The Cleveland Orchestra has launched its second set of TCO Classics Concerts, all free and all on-demand.
New collection centers around acclaimed Prometheus Project, the Orchestra’s 2018 festival in which Franz Welser-Möst examined Beethoven’s music through the metaphor of Prometheus
The program includes video overview from Cleveland Orchestra Chief Artistic Officer Mark Williams, video collaboration featuring orchestra members and students from Cleveland School of the Arts, pieces celebrating the life of modern-day Promethean hero Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and audio recordings of Franz Welser-Möst leading the orchestra in all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, four Beethoven overtures, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge at Severance Hall
In addition to audio and video recordings, the second edition of TCO Classics features exclusive written content available on clevelandorchestra.com/
The Cleveland Orchestra has launched its second collection of concert audio recordings on TCO Classics, featuring performances recorded live at Severance Hall during the Orchestra’s celebrated Prometheus Project — a festival dedicated to the exploration of Ludwig van Beethoven’s music that closed out the ensemble’s Centennial Season in 2018.
The TCO Classics series of free, on-demand concert recordings offers music-lovers around the world a new opportunity to enjoy great performances from the Orchestra’s extensive archives. Selected from across six decades of live concert recordings, the series can be listened to at clevelandorchestra.com/
With this set of concerts, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst provides a renewed interpretation and perspective on many of Beethoven’s groundbreaking works, rooted in a studied understanding of the composer’s philosophy of politics and art. The Prometheus Project examines Beethoven’s music through the metaphor of Prometheus, a daring Greek Titan who defied Zeus to bestow the gift of fire on humanity. For Beethoven, this gift of fire represented the beginning of human civilization, the spark of creativity that has powered the imagination of generations, the warmth of justice and goodness, the fight for right and individual freedoms. Although these concerts were a celebration of Beethoven’s genius paired with the incomparable artistry of The Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst, they also ask us to re-examine familiar music in the context of what it means in today’s challenging times.
“With The Prometheus Project, we explored Beethoven’s thinking behind writing these works, at his belief in humanity’s betterment, at what he wrote inside of his music, and between the notes,” says Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst.
“I used the story of Prometheus as a metaphor and lens for what Beethoven was writing, not just in his symphonies, but across his lifetime, and throughout all of his music. With Prometheus as a focus, with this earnest and thoughtful approach, we engage in a new way with audiences. When studying an exceptional figure like Beethoven, it is essential that we constantly look at new approaches to his work, to enliven and deepen our understanding of his genius.”
For this second collection in the TCO Classics series, Cleveland Orchestra Chief Artistic Officer Mark Williams not only showcases these extraordinary concerts, featuring Welser-Möst leading The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall in all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, four Beethoven overtures, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, but he also extends the theme of Promethean hero by including a pair of performances from one of the ensemble’s recent celebrations honoring modern-day hero Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — selecting memorable presentations of Mendelssohn’s “Lord God of Abraham” with bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings. In addition, Williams highlights the Promethean spark of creativity in youth by including a collaborative video featuring students from the Cleveland School of the Arts and Cleveland Orchestra musicians. This grouping of performances is accompanied by a video overview from Williams, an updated curriculum for students focusing on Prometheus in today’s world, and exclusive written content exploring Beethoven’s music and worldview.
“The Prometheus Project was a major initiative across our Centennial Season,” says Cleveland Orchestra Chief Artistic Officer Mark Williams. “The festival’s thoughtful examination of Promethean heroes makes this an important time to revisit these concerts and the subject of hero making. These are extraordinary performances that will provide listeners with room for reflection as we live in a time when we have to be our own heroes to make the world better.”
