by Timothy Robson
The Cleveland Orchestra billed last week’s concerts as “Romantic Mozart.” That may have been a great marketing gimmick to attract the Valentine’s Day crowd on Thursday evening, but the repertoire — all by Mozart, with a little help from guest conductor Harry Bicket — was the epitome of Classical elegance, with performances to match. The ensemble was pared down to chamber orchestra size, and there was no hint of “romantic” interpretation. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
It’s Valentine’s Day all week this week, and aside from the obvious gifts — flowers, chocolates, and shiny bling — there are a number of ways to take to heart the new advice of gifting your love interest experiences rather than things.
Our Concert Listings have been providing such a service since the website was launched in 2008. Consider this message from one of our readers way back in 2009:
I’m grateful for ClevelandClassical.com for so many reasons. In fact, I learned about Nathan Gunn’s performance at Oberlin through you, which has now become the central feature of my surprise Valentine’s Day date with my fiancée! I owe you big time now.
Here are some suggestions for your own Valentine.
by Daniel Hathaway
Soprano Kiera Duffy will make her third Cleveland appearance and her Severance Hall debut this weekend when she sings Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with Harry Bicket and The Cleveland Orchestra.
In a telephone conversation from South Bend, Indiana, where she teaches at the University of Notre Dame, Duffy said, “Coming to Cleveland seems like a homecoming, because some of the most important gigs of my early professional career were there doing early music.”
Those gigs were with Apollo’s Fire, including performances and a recording of Handel’s Dixit Dominus over a decade ago, and more recently, the Praetorius Christmas Vespers. Since that time, Duffy has expanded her musical universe to include new music as well.
“Early music and new music make a strange pair of bedfellows, but they often go hand in hand in people’s careers. Obviously I’ve sung a really broad range of repertoire over mine. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Michael Praetorius
Jeannette Sorrell brought the alternately dazzling and charming music of Michael Praetorius to life once again at Trinity Cathedral on Thursday evening, in her compilation program, “Christmas Vespers” — with a little help from Apollo’s Fire’s 20 instrumentalists, 27 adult singers and the 15 young vocalists who make up Apollo’s Musettes. And a near-capacity crowd of happy listeners.
Her sidespeople comprised six string players, including viola da gamba, a wind band of ten (recorders, cornetti, Trumpets, three sackbuts and percussionist) a continuo group of four (count them: three long-necked lutes or theorbos! — in addition to organ and harpsichord (Sorrell herself) and seven soloists who moved in and out of the choir during the complicated choreography that brought the right people to the right place for each variously scored piece.
Mostly drawn from the collection called Polyhymnia caduceatrix, compiled in 1619, two years before the composer’s death at the age of 50, but also using material from his Musica Sionae, Puericinium and the dance collection Terpsichore, the program ranged from the simple (chant and liturgical snippets, stark, early Lutheran chorales sung in unison and M.P.’s greatest hit, Lo, how a rose) to the fascinating polychoral complexity of works in the Venetian ceremonial style (Gloria sei Gott, and In Dulci Jubilo). [Read more…]