The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: What composers and what pieces give you shelter and sanctuary during troubled times?
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By Jacob Stockinger
A week ago, The Ear went to the inspired all-Mozart program given by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet with guest cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau (below center) and guest clarinetist Alicia Lee (below right), who was making her debut as a new UW faculty member.
He expected a fine performance and he was not disappointed. Indeed, he shares the same very positive reactions that critic John W. Barker expressed in his review for this blog. Here is a link to that review:
But something else happened too.
The sublime music of Mozart (below) – especially the Larghetto slow second movement of the late Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, but also the other movements and the String Quartet in G Major, K. 387 -– took The Ear into another world, into a parenthesis in time.
(You can hear a live performance in Japan by Yo-Yo Ma and others in the Larghetto movement, plus the rest of the Clarinet Quintet, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For a brief time – perhaps a total of about 80 or 90 minutes – The Ear was totally transported. He temporarily blocked out the political strife in Washington, D.C. and the Trump White House; the government turmoil here in Madison and around the world; and the terrible, deadly natural disasters of floods, hurricanes and wildfires in the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe.
He just let the transcendent music and the performances wash over him, refreshing him with their beauty before he reemerged onto the street and into the painful reality of current events after the concert ended.
So The Ear offers a deeply felt thank you to the performers for planning and playing such a timely and therapeutic program. He needed that more than he knew. And he hopes more such concerts are in store. The times demand such balm, not as escapism but as a reminder of great good things that endure.
So here is The Ear’s question: What other composers and what other pieces or works do you find offer the same kind of sanctuary or shelter?
Leave a COMMENT with a link to a performance on YouTube if possible.
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Classical music: Classical musicians take up the cause of Black Lives Matter
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By Jacob Stockinger
Classical music can easily appear isolated from current events and social issues these days, more of a shelter or sanctuary or retreat than an engagement.
Pop, rock, country and rap music often seem much more timely and symptomatic or even concerned and supportive.
But classical music has often shown a social conscience.
One thinks of the composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein and his support of those protesting the Vietnam War and of black power advocates – efforts that often drew criticism and sarcasm from those who disagreed.
Something similar seems to be happening today with the Black Lives Matter movement and classical musicians in the wake of the Minnesota, Louisiana and Dallas, Texas shootings, death and murders.
Here is a story from The New York Times that explores the connections:
Tags: Arts, Black Lives Matter, black power, Classical music, composer, conductor, country, current events, Dallas, deaths, Jacob Stockinger, Leonard Bernstein, Louisiana, Minnesota, movement, murder, Music, New York City, New York Times, Politics, pop, protest, rap, Rock, shootings, social conscience, St. Paul, Texas, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Vietnam War
Classical music: The new opera “Fallujah” is based on the Iraq War. Will the Madison Opera or the University Opera be interested in staging it? Plus, this afternoon is your last chance to hear “Carmina Burana” performed by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Read three rave reviews.
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ALERT: This afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall is your last chance to hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in “Carmina Burana” in the MSO’s spectacular season-closing program. Read three rave reviews by local critics:
Here is what John W. Barker wrote for Isthmus:
http://isthmus.com/music/big-orchestra-monuments/
Here is what Greg Hettmansberger wrote for Madison Magazine and his blog WhatGregSays:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/farewells-to-a-season-and-some-friends/
And here is what Jessica Courtier wrote for The Capital Times:
By Jacob Stockinger
Who says you can’t mix art and current events?
Especially if the current events also count as history, which has often been an inspiration for fiction and art.
Iraq and Afghanistan — the United States’ longest wars — are back in the news again making big headlines. And PTSD or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a story that never goes away.
But not all of the news has to do with politics, suicide bombings, increased troop commitments and fierce fighting in a civil war.
It also has to do with art.
Specifically, opera — that potent combination of theater and music.
The Long Beach Opera commissioned and recently premiered a new chamber opera based on the Iraq War and PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), and us based on the life and work of U.S. Marine Christian Ellis . It is called “Fallujah” and it is the first such opera to be written. (A photo below is by Keith Ian Polakoff for the Long Beach Opera.)
You can hear librettist Heather Raffo and composer Tobin Stokes discuss the opera in the YouTube video at the bottom.
It makes The Ear wonder if it might find its way into an upcoming season of the Madison Opera, which tends to use its smaller winter productions to stage works that are newer, smaller, more adventurous and more exploratory.
Or maybe the University Opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music might find it a good choice for a student production?
Anyway, here is a fine write-up that you can find on NPR or National Public Radio:
Tags: 2003 invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Art, Arts, Baghdad, blog, choral music, Christian Ellis, Classical music, critic, current events, Falluja, Fallujah, fiction, Greg Hettmansberger, Heather Raffo, historical fiction, History, Iraq, Iraq war, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jessica Courtier, John W. Barker, Long Beach Opera, Madison, Madison Magazine, Madison Opera, Marine, Music, NPR, opera, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment, Post-Traumatic Stress DIsorder, Posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, review, Saddam Hussein, suicide bombings, The Capital Times, theater, Tobin Stokes, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, US, vocal music, war, Weapon of mass destruction, Wisconsin, YouTube
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