The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The UW Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra deliver outstanding performances of great music by Mozart and Brahms | December 12, 2017
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. Barker also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
The program for the first concert this season by the UW Choral Union (below), mercifully, had nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas, and just offered great music.
There were only two works, one by Brahms and the other by Mozart. Surefire!
Johannes Brahms composed three relatively short works for chorus, without soloists, and orchestra. Of these, I wish conductors would get busy with two of them in particular. The Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates) and Nänie are simply superb works by one of the greatest of all choral composers.
The third, the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op. 54, I would rate just a bit lower for musical content, but that is the one of the three that is more frequently performed, and that was the one we heard.
That said, there is much quite beautiful music in the piece, which sets a poem of Friedrich Hölderlin that moves from anxiety to desperation. Brahms (below) preceded the choral setting with a serene introduction that—to satisfy his aesthetics if not the poet’s—he repeats at the end to restore order.
Conductor Beverley Taylor (below) employed rather broad tempos, but this enabled her to bring out some of the melodic material with great beauty.
And, with a chorus of some 124 singers, she was able to give the music tremendous sonority, if a bit at the price of German diction. With the very good UW Symphony Orchestra in fine fettle, too, this was an excellent performance that should alert listeners to neglected treasures.
The main work was the unfinished “Great” Mass in C minor, K. 427, by Mozart (below). This is music inspired by the composer’s marriage and by the new (for him) artistic climate of Vienna. Even incomplete – it has a fragmentary “Credo” and is missing an “Agnus Dei”) — it still stands, with his also uncompleted Requiem, as a towering masterpiece of his sacred choral output.
Taylor displayed a fine feeling for both the overall and individual qualities of the work, projecting them with vigor and discipline.
There were four student soloists (below), with promising young voices.
But eventually the standout proved to be soprano Sarah Richardson (below). The operatic-style aria, “Et incarnatus est” from the “Credo” was apparently sung by Mozart’s wife in its preliminary performance, and is often heard as a separate solo number today. This was sung by Richardson (below) with skill and eloquence. (You can hear the aria in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
This chorus was really a bit oversized for a work like this, but Taylor made it the real star of the performance, in singing with both power and precision.
A truly rewarding concert!
Tags: aesthetic, Agnus Dei, American Record Guide, anxiety, aria, artistic, Arts, beautiful, Beverly Taylor, Cello, choral music, Christmas, Classical music, climate, composer, content, Credo, critic, desperation, diction, discipline, Early music, eloquence, emeritus, esthetic, feeling, fettle, fine, fragment, German, great, History, Holiday, incomplete, individual, introduction, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, lecture, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Marriage, mass, masterpiece, material, Medieval, melodic, melody, Mozart, Music, musical, Nanie, opera, operatic, Orchestra, order, output, photo, photograph, piece, poem, poet, power, precision, preformance, professor, quality, Requiem, restore, review, rewarding, sacred, Season, serene, setting, short, singer, skill, soloists, Song of Destiny, Song of the Fates, star, Student, superb, Tempo, towering, unfinished, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Choral Union, UW Symphony Orchestra, Vienna, vigor, Viola, Violin, vocal music, voice, wife, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
[…] Emeritus history professor John Barker had this to say about our fall Choral Union performance of Mozart’s Great C Minor Mass and Brahms’ Schicksalslied. “An excellent performance that should alert listeners to neglected treasures,” he wrote in The Well-Tempered Ear. Read the review here. […]
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Pingback by Meet New Faculty, Part 2; New Laura Schwendinger CD; “Schubertiade” Jan. 28; Calling All Oboists, Bassoonists, and Clarinetists | A Tempo! — December 14, 2017 @ 11:51 am
One thing that any critic should be able to get right is facts. This reviewer always seems to be out in right field. He complains about Mozart’s “Great Mass in C: that ” This chorus was really a bit oversized for a work like this, but Taylor made it the real star of the performance…. .”
He doesn’t seem to realize that almost all recorded versions of this require and use very large (double) choirs). To quote but one of many knowledgeable sources, the San Francisco Choral Society, writes “With its magnificent and mighty choruses, sensuous and ornate solos, large orchestral and solo instrumental segments, the Mass in C Minor was unlike any church music of its time….” Obviously too, the director of choirs at UW would want to use all the forces at her disposal in such a large scale work. Shouldn’t a reviewer know such things?
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Comment by fflambeau — December 12, 2017 @ 12:20 am