The Well-Tempered Ear
Apple bets again on classical music and buys BIS records
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By Jacob Stockinger
Since its founding in 1976 — on April Fools Day — Apple has often demonstrated a contrarian or oppositional streak that has helped to explain its enormous success among high-tech companies.
At a time when many critics and observers are questioning the future of classical music — and usually see major problems to overcome — Apple has taken the opposite tack.
This past year it bought the record label Primephonic in 2021 and then launched a separate streaming platform for classical music — Apple Music Classical — as part of Apple Music below).
Apple Music’s new all-Classical streaming service launches March 28. Here are details
The new Apple Music Classical app is now available for Android users
This month, Apple doubled down and bought another record label that specializes in classical music — the acclaimed Swedish independent label BIS that just marked its 50th anniversary. No price was given.
Some analyses suggest that this recent acquisition gives Apple Music Classical the largest catalogue, with more than 5 million tracks, of any classical music streaming service.
Here is an excellent story from TechCrunch that gives the details and some context and background:
And here is another good story from the classical music website LudwigVan:
If you wonder about why BIS was sold to Apple in particular, here is a statement from CNBC by BIS founder Robert von Bahr (below):
“Von Bahr, who recently turned 80, said that both BIS Records and Apple share a “fundamental belief in the importance of preserving audio quality,” citing the iPhone maker’s surround-sound spatial audio technology as “something I have followed with interest.”
“BIS’s specialty, while paying our dues to the core repertoire, has been to nurture young classical artists and interesting living composers and to safeguard the musical treasure that we all represent long into the future. (Editor’s note: It also seeks to rediscover repertoire. See and listen to the YouTube video at the bottom for BIS’s promotion of release with baroque Neapolitan cantatas and arias for countertenors.)
“Apple, with its own storied history of innovation and love of music, is the ideal home to usher in the next era of classical and has shown true commitment towards building a future in which classical music and technology work in harmony.”
Are you familiar with BIS records?
What do you think of the repertoire, performers and recordings?
Do you subscribe to Apple Music Classical — or would now subscribe with the new acquisition?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Gramophone Magazine names the Best Classical Recordings of 2022 by each month
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By Jacob Stockinger
Maybe you have a holiday gift card to use.
Or maybe you have some leisure time to explore new recordings for your pleasure.
You’re in luck.
Various media have recently named the Best Classical Recordings of 2022. Whether you stream them or use compact discs or listen to vinyl, over the next week or two The Ear will feature some of them.
One of the most prestigious and well respected lists is provided by the British publication and website, Gramophone Magazine (below).
The link below is just to the December 2022 choices. But in it you can find links by the month to other outstanding selections.
Like many other links now, you can also find links to complete reviews of individual albums, and can even listen to excerpts from the named performances.
Also like many international lists, this one often reflects a not-so-subtle bias — usual towards the artists in the home nation where the organization is based. So look for a lot of British performers and composers.
Still, you can find many outstanding choices to spend those gift cards on. Or just to explore for pleasure whenever you have the time and desire.
Here is one example.
When he first heard it, The Ear was fascinated by Paul Wee’s outstanding and astounding performance of the virtuosic solo piano transcription by the 19th-century French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan of Mozart’s famously sublime and dramatic Piano Concerto No. 22 in D minor, K. 466 (below in a photo of the album cover and in a YouTube video).
Very handy if you don’t have access to an orchestra! Plus you hear the composition in a new and insightful way — as often happens with transcriptions.
What do you think?
Do you have a favorite new recording from 2022?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: New York Polyphony opens the 17th annual Madison Early Music Festival with a perfectly rendered composite portrait of Elizabethan sacred music. Plus, the winners of the fourth annual Handel Aria Competition are announced
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ALERT: In case you haven’t yet heard, the winners (below) of the fourth annual Handel Aria Competition, held on Friday night in Mills Hall and accompanied by the Madison Bach Musicians, have been announced.
Eric Jurenas (center), countertenor, won First Prize; Christina Kay (right), soprano, won Second Prize; and Nola Richardson (left), soprano, won Third Prize and Audience Favorite.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear left the concert hall thinking: Well, this will be an easy review to write.
Just give it an A-plus.
An easy A-plus.
On Saturday night, the acclaimed a cappella quartet New York Polyphony (below) opened the 17th annual Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) with a flawless performance.
This year, the MEMF is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the death of poet and playwright William Shakespeare (below top) and the 45-year reign of Queen Elizabeth I (below bottom), who oversaw the English Renaissance.
And the program – performed before a large house of perhaps 450 or 500 enthusiastic listeners — was perfectly in keeping with the festival’s theme. It used sacred music rather than stage music or secular music, which will be featured later in this week of concerts, workshops and pre-concert lectures.
In fact, the program of New York Polyphony was based on two of the group’s best-selling CDs for BIS Records and AVIE Records: “Tudor City” and “Times Goes by Turns.” It was roughly divided into two masses, one on each half. (You can hear a sample in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Adding to the variety was that each Anglican or Roman Catholic-based mass was a composite, with various sections made up like movements written by different composers. Thrown in for good measure were two separate short pieces, the “Ave Maria Mater Dei” by William Cornysh and the “Ave verum corpus” of William Byrd.
The Mass on the first half featured music by Byrd, John Dunstable, Walter Lambe and Thomas Tallis. The second half featured works music by Tallis, John Pyamour, John Plummer and excerpts from the Worcester Fragments. The section were typical: the Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei.
There was nothing fancy about this concert, which marked the Wisconsin debut of New York Polyphony and which spotlighted superbly quiet virtuosity. The four dark-suited men, who occasionally split up, just stood on stage and opened their mouths and sang flawlessly with unerring pitch and superb diction.
A cappella or unaccompanied singing is hard work, but the four men made it seem easy. The countertenor, tenor, baritone and bass each showed confidence and talent plus the ability to project clarity while not overshadowing each other. This was first-class singing.
The beautiful polyphony of the lines was wondrous to behold even, if like The Ear, sacred music from this era – with its chant-like rather than melodic qualities – is not your favorite fare.
New York Polyphony provided a good harbinger of the treats that will come this week at the MEMF from groups like the Newberry Consort of Chicago with soprano Ellen Hargis (below top) and the Baltimore Consort (below bottom) as well as from the faculty and workshop participants. On Friday night is an appealing program that focuses on Shakespeare’s sonnets and music.
And on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., with a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m., will be the All-Festival concert. That is always a must-hear great sampler of what you perhaps couldn’t get to earlier in the week. This year, it will feature the music as used in a typical Elizabethan day.
Here is a link to the MEMF website:
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/
And here is a link the website of New York Polyphony if you want to hear more:
http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Apple Music Classical is now available for iPads
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, 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. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Apple Music Classical (logo is below) continues to make headway in the streaming service market.
Originally, it was only available on iPhones with an OS operating system. Then it became available on Google’s Android phones.
As of this week, it is now available on iPad, programmed for bigger formats.
The Ear finds the app particularly useful and cheap for checking out new releases. IT offers more than 5 million recordings.
Some critics complain, however, that the app is still not available for other Mac computers and Apple devices. But one imagines Apple is working on that too even as it continues to buy up other classical music labels.
The recordings on the Hyperion label are now fully available on the app, thanks to that label’s decision to finally offer streaming. (The Ear particularly likes having accessibility to the recordings of prolific pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Stephen Hough as well as those of violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Steven Isserlis.)
The app also now has the complete catalogue of the critically acclaimed Swedish label BIS as well as the Pentatone label it started with.
Here is a story from MacRumors about the technical update, with almost 70 comments and some very good background and tips about how to use it — which you can also find in the YouTube video at the bottom:
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/16/apple-music-classical-comes-to-ipad/
And here are links to previous posts about Apple Music Classical and its release and expansion:
What do you think of Apple Music Classical?
Do you use it or plan to subscribe?
Like it or dislike it?
Why?
The Ear wants to hear.
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