By Jacob Stockinger
Sequels are not just for books, movies and Broadway shows any more.
Classical music is also starting to generate them — centuries after the originals.
It may be hard to imagine writing sequels to masterpiece sonatas, chamber music, symphonies and concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Igor Stravinsky and others.
But in a kind of musical postmodernism, that’s what is being done with more and more frequency.
The composer Timo Andres (below top, in a photo by Tawny Bannister for The New York Times) wrote a piano concerto based on Beethoven for the great young American pianist Jonathan Biss (below bottom), who has performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Biss, along with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, has commissioned five piano concertos in the spirit of Beethoven’s five piano concertos.
And the great young American violinist Jennifer Koh (below top, in a photo by Loren Wohl for The New York Times) and her equally terrific recording partner, pianist Shai Wosner (below bottom) – who has performed several times in Madison with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra — have commissioned three sonatas based on the work of older composers from three modern composers.
But musicians and especially modern composers, including the important composer John Adams (below), have mixed feelings about such derivative projects.
Here is a fine story about the phenomenon of sequels that appeared in The New York Times:
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Archives
Blog Stats
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Mary Friedel-Hunt on What do you think of the… | |
music88 on Yunchan Lim’s Chopin etudes ar… | |
diacon2 on Who was the better pianist? Ma… | |
welltemperedear on Classical music: Madison Opera… | |
welltemperedear on Classical music: Was Bernard H… |
Tags
#BlogPost #BlogPosting #ChamberMusic #FacebookPost #FacebookPosting #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic #TheEar #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison #YouTubevideo Arts audience Bach Baroque Beethoven blog Cello Chamber music choral music Classical music Compact Disc composer Concert concerto conductor Early music Facebook forward Franz Schubert George Frideric Handel Jacob Stockinger Johannes Brahms Johann Sebastian Bach John DeMain like link Ludwig van Beethoven Madison Madison Opera Madison Symphony Orchestra Mead Witter School of Music Mozart Music New Music New York City NPR opera Orchestra Overture Center performer Pianist Piano post posting program share singer Sonata song soprano String quartet Student symphony tag The Ear United States University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music University of Wisconsin–Madison Viola Violin vocal music Wisconsin Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra wisconsin public radio Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart YouTube
Leave a comment