The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: On this Memorial Day, The Ear honors not only soldiers but also civilians, COVID-19 victims and all those responders and workers who serve the public
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2020.
It is of course a largely military holiday. Most of the planned public events will be to honor those who died in service to their country. That usually means fallen soldiers and deceased veterans.
It also means that military cemeteries – like Arlington National Cemetery, below — will be decorated with American flags.
But The Ear doesn’t think we should forget that there are many ways to serve your country and protect the public, many kinds war and self-sacrifice.
Let’s not forget civilians, especially since worldwide more than twice the numbers of civilians died in World War II than did members of the armed forces. Lives are taken as well as given.
A larger definition of “national service” also seems especially timely since this weekend the U.S. is likely to surpass 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic. They include many first responders and frontline workers (below) as well as grocery store workers and delivery drivers. Even “small” occupations have big heroes. There is no reason not to be more inclusive.
There are traditional kinds of music to honor the dead. They include requiems and elegies, military marches and funeral marches. And in the comment section you should feel free to suggest whatever music you think would be appropriate.
But The Ear found a piece he thinks is both unusual and ideal.
It is called “Old and Lost Rivers” by the contemporary American composer Tobias Picker (below). It is a beautiful, moving and contemplative piece, based on an actual place in Texas, that you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.
But you should know this about the work’s title.
With rivers, “lost” doesn’t mean forgotten or misplaced.
One dictionary defines it as “a surface stream that flows into an underground passageway” – and eventually often becomes part of a larger body of water such as a lake or the ocean.
It can also mean rivers that appear during heavy rain and then disappear when they evaporate during a drought.
Somehow, those images serve as fitting metaphors for our losses and that music seems a very appropriate way to honor those who sacrifice themselves and disappear in service to others.
The Ear hopes you agree.
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Classical music: Today is Memorial Day – a good time to remember the civilian dead as well as the military dead. The Ear likes Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin.” What music would you listen to to mark the holiday?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2019, when the nation honors the men and women who died in military service. The Ear would like to see much more attention and remembrance paid to the huge number of civilians — much higher than military personnel and soldiers — who have died in wars and military service, whose lives weren’t given but taken.
In fact, why not establish and celebrate a separate holiday to honor civilian deaths in war? Perhaps it would help to know the detailed history and background of the holiday, since it is not as straightforward or modern as you might expect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
What piece of classical music would you listen to in order to mark the holiday?
There is a lot to choose from.
The Ear especially likes “Le Tombeau de Couperin” by the early 20th-century French composer Maurice Ravel. It is a “tombeau” – a metaphorical “tomb” or “grave” used by the French to mean paying homage to the dead – in two senses.
Its neo-Classical or neo-Baroque style recalls the 18th-century world of French composers and harpsichordists including Jean-Philippe Rameau and Francois Couperin. But in a second sense, Ravel (below, in 1910) dedicated each of the six movements to a friend – in one case, two brothers — who had died during World War I. So part of its appeal is that it is a very personal statement of grief.
Here is more detailed background about the piece:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_tombeau_de_Couperin
The work was orchestrated later, which added sonic color but cut out two movements. The Ear prefers the original piano version, which seems a little more percussive, austere and straightforward — less pretty but more beautiful, and more in keeping with the holiday by evoking sentiment without sentimentality.
In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear it in a live performance by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt.
But there are lots of other works to choose from by many composers: John Adams (“The Wound Dresser” after poetry of Walt Whitman); Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings); Ludwig van Beethoven (slow movements of Symphonies 3 and 7, and of the Piano Sonata Op. 26); Johannes Brahms (“A German Requiem”); Benjamin Britten (War Requiem); Frederic Chopin (Funeral March from Sonata No. 2, polonaises, preludes and the “Revolutionary” Etude); Aaron Copland (“Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Letter From Home”); Edward Elgar (“Nimrod” from “Enigma Variations”); Gabriel Faure (Requiem and Elegy for cello); Franz Joseph Haydn (“Mass in Time of War”); Paul Hindemith (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d – A Requiem for Those We Love”); Charles Ives (Variations on “America” and “Decoration Day”); Henry Purcell (“When I Am Laid in Earth”); John Philip Sousa (“Honored Dead” March); Ralph Vaughan Williams (Symphony No. 3 “Pastoral”); and many others, including Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Here is a list from the British radio station Classical FM:
Here is a list of patriotic music from Nashville Public Radio:
Here is another list from an American source:
http://midamerica-music.com/blog/five-classical-works-memorial-day/
Here are more sound samples from NPR:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104341851
And here is another one from Northwest Public Radio:
https://www.nwpb.org/2015/05/22/memorial-day-music-commemorate-celebrate/
What do you think of a holiday commemorating civilian deaths in war?
What favorite piece of classical music would you play and listen to as you mark Memorial Day?
Let us know, with a YouTube link if possible, in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Here is music to mark Memorial Day. What pieces would you choose?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2017, when those soldiers who died in war and service to their country are honored. (Below is an Associated Press photo of the National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.)
Many blogs, newspapers and radio stations list classical music that is appropriate for the occasion.
But one of the very best compilations that The Ear has seen comes this year from Nashville Public Radio.
Perhaps that makes sense because Nashville is such a musical city.
Perhaps it has to do with other reasons.
Whatever the cause, this list gives you modern and contemporary composers and music (John Adams, Joseph Bertolozzi and Jeffrey Ames) as well as tried-and-true classics (Henry Purcell and Edward Elgar, Franz Joseph Haydn and Frederic Chopin).
It even features some music that The Ear is sure you don’t know.
Take a look and many listens:
Do you agree with the choices?
Do you like them or at least some of them?
Which ones?
Which music would you choose to mark today?
Leave a name and, if possible, a link to YouTube in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: AP, Arlington National Cemetery, Arts, Associated Press, Baroque, blog, casualty, Cello, cemetery, Chamber music, choral music, civilian, classic, Classical music, compilation, composer, contemporary, country, dead, death, Elgar, Holiday, Jacob Stockinger, Jeffrey Ames, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Adams, Joseph Bertolozzi, loss, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Memorial Day, memory, military, modern, Mozart, Music, Nashville, national, National Public Radio, Newspaper, NPR, opera, Orchestra, peace, photo, Purcell, Radio, remembrance, service, soldier, Sonata, symphony, Tennessee, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Veteran, veterans, vocal music, war, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Today is Memorial Day 2016. What what classical music would you play? And should civilians be included and honored along with the military?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day 2016, originally called Decoration Day because people placed flowers on the graves of soldiers who had died or been killed.
But as Decoration Day turned into Memorial Day to honor all military personnel, including the living, the holiday has also become the occasion for marches and parades, for picnics and start-of-summer celebrations.
What music would you play to best honor the occasion and those who served, were wounded or fell?
The Ear has looked for new compilations.
So far, the best one remains, after five years, one that appeared on the Deceptive Cadence blog for National Public Radio or NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104341851
It comes with names and audio clips.
What pieces of classical music would you choose?
But here is a more controversial question: Should we also include and honor civilians on Memorial Day?
Modern wars — World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan — have turned countless civilians into fatalities and casualties. In fact, in many cases, civilian casualties of war far outnumber military ones.
It is inarguable: Modern wars have drafted or conscripted or forced civilians into action, and not just into the military.
The Ear does not think that honoring civilians who were injured or fell in the wars detracts from honoring veterans and the members of the military who did so.
Maybe civilians should even have their own day to mark and honor their sacrifices?
What do you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Armed Forces Day, cemetery, civilian, Decoration Day, grave, Gulf War, Korean War, marches, Memorial Day, military, Military personnel, National Public Radio, NPR, parade, picnic, summer, United States, United States Armed Forces, Veteran, Vietnam, Vietnam War, World War II
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
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/
https://nypost.com/2020/09/17/canceling-beethoven-is-the-latest-woke-madness-for-the-classical-music-world/
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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