The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Meet Kirill Petrenko, the unknown name who has just been appointed conductor of the famed Berlin Philharmonic.
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By Jacob Stockinger
His name is Kirill Petrenko -– not to be confused with conductor Vasily Petrenko in Liverpool, to whom he is no relation.
Chances are you have never heard his name.
Yet the Russian native Kirill Petrenko (below) has just been appointed to succeed Sir Simon Rattle as the music director and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, which is often seen as the finest and most prestigious orchestra in the world.
Petrenko sounds like a maestro who is worth getting to know.
And Tom Huizenga allows you to do just that in a terrific interview he did with a musician of the Berlin Philharmonic (below) about the new maestro who, it turns out, is publicity shy.
It appeared on “Deceptive Cadence,” the classical music blog that he writes and edits for NPR or National Public Radio.
It will be interesting to see what his initial concert programs and recordings are.
But while you wait, here is a link to the interview, which also includes some audio-video clips as samples of Kirill Petrenko’s music-making:
Tags: Arts, Bavarian State Opera, Beethoven, Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Cello, choral music, Classical music, Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Kirill Petrenko, Liverpool, London, London Symphony Orchestra, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Music director, NPR, Orchestra, Simon Rattle, Vasily Petrenko, Violin
Classical music: Let Us Now Praise – and rediscover — pianist and teacher extraordinaire Seymour Bernstein. The Ear wants his books about amateur music-making reprinted affordably and made into e-books. Plus, this morning at 11 a.m. you can hear and see, live and for FREE, UW-Madison alumna Brenda Rae Klinkert sing in a Richard Strauss opera in Munich.
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ALERT: Some local-related news came in too late to include yesterday.
This morning, UW-Madison School of Music alumna and Appleton native Brenda Rae Klinkert (BA, 2004 and seen below in costume) is singing with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in Richard Strauss’ opera “Die Schweigsame Frau” (The Silent Woman, 1935) and the performance is being broadcast LIVE on the Internet. You can watch the free audio-visual transmission at 11 a.m. via http://www.staatsoper.de/en/staatsopertv.html (Staatsoper.TV).
Please pass the word to any students and professors, friends and fans who might be interested in this opera and this performer. Adds local opera fan Dan Shea: “Brenda Rae currently is continuing a series of major breakthroughs in her operatic career, an amazing arc of success in Europe and the U.S. with major roles in major operas. Just take a look at her schedule at brendarae.com
“Personally, I’ve seen a lot of “Traviatas” all over the world, but hers at Santa Fe in the summer of 2013 was especially wonderful, and in a class by itself — as the reviews attested.”
By Jacob Stockinger
Yesterday I wrote about violinist Joshua Bell — a superstar who is both a renowned performer and a devoted teacher, all at the same time.
Today I want to write about someone who established a big performing career when he was young – but then walked away from it all at the same age Joshua Bell is right now, about 50, in order to devote himself to teaching, writing books and composing.
Chances are you haven’t heard about pianist Seymour Bernstein (below), or heard only a little bit if anything.
But it turns out that might all change, thanks to the movie star Ethan Hawke (below left with Bernstein on the right), who met Bernstein at a dinner party and ended up directing a documentary about Seymour Bernstein, who is now 87 years old and still active.
It happened especially after Bernstein help the screen-veteran Hawke to overcome his stage fright, which itself is a fascinating story.
It was also fascinating to read that Bernstein doesn’t think the concert world is the way for classical music to go today. He wants instead to recapture the joy of amateur music-making.
I read a great story about the movie and how it came about in The New York Times. Here is a link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/arts/ethan-hawke-films-seymour-an-introduction.html?_r=0
I got so intrigued that I tried to order some of his books by going to Amazon.com.
It turns out they are all out of print and some go for hundreds of dollars as rarities.
PLEASE NOTE A MISTAKE AND A CORRECTION: The Ear just got a post-posting correction to this error, for which he apologizes. If you go to a Reader Comment by Pru Palachek, you will find out that Seymour Bernstein’s books are indeed available — for a higher price — from a small music publisher, Manduca, in Portland, Maine. You can also visit Bernstein’s own website for more information. Just Google “Seymour Bernstein.”
Well, there is always the library. But being an avid amateur pianist, I would like my own copies to mark up and keep near the keyboard.
So I am hoping somebody can persuade Amazon to reissue them as both regular books and especially e-books. Maybe the success of the movie will help. Maybe Hawke’s fame will help.
And what I read isn’t hype.
It turns out The Ear knows someone who herself took some piano lessons from Seymour Bernstein and played for him. This pianist says Bernstein is all he is cracked up to be -– a cordial and kind man, an excellent teacher and an outstanding performer.
I did find some YouTube videos based on his books “With Your Own Two Hands.” At the bottom is the second of several that are all good and all whet your appetite for more:
In the meantime let us hope for two things:
1. That the movie, which might win some awards and garner a big audience, gets wide circulation.
2. That Amazon, or some other publisher, agrees to reprint the books in regular and e-book formats.
What do you know about Seymour Bernstein?
Did you ever heard him live or in recording?
Did you ever read his books or use his methods?
What did you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: amateur, amazon.com, Appleton, Arts, Bavarian State Opera, Bernstein, Brenda Rae, Classical music, Die Schweigsame Frau, documentary, e-books, ebooks, Ethan Hawke, film, Google, Jacob Stockinger, Joshua Bell, La Traviata, Leonard Bernstein, Maine, Manduca Music Publications, movie, Music education, New York Film Festival, New York Times, opera, Pianist, Piano, Portland, Richard Strauss, Santa Fe, Seymour Bernstein, stage fright, Verdi, YouTube
Classical music EXTRA: News flash – Famed German conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch has died at 89.
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By Jacob Stockinger
I especially loved his Schumann symphonies. (The first movement from Robert Schumann‘s Symphony No. 4 in D minor is in a YouTube video at bottom, with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting the Dresden State Orchestra.)
The German conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch always exuded a sense of proportion and rightness in the music he conducted. (Below is a photo from his younger years):
He was not a flashy maestro, but one who let the music do the talking and feeling for him.
And now Wolfgang Sawallisch (below) has died at 89 in his native Germany after a globe-spanning career that include major stops in the U.S., Japan and Great Britain as well as Europe.
Here is a link to an obituary in the Australian arts magazine Limelight, which is well worth following:
(Below is another photo of him conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times.)
And here is the obituary from the Associated Press:
And here is a long obituary-appreciation from The New York Times written by critic and blogger Anne Midgette (is she back at the Times from The Washington Post?)”
Finally, here is a noteworthy remembrance by the famed British critic Norman Lebrecht:
The Well-Tempered Ear 
New York Times critics choose 10 online classical music concerts to stream in February, starting this Thursday
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By Jacob Stockinger
As they have done for previous months during the coronavirus pandemic, the classical music critics for The New York Times have named their top 10 choices of online concerts to stream in February, which is also Black History Month, starting this Thursday, Feb. 4.
Also predictably, they focus on new music – including a world premiere — new conductors and new composers, although “new” doesn’t necessarily mean young in this context.
For example, the conductor Fabio Luisi (below) is well known to fans of Richard Wagner and the Metropolitan Opera. But he is new to the degree that just last season he became the new conductor of Dallas Symphony Orchestra and its digital concert series.
Similarly, the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg (below top, in a photo by Saara Vuorjoki) and the American composer Caroline Shaw (below bottom, in a photo by Kait Moreno), who has won a Pulitzer Prize, have both developed reputations for reliable originality.
But chances are good that you have not yet heard of the young avant-garde cellist Mariel Roberts (below top) or the conductor Jonathon Heyward (below bottom).
Nor, The Ear suspects, have you probably heard the names and music of composers Angélica Negrón (below top), who uses found sounds and Tyshawn Sorey (below bottom). (You can sample Negrón’s unusual music in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Of course, you will also find offerings by well-known figures such as the Berlin Philharmonic and its Kurt Weill festival; conductor Alan Gilbert; pianists Daniil Trifonov and Steven Osborne; violinist Leonidas Kavakos; and the JACK Quartet.
Tried-and-true composers are also featured, including music by Beethoven, Schnittke, Weber, Ravel and Prokofiev. But where are Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Handel? No one seems to like Baroque music.
Here is a link to the events with links and descriptions. All times are Eastern: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/arts/music/classical-music-streaming.html
Do you have other virtual and online concerts to suggest? Please leave details in the Comment sections.
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