The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Chamber versions of symphonies and piano concertos by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven helped secure the composers’ reputations back when they were new music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Perhaps you heard one at Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society concerts (below), where they have become a kind of signature.
Or perhaps you heard one at a concert by the Ancora String Quartet or the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet.
What we’re talking about are scaled-down chamber versions of symphonies and piano concertos by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Today they seem like curiosities, perhaps programmed to keep budgets smaller and use fewer performers.
But historically those same arrangements were more than conveniences or compromises. They proved vital in securing the works and reputations of those composers for posterity up until today.
Recently, The New York Times published a record review by Zachary Woolfe that provides valuable background about these rearranged works.
Here is a link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/arts/music/mozart-jupiter-hyperion.html
If you would like to experience one for yourself, you have the chance this Saturday and Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. at the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival.
That’s when and where pianist and Harvard University professor of musicology Robert Levin (below) will perform a chamber version of the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58, by Beethoven. It is part of a program by Levin and pianist Ya-Fei Chuang that explores the piano and concludes this year’s 30th anniversary festival. (You can hear the opening movement of the Beethoven piano concerto in the version with string quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a link with more information about tickets ($32) and the festival:
http://tokencreekfestival.org/2019-season/programs/
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Classical music: Meet UW-Madison bassoonist Marc Vallon who performs with the Willy Street Chamber Players on Friday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
Who is Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill)?
This week, he is the bassoonist who will perform Franz Danzi’s Quartet for Bassoon and Strings in D minor, Op. 40, No. 2 (ca. 1820), this coming Friday night, July 19, with the acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players (below), who will also be joined by pianist Jason Kutz and violist Sharon Tenhundfeld..
(The concert is at 6 p.m. in Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street. The program includes: the Allegretto for Piano Trio by Ludwig van Beethoven (1812); “Dark Wood” by American composer Jennifer Higdon (2001); and the rarely heard String Quartet No. 1 (1948) by Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera. Admission is $15.)
A native of France, Vallon is one of the busiest musicians in Madison. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, where he also performs individually, with faculty and student colleagues, and as a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet. He also frequently performs and conducts Baroque music with the Madison Bach Musicians.
Vallon attended the Paris Conservatory, where he won first prizes in bassoon and chamber music, and also earned a philosopher degree at the Sorbonne or University of Paris.
A versatile musician, Vallon played with famed avant-garde French composer Pierre Boulez and for more than 20 years was the principal bassoon of the well-known Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. He has also performed with major modern orchestras and conductors as well as with many period-instrument groups.
He gives master classes worldwide and also composes.
For a more extended and detailed biography, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/faculty/marc-vallon/
Vallon recently did an email Q&A interview with The Ear:
What drew you to the bassoon (below) over, say, the piano or singing, over strings, brass or other woodwinds?
I played the piano as young kid but was not very interested in the mechanics of it, even if I had a strong passion for music. It was the day that my piano teacher brought to my lesson a friend of his to do a bassoon demo that I found the right medium for my passion.
I started practicing like a maniac and knew by the age of 14 that I was going to be a professional bassoonist.
What would you like the public to know about the bassoon, perhaps about the challenges of playing it and about the repertoire for it?
The bassoon does not offer more challenges than other wind instruments, but it is safe to say that an absolute perfectionist person should probably not play it.
It is an instrument capable of true beauties, yet it has its own character. You don’t conquer it, you work with it like you would work with a wonderful but temperamental colleague.
Bassoonists sometimes complain that our solo repertoire is not as rich in masterpieces as the clarinet’s or the flute’s. True, but in its 350 years of existence, the bassoon has amassed enough wonderful music to keep us busy for several lifetimes.
What would you like to tell the public about the specific Bassoon Quartet by Franz Danzi that you will perform, and about Danzi and his music in general?
The bassoon and strings quartet became popular in the last decades of the 18th century, a trend that lasted well into the Romantic era.
Sadly, many of these quartets are basically show-off pieces for the bassoonist while the strings players have to suffer through some often very dull accompaniment parts.
I like this one by Danzi (below) because it features the strings on the same musical level as the bassoon, creating an enjoyable musical conversation rather than a cocky bassoon monologue. (You can hear that musical conversation in the opening movement of the Bassoon Quartet by Danzi in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
As a performer and conductor, you are well–known for championing baroque music as well as modern and contemporary music. Do you have a preference? Do they feed each other in your experience?
What I always have enjoyed about playing contemporary music is the possibility to work with living composers because I often realized how flexible they are with their own music and how much they like the performer’s input. They’re often ready to compromise and veer away from the strict notation.
The approach when playing composers from the past is actually very similar in the sense that we have to remember how approximate music notation is. Baroque composers are not here anymore obviously, but the 17th and 18th centuries sources tell us clearly how much flexibility we, modern performers, have in our approach to their music.
When it comes to music pre-1800, we basically have a sketch on our music stands. I always want to remember this. (Below is a manuscript page of a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.)
Do you have big projects coming up next season?
Always! I am putting together a contemporary program on March 27 in our new concert hall on campus. It is called ”Opening Statements” and will feature early works from major 20th-century composers.
On period instruments, I have Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” and more Bach on my calendar.
Is there something else you would like to say?
A big Thank You to you, Jake, for being such a relentless and informed advocate of the Madison musical scene!
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Chamber Choir excelled in Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” despite questionable acoustics and cutting. A second performance is this afternoon at UW-Whitewater
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
On Saturday night, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir (below) gave Madison a proper gift for the holiday season with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Or with four-sixths of it, to be accurate.
Though Bach conceived of it as an integral composition, it is nevertheless cast in the form of six cantatas — one for each of the six days of the Christmas liturgical sequence, from the Nativity through Epiphany. Each cantata was meant to be self-sufficient by itself, in Bach’s conventional form for such works, with numerous chorales (in which the congregation could well have joined).
Artistic Director and conductor Robert Gehrenbeck (below) chose, however, to omit Cantatas 4 and 6. Allowing that the performers could be glad for the extra respite, I think this was an unnecessary omission. The evening would still not be that long, at least for an audience ready to welcome more. (I will note that Gehrenbeck did turn a repeat of the festive opening chorus of Cantata 3 as a makeshift finale of Cantata 5.)
I counted 14 soloists, many from among the choir itself, a few modestly serviceable, but most really very good. Most recognizable would be tenor Wesley Dunnagan, who sang both as the Evangelist and as tenor soloist.
The chorus itself, a total of 51 in number here, was just a bit large for the work, but was handsomely drilled by the conductor. The orchestra of 23 players (11 on strings), called the Sinfonia Sacra, was contrastingly small but played with verve and eloquence. (You can hear the irresistibly energetic opening of the Christmas Oratorio in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
I have great praise for the performance itself. But I fear it was rather compromised by the venue.
Bach intended this cycle of cantatas for his sizable Lutheran church in Leipzig. But the Luther Memorial Church (below) is a much larger and loftier building than that with which Bach worked. Its acoustics are big and reverberant. The choir, spread out before the altar, and the widely dispersed soloists, were far from much of the audience.
Their sound projected variously, rolling out into the big space in beautiful blurs. For much of the audience, that could well have been enough: lovely sounds and rhythms. But almost all the words were muddled or lost.
Now, words mattered to Bach (below), and to his congregation. With the presence of the words all but lost, the messages of these cantatas are badly compromised. In that sense, this performance was successful sonically but not as sacred music.
Musicians obviously give thought to the settings for their performances. Their concern is very much about how well they can hear each other. But careful attention to what their audiences hear, and how that does justice to the performances. On that count, then, I found this event a mixed success.
On the other hand, I must praise the splendid program booklet, handsomely laid out, with good information, the full texts and translations, and particularly good notes on the work by J. Michael Allsen, who also did the English translations.
A second performance is this afternoon at 3 p.m. in the Young Auditorium at the UW-Whitewater. For more information and tickets, go to https://www.wisconsinchamberchoir.org
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The Well-Tempered Ear 