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Pianist Imogen Cooper
returns to Severance  

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by Mike Telin

It’s difficult to believe that it was in April of 2014 that the inimitable British pianist Imogen Cooper last appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra. Interestingly, it was Dame Jane Glover who was on the podium for that engagement. 

On Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 pm, Cooper and Glover will reunite with the Orchestra on the Severance Music Center stage. The program will include music by Britten, Mozart, Tallis, and Vaughan Williams. Performances continue through Sunday and tickets are available online.

From the beginning of our recent telephone conversation, it was clear that Cooper is excited to be back in Cleveland. “It’s lovely to be here. The sun is shining and I can’t wait to renew my relationship with the orchestra. It’s going to be a real joy,” the pianist said from her hotel room. “And that gorgeous hall that I love so much. I don’t think there’s a more beautiful hall in the world.” 

[Read more…]

Review: Cleveland Orchestra with Jane Glover and Imogen Cooper (April 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

GLOVER-COOPER

The burning question after The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert on Thursday April 24 was why it took so long to bring conductor Jane Glover and pianist Imogen Cooper — either singly or together — to Severance Hall. The two British artists collaborated to produce a spectacular performance of Beethoven’s first concerto, and Glover led pristine and loveable readings of sinfonias by C.P.E. Bach and Johann Baptist Waṅhal* as well as a finely shaped account of Haydn’s “Drum Roll” symphony.

Glover set up a bright, sprightly introduction for Cooper in the Beethoven (the pared-down string section allowed the orchestra to play with amazing transparency). Responding with verve and an effortless elegance, Cooper breezed through her passagework, made perfect joins with Glover and the orchestra and pointed up exquisite moments like the sudden shift into E-flat. The recapitulation of the first movement was announced by a surprising blaze of horns and Cooper’s initially calm, orderly cadenza suddenly jolted the ear with wild chord juxtapositions. “She’s fantastic!” cried a woman in the row behind me. No shushing and no argument there. [Read more…]

Preview: Cleveland Orchestra — a conversation with pianist Imogen Cooper

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by Mike Telin

COOPER-ImogenBritish pianist Imogen Cooper and British conductor Jane Glover will both be making their Severance Hall and Cleveland Orchestra debuts this weekend. I reached Imogen Cooper in London to talk about Beethoven’s first piano concerto, a piece that I tell her still gives me goose bumps and puts me in a good mood every time I hear it.

Cooper agrees. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I have played it a lot but each time I do, I think of what a masterpiece it is. It requires inner and outer energy, vast amounts of it, because it needs some very fast tempi. The first movement is definitely an allegro con brio and not an allegro maestoso.”

The pianist recently saw a 1970s performance on YouTube that supported her view. “It was incredibly ponderous and slow. That is the way you used to hear Beethoven #1 in those days: tempi much slower, much heavier, a very big orchestra. I must say that I don’t really see it like that. I think the first movement should go like the wind. It’s also such an incredibly witty work. During the outer movements we should be smiling a lot of the time. And that extraordinary middle movement in such an unexpected key as A-flat is so glorious.” [Read more…]

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