Review: The Cleveland Orchestra Returns to Blossom
Brett Mitchell leads The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center on July 3, 2021, marking the orchestra’s first public performance since March 2020. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Brett Mitchell led The Cleveland Orchestra in the opening weekend of the 2021 Blossom Music Festival on July 3 and 4, marking the orchestra’s first public performances since March 2020. The following are excerpts from ClevelandClassical.com’s review of Sunday evening’s concert:
It was March 20, 2020, when The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst gave their last concert as a complete ensemble before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live performances for more than a year. The Orchestra, with guest conductor Brett Mitchell, returned triumphantly to Blossom Music Center on July 3 and 4 to celebrate Independence Day.
Three works by African American composers were the highlights of the concert. All of them should be adopted into the Orchestra’s standard repertoire. Mary D. Watkins’ “Soul of Remembrance” from Five Movements in Color (1993) was especially moving. The mood is both nostalgic and bittersweet, with beautiful melodies and lush, American Romantic harmonies and orchestrations. There is a slow, steady pulse throughout as the musical material develops, with wind descants soaring above the melody, finally reaching a full-orchestra climax before fading back to a single violin note at the conclusion. If the other movements of Watkins’ suite are of this quality, the whole set should be performed. This composer, born in 1939 and still living, deserves attention from a broad audience.
The real “find” on this program was Adolphus Hailstork’s 1985 An American Fanfare for brass and percussion — Hailstork’s response to Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, but with more musical substance and variety, and treacherous, jagged leaps across octaves.
Copland’s Appalachian Spring made its almost obligatory appearance, in a pristine, carefully developed performance.
To read the complete review, please click here.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROGER MASTROIANNI
