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Conductor Daniele Rustioni, organist Paul Jacobs bask in Mediterranean spirit with The Cleveland Orchestra (Apr. 2)

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by Peter Feher

CLEVELAND, Ohio — When the sun rises on the sea at the beginning of Claude Debussy’s La Mer, there’s no coastline or human civilization in sight. Dark, rumbling waves in the timpani and low strings have brightened to reveal the full orchestra in sublime, surging phrases. We could be anywhere on the wide-open ocean.

But listeners won’t be left adrift in Debussy’s score this weekend at Severance Music Center. The Cleveland Orchestra is embarking on a luxuriously charted course with Italian guest conductor Daniele Rustioni. Although mostly focused on French repertoire, the program basks in a broader Mediterranean spirit.

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Cleveland Orchestra: catching up with organist Paul Jacobs

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by Mike Telin

For over a decade, organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs has been a frequent guest soloist on Cleveland Orchestra programs. Jacobs made his debut in February of 2015 when he had the Severance Hall stage all to himself when he opened for the Orchestra, playing music by Johannes Brahms and Johann Sebastian Bach on the 94-rank Norton Memorial Organ.

Jacobs returned in September of 2016 with Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony and in November of 2017 with Stephen Paulus’s Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra. In March of 2019 he gave the U.S. premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Okeanos for organ and orchestra. And in 2021 he was featured in Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani.

On Thursday, April 2 at 7:30 pm Paul Jacobs will return to the Mandel Concert Hall stage to revisit Poulenc’s concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra. Under the direction of Daniele Rustioni, the concert also includes Gabriel Fauré’s Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande, Alfredo Casella’s Italia, and Claude Debussy’s La Mer. The program will be repeated on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available online.

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Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus 8 features Joshua Smith & Paul Jacobs

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by Daniel Hathaway

Wind players have arguably been the most frustrated instrumentalists during the pandemic. When you pursue your art and livelihood by forcing air from your lungs through an instrument, you’re among the most likely candidates to spread the novel coronavirus, thus your near exile from concert halls.

For its latest In Focus episode, “Visions and Impressions,” The Cleveland Orchestra makes a gesture in the direction of welcoming winds back into the action, although principal flute Joshua Smith’s contribution to the event comes in the form of two unaccompanied pieces that leave him looking very lonely on the Severance Hall stage. [Read more…]

CD Review
The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century, Vol. 3

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by Jarrett Hoffman

A shared sense of the epic ties together the final two works of A New Century, the three-part live album from Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra that is also the ensemble’s inaugural release on its own record label.

We begin with the world premiere recording of Okeanos, Bernd Richard Deutsch’s concerto for organ and orchestra, featuring Paul Jacobs as soloist. The title refers not only to the Titan of Greek mythology, but also “to an idea of immense (and sometimes unfathomable) greatness and breadth, which conjures up in my mind the thought of the organ,” as Deutsch writes in his notes. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with organist Paul Jacobs (Mar. 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Haydn and Tchaikovsky symphonies bracketed an  important new organ concerto at Severance Hall from March 14-17, creating a hodgepodge of a program, but demonstrating the stylistic flexibility of Franz Welser-Most and The Cleveland Orchestra, as well as the breathtaking technique and musicality of organist Paul Jacobs. [Read more…]

Paul Jacobs to play U.S. premiere
of Deutsch organ concerto
at Severance Hall

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by Daniel Hathaway

Organist Paul Jacobs will return to Severance Hall this week to play four performances of Viennese composer Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Okeanos with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra.

The concerts, which begin on Thursday evening, March 14 and run through Sunday afternoon, March 17, include Haydn’s Symphony No. 34 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. This week’s programs mark the first United States performances of Deutsch’s organ concerto, which received its debut in November of 2015 by Wolfgang Kogert and Radio-Symphonie-orchester Wien in the Großer Saal of Vienna’s Musikverein.

I caught up with Jacobs on his mobile phone during a break between auditions at the Juilliard School in New York to ask him for some of his impressions of Deutsch and Okeanos.

“I only knew Deutsch by name, but he has quite a successful career and reputation in Europe. It’s my hope that his music becomes better known here in the United States. It’s really excellent writing. We’ve spoken on the phone, and we’re the same age, which is an interesting feature of the collaboration.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra: “The Ecstasy of Tristan & Isolde” — a three-concert festival

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by Daniel Hathaway

TCO Messiaen FWMThe first of two festivals capping off The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial season was based around Richard Wagner’s groundbreaking version of the Tristan and Isolde legend. Culminating on April 29 with the third performance of his four-hour-long opera (Wagner called it “eine Handlung”), the festival also included a performance of Messiaen’s transcendent Turangalîla- Symphonie, and a concert titled “Divine Ecstasy,” a gathering of works that translate the notion of love-intoxication into the spiritual realm. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra with organist Paul Jacobs (Nov. 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

jacobs-pedal-solo-092916The menu for The Cleveland Orchestra’s Thanksgiving Weekend concerts may have resembled a potluck more than a well-balanced meal, but the main course, Stephen Paulus’s continuously imaginative Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with Paul Jacobs at the Severance Hall E.M. Skinner, left you wanting a second helping of the late composer’s music. [Read more…]

Organist Paul Jacobs returns to Severance Hall for Paulus Concerto

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by Daniel Hathaway

Jacobs-Paul-closeNew York-based concert organist Paul Jacobs played solo works by Johannes Brahms and Johann Sebastian Bach on the first half of a Cleveland Orchestra program in February of 2015 and was featured with the Orchestra in Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony in September of 2016. Jacobs will return to Severance Hall this weekend to take the solo role in Stephen Paulus’ Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with Giancarlo Guerrero on the podium.

“Some composers find the organ daunting — understandably so — and will avoid writing for it altogether,” Jacobs said in a telephone conversation from his studio at the Juilliard School, where he heads the organ department. “But Stephen was someone who embraced the instrument, understood it, and composed very beautifully for it.”

Paulus, a prolific composer who lived and worked in the Twin Cities, wrote four concertos for organ and orchestra before he died of a stroke in 2014. “I premiered the fourth concerto with the Phoenix Symphony a year or two before he passed away, so I got to interact with him a bit — and what a tragedy his death was for us all,” Jacobs said. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra Opening Night with organist Paul Jacobs (Sept. 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

tco-fwm-jacobs-092916The Norton Memorial Organ in Severance Hall — one of E.M. Skinner’s finest concert hall instruments — enjoyed a rare moment in the spotlight at The Cleveland Orchestra’s opening concert on September 29, led by music director Franz Welser-Möst. In the hands (and under the feet) of Paul Jacobs, it played a starring role both in Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony, and in a thrilling encore that brought the large audience spontaneously to its own feet. [Read more…]

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