The Well-Tempered Ear
Revisit historical and forgotten pianists with Mark Ainley’s ‘Piano Files’
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By Jacob Stockinger
Who were Jascha Spivakosky, Gitta Gradova, Wilhelm Backhaus, Marcelle Meyer, Benno Moisiewitsch, Guitar Novaes (below), Eugen Indjic and Solomon — pianists from Russia/Ukraine, the United States, Germany, France, England, Brazil, Serbia/US and England, respectively?
Who was the Polish-American Josef Hofmann (below) and why did Sergei Rachmaninoff and others consider him the greatest pianist of his day while others considered him — and still do — dangerously radical?
Why was the early death of Dino Lipatti (below) such a major loss for classical music?
Most of all: How did these performers play the piano? What made them special? And what did they sound like?
Just ask Mark Ainley (below).
Ainley’s online Piano Files goes back to the earliest days of recordings and resurrects forgotten virtuosi on Facebook and the web.
His frequently posts entries — often on birthdays or anniversaries of deaths and certain concerts — offers concise, well researched and well-written summaries of their lives and careers.
And he finds the best surviving or available recordings by those pianists — usually on YouTube or reissued CDs and LOPs (below) — and links to them so you can hear differences and decide for yourself.
For example, The Ear found the 1930 recording of Chopin mazurkas that Polish pianist Ignaz Friedman (below) recorded (on YouTube at the bottom) quite revealing about historical stylistic and rhythmic differences — freer rubato and hands not always played together — compared to more mainstream interpretations by, say, Arthur Rubinstein or Vladimir Horowitz or Martha Argerich.
You can also learn much about the Big Names, including pianists who studied with students Chopin and Liszt. Ainley celebrates well-known piano virtuosi like Rubinstein, Horowitz, Gina Bachauer, Claudio Arrau, Jorge Bolet and Dame Myra Hess as well.
Ainley’s Piano Files save you a lot of time and searching on your own, and are available for you to subscribe to for downloads and sharing on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ThePianoFilesWithMarkAinley
You can also go to his online website — which I prefer — and bookmark it if you like. There is a lot to explore, to read and listen to. The archives of past entries go back to March of 2011:
https://www.thepianofiles.com/author/Mark
And here is email if you have or a tip or suggestion for Ainley, or a reaction to his site and his written and recorded postings:
What do you think of the Piano Files?
Do you learn anything from them?
Will you use them and enjoy them?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Will you help revive the UW Choral Union?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Soprano Janet Murphy was a longtime and enthusiastic participant in the UW Choral Union.
(You can see it below performing Ralph Vaughn Williams’ “A Sea Symphony” under former director Beverly Taylor during its inaugural appearance with the UW Symphony Orchestra in Hamel Hall. At the bottom you can see and hear the UW Choral Union singing “He Watching Over Israel” from Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” 12 years ago in Mills Hall).
In the wake of the Choral Union being ended by former music school director Susan C. Cook this past summer, many participants were outraged and disappointed that the campus-community group would no longer exist.
Among them, Murphy formed a support group, Friends of the Choral Union, and met in person with the new director of the UW School of Music.
Murphy now seems optimistic that the Choral Union can be revived — IF there is enough public support.
She sent the following appeal and asked The Ear to post it:
A message from Friends of the UW Choral Union:
As many of you know, the UW Mead Witter School of Music decided to disband the Choral Union after 130 years. They have heard a great deal from the community about that!
Dan Cavanagh, the new director of the School of Music, has graciously offered to hold a conversation with the community this Monday evening.
He seems open to re-establishing the Choral Union if there is a lot of support for that.
It’s now or never for classical music lovers and fans of the Wisconsin Idea to show the School of Music that we want the Choral Union back.
We need many hundreds of fans to come.
A big turnout will mean as much as anything we say.
Please…
Bring your family and friends
Post on social media
Email broadly
A conversation with Dan Cavanagh (below top) and Director of Choral Activities Mariana Farah (below bottom) will take place this Monday October 23, 7-8:15 p.m. in Hamel Music Center, Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, 740 University Ave.
That’s where the UW Choral Union overfilled the 660-seat concert hall last April. Let’s fill the hall again!
Editor’s note: If you are looking for background, here are the previous stories dating back to the announcement of ending the Choral Union in June. It is also telling to read the many comments from participants and the public:
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Online playlists return to Wisconsin Public Radio
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By Jacob Stockinger
Good news!
News that deserve a big shout-out!
Online playlists for classical music programming have returned to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).
The user-friendly move comes after more than a year of absent playlists and, fortuitously, as WPR is conducting a spring membership drive seeking financial support from the public.
There is one major drawback: You still can’t check on pieces and performances in real time — that is, on the same day or even the same moment as you are listening. Now you have to wait until the next day to see the posting.
That is an unfortunate change from the past. And one hopes it will be fixed soon. Maybe WPR will even let listeners know if and when real-time postings will return.
The current one-day delay seems especially odd, given that the pieces played overnight on WPR — from Minnesota Public Radio, I believe — are posted right as they begin to air.
But at least now we don’t have to wait weeks or months to find out information about something you have probably already forgotten about.
The new format seems less straightforward and less user-friendly than the old one, which put the information right in front of you when you went to the home website and clicked on playlists for News and Music Network.
But now you just go to the date bar and choose the day you are looking for. Once you find the piece, you will notice the name of the show on which it aired such as “Morning Classics” or “The Midday.” You also find the time with the composer, title and performer.
If you also click on “More,” you will see additional details such as the record label and catalogue number. Here a link to try it out:
Home
The return of the playlists is especially useful now that WPR is programming so many neglected composers and so much unfamiliar music — something the current pledge drive seems to be explaining and emphasizing.
So let’s offer hearty congratulations and sincere thanks to WPR and its engineers for the move.
What do you think of the return of WPR playlists?
Have you used the new playlists?
What do you think about their usefulness and online display?
Should WPR playlists be posted in real time?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Is it pretentious for the NFL to use Roman numerals for the Super Bowl?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today — Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023 — is Super Bowl LVII.
Or as we say in ordinary English — “57.”
(It airs at 5:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Fox.)
The Ear thinks it is pretentious for the NFL to use Roman numerals, which are esoteric and incomprehensible to many members of the public.
Does anyone else think so?
Using the Roman numerals in sports also seems unpractical.
Imagine the NBA using the same antiquated number system to record LeBron James’ new record for a lifetime basketball score — 33,388 points. According to Google, it would be XXXIIICCCLXXXVIII.
How convenient! And silly, no?
It seems the same kind of pretentious authenticity The Ear hears too often in Classical music where authentic foreign pronunciations often seem a sort of status symbol that says “Look at what I know and you don’t, but should.”
Not exactly the kind of effort at reaching out that classical music needs to draw bigger and younger audiences.
It’s like when non-Hungarian, American speakers say “Budapesht” when in English it is simply Budapest. And this often comes from the same people don’t usually say München for Munich, or Roma for Rome, or Paree for Paris.
Can American speakers just speak plain American English for the sake of clarity and simplicity?
And can the NFL just use either English numbers or, like the Olympics, the year to show which competition it is?
Anyway, despite such preciousness and pretentiousness, we can enjoy today’s 57th or 2023 Super Bowl championship game in Phoenix between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Here’s another easier equivalency: a beautiful long pass and a beautiful javelin throw.
Which why The Eater is offering the classical music piece “Javelin” in the YouTube video at the bottom, played by Yoel Levi conducting the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.
Written on commission for the Atlanta Olympics by the Wisconsin-born composer Michael Torke, it soars with a grace and an energy that is made all the more understandable and moving for its lack of words and numbers.
Whatever quarterback does it, winner or loser, here’s to the thrower of the most beautiful pass today.
What do you think of the music? And of the comparison between passing a football and throwing a javelin?
And what do you think about using Roman numerals is sports and foreign pronunciations in classical music
The Ear wants to hear.
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Superstar maestro Gustavo Dudamel to leave LA for the New York Philharmonic
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By Jacob Stockinger
It will probably be the biggest music news story of the year, perhaps even the decade.
Gustavo Dudamel (below), the Venezuelan-born maestro of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will become the music director of the New York Philharmonic starting in 2026.
The news was announced late yesterday afternoon on both coasts. The New York Philharmonic post is probably the most prestigious music post in the United States, a podium once occupied by Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta and Kurt Masur.
In what one imagines is a very, very expensive coup — the financial terms were not disclosed — the New York Philharmonic recruited the 42-year-old superstar maestro who is known for giving passionate and fiery performances and for innovating music education programs, both of which have brought in bigger and younger audiences.
He also built a reputation for championing new music, Latin music and musicians of color. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Dudamel conducting Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, a Latin American piece he made famous and which is now often used by other orchestras on full programs or as an encore. In the video, he is conducting the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra, the senior orchestra of “El Sistema” and the post that Dudamel held before heading to Los Angeles.)
Dudamel has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic more than two dozen times. The musicians there have greeted him warmly and enviously, especially since their CEO Deborah Borda originally signed Dudamel to the Los Angeles post in 2009 when he was 26.
Born into a musical family, Dudamel himself became a professional musician by rising through the ranks of “El Sistema,” the national youth music organization in his native country. He studied violin and composition before turning to conducting with global success and fame.
In Los Angeles he has been nominated for and won many Grammys for his many recordings. He also been the music director of the Paris Opera.
It is worth noting: New York will soon have two of the most charismatic and recognizable conductors in the world: Dudamel; and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who is the music director of the Metropolitan Opera as well as the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal.
Here are stories from both sides now: from the West Coast he is leaving and the East Coast he will be going to.
Here is the story by The New York Times:
And here is the story from The Los Angeles Times:
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One piano lesson made all the difference
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By Jacob Stockinger
Not long ago, NPR and Wisconsin Public Radio featured a moving story from the website “Hidden Brain” and its series of profile called “My Unsung Hero.”
It told the simple story of a single piano lesson — and how just one short sentence at this piano lesson proved both ordinary and momentous – and made all the difference, changing the course of a young boy’s life.
The Ear found it inspiring. And it provoked some of his own memories of important music lessons and music teachers as well as other subjects and other influential teachers in school.
He hopes you will also like it and share it, perhaps with a friend who had a similar experience or with a special teacher who influenced you and made an important difference in your life.
Here is a link:
Did you ever have a similar experience with a music teacher and music lesson?
Or find an “unsung hero” in music or another field of education who made a big difference?
Please tell us about it.
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Metropolitan Opera has canceled the rest of this season and announced the following season of Live in HD. How will the cancellation affect concert seasons here and elsewhere?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Unfortunately, it seems like The Ear’s prediction on Monday is coming true.
Given the coronavirus spikes and complications of vaccine production, testing, distribution and administration, The Ear said, it looks like live concerts are likely to be canceled for the rest of this season and perhaps even for the fall of 2021.
Here is that post:
Then yesterday the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City announced exactly that: It is going to cancel the whole season, and not just the fall productions, as originally planned. (You can hear general manager Peter Gelb discuss the plans for this season and the next season in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Given that the Met is the largest performing arts organization in the United States, it promises to be a Big Domino with a lot of influence and side effects.
Here is the Met story, with more quotes, details and information, from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-cancels-coronavirus.html
Perhaps to provide some reassurance and attenuate the negative news of the decision to cancel, the Met also announced its Live in HD season for the 2021-22 season, which is based on live productions.
Here it is on the website Opera Wire: https://operawire.com/met-opera-2021-22-season-here-is-all-the-information-for-this-seasons-live-in-hd-performances/
And if you want to know what the Met (below, from the stage) is planning to offer instead, here is a link to the Met’s own website: https://www.metopera.org.
What do you think will be the local effects of the Met decision to cancel the entire season?
Will other musical organizations follow suit, cancel the entire new season of in-person events and go safely online with virtual events?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Did Beethoven and his Fifth Symphony foster racism, exclusion and elitism in the concert hall? The Ear thinks that is PC nonsense. What do you think?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Controversy has struck big among classical music critics and fans — just in time for the Beethoven Year that will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth this December. Plans call for celebrations by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, and others.
At question is what seems yet another fallout and dust-up from the Black Lives Matter movement and the current struggle to foster social justice and racial equality.
In some ways, it all seems inevitable.
Now the history-denying advocates of cancel culture are suggesting that Beethoven (below) and his music – especially the popular Fifth Symphony (you can hear the famous opening in the YouTube schematic video at the bottom) – fostered white privilege and the rise of racism, sexism and homophobia in the concert hall.
That seems like quite an accusation for a single composer and a single piece of music that was premiered in 1808.
The assertion is food for thought. But not much.
In the end The Ear finds it a stretch and a totally bogus argument. He thinks that Beethoven attracted far more performers and audiences than he repelled. Others, including famed critic Norman Lebrecht in his blog Slipped Disc and a critic for the right-wing newspaper The New York Post, agree:
https://slippedisc.com/2020/09/beethovens-5th-is-a-symbol-of-exclusion-and-elitism/
The Ear also thinks it is political correctness run amok, even for someone who, like himself, advocates strongly for diversity of composers, performers and audiences – but always with quality in mind — in the concert hall.
Just because Beethoven was such a great creative artist is hardly cause to blame him for the inability of other artists to succeed and for non-white audiences taking to classical music. Other forces — social, economic and political — explain that much better.
Yes, Beethoven is a towering and intimidating figure. And yes, his works often dominate programming. But both musicians and audiences return to him again and again because of the originality, power and first-rate quality of his many works.
Beethoven himself was deaf. That would certainly seem to qualify him as inclusive and a member of an important category of diversity.
No matter. The writers are happy to blame Ludwig and his work for exclusion and elitism. They argue that people of color, women and LGBTQ people have all felt alienated from classical music because of Beethoven’s legacy.
Of course, there is elitism in the arts. People may be equal, but creative talent is not.
And clearly, Beethoven was a towering and intimidating figure – more for the quality of his music than for the simple fact that it exists. Such exclusion and elitism have to do with other factors than the composition of the Fifth Symphony.
If The Ear recalls correctly, when he died Beethoven was given the largest state funeral up to that time for a non-royal, non-politician or non-military person.
And how do you explain that Beethoven’s music, so representative of Western culture, appeals deeply to and attracts so many Asians and Asian-Americans, and became both banned and symbolically central to those opposed to Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China?
But these days being provocative can become its own reward.
You can read the analysis and decide about its merits for yourself, then let us know what you think in the Comment section.
Here is a link to the opinion piece in Vox Magazine, a free online journal: https://www.vox.com/switched-on-pop/21437085/beethoven-5th-symphony-elitist-classism-switched-on-pop
What do you think about the idea that Beethoven played a large and seminal role in fostering an elitist and exclusive culture in classical music?
Did you ever feel alienated from classical music because of Beethoven or know others who have?
What is your favorite Beethoven composition?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Here is music that asks for and then grants the peace we need now
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By Jacob Stockinger
Is The Ear alone in being reminded of the year 1968 and its various social, political and personal upheavals?
What explains it?
What are the parallels, if any?
Is it the national and international protests against police injustice and racism (below, in a photo by Getty Images)?
Is it the violence and riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and opposition to the Vietnam War?
Is it the isolation and deaths (below, in a photo by ABC News) brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and the more than 100,000 deaths in just the U.S. from COVID-19?
Whatever you think and whether you agree or not, we all can use some peace.
Here is some music that both asks for peace and grants it.
It is the “Dona Nobis Pacem” (Grant Us Peace) from the “Mass in B Minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed in the YouTube video below by Robert Shaw conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus with soloists.
If there are other pieces of classical music that serve that same purpose and you would like to hear, leave your suggestion in the comment section.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Songs by Black composers trace their cultural realities in a free online UW performance TONIGHT of “Verisimilitudes.” Plus, the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition perform Sunday.
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ALERT: This Sunday, April 25, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. the five winners of this year’s Beethoven Competition at the UW-Madison will perform in a winners’ concert. Included in the program are the popular and dramatic “Appassionata” Sonata, Op. 57, and the famous and innovative last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op 111. Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMF0Hd1MJwMg. Click on “Show More” and you can see the full programs and biographical profiles of the winners.
By Jacob Stockinger
The concert could hardly be more timely or the subject more relevant.
Think of the events in and near Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.; of the Black Lives Matter movement and social protest; of the political fight for D.C. statehood and voting rights – all provide a perfect context for an impressive student project that will debut online TONIGHT, Saturday, April 24, at 7 p.m.
The one-hour free concert “Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown and Tan” originated at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. It seems an ideal way for listeners to turn to music and art for social and political commentary, and to understand the racial subtexts of art.
Soprano Quanda Dawnyell Johnson (below) created, chose and performs the cycle of songs by Black composers with other Black students at the UW-Madison.
Here is a link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/-g5hjeuSumw
Click on “Show More” to see the complete program and more information.
Here is the artist’s statement:
“Within the content of this concert are 17 art songs that depict the reality of the souls of a diasporic people. Most of the lyricists and all of the composers are of African descent. In large part they come from the U.S. but also extend to Great Britain, Guadeloupe by way of France, and Sierra Leone.
“They speak to the veracity of Black life and Black feeling. A diasporic African reality in a Classical mode that challenges while it embraces a Western European vernacular. It is using “culture” as an agent of resistance.
“I refer to verisimilitude in the plural. While syntactically incorrect, as it relates to the multiple veils of reality Black people must negotiate, it is very correct.
“To be packaged in Blackness, or should I say “non-whiteness” is to ever live in a world of spiraling modalities and twirling realities. To paraphrase the great artist, Romare Bearden, in “calling and recalling” — we turn and return, then turn again to find the place that is our self.
“I welcome you to… Verisimilitudes: A Journey Through Art Song in Black, Brown, and Tan”
Here, by sections, is the complete program and a list of performers:
I. Nascence
Clear Water — Nadine Shanti
A Child’s Grace — Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Night — Florence Price (below)
Big Lady Moon — Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
II. Awareness
Lovely, Dark, and Lonely — Harry T. Burleigh
Grief –William Grant Still (below)
Prayer — Leslie Adams
Interlude, The Creole Love Call — Duke Ellington
III. The Sophomore
Mae’s Rent Party, We Met By Chance –Jeraldine Saunders Herbison
The Barrier — Charles Brown
IV. Maturity
Three Dream Portraits: Minstrel Man, Dream Variation; I, Too — Margaret Bonds (below)
Dreams — Lawren Brianna Ware
Song Without Words — Charles Brown
Legacy
L’autre jour à l’ombrage (The Other Day in the Shade) — Joseph Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges, below)
The Verisimilitudes Team
Quanda Dawnyell Johnson — Soprano and Project Creator
Lawren Brianna Ware – -Pianist and Music Director
Rini Tarafder — Stage Manager
Akiwele Burayidi – Dancer
Jackson Neal – Dancer
Nathaniel Schmidt – Trumpet
Matthew Rodriguez – Clarinet
Craig Peaslee – Guitar
Aden Stier –Bass
Henry Ptacek – Drums
Dave Alcorn — Videographer
Here is a link to the complete program notes with lyrics and composer bios. And a preview audio sample is in the YouTube video at the bottom: https://simplebooklet.com/verisimilitudesprogramnotes#page=1
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