At 100, the Cleveland Orchestra May (Quietly) Be Americas Best

[elleng]

CLEVELAND — Sound the trumpets, peal the bells! The Cleveland Orchestra, which many consider one of the finest ensembles in the nation and the world, turns 100 this year.

But don’t necessarily expect the orchestra, which plays two soberly sensible programs at Carnegie Hall this week, to join the clamor. There is no major commissioning project, such as you might see from other orchestras; no nationally televised gala.

“It’s kind of an understated celebration,” said Gary Hanson, the ensemble’s executive director from 2004 to 2015, “and that is absolutely true to the Cleveland Orchestra’s character. It would rather not make noise. The quality of the performances is always supposed to be the loudest voice.”

Franz Welser-Möst, music director since 2002, elaborated: “We shouldn’t be celebrating ourselves. We should be celebrating the city and the community.”

To anchor the season, Mr. Welser-Möst devised the “Prometheus Project,” an exploration of Beethoven’s music. It included an educational venture involving some 250 students of the Cleveland School of the Arts. Orchestra members worked with students of dance, painting, photography and the like for six months, and 11 young musicians from the school were coached to join the ensemble in the season-opening performance of Beethoven’s overture to “The Creatures of Prometheus.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/arts/music/cleveland-orchestra-carnegie-hall.html?

[Ohiogal]

1. So great

to see them get some much deserved recognition

[Aristus]

2. I've been an admirer since I was a kid.

Their recording of "Siegfried's Funeral March" from Wagner's Götterdämmerung conducted by George Szell is the most masterful rendition of the piece I've ever heard.