The American Dream at Severance

As part of its season ending series The American Dream, the Cleveland Orchestra last night presented works by either American composers or those focused on an aspect of American life.  The concert was led by Assistant Conductor Daniel Reith, substituting for an indisposed Franz Welser-Möst.

The concert opened with the overture to Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. That’s right, Scott Joplin, the composer best known for his melodic (and very pianistic) rags, composed a full-scale opera in 1911. It was never performed during his lifetime, receiving a tragically belated premiere in 1972.  I was fortunate to see a concert performance of the work in Andover, Massachusetts during the early 1990s, and my immediate reaction was that it was worthy of more frequent performances.  Having heard recordings of it several times since then, I would amplify my statement thusly: Treemonisha ought to be presented at least as often as George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. 

The next composer on the program, Julia Perry, has an Ohio connection: she moved to Akron with her family when she was a child, and died there in 1979.  Short Piece for Orchestra, however, was composed in 1952 while she was living in Paris.  There are insinuations of Schoenberg in the stark, unsentimental harmonies, with skillful and colorful orchestration that would do any composer proud. 

William Grant Still’s Darker America, composed in 1924, was more broadly phrased, and mixed the kind of American sound that Aaron Copland would explore a decade later, with uniquely African-American tones.

Reith then led the orchestra in three selections from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo: The Prelude, Nightmare, and Love Scene.  Herrmann’s work, in particular this score, has been hugely influential on my own compositions – to the extent that I composed a 20-minute set of variations on the Portrait of Carlotta theme about 25 years ago.  I’ve collected numerous recordings of Herrmann’s scores over the decades and have no less than three of Vertigo.  Yet I’ve never heard Herrmann’s score to this film performed with such exquisite balance, virtuosity, transparency, or burnished tone as presented by Reith and the orchestra last night.

I have the fortune or misfortune of having a highly visual memory – to the extent that I never forget the face of someone who I like or dislike.  So imagine my amusement at seeing one of the ringleaders of the opposition to South Euclid’s LGBT+  inclusive non-discrimination ordinance at Severance with, of course, a same-sex companion.  In fact, I saw several Catholic priests at the concert, a stroke of supreme irony as one of the works presented was Voiceless Mass, by Raven Chacon – who is of Native American ancestry.  The work, premiered in 2021, is a reflection on and reaction to the forced assimilation of Native Americans by, among others, the Catholic Church.  The sparse, static dissonance of Voiceless Mass, which often hovered near the barrier between silence and sound, brought to mind images of a vast and empty desert.  The small ensemble (including electronic organ) was scattered around the hall so that the conductor was facing the audience.  Reith’s leadership was an example of astonishing concentration and control – earning a standing ovation. 

The evening’s final work, Edgard Varèse’s Amériques, had been presented by the orchestra in 2017, a performance that was recorded and released on the orchestra’s home label.  The work depicts the chaos of life in New York circa 1920, from the vantage point of someone who grew up in a small town in France.  Reith’s interpretation was harsher around the edges than that led by Welser-Möst six years ago.  Yet today’s world, in the aftermath of COVID, an attempted insurrection, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is harsher than it was before, so the performance was fitting. 

It’s doubtless reaction to the strife of the past decade that has led the Cleveland Orchestra to recently present so many works by composers who don’t fit into the “dead white male” category.  What they have demonstrated is that this music is worthy of multiple hearings.  I hope this trend continues.  After all, there is musical life beyond the endless repetition of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler cycles.