The Well-Tempered Ear
Too bad the Wisconsin Union Theater didn’t book a great pianist for next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
“We are living in a Golden Age of pianists,” famed concert pianist, Juilliard teacher and frequent Madison performer Emanuel Ax (below) has said.
He should know. But you would never guess that from the recently announced next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below).
The WUT has not booked a solo pianist for the 2022-23 season.
Here is a link to the lineup for the next season:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/
Is The Ear the only one who has noticed and is disappointed?
Who else feels bad about it?
After all, this is the same presenting organization that brought to Madison such legendary pianists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Percy Grainger, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Egon Petri, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, Claudio Arrau, Alexander Brailowsky, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Byron Janis, Misha Dichter, Peter Serkin, André Watts, Lili Kraus and Garrick Ohlsson
It is the same hall (below) in which The Ear has heard Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Valentina Lisitsa, Andras Schiff, Joyce Yang, Yefim Bronfman, Jeremy Denk, Ingrid Fliter, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Simone Dinnerstein, Wu Han and so many other great and memorable names including, of course, Emanuel Ax.
What a history!
As you can see and as The Ear likes to say, the Wisconsin Union Theater is “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.” For over 100 years, it is where the great ones play.
One irony is that many of those former bookings of pianists took place when the University of Wisconsin School of Music had many more pianists on the faculty and provided a major alternative venue for piano recitals.
Another irony is that so many young people take piano lessons (below) and are apt to want to attend, probably with their parents, to hear a live professional concert piano recital. You would think the WUT would also see the advantages of having such community outreach links to the public and to music education, especially since the WUT has hosted Open Piano Day for the public. (See the YouTube video of a Channel 3000 story in February 2020 at the bottom.)
From what The Ear reads, there are lots of up-and-coming pianists, many affordable names of various winners of national and international competitions. They should be affordable as well as worthy of being introduced to the Madison public.
But that seems a mission now largely left to the Salon Piano Series.
Plus, so many of the new pianists are young Asians who have never appeared here, which should be another draw for the socially responsible and diversity-minded WUT.
But that is another story for another day.
What do you think of the WUT not presenting a solo pianist next season?
Maybe there will be a pianist booked for the 2023-24 season.
What pianists would you like see booked by the WUT student programming committee?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Union Theater announces its new season featuring Renée Fleming’s postponed concert on Oct. 24
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement with the lineup for next season’s concerts at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below top, with a photo of Shannon Hall below bottom), which he calls “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.”
The upcoming season of the Wisconsin Union Theater features eight performances, including a rescheduled performance on Oct. 24 by world-renowned vocalist Renée Fleming (below), who was previously scheduled to perform May 2, 2020, as part of the 100th Concert Series but had to cancel because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fleming recorded a special message for Wisconsin Union Theater patrons: https://youtu.be/V1B4L2KFUls.
During the 101st Concert Series, patrons will have the opportunity to attend performances by the following artists. Click on the links and names to find out more:
- Oct. 3, 2020 – Room Full of Teeth (below in a photo by Bonica Ayala)
- Oct. 24, 2020 – Soprano Renée Fleming
- Nov. 7, 2020 – Cellist Camille Thomas (below in a photo by Dan Carabas)
- Dec. 11, 2020 – Pianist Jeremy Denk (below, in a photo by Shervin Lainez)
- Jan. 29, 2021 – Verona Quartet (below in a photo by Dario Acosta)
- Feb. 28, 2021 – Meccore Quartet (below in a photo by Arkadiusz Berbecki)
- April 15, 2021 – Brentano Quartet (below in a photo by Juergen Frank)
- May 1, 2021 – Sō Percussion with Caroline Shaw (below in photos by Stefan Cohen, top, and Kait Moreno)
All programs are subject to change. The WUT team will announce when subscriptions and single-event tickets, along with prices, will become available for purchase at a later date.
The Wisconsin Union Theater’s Concert Series is one of the oldest uninterrupted series of its kind in the United States and has brought such talented artists as pianists Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz, violinists Fritz Kreisler and Itzhak Perlman, and pianists Vladimir Ashkenazy and Claudio Arrau to Madison.
The Wisconsin Union Theater holds numerous arts events throughout the year and has provided cultural experiences for community members and visitors for more than 75 years.
The student-led Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) Performing Arts Committee plans many of the Wisconsin Union Theater’s events, including the Concert Series.
More information — including ticket prices and programs — about the Concert Series and other 2020-21 Wisconsin Union Theater events will be made available soon at uniontheater.wisc.edu and on the Wisconsin Union Theater Facebook page.
Tickets purchased for Fleming’s May 2, 2020, performance are valid for the Oct. 24, 2020, performance.
Violinist Gil Shaham (below), who was to perform March 28, 2020, as part of the 100th Concert Series season will instead perform as part of the 2021-22 Wisconsin Union Theater season. Ticket holders for Shaham’s previously scheduled performance date are receiving refunds.
The upcoming year of programming will undoubtedly bring new challenges, and the Wisconsin Union team will continue to make decisions with the health and safety of team members and patrons in mind while providing experiences for a lifetime.
While Memorial Union and Union South remain closed to the public until further notice, the Wisconsin Union continues to provide support services, such as Meals To-Go, and online events and activities.
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Classical music: Who are the best pianists of all time? And which ones do you think were left off the list by Classic FM?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The British radio station and website Classic FM recently published its list of the 25 greatest pianists of all time.
Plus, the website also included samples of the playing where possible.
It is an impressive list, if pretty predictable — and heavily weighted towards modern or contemporary pianists. You might expect that a list of “all-time greats” would have more historical figures — and more women as well as more non-Western Europeans and non-Americans, especially Asians these days.
Here is a link:
http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/best-pianists-ever/
So The Ear started what turned out to be a long list of others who should at least be considered and maybe even included.
Here, then, is the question for this weekend: What do you think of the list? Which pianists do not belong on the list? And which are your favorite pianists who are not included in the compilation?
Leave your candidate or candidates in the COMMENT section with a link to a YouTube link of a favorite performance, wherever possible.
Happy listening!
Tags: Alfred Brendel, America, American, Argerich, Arrau, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Artur Rubinstein, Ashkenazy, asian, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Chamber music, Clara Schumann, Classic FM, Classical music, Claudio Arrau, concerto, contemporary, Daniel Barenboim, England, Europe, European, Franz Schubert, Glenn Gould, great, Great Britain, histiry', historical, Horowitz, Jacob Stockinger, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John Ogdon, Lang Lang, Leif Ove Andsnes, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Maria Joao Pires, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, modern, Mozart, Murray Perahia, Music, Myra Hess, Orchestra, Pianist, Piano, Radio, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Rachmaninov, Sexism, sexist, Sonata, Stephen Hough, Sviatoslav Richter, time, UK, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Western Europe, Western European, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, women, YouTube
Classical music: A second photograph of Chopin has been discovered. Here it is along with how it was found and what it tells us
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By Jacob Stockinger
A conservative musician who admired and valued the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart above that of Ludwig van Beethoven and his own contemporaries, Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) is one of the most popular and most played of all Romantic composers.
He remains a perennial favorite of audiences, students and concert artists. Witness the recent sold-out concerts featuring Chopin’s music by Trevor Stephenson at his home and by Adam Neiman at Farley’s House of Pianos. An amazingly high percentage of Chopin’s works remains in the active repertoire.
His was no belated posthumous fame, either. Chopin, the famous Polish pianist-composer who was exiled in Paris, was well-known and widely respected in his own lifetime by the public and by other famous composers and pianists such as Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann.
Yet despite many drawings and paintings of Chopin – often at odds in their depictions — until recently only one known photograph of Chopin existed: The familiar one taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in Paris towards the end of Chopin’s life, just months before he died of tuberculosis at age 39 in 1849.
Now a second photograph — or daguerreotype, to be exact — has been discovered. It probably dates from 1847 or so.
Here is the new photographic portrait of Chopin:
Want to know some background?
Here is the story from Poland via The Washington Post and the Associated Press:
https://etsuri.com/articles/a-rare-unknown-photo-of-frederic-chopin-probably-found
Here are the two known photographs side by side for comparison:
http://www.businessinsider.com/only-2-known-photos-of-chopin
And here is a terrific blog analysis of the two photographs that also discusses his late music and what the photographs tell us about Chopin:
http://jackgibbons.blogspot.com/2010/03/chopins-photograph.html
The Ear wonders how long it will be before we start seeing the new photograph of Chopin on CD jackets and liner notes.
In any case, as an homage, here is Chopin’s last composition, the archetypically Polish form of the Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4, played in a YouTube video by Vladimir Ashkenazy :
Tags: Adam Neiman, artist, Arts, Ashkenazy, audience, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Classical music, Compact Disc, composer, Composition, Concert, conservative, daguerrotype, exile, fame, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, mazurka, Mozart, Music, Paris, photo, photograph, Piano, Poland, Polish, repertoire, Schumann, students, Trevor Stephenson, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
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