organ Archives - Cleveland Classical

Music on Tap at Trinity Lutheran Church

November 12, 2009 by ccadmin

“Music on Tap” at Trinity Lutheran Church, Cleveland, on October 10. ClevelandClassical.com’s editor and publisher, Daniel Hathaway at the historic Beckerath organ. Held the second Saturday of the month, “Music on Tap” includes informal organ concerts, West Side Market bratwursts for sale and free beer samples from Great Lakes Brewing Co. Proceeds benefit the organ restoration fund.

Trinity’s Beckerath organ is a historical landmark. Built by Rudolph von Beckerath in 1956, it is the first large modern pipe organ in North America built on historic Baroque principles.

The next “Music on Tap” is Saturday, November 14 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm. Organists Nathan Carterette (1:00 pm) Brian Wentzel (1:45 pm) and Graham Schultz (2:30 pm) will perform. 2031 West 30th Street (at Lorain).

Photos: Sam Hubish

French Organist Olivier Latry Plays in Akron on Friday — A Conversation

October 7, 2009 by Daniel Hathaway

Olivier Latry, one of the Titular Organists of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris, and one of the most celebrated recitalists in the business will play an engaging recital on the Berghaus organ in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron on Friday, October 9, at 8 pm, opening this year’s edition of the distinguished series run by Barbara MacGregor and James Storry.

The program — made up entirely of dance music from several centuries — will culminate in an improvisation on a submitted theme, a specialty of French organists, who tend to improvise much of the music they provide when they play for masses. Latry’s playlist includes Suzann van Soldt’s Sept Danses, Buxtehude’s Passacaglia, J.S. Bach’s Fugue in G (Gigue) & Passacaglia et thema fugatum, Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, Karg-Elert’s Valse mignonne, Vierne’s Fantômes (Pièces de fantaisie) and Saint-Saëns’ Dance macabre.

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CIM Opera’s engaging Puccini double bill prompts both laughs and tears (Nov. 7)

by Stephanie Manning

The three one-act operas that make up Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych) are typically connected by theme, rather than location. Although the trio of works take place in 13th-century Paris, 17th-century Siena, and 20th-century Florence respectively, they all deal with keeping someone’s death a secret — whether tragically or comedically.

CIM Opera Theater’s recent production of two-thirds of the triptych brought the action into one particular place and time, as director Dean Southern moved both Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi into 1918’s New York City. What stood out more, however, were the impressive performances from across the large cast, which I heard on November 7 in Kulas Hall.

[Read on…]

Oberlin Orchestra with the Poiesis Quartet in Finney (Oct. 31)

by Daniel Hathaway

Fresh from winning the grand prize at the prestigious Banff Competition on the last day of August, the Poiesis Quartet (Sarah Ying Ma & Max Ball, violins, Jasper de Boor, viola, and Drew Dansby, cello) took a late October victory lap at the Oberlin Conservatory, returning to their place of birth as an ensemble to give master classes and solo with the Oberlin Orchestra.

Judging from the turnout in Finney Chapel on Friday, it might not have been a prizewinning idea to schedule a major orchestra concert on a college campus on Halloween, but there was nothing slim about the sound that the stage full of musicians produced. Brilliantly scored works by Carlos Simon, John Adams, Angélica Negrón, and Zhou Tian, were conducted with precision by Rafael Jiménez.

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Cleveland Orchestra makes a sinister showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (Nov. 5)

by Peter Feher

A violin bow is an unlikely murder weapon. But in the hands of composer Bernard Herrmann, the slashing motion of a string instrument seems almost one and the same with the stabbing knife onscreen in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho.

The infamous soundtrack to secretary Marion Crane’s final moments in the shower — and also to private investigator Milton Arbogast’s stumbling death down the stairs later in the film — is horrifyingly simple. A series of screeching down-bows begins in the first violins and then stacks in dissonant intervals as the remaining string sections join in. The gesture is more like a Foley effect than music per se, evoking something between a human scream and the shriek of metal against metal.

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