2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Cleveland Orchestra. Last year the ensemble marked this occasion with the release of a “deluxe box set” (as described on the Amazon.com Web page for this item) entitled A New Century. The box consists of three CDs, each of which presents two compositions; and all performances are conducted by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. The “deluxe” attribute probably refers to the 150-page book of photographs and extensive background text. All of the performances were taken from live recordings made at Severance Hall between 2017 and 2019.
The collection includes two world premiere recordings by Johannes Maria Staud and Bernd Richard Deutsch, respectively. Like Welser-Möst, both of them are Austrian. Both compositions allowed Welser-Möst to exercise the full complement of resources in his ensemble. Staud’s composition is a twenty-minute tone poem entitled “Stromab” (downstream), inspired by a short horror story by Algernon Blackwood involving a canoe trip down the Danube River. Deutsch composed a four-movement concerto for organ and orchestra entitled “Okeanos,” the ancient Greek personification of the ocean. Each movement is named after one of the “classical” elements, ordered as water, air, earth, and fire.
The remainder of the collection is more than a little idiosyncratic. The first CD begins with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 132 string quartet in A minor performed by the string section with the cello line doubled an octave lower for the basses where Welser-Möst deemed it appropriate. This five-movement quartet arrangement is followed by Edgard Varèse’s “Amériques,” a large-ensemble composition that may prepare listeners for the rich instrumentation of the new works on the remaining two CDs. “Stromab” is coupled with Richard Strauss’ Opus 16 four-movement “symphonic fantasy” entitled “Aus Italien” (from Italy). On the final CD “Okeanos” is followed by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 44 (third) symphony in C minor. As may be expected, both the Strauss and Prokofiev scores also afford extensive instrumentation.
It would probably be fair for me to explain that my own encounters with the Cleveland Orchestra have been limited and variable in satisfaction level. My most memorable experience took place in the early Eighties at Carnegie Hall, back when the ensemble was led by Christoph von Dohnányi. I still recall this as one of the most compelling performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Erwartung,” sung by Anja Silja (then married to Dohnányi), that I ever encountered. (I already was familiar with Silja, having seen her in the role of Marie when I saw my first Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera.)
The first time I was obliged to write about the ensemble was in 2012 during the Centennial Season of the San Francisco Symphony. By this time Welser-Möst was Music Director, and he prepared two programs for performance in Davies Symphony Hall. Both of the programs involved commissions, Kaija Saariaho’s “Orion” on the first and a three-movement suite by Thomas Adès based on his opera Powder Her Face on the second. Most of the other selections were nineteenth-century, except for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 54 (sixth) symphony in B minor on the first program. To be honest, the only reason I remember this event is that I archived the Examiner.com reports I wrote about them.
I fear that the centennial anthology will not be any more memorable. My personal impressions are probably most inclined towards “Amériques, which is almost a century older than the offerings of Staud and Deutsch but still packs more of a wallop than those two works combined. Like Riccardo Chailly, who recorded the piece for the Complete Works album, now released by the Universal Music Group on the Decca label, Welser-Möst worked with the performing edition prepared by Chou Wen-chung; and I suspect that few listeners would be perceptive enough to detect differences between Chailly and Welser-Möst. The offering amounts to a dog-walking-on-its-hind-legs phenomenon. Credit should be given for the act being done at all, rather than trying to pick nits over whether one conductor is better than the other!
Finally, I should make it clear that my thoughts about this centennial release should not be seen as a reflection of my thoughts about Cleveland. While I have never visited the Cleveland Institute of Music, I am well aware of its ongoing legacy and its impressive list of alumni. (For “full disclosure,” I should state that one of the alumna is my niece; and another is one of my neighbors.) I should also confess that Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor, which is set in Cleveland, is one of the funniest plays about opera I have ever seen. Furthermore, the first act concludes with a performance of “Dio, che nell'alma infondere” from Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo; and when I saw this play presented while I was in Sydney, Australia, the magic of that moment brought tears to my eyes. I just wish that the Cleveland Orchestra could have at least gotten a blink out of me with their centennial release.
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