by Daniel Hathaway
When the 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his sister, he ran right home to write a piano duet on the subject that turned into an overture and later a whole suite of incidental music. Did he have any idea that his music would be inextricably bound to Shakespeare’s play — or its march appropriated for countless wedding recessionals? [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Circled by video cameras — including a giraffe-like “jib” that hovered ominously over the front seats on stage right — Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra played the first in a split set of four all-Brahms concerts with the outstanding violin soloist Julia Fischer on Thursday evening at Severance Hall.
The first pair of performances were being recorded for eventual release on DVD and television and over the course of four days, the concerts would include two different overtures and symphonies and four iterations of the violin concerto. Thursday’s concert featured works written in the seven-year period between 1878 and 1885: the Academic Festival Overture, the Violin Concerto, and the Symphony No. 4 in e minor.
Sometimes concert programs are designed to challenge the audience or to juxtapose works in interesting and revelatory ways. Sometimes — as in a retrospective art exhibition — programs are curated for the sheer pleasure of enjoying a body of work brought together in one place. [Read more…]