EUROPEAN TOUR

A preview, of sorts, of the Cleveland Orchestra's
four-city three-festival visit,
by KELLY FERJUTZ

With two regular concert seasons under the baton of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst now completed, the Cleveland Orchestra has embarked on a four-city, three festival tour of Europe to display their affinity for a rather mixed bag of music. One does not automatically think of Debussy or Mahler or Rossini or even Shostakovich when thinking of the splendid music-making regularly indulged in by this orchestra. The only really 'old-standby' composer represented on this trip is Haydn.

The most recent composer to be featured is the British Sir Harrison Birtwistle, whose Night's Black Bird was scheduled to receive its world première on Friday evening, 20 August 2004, in Lucerne, Switzerland. A second Birtwistle work, The Shadow of Night was also to be on the program. The Cleveland Orchestra, under former music director Christoph von Dohnányi, gave the world première of this piece in 2002. It has also been awarded The Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for best large-scale composition.

The tour schedule comprises one concert in Wiesbaden, Germany (19 August); three concerts in Lucerne (20, 21 and 22 August); three concerts at Usher Hall in Edinburgh (24, 25 and 26 August) and a final one -- for the first time ever -- in Dublin at the National Concert Hall on Friday 27 August 2004. Three basic programs are to be performed. Wiesbaden, Dublin, Lucerne (22 August) and Edinburgh (26 August) will hear Debussy's Jeux and Mahler's Symphony No 7 in E minor.

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