The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The Madison Symphony Orchestra sells out Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony tomorrow. Critic Greg Hettmansberger weighs in on the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. And NPR provides a terrific comprehensive look at the life and career of the late Italian conductor Claudio Abbado.

By Jacob Stockinger

FIRST, SOME LOCAL NEWS:

1. The Madison Symphony Orchestra has scored a SOLD-OUT HOUSE with its inaugural “Beyond the Score” performance of the “New World” Symphony by Antonin Dvorak (below) this Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall at the Overture Center. The official word comes from MSO marketing director Teri Venker.

That sellout –- the first in a while for the MSO, I think — bodes well for future success and repeat performances of the “Beyond the Score” format applied to different symphonic works.

Here are two other links to posts I did about the concert.

The first post describes what happens during the multi-media “Beyond the Score” format that was pioneered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/classical-music-the-madison-symphony-orchestra-will-unveil-its-first-beyond-the-score-multi-media-performance-of-antonin-dvoraks-popular-symphony-no-9-fro/

The second link is to a Q&A with MSO music director and conductor John DeMain (below, in a photo by Prasad) who discusses how the “Beyond the Score” format came about and how likely it is that future such concerts will be programmed by the MSO:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/classical-music-conductor-john-demain-takes-listeners-behind-the-scenes-of-the-madison-symphony-orchestras-inaugural-beyond-the-score-concert-of-dvoraks-popular/

All in all, The Ear is impressed with what seems a smart marketing move that will benefit the MSO (below), but will also attract new listeners and younger, inexperienced audiences. As for seasoned, symphony loyalists, the multi-media format sounds as if it will deepen anyone’s appreciation of the iconic work — or so DeMain promises.

But WHAT DO YOU THINK? Leave a comment that tells The Ear and the MSO.

2. A week ago Friday, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below top), under the baton of music director and conductor Andrew Sewell, (below bottom) turned in a superb performance as it opened the second half of the current season. I offered a review of my own and linked to a review by John W. Barker of Isthmus.

Here are links to those reviews:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/classical-music-the-wisconsin-chamber-orchestra-shows-its-impressive-mastery-of-many-musical-styles-in-a-concert-of-mozart-castelnuovo-tesdeco-and-bruckner-that-marks-again-just-how-superb-its-music/

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=41864

But unfortunately, I overlooked another very positive and very perceptive review by Madison Magazine’s experienced classical music blogger Greg Hettmansberger (below top). Here is his review of the WCO with its guest guitar soloist Ana Vidovic (below bottom) and its program of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Anton Bruckner.

http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Blogs/Classically-Speaking/January-2014/Wisconsin-Chamber-Orchestra-Goes-Big-Small-and-Just-Right/

Finally, as you may have already heard, Italian conductor Claudio Abbado (below) died this past week at the age of 80.

Earlier, I provided some links to stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Here they are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/arts/music/claudio-abbado-italian-conductor-dies-at-80.html?_r=1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/claudio-abbado-age-italian-conductor-who-led-european-orchestras-into-modern-era/2014/01/20/d23c267c-30f7-11e3-8627-c5d7de0a046b_story.html

But the best summary of Claudio Abbado’s career – which also included recommended recordings and even sounds clips from some of those recordings (include a symphony by Gustav Mahler and an opera  by Giacchino Rossini – came later, as it often does, on NPR’s outstanding classical blog “Deceptive Cadence.”

Here is a link that you how Abbado developed from a young man into a world-class star complete with compelling professional and personal information, including testimonials from musicians who loved performing under his direction of this refreshingly and even surprisingly humble and self-effacing master maestro.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/01/21/264506409/tracing-the-career-of-claudio-abbado-a-consummate-conductor

And here – to mark his passing — is Claudio Abbado’s memorial video on YouTube. He is conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is the lovely, bittersweet and pensive Adagietto movement from Mahler’s Symphony no. 5, the same piece of music that was memorably used as the soundtrack to the film of Thomas Mann’s famous novella “Death in Venice.”

If you have a favorite Abbado performance – operatic or symphonic – leave a comment to direct the rest of us: