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Pianist Daniil Trifonov brings Brahms’ vision to life with Cleveland Orchestra (Oct. 9)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Johannes Brahms took more than two decades to compose a follow-up to his First Piano Concerto, but audiences at Severance Music Center have only had to wait two years for the sequel.

Pianist Daniil Trifonov is back with The Cleveland Orchestra this week, tackling Brahms’ monumental Second Concerto after playing the First here in 2023. And in a neat pairing, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst has programmed Sergei Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony as the companion piece — the Sixth having accompanied Trifonov on his previous appearance.

Reversing the usual performance order (soloist on the first half, big symphonic work on the second), Brahms was the main event after intermission Thursday in Mandel Concert Hall. It’s a sensible way to present a piece that often resembles a symphony in style, scope and sheer impact.

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Cleveland Orchestra performs Mahler, Honegger with philosophical depth (Oct. 2)

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By Daniel Hathaway|Cleveland Classical

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra set a high musical bar early in their new season at Severance Music Center on Thursday with totally committed performances of unique works by Arthur Honegger and Gustav Mahler.

Honegger set out to express the horror of World War II in three arresting movements named after religious texts in his Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Symphonie liturgique.”

And Mahler, who once said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything,” turned away from that idea in his symphonic song cycle “Das lied von der Erde,” crafting a six-movement work that simply sought to capture the experience of being human on planet Earth.

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Cleveland Orchestra delights with homage to Cuyahoga Valley National Park at Blossom Music Center (Aug. 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio – The Cleveland Orchestra brought together music, nature and friendship in a program as warm and satisfying as a summer night under the trees at Blossom Music Center on Saturday.

Conducted by Daniel Reith — making his final appearance as the ensemble’s associate conductor — the concert offered the regional premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Rewilding, Max Bruch’s seldom-heard Violin Concerto No. 2 and Edward Elgar’s beloved Enigma Variations.

Commissioned in honor of the 50th anniversary of Cuyahoga Valley National Park — where Blossom is situated — Rewilding is Smith’s exuberant tribute to ecological restoration.

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Cleveland Orchestra explores humanity’s evolution in Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (Feb. 7)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Richard Strauss must have suspected that he would always be mistaken for another composer. How else do you explain Also Sprach Zarathustra— the piece that contains his most famous minute-and-a-half of music, plus an extended homage to Johann Strauss Jr.?

The Cleveland Orchestra is playing up the Strauss connection this weekend with an extravagant concert program that borrows a bit from the style of the Waltz King. Although nothing by Johann Strauss Jr. is officially on the bill, his presence and flair are felt in Also Sprach Zarathustra and in the intoxicating sweep of Maurice Ravel’s La Valse.

The Orchestra’s performance on Friday, February 7, at Severance Music Center started strong and ended with real panache. Guest conductor Thomas Guggeis, the 31-year-old general music director of Oper Frankfurt — here making his U.S. orchestral debut — led sharp, highly stylized interpretations that would be equally at home on the continent or in Cleveland.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: A Conversation with Thomas Guggeis

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by Mike Telin

“Franz Welser-Möst was one of my first big supporters,” conductor Thomas Guggeis said during a telephone conversation. “I was his assistant at the Salzburg Festival early in my career, so it’s a real honor for me to be making my American orchestral debut with his amazing orchestra.

On Friday, February 7 at 7:30 pm in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Guggeis will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain…, with principal cello Mark Kosower as soloist, and Maurice Ravel’s La valse. The program will be repeated on Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

Born in 1993 in Dachau, Bavaria, Thomas Guggeis has served as general music director of Oper Frankfurt and artistic director of the Frankfurt Museum Concerts since the 2023–24 season. He made his debut in Frankfurt in May 2021 with Mozart’s Requiem, followed by Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. Guggeis made his first North American appearance in 2023 at the Metropolitan Opera leading Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer. The same year he conducted the work for Santa Fe Opera.

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Cleveland Orchestra, Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra delight in Blossom performance (July 27)

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This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

by Kevin McLaughlin | ClevelandClassical.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Finnish guest conductor Hannu Lintu strode onstage at the Blossom Music Center on July 27, all six-feet-plus of him, as purposefully as the hero in Lemminkäinen’s Return. The opening work on The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Saturday is the fourth tone poem in Jan Sibelius’s “Lemminkäinen Suite,” based on Finland’s national epic, the “Kalevala.”

All he needed was a horse. But then, with a turn toward the orchestra and a mighty downbeat, he unleashed equestrian fury from strings and woodwinds, allowing some brass aggression here and there. With loose-limbed, ropey arms and an occasional leg-lift, Lintu projected the relaxed potency of a warrior leading his team to victory. 

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Susanna Mälkki leads Cleveland Orchestra in brilliant performances of Bach, Hindemith & more

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Originally posted on Cleveland.com

Daniel Hathaway | Cleveland Classical

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki returned to Severance Music Center Thursday evening to lead The Cleveland Orchestra in brilliant performances of works by two masters of counterpoint — but not in their original formats— and joined guest pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason in a charming piano concerto by a young piano phenomenon who wasn’t yet known as a Schumann when she wrote it.

The evening began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Six-voice Ricercare, a grand fugue that the Prussian King Frederick the Great challenged him to improvise on the spot when Bach paid a visit to his son C.P.E. at Potsdam in 1747. Papa Bach begged for more time to craft such a monumental fugue, and so it ended up in his Musical Offering, a collection of contrapuntal puzzle pieces based on Frederick’s Royal Theme that the Cantor of Leipzig gift-wrapped and sent to Frederick after returning home.

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Cleveland Cello Society: i Cellisti! 2023

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by Mike Telin

“A cello society is supposed to promote the advancement of the instrument and bring  professionals, amateurs, and lovers of the cello together for a rich exchange of ideas. And the Cleveland Cello Society embodies that,” Cleveland Orchestra principal cello Mark Kosower said during a telephone conversation.

On Friday, March 24 at 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Cleveland Cello Society will present i Cellisti! 2023, their annual extravaganza that raises funds for their Scholarship Competition. Closing out the evening will be a mass cello ensemble performance of Randall Thomson’s Alleluia. Cellists of all ages and experience are invited to participate. Click here for more information and tickets.

The evening will begin with a performance by Kosower of two works for solo cello.

He noted that as the title suggests, Hans Werner Henze’s Serenade is a light-hearted and entertaining work. “It is a twelve-tone piece, but it doesn’t really sound like it. I find the dissonances to be rather mild in general, and it proves that in the hands of a great composer, great music can be made out of the twelve-tone system.”

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The Cleveland Orchestra:
Beethoven, Bloch & Al-Zand (Oct. 13)

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by Peter Feher 

The Cleveland Orchestra took on a timeless subject, but added a modern touch, last weekend at Severance Music Center. War was the theme of this mostly somber program that started with the disillusionment of a 21st-century composer and ended with the conflict and triumph of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”).

In a different ensemble’s interpretation, that trajectory could sound aggressive and even dispiriting. But with guest conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, the Orchestra committed to finding the beauty in every phrase, redeeming the rough edges of an otherwise excellent performance on Thursday, October 13.

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The Cleveland Orchestra: Mark Kosower talks Schelomo

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by Mike Telin

Since joining The Cleveland Orchestra as principal cello in 2010, Mark Kosower has thrilled audiences with his performances of concertos by Ginastera, Haydn, Dvořák, Barber, and Tchaikovsky.

On Thursday, October 13 at 7:30 pm at Severance Music Center, Kosower will once again move to the front of the stage. The work: Bloch’s Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody. Under the direction of Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, the concert also includes Al-Zand’s  Lamentation On The Disasters of War and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”). The program will be repeated on Friday at 11:00 am, Saturday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with the Wisconsin native by phone and began our conversation by asking him when he first encountered the Rhapsody.

Mark Kosower: I’ve known about it since I was a boy. My father’s a cellist, although I don’t think he performed it very much. My first time performing it was in 2007 when I had the chance to play it with the Spokane Symphony in Washington with Gunther Schuller conducting. It was a wonderful and interesting experience.

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