by Daniel Hathaway
To honor the memory of composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of György Kurtág’s Petite musique solennelle – En hommage à Pierre Boulez 90 on Thursday and Saturday evenings, March 24 and 26 at Severance Hall. The performances will also feature Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk in the Schumann concerto, and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6.
Kurtág (pictured above in 2007), who worked with Boulez and the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris from 1999-2001, wrote Petite musique solennelle to honor Boulez on his 90th birthday, a landmark that was also observed by The Cleveland Orchestra in a special concert in January of 2015. (Boulez died almost exactly one year later.)
In an interview for a preview of that event on ClevelandClassical.com, TCO principal keyboardist Joela Jones said, “To me it’s amazing that somebody who was so great, so brilliant, and so gifted, could also be so humble and modest. He just made you feel comfortable, like you were his equal, which of course you were not. And, if you had enough intelligence you knew that.” [Read more…]
The three programs scheduled by The Cleveland Orchestra last weekend were each colorful in their own right, but the blueprint of works being performed was complicated enough that the program book color-coded each evening to keep patrons apprised about what they were hearing, and in what order. Come to think of it, the orchestra and stage crew probably appreciated those navigational aids as well. 
Finnish guest conductor Susanna Mälkki and American pianist Jeremy Denk both made their Cleveland Orchestra debuts on Thursday evening, April 23 at Severance Hall in an impressive program of works by Jean Sibelius, Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. The chemistry between the two and the Orchestra produced a precise but risky journey through Bartók’s third piano concerto that was edge-of-your-seats thrilling. 
Though the man of the hour was unable to travel and bask in his celebration, The Cleveland Orchestra’s tribute to Pierre Boulez on Thursday, January 15, was a festive one, warmed by video tributes from long-time Orchestra members and illuminated by thrilling performances of works written or led by the French composer-conductor during his forty-some year relationship with the organization. 
“His personality is a tremendous contrast, because he seems so serious and intellectual, and of course he’s probably the person with the highest IQ that I ever met. Yet, he has this whimsical and humorous personality behind it.”
The Elgar concerto was on the agenda for Cleveland native and international cello heroine Alisa Weilerstein’s most recent homecoming. On Thursday evening at Severance Hall, Weilerstein put her individual stamp on that iconic work in a penetrating and daring performance with The Cleveland Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero. 
The Cleveland Orchestra built its second subscription weekend around the phenomenal Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, who treated Severance Hall audiences to Richard Strauss’s Burleske on Thursday and Friday evenings and Sunday afternoon, Chopin’s Andante spianato & Grand Polonaise brillante on Thursday and Sunday, and no doubt blew the patrons of the Orchestra’s annual benefit evening away with the first Tchaikovsky concerto on Saturday.