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Popelka leads Cleveland Orchestra, Chorus in Brahms’ Requiem, Hailstork (Nov. 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio —  On Thursday evening, November 5, in his second week on the Mandel Concert Hall podium, Czech conductor Petr Popelka led a well-paced and nuanced performance of Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem and the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s fascinating oboe concerto, Distant Lands.

Deutsches Requiem? As a tribute to his late mother, Brahms crafted a non-liturgical choral work that drew on vernacular passages of hope and consolation from Protestant reformer Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. While avoiding the usual medieval theme of divine judgment, the texts Brahms chose still acknowledge the transitory nature of human existence.

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Franz Welser-Möst returns to Blossom with “Summer in Vienna” (Aug. 29)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Franz Welser-Möst began saying farewell to Cleveland audiences on Saturday with music from his other home.

“Summer in Vienna” marked his final Blossom Music Center appearance as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, in the 25th and final season of a tenure that began in 2002. Richard Strauss and Mozart brought Vienna’s drama and grace to the party. After intermission came the champagne.

Welser-Möst flipped our wigs with the emphatic opening to Mozart’s Symphony No. 34, letting the four horns and four trumpets play with Handelian abandon while strings and winds kept the music transparent and nimble. Mozart’s abrupt shifts and odd phrase lengths came off as witty, not fussy. The finale was like a fleet horse ride, all carefree bliss at summer’s end.

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Franz Welser-Möst returns to The Cleveland Orchestra for passionate Summers at Severance finale (Aug. 27)

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by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The summer is almost over, which means that Franz Welser-Möst is back on the podium. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director has historically preferred to make his appearances at the tail end of the Orchestra’s summer season, and he has scheduled himself for two performances during the last week of August. On Thursday evening, August 27 he led the final concert of the 2026 Summers at Severance series, bringing a good-sized crowd to hear a program of emotionally charged music at Severance Music Center.

Although the timing of Welser-Möst’s return to Cleveland is typical, it now comes with more gravitas than usual, as he is gearing up for his 25th and final year as music director. Understandably, his programming for this upcoming season has become more retrospective to match. Thursday’s concert featured works by historic composers he loves — Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner — and a living composer he has championed — Bernd Richard Deutsch.

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Cleveland Orchestra, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Sol Gabetta create magic at Severance (Apr. 9)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, OH — A good-sized crowd including an abundance of school agers turned out on Thursday evening, April 9 at Severance Music Center for engrossing performances of works by Dmitri Schotakovich and Franz Schubert led by Finnish guest conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali and featuring Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta.

Only two works were on the agenda, but Dmitri Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto and Franz Schubert’s Ninth Symphony both qualify as “doozies” — “outstanding or unique of their kind.”

The Russian work earns that label for its vast range of emotional content, the Austrian piece for what Robert Schumann described as its “heavenly length” and for the endurance it requires from wind and string players.

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Cleveland Orchestra tackles Beethoven’s ‘Fateful Fifth’ with conductor Elim Chan, trumpeter Michael Sachs (Mar. 12)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The art of conducting is a kind of alchemy — the transformation of inert notes on a page into something vividly alive. A conductor absorbs a composer’s intentions, reimagines them, and releases them again through that remarkable instrument, the symphony orchestra. On a good night the music feels less reproduced than re-created, and the listener senses the thrill of discovery.

In her appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center Thursday, March 12, conductor Elim Chan provided such an evening. She honored the distinct language of each score — Stravinsky’s refashioning of Baroque style in Pulcinella, Haydn’s elegant Trumpet Concerto with Michael Sachs as the eloquent soloist, and Beethoven’s enduring Fifth Symphony. But fidelity did not mean routine.

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Cleveland Orchestra with Alain Altinoglu and Alisa Weilerstein at Severance (Feb. 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Thursday at Severance Music Center looked strange on paper, beginning as it did with the Cleveland premiere of an intellectually thorny cello concerto and ending with two of Richard Strauss’s dazzling tone poems played back-to-back.

But Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Don Juan proved to be effective palate cleansers following Alisa Weilerstein’s commanding performance of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto. Setting its challenges for the listener aside, you could concede control over the proceedings and let conductor Alain Altinoglu be your tour guide through the mischievous and lascivious exploits of the two bad boys that Strauss immortalized in his virtuosic scores.

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Manacorda, Cleveland Orchestra magic leaves nothing ‘Unfinished’ at Severance (Feb. 5)

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by Peter Feher
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Classical musicians have exhausted just about every attempt to complete Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony in the two centuries since the composer’s death at age 31.

But the Cleveland Orchestra doesn’t give in easily to creative despair. With guest conductor Antonello Manacorda, the ensemble has fashioned an effective, elegant substitute for the “missing” movements of Schubert’s score.

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Cleveland Orchestra with English horn soloist Robert Walters at Severance (Nov. 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The keyword for Thursday evening November 13 at Severance Music Center was stamina.

Without that essential quality, the performance of two demanding works by English hornist Robert Walters and The Cleveland Orchestra, led by guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev, might have fallen flat.

Instead, the concert entered the record books as a meticulously played sonic spectacular.

Geoffey Gordon’s Mad Song, written in 2020 after a fascinating poem by the 18th-century English mystic William Blake, was commissioned for Dimitri Mestdag, solo English horn of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

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Cleveland Orchestra at Severance with Yo-Yo Ma delights (Nov. 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Yo-Yo Ma was the picture of cello perfection on Thursday evening, Nov. 6 at Severance Music Center, performing with The Cleveland Orchestra as if for the thousandth time — or the first.

Relaxed, head tilted in his familiar way, he seemed tuned to some private channel of truth and beauty. When not playing, he listened with delight, urging on the musicians around him.

Ma offered Dvořák’s Cello Concerto at the end of “An Evening with Yo-Yo-Ma,” beautifully wrapped like an early holiday gift. He strode onstage with purpose, revealing a heart as large as the hall, making his entrance not as a soloist demanding attention, but as a voice rising from within. He answered the horn heroics with warmth, then crooned the second theme like a benediction.

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Cleveland Orchestra performs Mahler, Honegger with philosophical depth (Oct. 2)

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By Daniel Hathaway|Cleveland Classical

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra set a high musical bar early in their new season at Severance Music Center on Thursday with totally committed performances of unique works by Arthur Honegger and Gustav Mahler.

Honegger set out to express the horror of World War II in three arresting movements named after religious texts in his Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Symphonie liturgique.”

And Mahler, who once said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything,” turned away from that idea in his symphonic song cycle “Das lied von der Erde,” crafting a six-movement work that simply sought to capture the experience of being human on planet Earth.

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