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?

by Stephanie Manning

IN THE NEWS:

Violinist Jennifer Koh’s new album, Alone Together, is “a snapshot not just of the pandemic, but of the musical community right now,” friend and collaborator Missy Mazzoli said in a recent interview with NPR. Koh (pictured), who graduated from Oberlin, developed the project as a way to bring the musical community together after falling on hard times during the pandemic.

The violinist called the collaborative effort, which has been more than a year in the making, “one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had.” The album includes 39 pieces from both renowned and emerging composers, all under five minutes long. Listen to the album here, and read the full article from NPR.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

As we celebrate the recent return of the Met Orchestra and Chorus to Lincoln Center, today we look back on the life of Rudolf Bing (pictured below), who died on this day in 1997. The famed general manager of the Metropolitan Opera oversaw the company’s move to Lincoln Center in 1963.

The “dapper and acerbic” Bing never shied away from conflict, even with international opera stars. In 1958, he canceled the contract of soprano Maria Callas over a disagreement, but spent years convincing her to come back. She eventually returned to the Met seven years later in the title role of Tosca, which would mark the end of the 42-year-old soprano’s stage career.

In a review for the performance, New York Times journalist Harold Schonberg described New York City’s excitement over the return of Callas (pictured below):

Hours before the curtain went up, the street outside the opera house looked like one of the circles of Dante’s Inferno. […] The picketers were being jostled by citizens pleading for tickets, at any price. Some bore plaintive signs: ‘A single ticket, please.’

Another person Bing clashed with was Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell, who left the Met in 1954 after an argument over his contract. Someone commented afterwards that Szell was his own worst enemy, to which Bing famously replied: “Not while I’m alive.”

Despite Bing’s tenuous relationships with some well-known figures, he was also renowned for integrating the Met’s artist roster and nurturing the careers of singers such as Leontyne Price, who became one of the first African American singers to perform for the company in a leading role. In 1950, while facing some backlash over announcing he would hire singers regardless of race, Bing wrote to a disgruntled subscriber: “I am afraid I cannot agree with you that as a matter of principle, Negro singers should be excluded. This is not what America and her allies have been fighting for.”

 

Jennifer Koh photo by Juergen Frank

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 8 in Evans Amphitheater in Cain Park, the BlueWater Brass Quintet (Neil Mueller and Larry Hermon, trumpets, Ken Wadenpfuhl, horn, David Mitchell, trombone, and Ken Heinlein, tuba) will close out the last month of summer with music by J.S. Bach, Victor Ewald, Paul Dukas, and George Gershwin, along with a selection of Civil War-era brass band music. It’s free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Two very different figures in Germanic classical music history were born on this date one year apart: Albert Riemenschneider in Berea, Ohio in 1878, and Alma Schindler Mahler-Werfel in Vienna, Austria in 1879.

Riemenschneider’s father was president of German Wallace College, which later became Baldwin-Wallace College, then Baldwin Wallace University (dropping a hyphen on the way). Albert was offered the directorship of the music department in 1898 while still an undergraduate, and went on to found the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival in 1932, modeled after the one in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. That became a Riemenschneider family enterprise with the agenda of allowing students to participate in each of J.S. Bach’s four great choral works — the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Mass in b-minor, and the Christmas Oratorio — during their undergraduate years.

His most well-known contribution to Bach studies was his publication of the 371 Harmonized Chorales in 1941 (along with 69 chorales with figured bass), a collection that had previously been published by Bach’s sons and others, but which has remained in publication and popularity.

Riemenschneider’s wife, Selma, was instrumental in founding the Baldwin Wallace Bach Institute with her 1951 gift of Albert’s books and manuscripts to the College (he died in 1940).

Tom Riemenschneider and Laura Kenelly considered his legacy in a paper on the 75th anniversary of the Festival. Click here to watch a video featuring the 2016 Matthew-Passion performance with Rufus Müller as Evangelist, Dashon Burton as Christus, and soloists Yulia Van Doren, Luthien Brackett, Matthew Anderson, and Jason Steigerwalt, with Dirk Garner conducting.

Alma Mahler was one of the truly liberated women of the early years of the 20th century, having become notorious for her serial marriages (Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel) and numerous interlocking affairs. She abandoned composing at Gustav’s insistence (he later relented), but her music, mainly Lieder, makes for interesting listening. Click here for a selection performed by soprano Charlotte Margiono and members of the Brabant Orchestra.

But her racy emotional life eclipsed everything else. Here’s a rare, brief interview. And Harvard math instructor and witty cabaret performer Tom Lehrer had a field day with her story in his song Alma:

Her lovers were many and varied

From the day she began her beguine

There were three famous ones whom she married

And God knows how many between

Alma, tell us

All modern women are jealous

Which of your magical wands

Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz?

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Blossom this summer have normally been scheduled for Sunday evenings, but one exception is tonight’s performance featuring pianist Jonathan Biss in Caroline Shaw’s Watermark (read a preview here). Also on tap, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Elgar’s Enigma Variations, with associate conductor Vinay Parameswarn on the podium, replacing Elim Chan, a victim of pandemic travel complications.

Also on for Saturday: Cleveland Opera Theater’s annual Opera for All concert returns to the Dunham Tavern Museum.

Sunday is packed with mostly outdoor events: Tuesday Musical’s al Fresco Passport series (two concerts featuring Opus 216 in fiddle music at Akron’s historic Barder House), Canton Symphony musicians popping up at the Beach Creek Botanical Garden in Alliance, a University of Akron faculty recital by clarinetist Stanislav Golovin, a Stars in the Classics Garden Concert in Orange Village, the Cavani Quartet with the Amici String Quartet on Tremont’s Arts in August Festival, and at Cain Park, the world premiere of Caliban Ascendant, a new ballet with music by Ty Alan Emerson choreographed by Bill Wade for Inlet Dance Theatre and performed — along with other works — by Cleveland Chamber Collective (rehearsal photo above). Read a preview article here.

For details, check our Concert Listings.

ONLINE SATURDAY:

Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year Festival returns for a second day of online performances by the world-class ensembles nominated for the magazine’s 2021 Orchestra of the Year Award — including The Cleveland Orchestra. Today’s program begins at 2 pm Eastern time, and will be available to watch for 24 hours on the British magazine’s website.

Saturday’s 2 pm lineup  includes music by Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Shostakovich, Florence Price, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi and Smetana performed by Paavo Järvi and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Santtu Matias-Rouvali with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jakub Hrůša with Bamberger Symphoniker, and Richard Egarr with the Academy of Ancient Music.

INTERESTING READ:

In the Diary for Tuesday, August 17, we relinked to video interviews we conducted eight years ago with Colin Davin from Kabul, where the classical guitarist was serving as guest teacher at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (click here to watch). Now, the BBC considers the future of the school in an article by Tiffany Wertheimer. Read Afghan music school falls silent under Taliban rule here.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC

Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival and School was founded on August 28, 1949 as a two-week event celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of German social philosopher and dramatist Johann Wolgang von Goethe, who entered the world on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt.

Watch A Bridge to Beethoven, a live performance by violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Shai Wosner from the 2015 Festival, and, from the Aspen School, a faculty-student showcase led by oboist Elaine Douvas.

Goethe’s most celebrated work is his tragic play, Faust, which became a German cultural monument, and whose mystical final lines have inspired settings by Schumann (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust), Liszt (Faust Symphony), and Mahler (Symphony No. 8).

And August 29, 1952, saw the premiere by pianist David Tudor in Woodstock, Vermont of one of the most controversial — and misunderstood — works of the 20th century: John Cage’s 4’33.” Usually characterized as four and a half minutes of silence, Cage actually intended the three-movement piece to allow listeners to tune in to the ambient sounds around them.

[Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Indoors this evening, Broadview Heights Baptist Church presents its Serenity Chamber Players with pianist Stephen Muzzi in excerpts by Beethoven and Brahms at 6:00 pm.

Outside, Tremont’s Arts in August brings Ashtabula’s Erie Heights Brass Band Sextet (pictured) to Lincoln Park for a wide-ranging program at 7:00 pm.

And Online, No Exit New Music Ensemble spotlights two of its musicians in a 7:00 pm program that will take just about 20 minutes to watch. Pianist Nicholas Underill will play Béla Bartók’s Sonata, and violinist Mari Sato will play Adam Robert’s 2008 solo piece Sinews.

Details in our Concert Listings.

Also online today: Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year Festival returns for two days of online performances from the world-class ensembles nominated for the magazine’s 2021 Orchestra of the Year Award — including The Cleveland Orchestra. Each concert begins at 2 pm Eastern time on Friday and Saturday, and will be available to watch for 24 hours on the British magazine’s website.

NEWS BRIEFS

The Music Critics Association of North America has announced that Du Yun and Raven Chacon’s Sweet Land has won its fifth annual award for Best New Opera, to be presented next month at MCANA’s annual meeting in Detroit. Produced by The Industry, the experimental Los Angeles company founded by Yuval Sharon, the opera premiered in February 2020 and had a brief run until the pandemic shut down performances the next month. Read the press release here.

Apollo’s Fire announced today that proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or proof of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of concert dates (or of an antigen text within six hours of concert time) will be required for admission to each of its events, in accordance with protocols rapidly being adopted by U.S. arts organizations that will remain in effect through December, 2021. Additionally, masks will be mandatory. Five of the seven programs this season will be available on the Orchestra’s Worldwide Watch-at-Home Virtual Series for patrons who prefer not to attend in person.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

English composer Eric Coates, born on this date in 1886 in Nottinghamshire (he died in Chichester in 1957) was both celebrated and denigrated during his career as a creator of “light music.”

Coates and his music attracted a certain amount of snobbery: The Times characterised his music as “fundamentally commonplace…but well written, easy on the ear and lightly sentimental…superficial but sincere.”  In its obituary notice, The Manchester Guardian took issue with such a dismissal, and preferred the French attitude of cherishing petits-maîtres for what they were rather than condemning them for what they were not: “better to write second-class masterpieces than fail to be a second Beethoven.” One of Coates’s most important musical gifts was the ability to write memorable tunes — “a genuine lyrical impulse,” as The Manchester Guardian put it. On first meeting him Dame Ethel Smyth said, “You are the man who writes tunes,” and asked him how he did it.

(Speaking of snobbery, that paragraph appears in Coates’ Wikipedia article, a source that many treat with general suspicion, but it’s pretty obvious when the anonymous authors are demonstrating respectable scholarship.)

Click here to listen to Eric Coates’ London Suite (London Everyday) played by Guilhem Boisson and Orchestra Symphonique Opus 31, a French amateur ensemble based in Toulouse. The listener comments are worth reading.

Two other composers born on this date whose music could fall into the “light” category are Rayburn Wright (1922) and James Christensen (1935). Wright was professor of jazz studies and contemporary media at the Eastman School, and Christensen was associated with the Walt Disney empire for most of his career. Click here to hear Rayburn’s sketch, Eastman Arrangers Holiday, and here to enjoy Christensen’s Tribute to Elvis.

Also among the August 27 births, two relatively obscure figures: English composer Herbert Menges (1902), who wrote incidental music to all of Shakespeare’s plays, and Stanley Hollingsworth (1924), whose Piano Concerto was premiered in 1980 by Neville Marriner and the Detroit Symphony.