by Daniel Hathaway
Strange to tell, but in its nearly hundred-year history, The Cleveland Orchestra never got around to playing two major works by Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček until last Thursday evening. On May 19, Franz Welser-Möst led the orchestra in their first-ever performance of Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and their first performance of more than the overture from Janáček’s opera The House of the Dead. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
In a promotional video Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst says that Slavic music has a specific language which is often on the dark side, while pointing out that there’s always an element of folk music in it as well. (Click on the screenshot to view the video.)
On Thursday, May 19 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the first of four concerts of a program featuring Antonín Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and Leoš Janáček’s Suite “From the House of the Dead.” The performances will also include Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) with Rudolf Buchbinder as soloist. Check our Concert Listings page for additional days and times.
From the House of the Dead is Janáček’s last opera, with a libretto translated and adapted by the composer from the novel by Dostoyevsky. Welser-Möst says in the video that the opera, set in a Siberian prison camp, is “darker than almost any other opera,” although he points out that in the end, it celebrates the human spirit. [Read more…]
by Guytano Parks
Springtime was heralded in at Severance Hall last Thursday evening when music director Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra, soprano Kate Royal, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor John Tessier and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Children’s Chorus (prepared by Robert Porco and Ann Usher) in Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony. Earlier on the program came Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, Sibelius’s Lemminkainen’s Return, and Ryan Wigglesworth’s Locke’s Theatre.
Welser-Möstled a bold and sweeping account of the Sibelius (No. 4, from Legends, Op. 22) to begin the program. Emphasizing the dark, serious nature of its opening bars, he coaxed expressive, colorful sounds from the orchestra, full of rhythmic vigor and effective dynamic contrasts.
Buchbinder played Rachmaninoff’s popular Rhapsody in a straightforward manner, but still full of interest and excitement. [Read more…]