by Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical
Originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Music can transport you — not only emotionally, but physically — to another time and place.
Cleveland Orchestra fans who hopped on guest conductor Klaus Mäkelä’s magic carpet at Severance Music Center on Thursday evening were swept away to the streets of Lima to hear Peruvian street vendors hawking their goods, then to England for a ramble through the Malvern Hills, and finally to ancient Iraq to quaff wine with the king of Babylon and a thousand of his idol-worshiping lords. Although the evening didn’t turn out well for Belshazzar, Walton’s music raised the roof of Mandel Concert Hall by a yard or two with resplendent orchestral and choral sound.
The Sacred Veil
Franz Welser-Möst led the final bows on Saturday night at Severance, like the star of any show should. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director is in his element presiding over the ensemble’s annual opera production, which this season packs the drama. Verdi’s Otello — in a concert staging that opened May 21 and runs for two more performances (May 26 and 29) — demands big voices, instrumental forces to match, and a conductor who can give it all shape and direction. 
Like the exiles in The Book of Isaiah who returned rejoicing to Zion, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus jubilantly revisited Severance Music Center, the scene of many past triumphs, on Thursday evening, October 28. Chorus director Lisa Wong was on the podium, Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem was in singers’ hands and on their lips, a pair of Steinways manned by Carolyn Warner and Daniel Overly sat dovetailed at center-stage, and a near-capacity audience witnessed the homecoming.
Whether it was the passing of his mother in February 1865 or the death of Robert Schumann later that same year, no one is certain what motivated Johannes Brahms to compose his large-scale, non-liturgical Requiem in the German language.
