Historical Events of May 18
18 May
** 1900 – in a performance at a Budapest Benefit Concert. David Popper, cellist, was partnered by the composer Béla Bartók, piano. This was a benefit concert held at the Park Club, Budapest, for a proposed tuberculosis sanatorium. They performed:
Popper - Polonaise de Concert, Op.14 // Popper - Gavotte No.2, Op.23 // Popper - "Vito" // Rubinstein – Melodie // and Schumann: second movement from the Cello Concerto in A minor, Op.129
** 1911 - Willem Willeke performed J.S. Bach in Cleveland. The ‘Cleveland Plain Dealer’ reviewed:
“Mr. Willeke gave Bach’s sonata in D major for the violoncello alone… He produces a beautiful clear tone, and at certain moments in this work gave almost the impression of hearing a distant organ pealing its deep tones. From this manner to the light measures of the dance he passed with fluency and skill that pronounced him a master of the instruments, perhaps the best we have heard since Gerardy.”
** 1919 - cellist Juan Ruiz-Casaux was said to have given a masterly performance as soloist in Strauss - Don Quixote, in Lisbon
** 1921 – at a Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concert dedicated to the figure of violinist Adolf Busch, Paul Grümmer was cello soloist in the Beethoven – Triple Concerto (along with Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin - piano). Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and the Violin Romance in F Major completed the programme.
Conductor: Alexander Wunderer / Place: Musikverein, Golden Hall, Vienna
** 1949 - first performance of Poulenc - Cello Sonata, Op.143
Pierre Fournier/cello and the composer at piano (Salle Gaveau, Paris)
** 1953 – birth of Eugene Benjamin Bondi (U.S.A.) d.1992
Cellist and composer. He was the associate principal cellist in the Honolulu Symphony for six years, and taught for four years at the University of Hawaii. He composed this concerto for his student, Michael Lim, who performed it with the Honolulu Symphony in 1982. Michele Winter later created an arrangement for solo cello and string orchestra; then, believing that violists might enjoy adding this concerto to their repertoire, she created an arrangement for solo viola with string orchestra (the arrangements were made with the permission of the family of Eugene Bondi).
** 1954 – birth of Jacques Morelenbaum (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
cellist, arranger, teacher, musical producer and composer
** 1959 - on this day cellist Pierre Fournier made a live recording of Kodaly - Solo Cello Sonata, Op.8, for the Czech Radio in Prague
** 1962 - on this day cellist Enrico Mainardi made a live recording, of Pizzetti - Cello Concerto, with the Orchestra del’RAI, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
** 1979 - first performance of Alan Bush - Pro Pace et Felicitate Generis Humani, Rhapsody for cello and piano
Cathy Giles/cello and the composer at piano (British Bulgarian Friendship Society, Camden Town Hall, London)
** 1989 - first performance of Iannis Xenakis - Epicycle for cello and 12 instruments (London)
** 1993 - live first recording of Norberto Almandoz Mendizábal - Pequeña Elegía (Small Elegy) for Spanish National Radio by María Lourdes Lekuona/cello and Alejandro Zabala/piano
Church of Capuchinos, Renteria, Basque Country
** 1994 - live recording by Pilar Serrano/cello and Miguel Ángel Samperio/piano, for Spanish National Radio, of Legido González - Fantasía for cello and piano (1984). On the same programme they performed José María García Laborda - ‘Entre Deux III’ (1981), Francisco Otero Pérez - ‘Clamores de fondo en la escena de la decadencia’ (1994), Miguel Ángel Samperio - Sonata for cello and piano (1966, rev.1974), and Jesús María Legido González - ‘Confidencias’
San Luis de los Franceses, Madrid
