Christmas with The Cleveland Orchestra

Though the inaugural concert of The Cleveland Orchestra took place in December, they did not include Christmas music until the following year. The concert on December 28, 1919, featured the “Pastorale” from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and an audience sing-along of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” in which the audience was “keenly receptive […].” “My, how it sang!” notes music critic Archie Bell.

Robert Porco leads the COC, TCO, and audience in “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” perpetuating tradition 88 years later.

However, the press promoted the 1919 program as a regular series “pop” [popular] concert rather than a Christmas special feature, and the music included non-holiday fare. The Orchestra performed from the same oratorio the next year with the first iteration of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. Still, holiday music was not a constant staple of December concerts or marketed to attract audiences for two more decades.

December 22, 1940, brought the first official Christmas program to Severance, though the performance still belonged to the Twilight Concert series. Associate conductor Rudolph Ringwall led the Orchestra through excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s familiar Christmas Oratorio, and Humperdinck’s prelude to Hansel and Gretel, among others. It was music “appropriately spiced with the spirit of Christmas,” rather than focused on now-familiar carols and tunes. Following this concert, holiday music typically appeared during December or New Year concerts, though an annual dedicated Christmas program still was not a guarantee. Perhaps visionary music director George Szell noticed that these occasional Christmas programs filled Severance to capacity and saw an opportunity to expand the Orchestra’s audience.

On Thursday, December 9, 1948, as Szell directed the chords of Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat, Severance plunged into darkness. The blackout was caused by a fire at the Lake Shore plant of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company—no one was injured, but two floors of the plant were damaged. While waiting for the lights to come back on, someone began to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and others started to join in, including members of the Orchestra. The hall resounded with renditions of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Silent Night,” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” When it became clear that power would not be restored, the rest of the concert was cancelled. Ticket stubs were honored at Saturday evening’s performance of the same program. This little anecdote proves audiences craved carols and would enthusiastically receive such music.

Robert Shaw leads the COC and TCO in “Et in terra pax” from Vivaldi’s Gloria in the 1965 Christmas program.

By the time associate conductor Robert Shaw joined The Cleveland Orchestra to helm the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus in 1956, newspapers had already labeled Christmas programs as a Cleveland tradition. However, Shaw’s programming ushered in a new idea of what holiday tunes were appropriate for the symphony: alongside Handel and Haydn came Leroy Anderson’s Christmas Festival, a poppy, light orchestral work. Shaw’s second Christmas program united Orchestra and the next iteration of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus – a collaboration that has continued in these holiday concerts every year with few exceptions. However, these Christmas programs still belonged to existing series, such as the Twilight Concerts.

Margaret Hillis conducts the COC and TCO in the first movement of Bach’s Magnificat, BWV 243 during the 1969 Christmas program.

When Margaret Hillis assumed the director of choruses position, the programming went back to more traditional classical Christmas tunes, as with her all-Bach concert on December 21, 1969. This performance implemented the first full program booklet for a Christmas concert, which introduced audiences to a picture of the fabled Severance wreath from Scope photography.  This wreath graces Severance annually — it has been in use every year since 1969 and wreath has been refurbished a couple of times.  About ten feet in diameter, it weighs so much that four people are needed to carry it out of storage and assemble it.

Robert Page took on the role of director of choruses after Hillis and brought back Shaw’s potpourri-style Christmas programming, and the holiday concerts flourished under his baton. The Cleveland Orchestra added a second Christmas concert in 1972, and the number of performances continue to multiply. Page also brought Handel’s Messiah to Cleveland audiences through his wildly popular sing-alongs. For more information regarding these events, see Michael Quinn’s blog in the Stories from the Archives collection.

Page, the COC, and TCO joyously introduce a 1978 Holiday Concert with the popular carol, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

Morrell leads TCO forces in Leroy Anderson’s ever-popular “Sleigh Ride,” as featured on a COC compilation CD.

As the Christmas programming grew under Page and the next director of choruses, Gareth Morrell, the holiday concerts introduced color-coded labels for slightly different repertoire depending on which concert a listener attends rather than repeating the same music and performing forces for each holiday concert. In addition to more conventional concerts, the Musical Rainbow Series (now Music Explorers) — an educational outreach program of The Cleveland Orchestra wherein Orchestra musicians and guests introduce children to instruments and styles — began to include Kwanzaa and Hanukkah programming in the 1990s.

The new millennium brought even more Christmas music to Severance and further solidified the concerts’ position as a beloved Cleveland tradition. Under the new director of choruses, Robert Porco, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus began selling compilation CDs of their Christmas concert recordings as a successful fundraiser for the ensemble, which became treasured and eagerly anticipated by their fans. In the early 2000s, Santa Claus started coming to Severance annually, though he had visited holiday concerts before.

Lisa Wong leads the chorus in Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque in 2021.

The holiday concerts at Severance only continued to grow in popularity and esteem in the past decade. Following a brief hiatus of in-person audiences for Christmas musicking due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, current director of choruses Lisa Wong triumphantly brought Christmas programming back to the Cleveland public in 2021, along with past Cleveland Orchestra associate conductor Brett Mitchell. Of the reunion of The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, one reviewer notes: “on its own, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful would have been beautiful, but context made it an even greater treasure.” This conducting duo will join forces again this December to bring another highly anticipated Holiday Concert series to the Cleveland public.

Krista Mitchell was the 2022–23 season archives research fellow. The fellowship is an opportunity for graduate music students from Case Western Reserve University to work with The Cleveland Orchestra Archives.