the Casadesus Competition. The French musician (pictured), born on this day in 1961, won Second Prize that year, and has since gone on to international success.

Thibaudet’s visit to Cleveland marked his first time in the United States — and the city left a lasting impression on him. In our 2018 interview, the pianist recounted a memory of telling a local taxi driver that he was a musician. “He almost stopped his cab and he turned around and said, ‘Sir, do you know that in Cleveland we have the best orchestra in the world?’ I said yes, I know.

“It was amazing to have that pride from a taxi driver,” he added. “Usually they talk about the baseball team, but he was so proud of his orchestra. And I’ve never seen that anywhere else.”

Thibaudet is a long-time collaborator with the Cleveland Orchestra — his most recent appearance was in December 2019, when he performed Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Egyptian”) with conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.

In addition to concert appearances, he also recorded multiple albums with the Orchestra in the 1990s, primarily of works by Rachmaninov. Listen to his performance of the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2 under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy here.

It was also in the 1990s when the pianist began to branch out into recording film scores. Over the years, he has contributed to movies like Pride and Prejudice (2005), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011), and Atonement (2007).

The soundtrack to the latter, composed by Dario Marinelli, went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Score. Listen to the album (pictured), which also features cellist Caroline Dale, on YouTube.

“The good composers of soundtracks, I admire them as much as I do classical composers. I don’t make a difference between them — a composer is a composer,” Thibaudet told the Los Angeles Times in 2012. “The movies are the opera of modern times. Had there been movies back when, Puccini and Wagner would have certainly written film scores.”

 

Jessie Montgomery photo by Jiyang Chen

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Outdoor concerts reign on Labor Day weekend, with Richard Kaufman leading The Cleveland Orchestra in film scores by John Williams both on Saturday and Sunday evening, and Carl Topilow hosting baritone Lester Lynch in an evening of music by Queen, Broadway tunes, and Americana classics with Cleveland Pops Orchestra in Elyria’s Town Square on Sunday.

Check our Concert Listings for details.

CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR LABOR DAY:

By the time that Labor Day was established as an official national holiday in 1894, in response to the widespread unrest exacerbated by the Pullman Strike of that year, 30 states were already setting a day aside to honor workers — an observance that became increasingly vital as the effects of the Machine Age unfolded. Among others, photographer Lewis Wickes Hine captured laborers with dignity in his fine art “photo stories” (below, his Powerhouse Mechanic, c. 1921).

“Work” has expanded to encompass a wide variety of human activity, as evidenced by a 2014 WQXR poll that asked listeners to nominate classical works that best capture the spirit of Labor Day. Submissions ranged from Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 2, from Copland’s Fanfare For the Common Man (countered by Joan Tower’s Fanfare(s) for the Uncommon Woman) to Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated,

One interesting suggestion was Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony (No. 45), the musical documentation of a labor dispute between Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and his court orchestra that seems ironic during the COVID era, when musicians of all kinds have experienced furloughs, layoffs, and the disappearance of work.

INTERESTING READ:

The Metropolitan Opera is scheduled to reopen on September 27 with Terrence Blanchard’s 2019 stage version of New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Click here to read the New York Magazine “Vulture” article about baritone Will Liverman, who will sing the title role.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

On September 4, collaborative pianist Irwin Gage was born in Cleveland in 1939, and Alsatian medical missionary, theologian, and Bach scholar Albert Schweitzer died at his hospital in Lambéréne, Gabon (then French Equatorial Africa) in 1965 at the age of 90.

On September 5, a long list of debuts and departures includes Johann Christian Bach (“The English Bach,” born in 1735), Canadian pianist and composer Marc-André Hamelin (born in 1961), and Hungarian-born conductor Sir Georg Solti (knighted honorarily in 1971 and substantively in 1972 when he became a British citizen, who died in 1997). Other names that pop up on the fifth day of September: German opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (born 1791), Amy (Mrs. H.H.A.) Beach (born 1867), American revolutionary John Cage (born 1912), English composer Peter Racine Fricker (born 1920), and Mexican conductor Edouarda Mata (born 1942).

The September 6 class includes three birthdays — American composers Emerson Whithorne (Cleveland, 1884), Wayne Barlow (Elyria, 1912), and William Kraft (also a percussionist and conductor, in Chicago, 1923) — as well as the passing of American conductor Henry Hadley (in New York, 1937).

To dig a bit deeper into the lives of four of this weekend’s honorees, watch

Albert Schweitzer: My Life is My Argument, which explores his decision to give up a prestigious career as a musician and philosopher to become a medical doctor and serve native inhabitants of Gabon, Africa.

Living the Classical Life: Episode 84, in which host and pianist Zsolt Bognár interviews Marc-André Hamelin about his preparation for a Carnegie Hall appearance “and how Hamelin has managed to find a zone of performance completely free of the nerves that often plague others,”

and listen to

Emerson Whithorne’s Poem for Piano and Orchestra (1927), played by John Kozar with the Haddenfield (NJ) Symphony Orchestra, Arthur Cohn conducting, “striking music, severe and granitic, with a determined shattering of its melodic line and persistently syncopated rhythms.”

and Henry Hadley’s tone poem The Ocean (1921), performed by John McLaughlin Williams and the Ukraine National Symphony, to experience the compositional legacy of an American figure who served as the first conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, scouted out the future location of Tanglewood, and had a World War II Liberty Ship named in his honor.

In their time, Whithorne and Hadley enjoyed performances of their works by major American orchestras. Is it time to rediscover them?