The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This Thursday morning, WORT will broadcast a live performance of Gideon Klein’s String Trio, composed in a concentration camp, by three up-and-coming musicians from the Dynamite Factory of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following note from blog fan and local live music documentarian Rich Samuels, who hosts his radio show “Anything Goes” on Thursday morning on WORT–FM 88.9. It concerns an unusual performance of Holocaust music by a kind of apprenticeship program that The Ear really likes as a way for to provide continuity between different generations of musicians:
“At 7:26 a.m. on this Thursday morning, June 15, on my WORT broadcast I’ll be playing a performance of Gideon Klein‘s 1944 String Trio by violinist Misha Vayman, violist Jeremy Kienbaum and cellist Trace Johnson (below, from left, in a photo by Samantha Crownover).
“They are the three members of the “Dynamite Factory,” the three emerging musicians who have joined the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society for its 2017 season.
“I recorded this performance — thanks to co-artistic director Stephanie Jutt and executive director Samantha Crownover — last Thursday at an event at the Central Library of the Madison Public Library system.
Trace and Jeremy are Madison natives and alumni of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); Misha comes to Madison from the Russian Republic by way of southern California.
“I think it’s a compelling performance of a remarkable piece. It was the last work Klein (below) composed before he was transported from the Theresienstadt concentration camp to Auschwitz where, in a coal mining sub-camp, he died in early 1945.”
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Classical music: The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society opens its 26th season with a bang worthy of its name. Plus, TONIGHT the Willy Street Chamber Players open the summer season of the Rural Musicians Forum in Spring Green
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A REMINDER: Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Hillside Theater at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, six members of the Willy Street Chamber Players will open the summer season of the Rural Musicians Forum. The program features works by Johannes Brahms, American composer Charles Ives, and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. A free-will donation will be requested. The Hillside Theater is located at 6604 County Highway 23, Spring Green. For more information about the Rural Musicians Forum, go to: http://ruralmusiciansforum.org/home
By Jacob Stockinger
This guest review is by a new contributor, Kyle Johnson (below). As a pianist since elementary school, Johnson has devoted most of his life to music. Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, he is now a doctoral candidate in piano performance at the UW-Madison, where he studies with Christopher Taylor and specializes in modern and contemporary music. He participates in many festivals and events around the U.S. and Europe. Recently, he co-founded the Madison-based ensemble Sound Out Loud, an interactive contemporary music ensemble. For more information, visit: www.kyledjohnson.weebly.com
By Kyle Johnson
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society’s 26th season — themed “Alphabet Soup” for 26 letters — began on Friday evening at the historic Stoughton Opera House (below bottom) with a program of underprogrammed French, German and Russian works.
BDDS is led by artistic directors (below) Stephanie Jutt, UW-Madison’s newly-retired flute professor and principal flute of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and Jeffrey Sykes, pianist of the San Francisco Piano Trio who studied at the UW-Madison. The two musicians assembled a “dynamite” group of musicians for their opening concert.
First on the program was Médailles antiques (Old Medals) for flute, violin and piano from 1916 by Philippe Gaubert (below). Like the weather throughout the day on Friday, the piece provided a sunny and spry start to the program in the centennial year of World War I.
At times, I wanted the ends of phrases to have a little more stretch and grace to them. However, the richness of sound from each musician, as well as the ensemble’s superb blend, made up for any small qualm I may have had.
The next piece, Gideon Klein’s String Trio (1944), featured three “apprentice” musicians from BDDS’s Dynamite Factory. Violinist Misha Vayman (below top), violist Jeremy Kienbaum (below middle) and cellist Trace Johnson (below bottom) are the program fellows for this year’s series.
Striking about the work was Klein’s musical optimism amid stark reality – the piece was written at the Auschwitz concentration camp just a few months before the death of the composer (below).
The Dynamite Factory artists gave a spirited rendition of the weighty work, which at times resembles the rollicking intensity of Bela Bartok’s folk dances.
Before the intermission, the audience was treated to Sergei Prokofiev’s chilling Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80, for violin and piano. Like the preceding piece, Prokofiev’s sonata was written during the strife of World War II. (You can hear the first movement, played by Maxim Vengerov, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Prokofiev labeled one passage at the end of the first movement as “wind passing through a graveyard”; the passage (a series of quick violin scales) returns at the close of the piece. Under the hands of violinist Carmit Zori (below top) and pianist Jeffrey Sykes (below bottom), the sonata seemed both devastating and human.
A brief, unprogrammed presentation began the second half of the concert, which was a performance of “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from the oratorio Solomon by George Frideric Handel.
The work was lauded and produced by the Fourth Earl of Sandwich in the mid-1700s. Fittingly, during the music, characters clad in 18th-century attire roamed the Stoughton Opera House to hand out sandwiches.
Last on the program was Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26, played by violinist Zori; Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm (below top); Toronto Symphony principal cellist Joseph Johnson (below bottom); and pianist Sykes.
The quartet brimmed with musical swells and overlapping layers of sound. There are a number of memorable themes that allow the listener to simply ride the wave of sound throughout the 40-minute work.
All of the musicians were fully deserving of the ovation (below, in a photo by Kyle Johnson) they received in Stoughton, as all technical demands were met with superb musicality and passion.
Future BDDS concerts run through June 25 and are not to be missed! For more information about programs and about performers, performance dates, times and venues, go to www.bachdancing.org
Tags: 18th century, Adolf Hitler, Alberto Ginastera, alphabet, Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Arts, Auschwitz, Auschwitz concentration camp, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Baroque, BDDS, Brahms, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, contemporary, county, date, doctoral, dynamite, Earl of Sandwich, Europe, Extermination camp, festival, flute, Frank Lloyd Wright, French, George Frideric Handel, German, Gideon Klein, highway, Hillside Theater, Ives, Jacob Stockinger, Jews, Johannes Brahms, Kentucky, Kyle Johnson, Lexington, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Maxim Vengerov, modern, Music, New Music, oratorio, performance, performer, Philippe Gaubert, phrase, phrasing, Piano, Piano Quartet, Piano Trio, principal, professor, program, Prokofiev, rural, Russian, San Francisco, San Francisco Piano Trio, sandwich, Solomon, Sonata, Sound Out Loud, soup, Spring Green, Stoughton, Stoughton Opera House, Student, symphony, Taliesin, The Holocaust, time, Toronto, Toronto Symphony, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, venue, Viola, Violin, Willy Street Chamber Players, Wisconsin, World War I, World War II, YouTube
Classical music: The 26th season of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society chamber music festival opens this weekend with two programs in three locations
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society (BDDS) presents its 26th annual summer chamber music festival — Alphabet Soup — starting this weekend.
It will run from this Friday, June 9, through Sunday, June 25. The festival features 12 concerts over three weekends, and each weekend offers two different programs.
Concerts will be performed in The Playhouse at the Overture Center in Madison, the Stoughton Opera House in Stoughton and the Hillside Theater at Taliesin in Spring Green.
In the three-weekend festival, you can hear great classical masterpieces and fine contemporary works. A roster of musicians with national and international reputations will perform.
The venues are suitably intimate for chamber music: The Playhouse (below top) at the Overture Center at 201 State St.; the jewel box historic Stoughton Opera House (below middle) at 381 East Main St.; and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hillside Theater (below bottom) at Taliesin on County Highway 23 in Spring Green.
Added attractions include stories about the music, mystery guests and even door prizes. As BDDS puts it, “It’s chamber music with a bang!”
BDDS is led by co-artistic directors and performers flutist Stephanie Jutt (below right), who is principal flute with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and who just retired from the UW-Madison faculty; and pianist Jeffrey Sykes (below left), who graduated from the UW-Madison and teaches in Berkeley, California, where he is a member of the San Francisco Trio. Nineteen guest artists will also perform in the festival.
This season’s theme is Alphabet Soup, because it’s the 26th year and there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Each program is named after a combination of letters used in everyday language. Sometimes the musical interpretation of those letters is literal and sometimes it’s quite loose.
Musicians for Week One include three veteran string players: Naumberg Award-winning violinist Carmit Zori (below top); Madison’s very own violist Sally Chisholm (below middle) of the Pro Arte Quartet; and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s principal cellist Joseph Johnson (below bottom).
They will be joined by young artists who are participants in the newly formed Dynamite Factory, a BDDS program for nurturing and furthering the talents of three exceptional young musicians — violist Jeremy Kienbaum, violinist Misha Vayman and cellist Trace Johnson.
In one of two “sandwich” programs this weekend, PB&J, Carmit Zori will play the haunting Violin Sonata in F minor by Sergei Prokofiev and the program includes the heavenly Piano Quartet in A Major of Johannes Brahms.
The Dynamite Factory artists are featured in the emotional String Trio by Gideon Klein (below), a work he wrote at the Auschwitz concentration camp shortly before his death. (You can hear the trio by Gideon Klein in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
PB&J will be performed at the Stoughton Opera House on Friday, June 9, at 7:30 p.m.; and in Spring Green at the Hillside Theater, Sunday, June 11, at 2:30 p.m.
A second “sandwich” program, BLT, features the emotionally complex Cello Sonata (featuring Joseph Johnson) by Benjamin Britten (below top); all of the artists working together in the great “London” Symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn as arranged by Haydn’s contemporary and impresario Johann Peter Salomon (below bottom); and the beautiful string sextet “Souvenir de Florence” by Peter Tchaikovsky.
BLT will be performed at The Playhouse, Overture Center for the Arts, on Saturday, June 10, at 7:30 p.m. and at the Hillside Theater, Taliesin, Spring Green, on Sunday, June 11, at 6:30 p.m.
For the seventh year, BDDS will perform two FREE family concerts, interactive events intended for all ages.
One event takes place 11–11:45 AM, on Saturday, June 10, in The Playhouse of the Overture Center. The other will be at the Central Library Bubbler on this Thursday afternoon, June 8, from 4 to 5 p.m.
This is a performance for families with children of all ages and seating will be first come, first served. CUNA Mutual Group, Pat Powers and Thomas Wolfe and the Overture Center underwrite these performances.
Photos by Dick Ainsworth of BDDS performances and behind-the-scenes are on exhibit in The Playhouse Gallery through July 9.
Single general admission tickets are $43. Student tickets are always $10.
Tickets can also be purchased at Overture Center for the Arts, (608) 258-4141, www.overturecenter.org (additional fees apply). Tickets are available at the door at all locations.
For more information about the group, performers and programs, including audiovisual clips, go to: http://bachdancing.org
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Classical music: Here is an entertaining story about the American GI rifleman who fiddled for Josef Stalin, Harry Truman and Winston Churchill at Potsdam.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Nothing big today.
Or important.
Just a good old entertaining story about Stuart Canin (below), the American GI rifleman who suddenly got called on to play his violin for Josef Stalin, Harry Truman and Winston Churchill (below bottom) at the Potsdam conference right after the Allies’ defeat of Hitler‘s Nazi Germany during World War II.
More proof that you just never know when playing an instrument — or singing, for that matter — will come in handy.
This is the story as it was reported on NPR or National Public Radio:
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Arts, Chamber music, Classical music, Eugene List, fiddle, fiddler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, GI, Harry S Truman, Jacob Stockinger, Joseph Stalin, Music, NPR, Piano, Potsdam, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, rifleman, Violin, Winston Churchill, World War II
Classical music: The UW-Madison and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society will hold FREE events this coming Sunday to help bring neglected Jewish music and culture “out of the shadows” of history. Part 1 of 2.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear’s friends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and with the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society write:
The U.S. component of a major international research project, “Performing the Jewish Archive,” led by the University of Leeds, in England, has attracted significant funding to shine new light on forgotten works by Jewish artists.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison and the City of Madison are uniquely situated as the sole hosts for the project’s performance events within the United States; one of the premier public research-intensive universities in the world, located in a community that lives and breathes diverse arts, while striving for social change.
Here, in Madison, under the leadership of Teryl Dobbs (below top), Chair of Music Education at the UW-Madison, “Out of the Shadows: Rediscovering Jewish Music, Literature and Theater” will be a full-day event held on this Sunday, August 30, 2015. Local partners include the UW-Madison School of Music, Mosse-Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture, and the Arts Institute at UW-Madison; and the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society.
Here is a schedule:
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Events that are free and open to the public in Madison include:
- 12:20-2 p.m. | Sound Salon, Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture
Explore sound archives with Sherry Mayrent (clarinet) and Henry Sapoznik (tenor guitar, below) – both in a lecture and concert format. The Mayrent Institute holds over 9,000 Yiddish recordings from the first half of the 20th century.
UW-Madison School of Music – Mills Hall; 3561 Mosse Humanities Building, 455 N. Park St.
- 2:30-4:30 p.m. | Concert, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society
Six members of Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society will perform neglected and suppressed Jewish music from the early 20th century. (Details will be posted tomorrow.)
First Unitarian Meeting House, Atrium Auditorium (below, in a photo by Zane Williams), 900 University Bay Dr.
- 7-10 p.m. | Two-act Cabaret Evening – “Laugh With Us” and “I’m a Stranger Here Myself.” “Laugh With Us” is based on an original cabaret written by four young Czech Jews in the Terezin ghetto (below), staged by Minneapolis performers Sara Richardson, Ryan Lindberg, and Craig Harris, from research and with commentary by project co-investigator Dr. Lisa Peschel. “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” by New York actor Mark Nadler who will perform music written by French and German Jewish or gay (or both) songwriters during the age of the Weimar Republic.
Overture Center for the Arts, Promenade Hall, 201 State Street
Registration is required for the free events by visiting: http://eepurl.com/bttx_9
The Sunday, August 30 event will be the precursor to a longer event, which will run May 1–5, 2016, in Madison. This event will include the partners mentioned above as well as the UW-Madison Department of Theatre and Drama, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Madison Youth Choir.
ABOUT PERFORMING THE JEWISH ARCHIVE
The global project, Performing the Jewish Archive has been awarded $2.5 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), in England, under its Care for the Future: Thinking Forward Through the Past theme.
Led by Dr. Stephen Muir (below) of the University’s School of Music in Leeds, Performing the Jewish Archive will bring recently rediscovered musical, theatrical and literary works by Jewish artists back to the attention of scholars and the public, and stimulate the creation of new works.
A multidisciplinary team across four continents are focusing on the years 1880-1950 –– an intense period of Jewish displacement –– to explore the role of art in such upheaval.
The three-year “Performing the Jewish Archive” project involves a large number of partners, exploring archives, delivering community and educational projects, holding at least two international conferences and a series of symposia at the British National Library, as well as mounting five international performance festivals––in the United States (Madison, Wisconsin), the Czech Republic, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Says Muir: “We are a unique combination of scholars from a diverse range of subjects, crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries––even integrating scientific research methodologies at the heart of an arts-led investigation. We seem to have caught the imagination of a huge range of organizations––both Jewish and non-Jewish––all interested in the Jewish artistic past and how it impinges on all of our futures.”
Dr. Muir is joined by Co-Investigators Dr. Helen Finch, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds; Dr. Lisa Peschel, Film, Theatre and Television, University of York; Dr. Nick Barraclough, Psychology, University of York; Dr. Teryl Dobbs, Chair of Music Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Dr. Joseph Toltz, Sydney Conservatorium, University of Sydney; and Dr. David Fligg, Leeds College of Music.
More information can be found here:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/performing-the-jewish-archive/
TOMORROW: Members of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society discuss the music they will perform.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Arts, Australia, cabaret, Chamber music, clarinet, Classical music, Czech Republic, drama, England, French, Great Britain, guitar, Holocaust, Jacob Stockinger, Jewish music, Leeds, literature, Madison, Music, Nazi, South Africa, Terezin, theater, United Kingdom, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, Weimar Republic, Wisconsin, Yiddish
Classical music: Two MUST-HEAR chamber music concerts – one all-Schubert, the other by the Pro Arte Quartet with soprano Emily Birsan — are on tap this weekend at the UW-Madison School of Music ahead of Super Bowl XLIX. Plus, you can hear a FREE recital of flute music at noon on Friday.
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ALERT: This Friday’s FREE Noon Musicale, from 12:15 to 1 p.m. in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Landmark Auditorium at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature flutist Peiyi Guan and pianist Zijin Yao playing music by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Henri Dutilleux and Chen Yi.
By Jacob Stockinger
There are two really notable MUST-HEAR concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music this coming weekend.
And they come in a way that you can think of them as preludes to Sunday evening’s Super Bowl XLIX — that is 49 to us non-Latins — because they don’t interfere with the overhyped sports event.
FRIDAY NIGHT
On Friday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall is the second annual “Schubertiade” (below, a photo from 2014). It is a joyous evening of mixed musical genres that celebrates the birthday of Franz Schubert (below, 1797-1829), who used to unveil his new music at friendly social gatherings (below top). It all takes place on the informally set-up stage of Mills Hall (below bottom).
There will be many songs, of course, an art form pioneered by the most empathetic and human of composers. The songs will be performed by UW baritone Paul Rowe, soprano Cheryl Rowe and also many UW voice students. There will be chamber music (the famous “Arpeggione” Sonata) with guest cellist Norman Fischer (Martha’s brother, who will be performing with his sister in public for the first time and who teaches at Rice University in Texas) and with violinist Leslie Shank. Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes will also perform two pieces for piano-four hands.
Admission is $10 for the public; students get in for free. Tickets are available at the door and at the box office of the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Here is a link to the School of Music official announcement:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/schubertiade/
And here is a terrific story by arts reporter and features writer Gayle Worland for The Wisconsin State Journal. Particularly notable are the interviews with the event organizers and main performers — wife-and-husband team of UW professor and collaborative pianist Martha Fischer and local piano teacher and former Wisconsin Public Radio host and music director Bill Lutes.
And here is a review of last year’s Schubertiade that The Ear posted on this blog:
SATURDAY
Then on Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) will perform a FREE concert of music by Franz Joseph Haydn, Anton Dvorak and Arnold Schoenberg.
The special guest of honor is soprano Emily Birsan (below), a UW-Madison graduate who recently sang at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and whose first CD is about to be released on the Chandos label. (The recording is of the “Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf” by Sir Edward Elgar.)
The program includes the Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 71, No. 3, by Franz Joseph Haydn; the String Quartet in C Major, Op. 60, by Antonin Dvorak; and String Quartet No. 2 by Arnold Schoenberg that will also feature Emily Birsan. (The fourth movement of the Schoenberg quartet can be heard in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a link to the UW School of Music announcement that has a lot of impressive background for the up-and-coming Emily Birsan and the Pro Arte Quartet, which has its own dramatic story of exile from Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its invasion of Belgium, the Pro Arte homeland:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/pro-arte-quartet-2/
And here is a link to a profile of Emily Birsan, who was born in Neenah and attended Lawrence University in Appleton for her undergraduate degree as well as the UW-Madison for graduate work. Birsan is the cover story on the latest issue of the magazine “Classical Singer”:
http://www.classicalsinger.com/magazine/article.php?id=2813
PLEASE NOTE: The Pro Arte Quartet program will be REPEATED on Sunday afternoon at 12:30 pm.. this SUNDAY at the Chazen Museum of Art, which has started its own concert program. But the concert will NO LONGER be broadcast by Wisconsin Public Radio. However, you can stream it live by going to the Chazen website (www.chazen.wisc.edu) at 12:30 p.m.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Antonín Dvořák, Appleton, Arnold Schoenberg, art songs, Arts, Beautiful music, Belgium, Cello, Chamber music, Chandos, Chazen Museum of Art, Chicago, Classical music, Classical Singer, Compact Disc, Dutilleux, Emily Birsan, exile, Faure, flute, Frank Lloyd Wright, Franz Schubert, Germany, Haydn, Hindemith, Hitler, Jacob Stockinger, Lawrence University, lieder, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madison, Music, Nazi, Neenah, Piano, Pro Arte Quartet, Rice University, Robert Schumann, songs, soprano, stream, Super Bowl, Texas, Undergraduate degree, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin Union Theater, YouTube
Classical music: The Ear does some more catching up. This time he takes in the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO). Plus, here is more news from Day 4 of WYSO’s tour in Argentina.
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Here is the daily alert for the tour though Aug. 3 by Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) in Argentina. Here is a link to the latest news from Day 4: www.wysotour2014.blogspot.com
By Jacob Stockinger
As I said yesterday, The Ear is finally getting a chance to catch up on some old business, now that live concerts have quieted down a bit for a while.
Here is an overdue review.
MADISON AREA YOUTH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (MAYCO) EXCELS IN OLD MUSIC AND NEW MUSIC
On Friday, July 11, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) performed “Triumph and Delight,” the first of its two concerts this summer. This one was at the handsome new Atrium auditorium, with its bright acoustics, of the First Unitarian Society of Madison 900 University Bay Drive.
Founder and conductor Mikko Utevsky (below), who is currently a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, led the group through an intriguing program that include the Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major, by Franz Joseph Haydn; the “Reformation” Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn; and the world premiere of a “Experiment No. 1” by his fellow student, composer Olivia Zeuske.
The soloist in the Haydn Piano Concerto was UW-Madison graduate Thomas Kasdorf (below). The Ear recently heard him in the Romantic and evergreen Piano Concerto In A Minor by Edvard Grieg, played with the Middleton Community Orchestra. And the performance was impressive, so expectations were high.
And those expectations were both met and surpassed in the Haydn.
This was not, thank goodness, period Haydn. From what The Ear heard, Kasdorf made no attempt to scale back his part and treat the piano like some Classical-era fortepiano. Instead this was robust and rich Haydn, an interpretation that made Papa Haydn sound more alive than dead. The humor and tunefulness plus the effective, if sparing, use of dissonance, all came through convincingly and in a contemporary way.
Add in the orchestra’s careful attention to part-playing and to dialogue with the piano, and you had a performance that The Ear loved.
The work by Olivia Zeuske (below) proved highly atmospheric –- not exactly 12-tone or atonal, but not exactly not, either. For the most part, The Ear found it appealing, engaging and attractive.
But for The Ear, who admits to being a “tunes” guy, it could have used some kind of melody or motif that was recognizable and repeated. In addition the piece could use more distinctiveness among the three sections, so the structure guides your listening.
True, the very end did seem to build to some kind of climax, and you knew something was about to happen. But a lot of the rest of the piece seemed to have a tad too much lateral drift. A good statement or speech is not made by a series of “um”’s and “you know”’s and similar filler. And it takes more than sound to make music.
Still, The Ear thinks that she has a future and looks forward to hearing more from Olivia Zeuske.
The famous and familiar “Reformation” Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn was not weak except by comparison to the other performances. Some of it seemed a bit muddled, and The Ear wondered if it couldn’t have used more rehearsal time, which more likely went to working with the soloist and the world premiere. Still, the music carries itself in a great way.
Plus, it was set off and spotlighted by a stroke of genius and inspiration in programming. Utevsky opened the entire program with the chorale prelude-type arrangement by Johann Sebastian Bach for orchestra of the hymn by Martin Luther “Ein Feste Burg” (A Mighty Fortress is Our God”). (At bottom, you can hear an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski that sounds a bit Wagnerian and even “Parsifal”-like at the end because of the horns.)
That is the same Lutheran hymn that Mendelssohn, a Jew who converted to Christianity but was nonetheless banned from being performed under the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, used in the finale to his irresistible symphony.
Kudos, then, to this fine group of young up-and-coming musicians, who were warmly applauded by a good size audience of more than friends and family members.
It makes one look forward to MAYCO’s next concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 22. That’s when soprano Caitlin Ruby Miller (below) will join then in Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville, Summer 1915” with words by James Agee and music by Samuel Barber; the Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 90, by Dmitri Shostakovich; and the Overture to “The Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The advertised venue is Music Hall, though the Atrium auditorium and other venues are still being considered, so stay tuned. Tickets are an affordable $7 with students being asked to donate what they can.
The Ear says: Don’t miss it.
Tags: a cappella, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Adolf Hitler, Arts, Bach, Beethoven, Chamber music, Classical era, Classical music, Edvard Grieg, Felix Mendelssohn, Frank Lloyd Wright, Franz Joseph Haydn, Greig, Grieg, Haydn, Hillside Theater, Hitler, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Leopold Stokowski, Ludwig van Beethoven, Luther, Lutheranism, Madison, Mahler, Martin Luther, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Music, Music Hall, Nazi, Orchestra, Papa Haydn, Piano, Piano concerto, Schumann, song, songs, soprano, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Wisconsin Youth Symhony Orchtesras, WYSO, YouTube
Classical music: The Ear travels to many places and hears much exciting music, thanks to the closing chamber music concerts by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. Now he can’t wait to find out about next season and then the 25th anniversary season the following summer.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It has been a good summer for the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
Make that a GREAT summer.
It was all to mark its 23rd annual season, and mark it they did, in high style.
Thanks to BDDS, I wandered far and wide without ever leaving my seat. Here is what I did last Friday and Saturday:
I went to the movies.
And I found out that after almost a century, silent movies still work their magic. In the 1916 film “The Count” actor-director Charlie Chaplin is still brilliantly funny, and provokes loud laughs and astonished admiration for his physical pratfalls, his absurd no-win situations, his precise direction, his perfect timing, his stunts and his facial expressions.
Plus, it all happened during the duo-piano score of “Le boeuf sur le toit” (The Ox on the Roof) by Darius Milhaud and played with perfect timing and image-synching by Randall Hodgkinson and Jeffrey Sykes, who played complete with popcorn and a soda.
The Ear says “Do It Again” next summer and in the future. The mixed media event was terrific and informative entertainment.
What movies I didn’t see, I heard.
Take American composer William Hirtz’s Variations for Piano-Four Hands on Themes from “The Wizard of Oz.” From the title, it sounds goofy and too pop-like. It even seems a reach to call it classical music. But it proved an undeniably and impressively virtuosic piece for the duo-pianists Randall Hodgkinson and Jeffrey Sykes.
Fun was added by the appearance of Dorothy (BDDS executive director Samantha Crownover, below top) in her ruby slippers and one of the guards of the Wicked Witch of the West. How BDDS!
I went once again to South America, the geographical center of this BDDS season.
What took me there was the music, this time the Poem for Flute and Piano by an Argentinian named Angel Lasala (below). Never heard of him. Too bad for me. But NOW I have and am glad.
I also went there specifically through the flute, which, along with the guitar, seems the instrument of choice for the southern continent. (Remember the haunting use of the flute in “El Condor Pasa” – which would have made a great solo flute encore — and other Andean folk songs.) And it was played with such complete mastery by BDDS co-founder and co-artistic director flutist Stephanie Jutt (below) that she made a wind instrument sound percussive as well as lyrical.
I went to The Land Where Unknown Music Goes.
That is how I heard a great but neglected Trio for flute, violin and piano by Italian composer Nino Rota, more famous for his scores for movies by Federico Fellini than for his own chamber music, which is quite good. (Hollywood movie scores are getting more and more validity in the concert hall. Next season the Madison Symphony Orchestra will do a program with a lot of them written by exiles from Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.)
It is also how I heard neglected French composer Philippe Gaubert (below) through his rarely performed “Three Watercolors” for flute, cello and piano in which Jutt’s flute tone perfectly matched the idea of watercolor transparency and watercolor sensuality.
Even such a mainstream and popular composer as Maurice Ravel became more exotic, exciting and engaging with his Sonata for Cello and Violin with violinist Axel Strauss and cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau (both below) of the San Francisco Trio. It is fiercely difficult and thorny to play. Ravel worked on it for two years. The Ear thinks it is Ravel’s most modern and serious work, his most unusual sounding composition. So I have to listen to it again. It’s good to rediscover something old in a new way.
But I also went to the Land of Great and Unforgettable Music.
It also always good to hear familiar music and genuine masterpieces played superbly. And that is exactly what I heard in Anton Dvorak’s Piano Trio in F Minor, Op. 65, which too often takes a back seat to the more famous “Dumky” Trio.
And I don’t think I will ever hear a better performance — despite a snapped cello string that had to be replaced mid-performance — of Dmitri Shostakovich’s dark Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. It was forceful, whether biting or elegiac, and so impressed the animated audience that it — and not the more timid Gaubert — should have been the concluding work on the “Cut and Run” program. (You can hear the captivating Finale in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
We are one lucky city to hear the San Francisco Trio (below) in these works. The Ear, for one, can’t get enough of the threesome.
I don’t know what else to say except that even with the main concert season over, The Ear doesn’t think he will be making a lot of vacation plans in the future if they overlap with performances by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
And he suggests that you do the same.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Antonín Dvořák, Arts, Axel Strauss, Bach Dancing, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, BDD, BDDS, Cello, Chamber music, Charlie Chaplin, Classical music, Darius Milhaud, Dmitri Shostakovich, duo-piano, Dvorak, Dynamite Society, Federico Fellini, film, flute, Germany, Hollywood, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Maurice Ravel, movie, Nazi, Nazi Germany, Nino Rota, Philippe Gaubert, Piano, Piano Trio, Randall Hodgkinson, Ravel, Shostakovich, silent film, silent movies, Sonata, The Wizard of Oz, Violin, watercolor, William Hirtz
Classical music: Richard Strauss turned 150 on Wednesday. Was he or wasn’t he a Nazi at heart? Here is a Strauss quiz and excerpts from 10 works. What is your favorite Strauss moment or Strauss work?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Late Romantic composer Richard Strauss turned 150 on this past Wednesday. (He is seen below in a 1914 photo from the Hutton Archives and Getty Images.)
Yet Strauss remains something of an enigma.
Was he really a Nazi in his heart? Or just taken advantage of in his old age by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen?
How much do you know about Strauss?
And what pieces of his music do you like the most?
Maybe these links will help you decide.
The first is a puzzler or quiz from the Deceptive Cadence blog at NPR. The Ear found it tricky. See what you think.
And here is a link to audio samples of what the BBC Music Magazine deems 10 of the best moments on Strauss’ music.
http://www.classical-music.com/article/richard-strauss-150th-birthday-playlist
But The Ear asks: Why no waltzes or excerpts from the opera “Der Rosenkavalier,” which is one of his favorites? Listen to them performed brilliantly by conductor Daniele Gatti and the Gustav Mahler youth Orchestra at the 2012 BBC Proms concert series in the YouTube video at the bottom.
What is your favorite musical moment or passage or work by Richard Strauss?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Here is a sonic and visual “D-Day Symphony” to mark the event – as well as two moving pieces to honor the day and the dead. What music would you choose?
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IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, that deadly day – June 6, 1944 — when massive Allied forces (below, seen gathering on Omaha Beach) invaded the Normandy coast of France in Nazi-occupied Europe, beginning the liberation from Hitler’ Germany and the end of World War II.
In searching for music to mark the occasion, The Ear returned to two of the best pieces of memorial music he knows of and which are below: the “Nimrod” Variation from Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations, a piece that was used in Ken Burn’s celebrated TV documentary about World War II; and Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.”
It seems only fitting to the occasion to have works by an American composer and a British composer.
But in searching for music, The Ear also stumbled by chance across a little-known piece that uses a work by a French composer, which also seems fitting for the occasion and the day. It is a sonic and visual symphony of remembrance – a “D-Day Symphony,” if you will — that uses the second movement from the Symphony No. 3 by Arthur Honegger. It is in the YouTube video at the bottom.
The Ear hopes you also find the work moving and a welcome, if largely unknown, addition to musical remembrances for this historic event. Tell us what you think.
And if there is another work you would listen to while marking the anniversary of D-Day, please leave your comment along with the composer and title and, if possible, a YouTube link in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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