Review: Hagen Quartet just a tad off in performances of Haydn and Schumann

Photo by Tom Emerson

Although its legacy as one of the world’s premiere string quartets will remain firmly intact, the Hagen Quartet didn’t shine as brightly as it could when it recently performed (February 27) at the First Baptist Church. Sponsored by Chamber Music Northwest, that concert was part of a farewell tour that the eminent ensemble is undertaking before it retires at the end of next season.

Based in Salzburg, the Hagen Quartet was founded in 1981 by four siblings and since 1987 has continued with three siblings: violist Lukas Hagen, violist Veronika Hagen, and cellist Clemens Hagen, plus violinist Rainer Schmidt. The ensemble has played in concert halls throughout the world, won prizes, made numerous recordings, including many on the Deutsche Grammophon label, and teach at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Hochschule für Musik Basel.

On tap for the Hagen Quartet’s performance in Portland, was Haydn’s String Quartet in A Major and his String Quartet No. 4 in E Minor, and Schumann’s String Quartet No. 3 in A Major. Each piece sounded terrific except for a few of the wickedly highest notes that Lukas Hagen didn’t quite play cleanly, causing the tone to be slightly off-balanced. That happened in the first movements of both Haydn numbers, and in the third movement of the Schumann.

That problem didn’t derail the fine interpretations that the ensemble offered, but it did reduce the sheen. The Allegro opening of Haydn’s String Quartet in A Major danced brightly, and in the adagio cantabile Lukas’s violin sang above the hymnlike passages. The Minuet offered playful exchanges that tapered off gently, and the Finale: vivace robustly wrapped up passages that were layered on each other like a delicious cake.

The ensemble elicited a wonderful, mysterious statement at the beginning of the first movement of Haydn’s String Quartet No. 4. The second movement was elegant and restrained with terrifically nuanced phrasing. The beautiful expressions from Clemens Hagen’s cello and the ease in which he caressed each note was a highlight of the third movement. The group excelled with the quicksilver demands of the fourth and brought out its lighthearted humor.

In Schumann’s String Quartet No.3, the Hagen Quartet incisively contrasted the poignant and contemplative sections with the agitated and uptempo ones. The final movement had a delightful, rustic brashness that closed the program with verve.

The audience rewarded the musicians with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. They responded with an encore, Mozart’s Quartet in G major.

Today's Birthdays

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998)
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
Dick Hyman (1927)
Christian Wolff (1934)
Robert Tear (1939-2011)
Barthold Kuijken (1949)
Simon Halsey (1958)

and

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)
Leslie Fiedler (1917-2003)
Neil Postman (1931-2003)
John McPhee (1933)
Leslie A. Fiedler (1948)
Jeffrey Eugenides (1960)

Today's Birthdays

John Wilbye (1574-1638)
Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Heino Eller (1887-1970)
Christopher Seaman (1942)
Uri Segal (1944)
Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997)
Nicholas Kraemer (1945)
Clive Gillinson (1946)
Okko Kamu (1946)
Montserrat Figueras (1948-2011)
Michael Chance (1955)

and

William York Tindall (1903-1981)
William Boyd (1952)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1897, Johannes Brahms attends his last concerts and hears his Symphony No. 4 conducted by Hans Richter.

Today's Birthdays

Oscar Straus (1870-1954)
Julius Rudel (1921-2014)
Sarah Caldwell (1924-2006)
Wes Montgomery (1923-1968)
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (1944)
Stephen Schwartz (1948)
Marielle Labèque (1952)
Mark Gresham (1956)
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (1975)

and

Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Ring Lardner (1885-1933)
Gabriel García Márquez (1928-2014)
Willie Mays (1931-2024)
Dick Fosbury (1947-2023)

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Arne (1710-1778)
Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965)
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002)
Norbert Brainin (1923-2005)
Philip Jones (1928-2000)
Helga Pilarczyk (1935-2011)
Liza Minnelli (1946)
James Taylor (1948)

and

George Berkeley (1685-1753)
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)
Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950)
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
Edward Albee (1928-2016)
Virginia Hamilton (1934-2002)
Naomi Shihab Nye (1952)
Carl Hiaasen (1953)
David Eggers (1970)

Today's Birthdays

Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912)
Arthur Foote (1853-1937)
Pauline Donalda (1882-1970)
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Anthony Hedges (1931-2019)
Barry Tuckwell (1931-2020)
Sheila Nelson (1936-2020)
Richard Hickox (1948)

and

Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594)
Frank Norris (1870-1902)
Leslie Marmon Silko (1948)

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1750 that the first Shakespearean play was presented in America. Richard III was performed by the actors of Walter Murray and William Kean’s troupe from Philadelphia. Theater was still new in the colonies. And though it was popular in Philadelphia, that city still preferred to pride itself on its scientific and literary achievements, so Murray and Kean set out for New York City.

Through the 1700s, New York’s primary form of entertainment was drinking. By the time Murray and Kean arrived in February of 1750, there were 10,000 city residents and over 150 taverns. Murray and Kean set up shop in a two-story wooden structure on Nassau Street, slightly east of Broadway.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Carlos Surinach (1915-1997)
Cecil Aronowitz (1916-1978)
Samuel Adler (1928)
Bernard Haitink (1929-2021)
Aribert Reimann (1936-2024)
Ralph Kirshbaum (1946)
Leanna Primiani (1968)

and

Khaled Hosseini (1965)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1801,the U.S. Marine Band performed for Thomas Jefferson's inaugural. Jefferson, an avid music lover and amateur violinist, gave the Marine Band the title "The President's Own." Since that time, the band has played for every presidential inaugural.

Today's Birthdays

Eugen d'Albert (1864-1932)
Henry Wood (1869-1944)
Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982)
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
Frank Wigglesworth (1918-1996)
Doc Watson (1923-2012)
Martin Lovett (1927-2020)
Florence Quivar (1944)
Roberta Alexander (1949)
Katia Labèque (1950)

and

James Merrill (1926-1995)
Ira Glass (1959)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata was published on this date in 1802. Its real name is the slightly less evocative “Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor, Opus 27, No. 2,” and its Italian subtitle is translated as “almost a fantasy.” In 1832, five years after Beethoven’s death, a German critic compared the sonata to the effect of moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne, and the interpretation became so popular that, by the end of the century, the piece was universally known as the “Moonlight Sonata.” Beethoven himself had attributed the emotion of the piece to sitting at the bedside of a friend who had suffered an untimely death.

It was on this day in 1875 that the opera Carmen appeared on stage for the first time at the Opéra-Comique in France. When it premiered, the audience was shocked by the characters of Carmen, a gypsy girl, and her lover, Don José. The opera ran for 37 performances even though it came out late in the season, and it came back the next season, too.

Nietzsche heard Carmen 20 different times, and thought of it as a musical masterpiece. Tchaikovsky first heard Carmen in 1880. Bizet died of a heart attack just three months after the opera's debut.

It was on this day in 1931 that "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official national anthem of the United States.

The lyrics come from a poem written by Francis Scott Key more than a century before, "Defence of Fort McHenry." He'd spent a night toward the end of the War of 1812 hearing the British navy bombard Baltimore, Maryland. The bombardment lasted 25 hours — and in the dawn's early light, Francis Scott Key emerged to see the U.S. flag still waving over Fort McHenry. He jotted the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" on the back of an envelope. Then he went to his hotel and made another copy, which was printed in the Baltimore American a week later.

The tune for the Star-Spangled Banner comes from an old British drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," which was very popular at men's social clubs in London during the 1700s. Francis Scott Key himself did the pairing of the tune to his poem. It was a big hit.

For the next century, a few different anthems were used at official U.S. ceremonies, including "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Hail Columbia." The U.S. Navy adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner" for its officialdom in 1889, and the presidency did in 1916. But it wasn't until this day in 1931 — just 80 years ago — that Congress passed a resolution and Hoover signed into law the decree that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was the official national anthem of the United States of America.

Today's Birthdays

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836)
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Tom Burke (1890-1969)
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Marc Blitzstein (1905-1965)
John Gardner (1917-2011)
Robert Simpson (1921-1997)
Bernard Rands (1934)
Simon Estes (1938)
Robert Lloyd (1940)
Lou Reed (1942)

and

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) (1904-1991)
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022)
Tom Wolfe (1931-2018)
John Irving (1942)

and from the Composers Datebook:

Starting on this day in 1967 and continuing over the next two weeks, Russian cellist Mstsilav Rostropovich performed 26 works for cello and orchestra at 8 concerts with the London Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York City -- including some world premieres!

Review: Oregon Symphony expands from Bach to Mendelssohn with elan

Oregon Symphony latest concert expanded from small to large in a program that featured a chamber orchestra number by Bach and a large-scale work for choir, soloists, and orchestra by Mendelssohn. The program, given on February 24 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, was led by Music Director David Danzmayr, who elicited terrific dynamics and ensemble playing throughout the evening.

During the summer of 2021, the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall underwent a $5 million renovation that really improved its acoustics. The improved sound was a big factor in the orchestra’s superb performance of Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D Major for Orchestra (BWV 1068). Every note came across in a crystal-clear way, but also with warmth and a richness that enhanced the music. The harpsichord, which centered toward the back of the chamber orchestra, could be heard throughout – even when the orchestral tutti sections.

Tight ensemble playing by Concertmaster Sarah Kwak, Principal Second Violinist Chien Vivianne Tan, Principal Violist Amanda Grimm, and Principal Bassist Jason Schooler highlighted the first movement. The slow, restrained second movement – with the sound of the harpsichord stirring above the meditative strings – created an air of serenity that was heavenly. The third movement embodied stateliness with a rich sound – like a full-bodied red wine. The surging rumble of the kettle drums – played by Principal Sergio Carreno – accented the playful character of the fourth movement, which wrapped up the piece with a delightfully – and made listeners – like myself – want to hear even more Bach.

After intermission Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 2 in B-flat Major”, aka “Lobgesang” (Hymn of Praise) received it first-ever performance by the Oregon Symphony. The unusual demands of the piece might have been a major factor in delaying the piece. It requires a large choir, but the choir doesn’t sing in the first three movements and then must warble in the following ten movements. It also asks for three soloists with powerful voices because of the large orchestral forces, but one of the soloists doesn’t sing all that much. What a conundrum…

Sopranos Ellie Dehn and Deanna Breiwick and tenor John Matthew Myers teamed up with and the Oregon Repertory Singers and the Oregon Symphony to wrangle Mendelssohn’s hour-long extravaganza. One of the biggest problems in singing this work was the singer’s diction. Words were easily understood when accompanied by quieter passages or whenever a small contingent of the orchestra played. But when the musicians were at the mezzo level or louder, it was impossible to understand the text.

But in the quieter moments and when the orchestra played softly, I could easily understand what was being sung. That really paid off when the chorus sang “Nun danket alle Gott” (Now thank we all our God), which sounded ganz herrlich until the orchestra came in.

The same issues also applied to the soloists. They were enunciated the German, but a lot of it was just unintelligible. Just from pure sound, each soloist was gorgeous – with Dehn singing with a remarkable gold, vibrant tone. Breiwick had to make do with a lesser part, which was very unfortunate. For whatever reason Mendelssohn gave the second soprano short shrift.

Myers gave his passages plenty of verve, and his duet with Dehn in “Drum sing ich mit meinem Liede” (So I will ever sing my song) glowed brightly. The chorus, well-prepared by Ethan Sperry, conveyed the spirit of the piece, but the sopranos – with soaring power – won the day in the last movement, “Ihr Völker, bringet her dem Herrn Ehre and Macht” (Ye nations, offer to the Lord).

The orchestra sounded glorious in the first three movements of the piece – with the trombone choir fashioning a grand statement at the outset. Kudos also to clarinetist Todd Kuhns and Principal Bassoonist Carin Miller for their evocative contributions.

There must be a way for full-throttle numbers like Mendelssohn’s “Logesang” to shine with clear diction that doesn’t seem overblown. I know that it easier said than done, but to get to the highest levels of artistry, that’s what needs to happen.

Today's Birthdays

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951)
Sergueï Bortkiewicz (1877-1952
Guiomar Novaes (1895-1979)
Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967)
Roman Maciejewski (1910-1998)
George Malcolm (1917-1997)
Joseph Rouleau (1929-2019)
Osmo Vänskä (1953)
Markus Stenz (1965)

and

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
Stephen Spender (1909-1995)
Zero Mostel (1915-1977)
Frank Gehry (1929)
John Fahey (1939-2001)
Stephen Chatman (1950)
Colum McCann (1965)
Daniel Handler (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in 1882, the Royal College of Music is founded in London.

Today's Birthdays

Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976)
Marian Anderson (1897-1993)
Elizabeth Welch (1904-2003)
Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006)
Mirella Freni (1935-2020)
Morten Lauridsen (1943)
Gidon Kremer (1947)
Frank-Peter Zimmermann (1956)

and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)
N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024)
Ralph Nadar (1934)

Review: Vancouver Symphony balances Mozart and Berlioz in all-orchestral concert

The spotlight fell squarely on the Vancouver Symphony at its most recent concert, an all-orchestral affair at Skyview Concert Hall (February 22). Music Director Salvador Brotons led the orchestra in solid performances of Mozart’s “Prague Symphony” and Berlioz’s “Symphony fantastique” The pairing of these great works was a full meal deal for the audience, which left the hall very satisfied.

Mozart’s “Prague Symphony,” a moniker for his “Symphony No. 38,” was one of his last symphonic pieces, and it has a rightful place as one of his best. Urged by Brotons, who conducted the piece impressively from memory, the ensemble aptly conveyed the spirit of Mozart’s music with panache.

The slow introduction of the first movement (Adagio-Allegro) combined plenty of tension and grace to create high drama with the violins leading the way, although there were a few intonation issues. A highlight was the expertly contributions of Principal Oboist Alan Juza in several exposed passages.

The second movement (Andante) offered a sequence of well-shaped episodes, and the third (Presto) upped the pace with the violins deftly executing several florid runs. The effervescence of Mozart’s music gleamed, and Brotons acknowledged the playing of the woodwinds and horns during the robust applause from the audience.

Brotons, in his introduction to Berlioz’s “Symphony fantastique” noted the unusual love story that helped to create the piece, and mentioned the remarkable sonic effects of the music, which Berlioz uncorked just a few years after the death of Beethoven. The highly Romantic and programmatic work was a terrific vehicle for Brotons and his forces to perform. Over the course of its five movements or parts, all of the musicians got a chance to shine.

The first part (Reveries–Passions) presented the idée fixe (theme of obsession) with good attention to dynamics so that it ebbed and flowed passionately. The second part (A Ball) waltzed delightfully – with the idée fixe interrupting the gaiety now and then.

In the third part (Scene in the Country), the exchange of shepherds’ calls – supported vigorously by the violas – between Juza, whose offstage appearance was nicely captured on camera, and English hornist Karen Strand, went flawlessly. The lower strings also conveyed the theme of obsession with elan, and the playing of Principal Clarinetist Igor Shakhman evoked a delicious mixture of poignancy and mystery.

The fourth part (March to the Scaffold) featured excellent drumming on four timpani by the percussion section. Strand and Principal Bassoonist Margaret McShea excelled with their expressive passages.

The mocking derision of the fifth part (Witches’ Sabbath) came through dramatically – with the dies irae theme throwing a haymaker in the midst of the chaos. Although the skeletal sound of the violins tapping their instruments didn’t really gel, the orchestral exclamations of otherworldly monsters emphatically combined to elicit the horror experienced by the main character at his own funeral.

The audience responded to final, glorious chords with a standing ovation as Brotons signaled the fine efforts of the musicians. Although attendance at the concert was light (in comparison to the other concerts of the 2024-2025 season), many listeners enjoyed the music and make positive comments as they exited the building.

Today's Birthdays

Anton (Antoine) Reicha (1770-1836)
Alfred Bachelet (1864-1944)
Emmy Destinn (1878-1930)
Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Witold Rowicki (1914-1989)
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino (1928-2017)
Lazar Berman (1930-2005)
Johnny Cash (1932-2005)
Guy Klucevsek (1947)
Emma Kirkby (1949)
Richard Wargo (1957)
Carlos Kalmar (1958)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
John George Nicolay (1832-1901)
Elisabeth George (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789)
Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)
Dame Myra Hess (1890-1965)
Victor Silvester (1900-1978)
Davide Wilde (1935)
Jesús López-Cobos (1940)
George Harrison (1943-2001)
Lucy Shelton (1944)
Denis O'Neill (1948)
Melinda Wagner (1957)

and

Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Karl Friedrich May (1842–1874)
Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
John C. Farrar (1896-1974)

And from the New Music Box:

On February 25, 1924, the first issue of the League of Composers Review was published. Under the editorial leadership of Minna Lederman, this publication—which soon thereafter changed its name to Modern Music (in April 1925)—was the leading journalistic voice for contemporary music in America for over 20 years and featured frequent contributions from important composers of the day including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Marc Blitzstein, Henry Cowell, Lehman Engel, and Marion Bauer. Its final issue appeared in the Fall of 1946.

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1682, Italian composer Alessandro Stradella, age 37, is murdered in Genoa, apparently in retaliation for running off with a Venetian nobleman's mistress.

Preview of Cappella Romana's Canon of Racial Reconciliation in The Oregonian

 My preview of the very unusual Cappella Romana concert this weekend has been published in Oregonlive here. It is available only to subscribers at the moment. It will be in the print edition of the paper later this week.

Today's Birthdays

Antoine Boësset (1587-1643)
Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858)
Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
Luigi Denza (1846-1922)
Oskar Böhme (1870-1938)
Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940)
Michel Legrand (1932-2019)
Renato Scotto (1934-2023)
Jiří Bělohlávek (1946

and

Wilhelm (Carl) Grimm (1786-1859)
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
George Augustus Moore (1852-1933)
Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973)
Weldon Kees (1914-1955)
Jane Hirshfield (1953)
Judith Butler (1956)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Carlisle Floyd's opera "Susannah" received its premiere at Florida State University in Tallahassee. According to Opera America, this is one of the most frequently-produced American operas during the past decade.

Today's Birthdays

John Blow (1649-1708)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Sir Hugh Roberton (1874-1952)
Albert Sammons (1886-1957)
Dave Apollon (1897-1972)
Elinor Remick Warren (1905-1991)
Martindale Sidwell (1916-1998)
Hall Overton (1920-1972)
Régine Crespin (1927-2007)

and

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) - blogger of the 17th Century
W. E B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
William L. Shirer (1904-1993)
John Camp (John Sanford) (1944)

Tidbit from the New York Times obit: In the early 1930s, William Shirer and his wife shared a house with the guitarist Andres Segovia.

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1940 that Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land."

The melody is to an old Baptist hymn. Guthrie wrote the song in response to the grandiose “God Bless America,” written by Irving Berlin and sung by Kate Smith. Guthrie didn’t think that the anthem represented his own or many other Americans’ experience with America. So he wrote a folk song as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” a song that was often accompanied by an orchestra. At first, Guthrie titled his own song “God Blessed America” — past tense. Later, he changed the title to “This Land Is Your Land,” which is the first line of the song.

Today's Birthdays

Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890)
York Bowen (1884-1961)
Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963)
Joseph Kerman (1924-2014)
George Zukerman (1927-2023)
Steven Lubin (1942)
Lowell Liebermann (1961)
Rolando Villazón (1972)

and

George Washington (1732-1799)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Edward Gorey (1925-2000)
Gerald Stern (1925-2022)
Ishmael Reed (1938)
Terry Eagleton (1943)

Vancouver Symphony preview: All-orchestral concert pairs Mozart and Berlioz symphonies

It’s customary for orchestras to fashion their programs with at least one concerto in which the spotlight falls on the amazing talents of the featured soloist. But every now and then orchestras widen the spotlight a bit – well, sometimes a lot – so that it reaches across the stage and from side to side and from front to back to embrace the entire orchestra. That’s the idea behind this weekend’s concerts with the Vancouver Symphony. The focus of its program will highlight the local band under Music Director Salvador Brotons to perform a famous symphonic work by Mozart and another by Berlioz.

It seems incomprehensible that Mozart’s adopted hometown of Vienna would get tired of his music, but that actually happened. In the mid-1880s, as Mozart turned 30 years old, and he had a finished a symphonic. So he accepted an invitation from musicians and patrons in Prague to visit that city, and that’s where his Symphony No. 38 in D Major was first performed. Hence, it became known as the “Prague Symphony.”

The “Prague Symphony” contains lots of drama and many exposed sections for the woodwinds. The musicians have to work together as a nimble unit¸ yet convey emotion.

“Performing Mozart is always a big challenge,” noted Brotons in an email exchange. “The ‘Prague Symphony’ is a very delicate work. I will use a smaller orchestra. In Mozart everything must be perfect. All imperfections are noticeable.”

Up to the time that Mozart wrote the ‘Prague Symphony,’ such works had a structure that was very familiar to listeners in Vienna, but Mozart changed that.

“Symphonies were always fast–slow–minuet–fast in Vienna,” explained Brotons, “But this symphony does not have a minuet. Sometimes classical minuets are a little all the same. This one has just three movements, which is more in the Italian style. It’s a perfect symphony from the beginning to the end. I love it and have conducted it several times... the last time in Israel.”

With Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” the drama in the music goes up several notches, which reflected the composer’s own life. When he was 24 years old, he fell obsessively in love with Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson even though he could not understand English. He proposed marriage to her, but she never replied and left Paris.

The fervor of unrequited love drove Berlioz to write the “Symphonie Fantastique,” an hour-long is an hour-long rollercoaster of a piece. In five-movements, Berlioz unveils a sequence of events that is pierced by a principal theme, symbolizing the beloved, which he called the idée fixe, or ‘fixed idea.’ There’s a wild party, a pastoral scene, and a drug-induced dream in which he thinksthat he has killed his beloved. That leads to a march to the scaffold and a witches’ sabbath where all sorts of specters mock him at his funeral.

“Berlioz wrote this symphony in 1829, just two years after Beethoven’s death,” noted Brotons. “It is a big programmatic piece that is truly innovative and in the Romantic vein. Berlioz wanted to impress listener; so it if full of surprises.”

Brotons often likes to conduct by memory, but the “Symphonie Fantastique” has many challenges.

“It has irregular measure phrasing, which makes it difficult to memorize the score,” wrote Brotons. “I did it from memory in the past. I do not know if I will have enough time to do it this week. I have done it in Vancouver once. That was about 15 years ago, I believe. I remember I did also in Everett, Washington after the Vancouver performance.”

Looking ahead, the orchestra recently announced a stellar lineup for this summer’s Vancouver USA Arts & Music Festival (August 1 - 3). Brotons and Gerard Schwarz will conduct the Vancouver Symphony with soprano Renée Fleming, bluegrass violinists Mark and Maggie O’Connor, and guitarist Sharon Isbin as the featured artists. Wow!

Today's Birthdays

Carl Czerny (1791-1857)
Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
Charles Marie Widor (1844-1945)
Kenneth Alford (1881-1945)
Andres Segovia (1893-1987)
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
Elena Duran (1949)
Simon Holt (1948)

and

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)
Ha Jin (1956)
Chuck Palahniuk (1962)
David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Review of Portland Chamber Orchestra's concert-lecture about music, love, and the brain

 

My report about this unusual, educational event was published earlier today on Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Peter Salomon (1749-1815)
Charles‑Auguste de Bériot (1802-187)
Mary Garden (1874-1967)
Vasyl Oleksandrovych Barvinsky (1888-1963
Robert McBride (1911-2007)
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)
Toshiro Mayuzumi (1929-1997)
Christoph Eschenbach (1940)
Barry Wordsworth (1948)
Cindy McTee (1953)
Riccardo Chailly (1953)
Chris Thile (1981)

and

Russel Crouse (1893-1966)
Louis Kahn (1901-1974)
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
Robert Altman (1925-2006)
Richard Matheson (1926-2013)

Today's Birthdays

Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
Louis Aubert (1877-1968)
Arthur Shepherd (1880-1958)
Grace Williams (1906-1977)
Stan Kenton (1912-1979
Timothy Moore (1922-2003)
George Guest (1924-2002)
György Kurtág (1926)
Michael Kennedy (1926-2014)
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1932-1988)
Smokey Robinson (1940)
Penelope Walmsley-Clark (1949)
Darryl Kubian (1966)

and

André Breton (1896-1966)
Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
Amy Tan (1952)
Siri Hustvedt (1955)
Jonathan Lethem (1964)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Battista Vitali (1632-1692)
Pietro Giovanni Guarneri (1655-1720)
Gustave Schirmer, Jr. (1864-1907)
Marchel Landowski (1915-1999)
Rolande Falcinelli (1920-2006)
Rita Gorr (1926-2012)
Yoko Ono (1933)
Marek Janowski (1939)
Marlos Nobre (1939)
Donald Crockett (1951)

and

Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916)
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957)
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)
Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)
Len Deighton (1929)
Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
George Pelecanos (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881)
Sr. Edward German (1862-1936)
Leevi Madetoja (1887-1947)
Paul Fetler (1920-2018)
Ron Goodwin (1925-2003)
Fredrich Cerha (1926-2023)
Lee Hoiby (1926-2011)
Anner Bylsma (1944)
Karl Jenkins (1944)

and

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904)
Ronald Knox (1888-1957)
Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)
Chaim Potok (1929-2002)
Ruth Rendell (1930-2015)
Mo Yan (1955)

From the New Music Box:

On February 17, 1927, a sold-out audience attends the world premiere of The King's Henchman. an opera with music by composer, music critic and future radio commentator Deems Taylor and libretto by poet Edna St. Villay Millay, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The New York Times review by Olin Downes on the front page the next morning hailed it as the "best American opera." The opera closed with a profit of $45,000 and ran for three consecutive seasons. It has not been revived since and has yet to be recorded commercially.

Today's Birthdays

Charles Avison (1709-1770)
Willem Kes (1856-1934)
Selim Palmgren (1878-1951)
Maria Korchinska (1895-1979)
Alec Wilder (1907-1980)
Sir Geraint Evans (1922-1992)
Eliahu Inbal (1936)
John Corigliano (1938)
Sigiswald Kuiljken (1944)

and

Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895)
Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918)
Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963)
Richard Ford (1944)

Today's Birthdays

Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
Jean‑François Lesueur (1760-1837)
Friedrich Ernst Fesca (1789-1826)
Heinrich Engelhard Steinway (1797-1871)
Robert Fuchs (1847-1927)
Marcella Sembrich (1858-1935)
Walter Donaldson (1893-1947)
Georges Auric (1899-1983)
Harold Arlen (1905-1986)
Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
Norma Procter (1928-2017)
John Adams (1947)
Christopher Rouse (1949)
Kathryn Harries (1951)
Christian Lindberg (1958)

and

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Art Spiegelman (1948)
Matt Groening (1954)

Review: Kwak brings out the best of Bruch - Oregon Symphony excels with Brahms and Nielsen under Kluxen

Sarah Kwak, Christian Kluxen, and the Oregon Symphony | from OSO's FB page

Exquisite playing by violinist Sarah Kwak and top-notch directing from guest conductor Christian Kluxen highlighted the Oregon Symphony concert (February 8) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. It was a well-balanced concert that accented the highlands of Scottland in Max Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra,” the stormy shores of Denmark in Carl Nielsen’s “Symphony No. 2,” and the Brahms’ throwback to the classical style in his “Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn.” Danish conductor Christian Kluxen led the program with great style and poetic verve.

Kwak, who is in her thirteenth season as the concertmaster of the orchestra, gave an exquisite performance of the Bruch. Its graceful melodies and playful dances were conveyed by Kwak with beautiful phrasing – as if her violin were singing. Kwak also played the fast and technically challenging passages of the final movement impeccably and with elan.

The orchestra, guided expertly by Kluxen supported her perfectly. The harp, centered just behind the strings and played by Matthew Trusky, sounded heavenly.

Receiving its first-ever performance by the orchestra, Nielsen’s “Symphony No. 2” (“The Four Temperaments”) offered quite an array of sonic diversity. Based on the ancient theory that each human’s personality comes from four different bodily fluids, Nielsen’s symphony expressed the Choleric (impetuous and angry), the Phlegmatic (calm and carefree), the Melancholic (wistful and sad), and the Sanguine (cheerful and positive).

The orchestra delved into each fluid/movement with gusto. The first exhibited stormy bursts, sharp attacks, sforzandos, fanfares, and a crisp ending. The second slowed the pace a bit and bordered on contemplative with a couple of lovely passages before ending quietly. The third slowed down further, exhibiting a dark, sorrowful quality that was heightened with a lovely plaintive solo by Assistant Principal oboist Karen Wagner. The fourth featured expansive sounds from the horns, ponderous brass, and playfully vigorous passages from the entire ensemble

Kluxen shaped the piece very artistically with evocative gestures that elicited a superb performance from the orchestra. Sometimes he dropped his arms to his side and used his face and shoulders to get what he wanted. It was a consummate performance that exuded warmth and made the Nielsen shine.

The “Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn” opened the concert with Brahms appealing inventiveness. The eight variations were expressed with dynamic nuances that kept each one fresh so that the piece sparkled with verve. My favorite is Variation IV: Grazioso, which has gently lilting melodic line that is filled with summery, bucolic vibrations. What impressed me a lot was how the musicians listened to each other while playing – as if they were an intimate chamber ensemble.

The only downside to the concert was that it was poorly attended. Lots of folks missed an outstanding concert that featured the artistic wizardry of Kwak and terrific conducting by Kluxen. There didn’t seem to be a particular reason for the smaller crowd. Weather and the Super Bowl (scheduled for the next day) didn’t factor into the equation. Perhaps it was just a general malaise that afflicted Portlanders. Whatever the case, it would behoove my fellow residents to get to the Schnitz to hear this fantastic hometown band.

Today's Birthdays

Pietro Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
Alexander Dargomizhsky (1813-1869)
Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948)
Jack Benny (1894-1974)
Wyn Morris (1929-2010)
Steven Mackey (1956)
Renée Fleming (1959)

and

Frederick Douglass (1814-1895)
Carl Bernstein (1944)

and

On this day in 1895, Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London. He wrote the first draft in just 21 days, the fastest he’d ever written anything.

Today's Birthdays

Fernando Sor (1778-1839)
Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)
Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938)
Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919-1991)
Eileen Farrell (1920-2002)
Yfrah Neaman (1923-2003)
Colin Matthews (1946)
Peter Gabriel (1950)
Raymond Wojcik (1957-2014)
Philippe Jaroussky (1978)

and

William Roughead (1870–1952)
Ricardo Güiraldes (1886-1927)
Grant Wood (1891-1942)
Georges Simenon (1903-1989)
Elaine Pagels (1943)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1914, ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is formally organized in New York City, with composer Victor Herbert as its first director.

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812)
Roy Harris (1898-1979)
Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019)
Mel Powell (1923-1998)
Paata Burchuladze (1951)

and

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Judy Bloom (1938)

And courtesy of the New Music Box:

On February 12, 1924 at New York's Aeolian Hall, self-named 'King of Jazz' Paul Whiteman presented An Experiment in Modern Music, a concert combining "high art" and "hot jazz." The concert featured newly commissioned works from Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Edward MacDowell, Irving Berlin, Ferde Grofé, and Rudolf Friml, but the highlight of the program was the world premiere performance of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Article about the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra published in Early Music America

 My story about the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra, which performs in the Medford-Ashland-Grants Pass area, has been published in Early Music America here.

Today's Birthdays

Rudolf Firkušný (1912-1994)
Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995)
Michel Sénéchal (1927-2018)
Cristopher Dearnley (1930-2000)
Jerome Lowenthal (1932)
Gene Vincent (1935-1971)
Edith Mathis (1938)
Alberto Lysy (1935-2009)
Christine Cairns (1959)

and

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
Elizabeth Bisland (1861-1929)
Philip Dunne (1908-1992)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993)
Pico Iyer (1957)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, was given the first documented American performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 at the New York's Broadway Tabernacle, by the German Society of New York, Uri Corelli Hill conducting.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765)
Adelina Patti (1843-1919)
Jean Coulthard (1908-2000)
Joyce Grenfell (1914-2001)
Cesare Siepi (1923-2010)
Leontyne Price (1927)
Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)
Roberta Flack (1937)
Barbara Kolb (1939)
Yuja Wang (1987)

and

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Åsne Seierstad (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1921, Charles Ives hears Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird" Ballet Suite at an all-Russian program by the New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Also on the program were works of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff (with Rachmaninoff as piano soloist). Walter Damrosch conducted.

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841)
Franz Xaver Witt (1834-1888)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Harald Genzmer (1909-2007)
Hildegard Behrens (1937-2009)
Ryland Davies (1943-2023)
Paul Hillier (1949)
Jay Reise (1950)
Marilyn Hill Smith (1952)
Amanda Roocroft (1966)

and

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
James Stephens (1882-1950)
Brendan Behan (1923-1964)
J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee (1940)
Alice Walker (1944)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1893, Verdi's opera, "Falstaff," was first performed in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala. This was Verdi's last opera.

Review: Oregon Symphony travels East and West in concert of music by Jiping, Huỳnh, and Rachmaninoff

Wu Man | Photo credit Stephen Kahn

Extending its sonic palette East and West, the Oregon Symphony delivered a fascinating concert (February 1) at the Arlene Concert Hal that tied Asia-inspired works with one of Rachmaninoff’s gems. Zhao Jiping’s “Pipa Concerto No. 2” brought the unique sound of the pipa, a Chinese lute, which was played by virtuoso Wu Man. Oswald Huỳnh’s “Gia Đình” elicited a panoply of sounds to evoke his Vietnamese heritage. Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances” brought a distinct Russian vibe to the evening. The entire program was led by the orchestra’s Associate Conductor, Deanna Tham, who grew up in San Jose has ethnic Chinese roots.

Considered the John Williams of China for his popular film scores (“Farewell My Concubine” and “Raise the Red Lantern”) Zhao Jiping has been acclaimed for his scores that blend sounds from Asia within the structures of European music. He wrote the “Pipa Concerto No. 2” for Wu Man, whose international reputation for her prowess on the pipa is off the charts. It was inspired by folk songs, storytelling and the cultural ambiance of Hangzhou, China, where Man grew up.

The thing about Jiping’s “Second Pipa Concerto” was that listeners didn’t have to know anything about the cultural backstory to enjoy the music. Just watching Man’s fingers fly over the strings and frets of the pearl-shaped instrument was spellbinding. The light twang of the pipa grew more and more charming as the piece progressed. Whether strumming, plucking, or pitch bending, Man created an enchanting atmosphere that effortlessly shifted between contemplative, playful, and humorous. Moments of dialog with the orchestra, including a few isolated duets, were seamlessly woven into the piece. The orchestra generated a tapestry of sounds that swelled and receded with the feeling of movie music, providing an excellent background to the virtuosic artistry that Man displayed with the pipa.

The audience responded to the concerto with a vociferous standing ovation, and Man graciously acknowledged the acclamation with an encore – a springy folk-song-like number that had got faster and faster but also included little squibs of sound – like humorous interjections. Wow!

Oswald Huỳnh is a Vietnamese-American composer whose works have been getting international acclaim for a unique sonicscape noted for “intricate contrasts of timbre and interweaving textures that are rooted in narrative, culture, and memory.” He has a Bachelor’s degree from Lewis & Clark College and a Master of Music from the University of Missouri.

In his introductory remarks from the stage, Huynh mentioned that Portland is his hometown. He also noted that the Vietnamese people refer to the Vietnam War as the American War, and he mentioned the Boat People who fled Vietnam after the war.

In “Gia Đình” (Family), Huỳnh expressed elements of the Vietnam culture with lots of original sounds that sometimes wafted and erupted from the orchestra in a spontaneous way. Slip-sliding glissandos, breathy sounds from the flute, little bells permeated the first movement (Like father, like child). Big blasts from the timpani, tremolos from the clarinet, growling trombones, slinky glissandos accented the second movement (There is nothing like rice with fish, there is nothing like mother with child). The tempo quickened in the third movement (Blood is thicker than water), which gelled at one point into a delicious cacophony, followed by snappy, wild passages and blocky chords from the entire orchestra – all of which dissolved into a restful ending with breathy sound from the bass and words whispered by the entire orchestra.

Gia Đình generated sequence after sequence of unusual sounds that were flat-out mesmerizing. I strongly advocate for the Oregon Symphony to commission a work from Huỳnh if they haven’t done so already.

The second half of the concert returned to the West with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.” The forceful theme in the first movement pranced with verve. Also impressive were the calls back and forth between the woodwinds and the saxophone’s mellow reflection. The waltz of the second movement wistfully evoked a bygone era. The third movement dished up waves of enticing melodies before marching to a crisp finale.

With her precise and artistic conducting, Tham elicited an outstanding performance of the “Symphonic Dances” that captured concertgoers’ attention from beginning to end. That was the perfect topping for a concert that really expanded this reviewer’s ears and helped to make the evening memorable.

Today's Birthdays

Jacob Praetorius (1586-1651)
André Grétry (1741-1813)
Osian Ellis (1928-2021)
John Williams (1932)
Elly Ameling (1933)
Margaret Brouwer (1940)
Stephen Roberts (1948)
Irvine Arditti (1953)

and

Jules Verne (1828-1905)
Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Neal Cassady (1926-1968)
John Grisham (1955)

and from the Composers Datebook:

1880 - German opera composer Richard Wagner writes a letter to his American dentist, Dr. Newell Still Jenkins, stating "I do no regard it as impossible that I decide to emigrate forever to America with my latest work ["Parsifal"] and my entire family" if the Americans would subsidize him to the tune of one million dollars.

Today's Birthdays

Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927)
Ossip Gabrilovich (1878-1936)
Eubie Blake (1883-1983)
Claudia Muzio (1889-1936)
Quincy Porter (1897-1966)
Edmond De Luca (1909-2004)
Lord Harewood (1923-2011)
Maruis Constant (1925-2004)
Stuart Burrows (1933)
Wolfgang van Schweintz (1953)
Andy Akiho (1979)

and

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
Gay Talese (1932)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Litolff (1818-1891)
Karl Weigl (1881-1949)
Andre Marchal (1894-1980)
Claudio Arrau (1903-1991)
Stephen Albert (1941-1992)
Bob Marley (1945-1981)
Bruce J. Taub (1948)
Matthew Best (1957)
Sean Hickey (1970)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Eric Partridge (1894-1979)
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (1895-1948)
Mary Douglas Leakey (1913-1996)
Deborah Digges (1950-2009)
Michael Pollan (1955)

Today's Birthdays

Ole Bull (1810-1880)
Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798)
Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943)
Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)
Jussi Björling (1911-1960)
Sir John Pritchard (1921-1989)
Luc Ferrari (1929-2005)
John Poole (1934-2020)
Ivan Tcherepnin (1943-1998)
Josef Protschka (1944)
Phylis Bryn-Julson (1945)

and

Martin Marty (1928)
Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron (1934-2021)
John Guare (1938)
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)
Christopher Guest (1948)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1887, Verd's: opera "Otello" premiered in Milan at the Teatro all Scala, with the composer conducting (and cellist Arturo Toscanini in the orchestra).

Today's Birthdays

Eustache du Caurroy (1549-1609)
Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795)
Aristide Cavaillé‑Coll (1811-1899)
Yrjo Kilpinen (1892-1952)
Bernard Rogers (1893-1968)
Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993)
Jutta Hipp (1925-2003)
Martti Talvela (1935-1989)
François Dumeaux (1978)

and also

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
Gavin Ewart (1916-1995)
Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
Robert Coover (1932-2024)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Sidney Lanier (1842-1881)
Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986)
Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975)
Blas Galindo Dimas (1910-1993)
Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
Helga Dernesch (1939)

and

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
Georg Trakl (1887-1914)
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
Alvar Aalto (1898-1978)
James Michener (1907-1997)
Simone Weil (1909-1943)
Richard Yates (1926-1992)
Paul Auster (1947)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1844, Berlioz's "Roman Carnival" Overture, in Paris was premiered at the Salle Herz, with the composer conducting.

Today's Birthdays

Louis Marchand (1669-1732)
Leo Fall (1873-1925)
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)
Stan Getz (1927-1991)
Skip Battin (1934-2003)
Martina Arroyo (1937)
Sir Andrew Davis (1944)
Ursula Oppens (1944)
Eliane Aberdam (1964)

And

James Joyce (1882-1941)
James Dickey (1923-1997)
Tom Smothers (1937-2023)

Review of 45th Parallel Universe concert - Akiho, Glass, Reich, and Wohl

My review of 45th Parallel's concert at The Reser has been published in Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Stradivari (1671-1743)
Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768)
Johan Joachim Agrell (1701-1765)
Victor Herbert (1859-1924)
Julius Conus (1869-1942)
Clara Butt (1872-1936)
Sándor Veress (1907-1999)
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993)
Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004)
Ursula Mamlok (1928-2016)
Michael G. Shapiro (1951)

and

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
S. J. Perelman (1904-1979)
Muriel Spark (1918- 2006)
Galway Kinnell (1927-2014)

Review: Impressive young artists shine in Vancouver Symphony concert

Mio Imai, Hannah Cho, and Alexander Liu | Photo by Paul Quackenbush

The three gold medalists of the Vancouver Symphony’s Young Artist Competition delivered superb performances for the Young Artist Showcase (January 26) at Skyview Concert Hall. Pianist Alexander Liu, oboist Hannah Cho, and violinist Mio Imai – all teenagers – demonstrated terrific artistic expression and technical wizardry during their time in the spotlight with the orchestra. Their dedication to music surely gave a very appreciate audience a glimmer of hope that classical music is alive and well in the younger generation.

Since going nationwide in 2021, VSO’s Young Artist Competition has upped the ante, offering $1,000 to the bronze medalists, $3,000 to the silver medalists, and $5,000 to the gold medalists plus the opportunity to solo with the orchestra under the direction of Music Director Salvador Brotons. These enticements attracted about a hundred participants from across the U. S., and the winners were determined by a top-tier panel of professional musicians: Zuill Bailey, Dr. Julia Hwakyu Lee, Dr. Igor Shakhman, Dr. Stephen Shepherd, and Dr. Igal Kesselman.

This year’s edition of the concert, got underway with Alexander Liu, a 13-year-old pianist from New Jersey who studies at Julliard under pianist Orli Shaham. Liu dazzled concertgoers with an immaculate performance of the first movement of Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 21.” He excelled with impeccable technique, well-placed dynamics, and made the keyboard sing.

Oboist Hannah Cho, a 17-year-old is in her senior year the Colburn Music Academy in Los Angeles where she takes lessons from Eugene Izotov. Cho delivered the lyrical, florid passages of Wenzel Kalliwoda’s “Oboe Concertino” with outstanding expressivity, scaling to the highest notes with ease, and conveying the playfulness of the final movement with elan.

Violinist Mio Imai, a 14-year-old whose teacher is Kimberly Fisher, Principal Second Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, brought the house down with a scintillating rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.” She commanded the piece with superb fingerwork, dancing through the many treacherously fast passages with precision and very expressive artistry.

Each soloist was reward with loud ovations from the audience after their performances. Listener gave them another round of applause when they reappeared at center stage and bowed as a group. It will be interesting to watch how their careers develop.

Brotons gave a humorous anecdote about how to pronounce words and names in French, which elicited chuckles from all corners of the hall. He then led the orchestra, from memory, in an expressive interpretation of the Suite No. 2 from “Bacchus et Ariane,” a ballet by Albert Rousell, which told a love story from the myths of ancient Greece. The suite offered a wide range of sound, starting with hushed lower strings before blossoming into the entire orchestra. Lovely melodic lines gave way to swirling and stormy passages. The sweeping dynamic range of the suite evoked all sort of imagery and made me want to see a performance with dancers someday.

The concert concluded with Three Dances (Suite No. 2) from “The Three-Cornered Hat,” a ballet by Manuel de Falla. With animated and pinpoint gestures, Brotons and his forces created evocative dances that transitioned from an elegant and relaxing style to a vigorous and propulsive one that ended the suite with a sense of wildness and joy.

Today's Birthdays

François Devienne (1759-1803)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Caroline Miolan‑Carvalho (1827-1895)
James Huneker (1857-1921)
Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940)
Nathan Milstein (1904-1992)
Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973)
Alan Lomax (1915-2002)
Jaap Schröder (1925-2020)
Odetta (1930-2008)
Philip Glass (1937)
Stephen Cleobury (1948)
Donna Summer (1948-2012)
George Benjamin (1960)
Jennifer Higdon (1962)

and

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Zane Grey (1872-1939)
John O'Hara (1905-1970)
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)
Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935)
Walter Damrosch (1862-1950)
Mitch Leigh (1928-2014)
Lynn Harrell (1944-2020)
Silvia Marcovici (1952)
Gerald Finley (1960)

and

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)
Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016)
Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)

Review of Northwest Sinfonietta performance of Ives' Immortal Beloved posted

My review of Nancy Ives new "Immortal Beloved Violin Concerto" has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.  

Today's Birthdays

Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777)
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871)
Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Havergal Brian (1876-1972)
Blanche Selva (1884-1942)
Luigi Nono (1924-1990)
Myer Fredman (1932-2014)
Malcolm Binns (1936)
Cho-Liang Lin (1960)

and

W. C. Fields (1880-1946
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1826 was the premiere of Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, "Death and the Maiden," as a unrehearsed reading at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, two amateur musicians. Schubert, who usually played viola on such occasions, could not perform since he was busy copying out the parts and making last-minute corrections.
and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1845 that Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was a huge sensation: Abraham Lincoln memorized it and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fan letter to Poe. He was paid $9 for “The Raven,” and it was extensively reprinted without his permission, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had written an unsigned article for the Mirror before about copyright law saying, “Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats,” but there was no such law until 1891. His income in 1844 was $424; in 1845, he made $549.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni (1757-1821)
Ferdinand Herold (1791-1833)
Alexander Mackenzie (1822-1892)
Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994)
Michael Head (1900-1976)
Ronnie Scott (1927-1996)
Acker Bilk (1929-2014)
Sir John Tavener (1944-2013)
Richard Danielpour (1956)

and

Colette (1873-1954)
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022)
David Lodge (1935-2025)

Today's Birthdays

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Juan Crisostomo Arriage (1806-1826)
Edouard Lalo (1823-1892)
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Jack Brymer (1915-2003)
Skitch Henderson (1918-2005)
Helmut Zacharias (1920-2002)
Fritz Spiegl (1926-2003)
John Ogdon (1937-1989)
Jean-Philippe Collard (1948)
Emanuel Pahud (1970)
James Ehnes (1976)

and

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Dmitry Mandeleyev (1834-1907)
Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795)
Maria Augusta von Trapp (1905-1987)
Stéphane Grappelli (1908-1997)
Jimmy Van Heusen (1913-1990)
Warren Benson (1924-2005)
Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987)
Frédéric Lodéon (1952)
Mikel Rouse (1957)
Ēriks Ešenvalds (1977)
Gustavo Dudamel (1981)

and

Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905)
Seán MacBride (1904-1988)
Jules Feiffer (1929-2025)
Christopher Hampton (1946)
Ellen DeGeneres (1958)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1790, Mozart's opera, "Così fan tutte," was premiered in Vienna at the Burgtheater.

Today's Birthdays

Jan Blockx (1851-1912)
Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954)
Julia Smith (1905-1989)
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994)
Alfred Reed (1921-2005)
Etta James (1938-2012)
Russell Peck (1945-2009)

and

Robert Burns (1759-1796)
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Preview: Young Artists competition Gold Medalists to perform with Vancouver Symphony USA

Gold Medal winners: Alexander Liu, Hannah Cho, and Mio Imai

This weekend’s concerts will feature the gold medal winners of the Vancouver Symphony’s 30th annual Young Artists Competition. Previous gold medalists have consistently astounded the audience with their artistic expression and technical prowess. This year’s edition of should be no different, making the concerts (January 25 and 26) one of the highlights of the season.

From an initial field of 100 applicants from around the nation, nine made it to the final round, performing last fall before a panel of esteemed professional musicians (Zuill Bailey, Dr. Julia Hwakyu Lee, Dr. Igor Shakhman, Dr. Stephen Shepherd, and Dr. Igal Kesselman). The panel determined the winners, who received cash prizes. Each Gold Medalist was awarded $5,000; each Silver Medalist got $2,000; and each Bronze Medalist, $1,000.

In addition to the monetary award, the three Gold Medalists –Hannah Cho (oboe), Mio Imai (violin), and Alexander Liu (piano), were also given the opportunity to perform with the VSO under Music Director Salvador Brotons. I talked with each of them earlier this week.

Hannah Cho, a 17-year-old senior at the Colburn Music Academy in Los Angeles, will play Wenzel Kalliwoda’s “Oboe Concertino.” Cho began learning the oboe when she was 8 years old.

“My aunt played the oboe at a wedding, accompanied by my mom on piano,” recalled Cho. “I loved the sound of the oboe. It was very beautiful.”

Since then, Cho has worked hard and found much success with the oboe. She has been recognized as a National YoungArts 2023 finalist, won first place in the U.S. Navy Band Young Artist Solo Competition, and has performed as principal oboist with orchestras, such as the the 2022 NAfME All-National Symphony Orchestra.

At the Colburn Music Academy, Cho studies with internationally renowned oboist Eugene Izotov. She was introduced to Kalliwoda’s “Oboe Concertino” during the pandemic.

“I thought that the third movement was flashy and very interesting,” said Cho. “It’s very hard endurance-wise. In the third movement there are not many breaks, and at the end there is no break at all. So that is very challenging.”

Cho is also the founder and president of Empowering Arts, a non-profit that brings performances to seniors with limited mobility or other illnesses, children with disabilities, and the underserved.

“In seventh grade, I was involved in a volunteer program called Lion’s Heart,” said Cho. “During that time I signed up for playing at a rehab facility. I enjoyed it because I got to use my skill set to give back to the community. During quarantine I began to think about how to bring music to more people. So I started the Empowering Arts program in ninth grade. It’s inspiring to play for people who don’t have access to live classical music. We have touched many people’s lives. We try to do a concert every week or every other week.”

Mio Imai, a 14-year-old freshman from Pennsylvania near Philadelphia, will perform Camille Saint-Saëns “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.” Imai started studying violin when she was 3 years old.

“When I was in pre-school,” said Imai, “My friend’s dad was a professional violinist and he played for us at the pre-school. He brought these small violins to try, and I decided that I wanted to learn how to play it.”

Lots and lots of practice has paid off for Imai. She has won first prize the Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition (Belgium), 2024 Stulberg International String Competition (US), 2024 MTNA National Competition (US) and 2023 Piccolo Violino Magico International Competition (Italy). Her teacher is Kimberly Fisher, Principal Second Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

She is looking forward to playing the “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.” with the VSO.

“I have loved the Saint-Saëns piece for quite a while,” said Imai. “I’ve worked on it on and off for the past year. Although Saint-Saëns is a French composer, this piece has a Spanish style to it. It’s a showpiece, so there’s a lot of complicated technical fireworks, but Saint-Saëns was such a genius because he could interweave all of the technically tricky stuff with the melodies.”

She has done multiple tours in Italy with orchestra, and has played throughout the U.S, recently with the Kalamazoo Symphony, and in Japan.

“I love to perform,” said Imai. “I don’t get nervous. When I’m on stage, I’m not thinking about technique or how hard it is, I’m thinking about sharing this amazing piece of music with the audience.”

Alexander Liu, a 13-year-old pianist from New Jersey, will perform the first movement from Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No.21.” In addition to middle school, Liu attends Juilliard Pre-College, where he studies under Orli Shaham, a frequent soloist with the VSO and its resident artist during the 2023-2024 season.

“I started piano at five and a half,” said Liu. “I first saw a piano at a friend’s house, and I loved the sight of it and tried it out – smashing the keys. My parents noticed my interest and thought that I should start studying it. I’ve had a passion for piano ever since.”

Liu is New York State Winner of MTNA 2024, grand and first prize winner at the National Young Virtuosi Recital Competition (2023), the Philadelphia International Piano Competition (2023), and the XIII Chopin International Piano Competition at Hartford (2022).

Mozart is one of Liu’s favorite composers.

“I love the intricate and delicate structures within Mozart’s music and how seamlessly one theme flows into another,” said Liu. “When I play his concerto, I would like the audience to hear Mozart’s humor and his love for life. The first movement from the concerto has an influx of change – it’s constant, and it doesn’t give the audience much chance to rest.”

Liu practices three or four hours a day.

“I do a technique called deliberate practice, which involves recording yourself, and concentrating intensely on improving spots of music,” said Liu. “Sometimes my mom reminds me to get outside and get some fresh air. I love to play badminton. We have badminton set up in the backyard.”

In addition to performances by the Gold Medal winners, the orchestra will also perform the “Bacchus et Ariane Suite” by Albert Rousel and the “Three-Cornered Hat Suite No. 2” by Manuel de Falla. For more information and tickets, go to Vancouver Symphony.

Today's Birthdays

Farinelli (Carlo Maria Broschi) (1705-1782)
Frederick II the Great (1712-1786)
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)
Evelyn Barbirolli (1911-2008)
Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940)
Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996)
Leon Kirchner (1919-2009)
Neil Diamond (1941)
Yuri Bashmet (1953)
Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

and

William Congreve (1670-1729)
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Desmond Morris (1928)

Review: Oregon Symphony flirts with perfection in performance of Beethoven Violin Concerto with Kang and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony

From the Oregon Symphony's Facebook page

Location, Location, Location! That’s the mantra of real estate sales. With symphony orchestras, there are many things to consider invoking, but one of them has to be Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics! That was one of the many artistic expressions that the Oregon Symphony excelled with in its most recent concert (January 20) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Guided by David Danzmayr, the ensemble delivered sterling dynamic contrasts in its performance of Beethoven’s “Violin Concerto,” featuring guest soloist Clara-Jumi Kang, and topped it off with exceptional dynamics with Beethoven’s “Seventh Symphony.” Combined with a scintillating rendition of “Fiesta!” by Peruvian-American composer Jimmy López, the Oregon Symphony concert sounded stellar from start to finish – one of the best concerts under Danzmayr, who is in the middle of his fourth season as Music Director of the orchestra.

Kang has an international career with major league orchestras and recordings, but she has flown under the radar for many of us who try to keep tabs on the most talented artists in classical music. The 37-year-old South Korean-German violinist has won awards at several major competitions, appeared at the Hollywood Bowl and Saltzburg Festival, and has a discography under the Decca and Accentus Music labels.

Making the most of her debut with the orchestra, Kang elicited an exquisite performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. From crystalline high notes to florid runs that ascended and descended immaculately, she conveyed power and emotion. Her pillowy soft pianissimos could be heard even when the orchestra accompanied her. Cadenzas flowed from Kang’s violin effortlessly but always with conviction, and the frolicking joy of the final movement swept up the audience with its triumphant embrace.

Kang responded to the immediate and lengthy standing ovation with a lovely encore, the Andante from J.S. Bach's “Sonata No. 2” in A Minor. It sounded delicate and sublime – a calming Nachspeise before intermission.

Conducting impressively from memory Danzmayr led the orchestra in an outstanding performance of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7.” The dynamic contrasts with blooming crescendos and decaying decrescendos were always spot on and enticing right down to the subtlest pizzicatos. Well-chosen tempos and exceptional playing from all sections of the orchestra enhanced every aspect of the symphonic journey. One would have thought that it would be difficult to top the exceptional effort of Kang in the Violin Concerto, but the orchestra did just that with an electrifying performance. Wow!

The concert began with a sonic-kaleidoscopic piece by Jimmy López called “Fiesta!” Danzmayr, in his introductory remarks, said that he and López met while studying music in Finland, and that “Fiesta!” has been his most popular piece.

Divided into four movements – Trance 1, Countertime, Trance 2, and Techno – “Fiesta” erupted with a propulsive rhythmic drive from the congas and bongos. Accented blasts from the horns and fragmented passages from other sections of the orchestra were accompanied by sustained strings. The second movement swung wildly from very quiet phrases to double forte outbursts. The turbulence of the third briefly quieted down enough to allow the forlorn call from the horn (Associate Principal Joseph Berger) to be heard. Pounding from the percussion section highlighted the punchy, jumpy fourth movement, which marched into a robust finale.

Today's Birthdays

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
Rutland Boughton (1878-1960)
Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)
Milton Adolphus (1913-1988)
Eli Goren (1923-2000)
Chita Rivera (1933-2024) Cécile Ousset (1936)
Teresa Zylis-Gara (1936-2021)
John Luther Adams (1953)
Mason Bates (1977)

and

Stendhal (1783-1842)
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Derek Walcott (1930-2017)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1894, Czech composer Antonin Dvorák presents a concert of African-American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York, using an all-black choir, comprised chiefly of members of the St. Philip's Colored Choir. On the program was the premiere performance of Dvorák's own arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which featured vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh.

Today's Birthdays

Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727-1799)
Charles Tournemire (1870-1939)
Hans Erich Apostel (1901-1972)
Robin Milford (1903-1959)
Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981)
Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
William Warfield (1920-2002)
Leslie Bassett (1923-2016)
James Louis ("J.J.") Johnson (1924-2001)
Aurèle Nicolet (1926-2016)
Uto Ughi (1944)
Myung-whun Chung (1953)

and

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
August Strindberg (1849-1912)
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Howard Moss (1922-1987)
Joseph Wambaugh (1937)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day, in 1907, the Metropolitan Opera production of Richard Strauss' opera "Salome," with soprano Olive Fremstad in the title role, creates a scandal. The opera is dropped after a single performance, and not staged at the Met again until the 1930s.

Today's Birthdays

Henri Duparc (1848-1933)
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)
Webster Booth (1902-1984)
Placido Domingo (1941)
Richie Havens (1941-2013)
Edwin Starr (1942-2003)
Suzanne Mentzer (1957)
Frank Ticheli (1958)

and

Louis Menand (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630)
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Julius Conus (1869-1942)
Józef Hofmann (1876-1957)
Huddie William Ledbetter (Lead Belly) (1889-1949)
Walter Piston (1894-1976)
Eva Jessye (1895-1992)
Yvonne Loriod (1924-2010)
David Tudor (1926-1996)
Antonio de Almeida (1928-1997)
Iván Fischer (1951)

and

George Burns (1896-1996)
Alexandra Danilova (1903-1997)
Federico Fellini (1920-1993)
Edward Hirsch (1950)
Tami Hoag (1959)

Today's Birthdays

Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898)
Fritz Reiner (1888-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931-2019)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)

and

Italo Svevo (1861-1928)
Constance Garnett (1861-1946)

Today's Birthdays

César Cui (1835-1918)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
John Laurence Seymour (1893-1986)
Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-1996)
Anthony Galla-Rini (1904-2006)
John O'Conor (1947)
Anthony Pople (1955-2003)
Christoph Prégardien (1956)

and

Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869)
Rubén Darío (1867-1916)
A. A. Milne (1882-1956)
Oliver Hardy (1892-1957)

FYI: Roget's "Thesaurus" has never been out of print since it was first published in 1852.

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1958, "What Does Music Mean?", broadcast, the first of a series of televised New York Philharmonic "Young People's Concerts" on CBS-TV hosted by Leonard Bernstein. The series continued until 1972, with 53 different programs hosted by Bernstein.

Today's Birthdays

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
John Stanley (1712-1786)
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
François‑Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)
Henk Badings (1907-1987)
Oscar Morawetz (1917-2007)
Annie Delorie (1925-2009)
Donald Erb (1927-2008)
Jean Barraqué (1928-1973)
Sydney Hodkinson (1934-2021)
Dame Gillian Weir (1941)
Anne Queffélec (1948)
Augustin Dumay (1949)
Nancy Argenta (1957)
Gérard Pesson (1958)

and

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)
William Stafford (1914-1993)
Luis López Nieves (1950)
Sebastian Junger (1962)

Review of Camerata PYP concert in Oregon ArtsWatch

 

My review of the Camerata PYP's latest concert has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Niccoló Piccinni (1728-1800)
Henri Büsser (1872-1973)
Daisy Kennedy (1893-1981)
Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989)
Ethel Merman (1908-1984)
Roger Wagner (1914-1992)
Ernesto Bonino (1922-2008)
Pilar Lorengar (1928-1996)
Marilyn Horne (1934)
Richard Wernick (1934)
Gavin Bryars (1943)
Brian Ferneyhough (1943)
Katia Ricciarelli (1946)

and

Robert Service (1874-1958)
Anthony Hecht (1923-2004)
William Kennedy (1928)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1969)
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
Mary Karr (1955)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980)

Today's Birthdays

Ivor Novello (1893-1951)
Elie Siegmeister (1909-1991)
Malcolm Frager (1935-1991)
Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet (1941-2010)
Aaron Jay Kernis (1960)

and

Molière (1622-1673)
Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872)
Andreas William Heinesen (1900-1991)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Frank Conroy (1936-2005)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1941 Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" was premiered at Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner of war camp in Görlitz (Silesia), with the composer at the piano and fellow-prisoners Jean Le Boulaure (violin), Henri Akoka (clarinet), and Etienne Pasquier (cello).

Review of Oregon Symphony - Beethoven, Ellington, Tower - concert in CVNA

My review of the OSO concert, which featured Yefim Bronfman in the Emporer concerto, has been published in Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Ludwig von Köchel (1800-1877)
Jean de Reszke (1850-1925)
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Louis Quilico (1925-2000)
Zuzana Ruzickova (1927-2017)
Siegmund Nimsgern (1940)
Mariss Jansons (1943-2019)
Kees Bakels (1945)
Nicholas McGegan (1950)
Ben Heppner (1956)
Andrew Manze (1965)

and

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)
Emily Hahn (1905-1997)
John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)
Maureen Dowd (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749)
Vassili Kalinnikov (1866-1901)
Richard Addinsell (1904-1977)
Daniil Shafran (1923-1997)
Renato Bruson (1936)
Paavo Heininen (1938-2022)
William Duckworth (1943-2012)
Richard Blackford (1954)
Wayne Marshall (1961)
Juan Diego Flórez (1973)

and

Horatio Alger (1832-1899)
Lorrie Moore (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739)
Jacques Duphly (1715-1789)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Pierre Bernac (1899-1979)
William Pleeth (1916-1999)
Leo Smit (1921-1999)
Morton Feldman (1926-1987)
Salvatore Martirano (1927-1995)
Anne Howells (1941)
Viktoria Postnikova (1944)
Lori Laitman (1955)

and

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Jack London (1876-1916)
Haruki Murakami (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Christian Sinding (1856-1941)
Reihold Glière (1875-1956)
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Mark DeVoto (1940)
York Höller (1944)
Drew Minter (1955)
Alex Shapiro (1962)

and

William James (1842-1910)
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
Alan Paton (1903-1988)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1925, Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York City by the New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch, with Nadia Boulanger the soloist.

Review of Portland Chamber Orchestra's holiday libation concert

 

My review of PCO's "Mixology Party" year-end concert has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Jean Martinon (1910-1976)
Sidney Griller (1911-1993)
Dean Dixon (1915-1976)
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
Max Roach (1924-2007)
Sherrill Milnes (1935)
Rod Stewart (1945)
James Morris (1947)
Mischa Maisky (1948)
Rockwell Blake (1951)
Charles Norman Mason (1955)
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (1961)

and

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
Philip Levine (1928-2015)
Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002)

Today's Birthdays

John Knowles Paine (1839-1906)
Rudolf Bing (1902-1997)
Herva Nelli (1909-1994)
Henriette Puig‑Roget (1910-1992)
Pierre Pierlot (1921-2007)
Joan Baez (1941)
Scott Walker (1944)
Jimmy Page (1944)
Waltraud Meier (1956)
Hillevi Martinpelto (1958)
Nicholas Daniel (1962)

and

Karel Čapek (1890-1938
Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935)
Richard Halliburton (1901-1939)
Brian Friel (1929-2015)
Michiko Kakutani (1955)

Today's Birthdays

Jean Gilles (1668-1705)
Lowell Mason (1792-1872)
Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871)
Hans von Bülow (1830-1894)
Jaromir Weinberger (1896-1967)
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)
Giorgio Tozzi (1923-2011)
Robert Starer (1924-2001)
Benjamin Lees (1924-2010)
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Zdeněk Mácal (1936-2023)
Robert Moran (1937)
Evgeny Nesterenko (1938-2021)
Elijah Moshinsky (1946)
Paul Dresher (1951)
Vladimir Feltsman (1952)

and

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972)
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1923, the first broadcast in England of an opera direct from a concert hall took place, Mozart's "The Magic Flute" via the BBC from London.

Today's Birthdays

Clara Haskil (1895-1960)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
John Brownlee (1900-1969)
Nicanor Zabaleta (1907-1993)
Günter Wand (1912-2002)
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)
John Lanigan (1921-1996)
Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922-2000)
Tommy Johnson (1935-2006)
Iona Brown (1941-2004)
Richard Armstrong (1943)
Janine Jansen (1978)

and

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Hugh Kenner (1923-2003)
Nicholson Baker (1957)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Marian Anderson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ulrica in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Mascera" (A Masked Ball). She was the first African-American singer to perform as an opera soloist on the Met stage. Subsequent distinguished African-American singers who performed as members of the Met company included Robert McFerrin, Sr. (Bobby McFerrin Jr.’s father), Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Kahtleen Battle and Jessye Norman.

Today's Birthdays

Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Georges Martin Witkowski (1867-1943)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Karl Straube (1873-1950)
Earl Kim (1920-1998)
Alexander Baillie (1956)

and

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1733, this notice appears in the Leipzig newspaper Nachtricht auch Frag u. Anzeiger: "Tonight at 8 o'clock there will be a Bach Concert at the Zimmermann Coffeehouse on Catharine Street". This presumably featured secular vocal works, chamber music and concertos performed by the Leipzig Collegium, an ensemble directed by J.S. Bach.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755)
Constanza Mozart (1762-1842)
Peter Wolle (1792-1871)
Frederick Converse (1871-1940)
Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951)
Nicolai Roslavets (1881-1944)
Reginald Smith-Brindle (1917-2003)
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
Laszlo Heltay (1930-2019)
Alfred Brendel (1931)
Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024)

and

Stella Gibbons(1902-1989)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990)
W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009)
Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938)
Charlie Rose (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720-1774)
Josef Suk (1874-1935)
Frank Wess (1922-2013)
Grace Bumbry (1937-2023)
Joseph Turrin (1947)
Margaret Marshall (1949)
Ronald Corp (1951)
Peter Seiffert (1954)
Boris Berezovsky (1969)

and

Sir Issac Newton (1642-1727)
Jacob Grimm (1785-1863)
Louis Braille (1809-1852)
Augustus John (1878-1961)
Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1950, RCA announces it will produce long play records as Columbia did two years earlier (RCA had unsuccessfully attempted to compete with Columbia's new 33.3-rpm LPs by issuing some of their classical catalog as multiple disc 45-rpm sets).

Today's Birthdays

Victor Borge (1909-2000)
Ronald Smith (1922-2004)
Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
H. K. Gruber (1943)
David Atherton (1944)

and

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in the year 1843 in Paris, the comic opera “Don Pasquale” by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti received its first performance.
also:

On this day in 1925, German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler made his American debut, conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.

Review of two recordings published in Oregon ArtsWatch

 

I reviewed a couple of albums by Tomas Cotik and the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and that review has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Review of Portland Youth Philharmonic's Concert-at-Christmas

 My review of PYP's annual concert the day after Christmas has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Xaver Brixi (1732-1771)
Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)
Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
Barbara Pentland (1912-2000)
Gardner Read (1913-2005)
Irina Arkhipova (1925-2010)
Alberto Zedda (1928-2017)
Peter Eötvös (1944)
Janet Hilton (1945)
Vladimir Ovchinnikov (1958)
Tzimon Barto (1963)
Wu Man (1963)
Robert Fertitta (1970)
Eric Whitacre (1970)

and

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Christopher Durang (1949)
Lynda Barry (1956)

Today's Birthdays - Happy New Year!

Charles Racquet (1598-1664)
Frederick William Gaisberg (1873-1951)
Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956)
Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958)
Erich Schmid (1907-2001)
Trude Rittmann (1908-2005)
Milt Jackson (1923-1999)
Richard Verreau (1926-2005)
Maurice Béjart (1927-2007)
Bernard Greenhouse (1916-2011)
Alberto Portugheis (1941)

And

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)
J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1585, composer Giovanni Gabrieli became the second organist at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. His uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli, was the first organist.

On this day in 1908, Gustav Mahler made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a performance of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."