The Well-Tempered Ear
The New York Times music critics suggest 10 must-hear online classical concerts during December
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By Jacob Stockinger
Tomorrow is Dec. 1, 2020.
Lately, at the end of every month the music critics for The New York Times publish a list of 10 virtual and online classical concerts for the following month that they think deserve special attention.
Often – but not always — their choices feature the unusual: new music and world premieres; neglected repertoire; and lesser-known performers that most of us are not likely to hear locally.
The December choices, for example, include an oratorio “Perle Noire” (Black Pearl), by composer Tyshawn Sorey, about the famous African-American, Paris-based expat dancer Josephine Baker – she of the banana skirt (below). But she was more than just a risqué dancer and entertainer. She fought in the French Resistance movement against the Nazis and was a civil rights champion.
But this list also includes seasonal fare such the holiday tradition by which the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs in one night all six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (you can hear an excerpt in the YouTube video at the bottom); and other holiday celebrations such as a concert by the early music vocal group Tenet (below, in a photo by Nan Melville.)
But those suggestions do not take away from more local efforts and performances.
The Ear is certain that those same critics would approve of supporting local musicians and music groups during the coronavirus pandemic.
And there are many local offerings. The Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, the Madison Bach Musicians and Just Bach all have virtual online concerts scheduled for December.
You can check out their offerings at their websites and here on this blog as the month unfolds.
But if the Times’ choices interest you – and they should — here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/arts/music/classical-music-stream-december.html
Note that the blurbs show Eastern Time but also include how long the performances are posted for and links to the organizations presenting the concerts.
Happy listening!
And Happy Holidays!
Do you have other online performances – local, regional, national or international — to suggest?
Please leave the necessary information in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Will the public pay for online virtual concerts? Will you? Consider the fate of newspapers
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By Jacob Stockinger
More and more local classical musicians and music presenters are moving concerts and music-making to virtual online events, at least for the fall and early winter – and quite possibly for the rest of the season. (Below is Shannon Hall in the Wisconsin Union Theater.)
And although we are still waiting for details, it seems all but certain that many of them will be pay-per-view and require tickets.
True, the move from free streaming to pay-for-view might be very useful in helping performers earn a much-needed living.
But it could also be disastrous – or at least extremely disruptive and disappointing.
Anthony Tommasini (below), the senior music critic for The New York Times, recently wrote a long story defending the move from being free to becoming paid for both livestreams and pre-recorded music concerts.
Tommasini — whose profession demands that he follow wherever the music goes — thinks it will, or should, work.
Here is a link to his story that includes concerts at The Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere with international stars such as soprano Renée Fleming (beow top) and pianist Daniil Trifonov (below bottom).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/arts/music/classical-music-livestream.html
But The Ear isn’t so sure.
For one thing, many listeners might find alternatives. They might like watching outstanding performances of the same works by great and even historical performers on YouTube for free.
They might like exploring their own collections of recordings, or listening to the radio and watching TV, or even making more music as amateurs.
The Ear also suspects that now that the habit of going to live concerts has been interrupted, many people will simply find that they miss going to live performances much less than they thought they would – or than various arts groups hoped they would. (Below is the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in a photo by Mike Gorski.)
In addition, even since the coronavirus pandemic lockdown last March, listeners have become used to the free events that many organizations offered if only to keep a presence in the public’s mind.
The strategy was understandable and made sense at the time.
But The Ear thinks of what happened with newspapers.
In the early days of the internet, newspapers offered online stories for free, as a kind of extra attraction or added benefit to secure subscribers.
But as the newspapers lost both advertisers and subscribers and tried to “monetize” their online editions, they found that the horse was already out of the barn.
Many viewers did indeed subscribe to digital editions, but many others abandoned newspapers and instead turned to free online media for their news.
So what will happen in cases less prestigious than what Tommasini describes?
What do you think?
Will local pay-per-view concerts, perhaps with bigger volume if lower individual ticket prices, be successful?
Will you pay to “attend” such virtual online events?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: This Saturday’s CAN’T MISS, MUST-HEAR Bach Around the Clock 5 is new and improved with something for everyone who loves the music of Johann Sebastian
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By Jacob Stockinger
How do you like your Bach?
No matter how you answer, it is just about certain that you will find it at this Saturday’s marathon Bach Around the Clock 5, which is even more impressive this year than last year, which was plenty successful.
BATC 5 is a community birthday celebration of the life and music of Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach (below) – for many, The Big Bang of classical music — who turns 333 this month.
BATC 5 will take place this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.
NOTE: If you can’t make it in person, the entire event will be streamed live, as it was last year, from the church via a link on the BATC web page.
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com/live-stream/
But also – new this year – you can listen via streaming from the web site of Early Music America, which also awarded the event one of only five $500 grants in the entire U.S.
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org
For all 12 hours, BATC 5 is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Those who attend are also encouraged to be informal in dress and behavior – to come in and listen, then leave and came back again – in short, to wander in and out as they want to or need to.
To The Ear, the event has been improved in just about every way you can think of.
Do you like to hear professional performers? Amateurs? Students? You will find lots of all of them. (Below are the Sonora Suzuki Strings of Madison.)
Do you like your Bach on period instruments, such as the harpsichord and the recorder, using historically informed performance practices? BATC 5 has that.
Do you like your Bach on modern instruments like the piano? BATC has that too. (Below is Tim Adrianson of Madison who will play the Partita No. 5 in G Major this year.)
Do you like more familiar works? There will be the Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 in D minor, the Concerto for Two Violins and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. (Last year saw Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, and BATC director Marika Fischer Hoyt says her plans call for the one-day festival to work its way through all six Brandenburgs before repeating any.) You can hear the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Do you like less familiar works to expand your horizon? There will be lots of those too.
Do you prefer Bach’s vocal and choral writing? BATC has lots of it, including the famous Cantata No. 140 (“Wachet auf”) performed by UW baritone Paul Rowe (below, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson) and his students from the UW’s Mead Witter School of Music, plus two solo cantatas. The Wisconsin Chamber Choir will also sing.
Do you prefer Bach’s instrumental music? BATC has that in abundance, from solo pieces like a Cello Suite to chamber music such as an Organ Trio Sonata and larger ensembles.
Do you like the original versions? No problem. BATC has them.
Do you like novel or modern arrangements and transcriptions of Bach’s universal music? BATC has them too.
Concerned about how long the event is?
You might want to bring along a cushion to soften a long sit on hard pews.
Plus, there is more food and more refreshments this year, thanks to donations from Classen’s Bakery, HyVee, Trader Joe’s and the Willy Street Co-op.
There are more performers, up from 80 last year to about 200. And they include a pianist who is the official Guest Artist Lawrence Quinnett (below) and is coming all the way from North Carolina, where he teaches at a college, to perform two half-hour segments of Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II.
Here is a link to Quinnett’s own web site:
http://www.lawrencequinnett.com
But familiar faces and voices from the UW-Madison and other groups in the Madison area will also be returning to perform.
Also new this year is a back-up group for concertos and accompaniment.
Some features have been carried over, including mini-interviews with performers conducted by hosts, including Stephanie Elkins (below top) of Wisconsin Public Radio and Marika Fischer Hoyt herself (below bottom, with flutist Casey Oelkers, on the left, who works for the Madison Symphony Orchestra)
But The Ear is also impressed by how little repetition in repertoire there is from last year. So far, each year feels pretty much new and different, and the newly designated non-profit organization, with its newly formed board of directors, is working hard to keep it that way.
What more is there to say?
Only that you and all lovers of classical music should be there are some point – or even more than one.
Here is a link to the BATC general web site, with lots of information including how to support this community event — which, for the sake of full disclosure, The Ear does:
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com
And here is a link to the full schedule that you can print out and use as a guide. It also has last year’s schedule for performers and pieces that you can use for purposes of comparison:
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com/concert-schedule/
Let the music begin!
See you there!
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Weekends are a good time to explore music and listen to it. So today The Ear starts a “2020” series for the new year.
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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
It’s a new year and the first weekend of the new year. And The Ear wanted to find some kind of organizing principle to explore recorded music in the coming weeks and months.
Turns out the year 2020 – with its symmetry of numerals and suggestions of excellent vision — held a certain appeal.
So he checked out musical works that were either Op. 20 or No. 20. They could even occur together, like, say, a Prelude that is Op. 20, No. 20.
What he found was more than he expected: Dozens of composers and works that qualify as interesting and of suitable quality.
Some are well known, but many are rarely performed live or are neglected in recordings.
They come from all periods and styles, from early music to contemporary music.
And they come in all kinds of genres from vocal and choral music to chamber music, solo instrumental music and symphonic music.
Some works are short, some are medium and some are long.
For the longer ones, which are often divided up into smaller movements or other sections, it seems better to post the whole piece and let the reader decide how long they want to listen at a time rather than to post one part at a time and limit or force the reader.
Anyway, here is the first installment.
It is a wonderful solo piano piece that is too often overlooked, even though it is by a great composer who wrote it in his prime when he was writing many of his other more popular piano works.
It is the Humoresque, Op. 20, by the German Romantic composer Robert Schumann (below). It lasts about 29 minutes but is divided into other sections.
And the performance, often praised as outstanding or even definitive, is by the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu (below, young and old, the latter by Roberto Serra), the 1966 first prize-winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition who recently retired because of ill health.
Here is a link to a detailed biography of the distinguished and somewhat reclusive and enigmatic 74-year-old pianist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Lupu
Here is YouTube video of Radu Lupu playing the Schumann Humoresque in a live recording from 1983:
Let The Ear know what you think of this piece and this idea for a 2020 series.
A long playlist for future 2020 postings – including works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and others — has already been compiled.
But if you have a favorite or suggested “2020” piece, leave word in the comment section.
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