The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Acclaimed native son Kenneth Woods returns this weekend to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He talks to The Ear about what Madison meant to him and his international career
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, native Madisonian Kenneth Woods (below) returns from his home in the UK to conduct three performances of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The concerts feature two MSO debuts: the prize-winning young Canadian violinist Blake Pouliot performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor; and the acclaimed guest conductor, Kenneth Woods, leading the orchestra for the MSO premiere of Haydn’s Symphony No. 96, “Miracle” plus Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life).
Performances will be held in Overture Hall on Friday night, March 6, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night, March 7, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, March 8, at 2:30 p.m.
Single tickets are $19-$95 each and are on sale now, along with discounted tickets, at: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/the-miracle/; through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street; or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online and phone sales.
You can view program notes for this concert online at http://bit.ly/msomar2020programnotes
A Prelude Discussion by Randal Swiggum will take place one hour before each concert.
Guest conductor Kenneth Woods is a busy and versatile musician. He is the Principal Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra and the artistic director of both the Colorado MahlerFest and the Elgar Festival in England. (You can hear Woods conducting Carl Maria von Weber’s “Oberon” Overture in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Woods has won accolades for rediscovering and recording the music of the Austrian-British composer Hans Gàl. Woods, who has played guitar in a rock band, is also a professional cellist who solos with orchestras and plays chamber music. He writes a respected blog. And he currently plays and records in the Briggs Piano Trio for Avie Records.
For much more information about Kenneth Woods, including his blog “A View From the Podium,” go to: https://kennethwoods.net/blog1/
Woods recently spoke via email to The Ear about what Madison has meant to him and to his international career.
How did living in Madison play a role in your decision to become a professional musician?
Madison offered me a chance to hear music at an early age. I was taken to watch a rehearsal of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra as a very young kid, maybe three or four years old. That made a huge impression on me, especially seeing the rehearsal process. Later, my parents took us to all the UW Symphony Orchestra concerts for years.
There’s really no reason not to take young kids to concerts! For me, a love of live music led to a love of recorded music, listening to records at home, and from there, to an interest in playing music as a kid.
We were lucky to have a very strong music program in the Madison public schools when I was growing up here. The orchestras at Memorial High School played some really impressive repertoire under Tom Buchhauser (below top, in a photo by Jon Harlow). The UW Summer Music Clinic made being a musician social – it was a great immersion with one’s peers.
Most important, however, was probably the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). Playing under Jim Smith (below bottom) was the most fantastic education in orchestral playing one could hope for. He and Tom are a big part of why I became a conductor.
Madison in those days wasn’t a super-pressurized scene, like one might encounter around the big pre-college programs in New York or LA. But what I might have missed in terms of conservatory-level instrumentalists in every corridor, one made up in terms of feeling like you could find your own path. By the time I was in high school, I pretty much knew music was that path.
How did your experiences in Madison help prepare you for that career?
I learned so much about rehearsing from Jim Smith. In his first year, we worked on Dvorak’s 8th Symphony pretty much all year. Every week, he opened our ears to new facets of the music. I’ve never forgotten that.
I went off to Indiana University to do my Bachelor’s degree, but returned to Madison for a Master’s, when I studied cello with UW-Madison professor Parry Karp (below top).
Those were wonderful years for me. I learned an enormous amount from Parry as both a cello teacher and chamber music coach (and especially as a person).
I played in fantastic chamber groups, did lots of wacky new music and had solo opportunities. UW Symphony Orchestra conductor David Becker (below bottom) even gave me my first meaningful chance to rehearse an orchestra when he had me take a couple of rehearsals on the Copland Clarinet Concerto.
And I played in both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. I came away from that time with both new skills and new confidence.
What does returning to your hometown to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra mean to you?
It’s both very exciting and a little surreal. Under the leadership of John DeMain (below top, in a photo by Greg Anderson), the MSO (below bottom, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) has come so far since the time I was in it. And the new hall is such a treasure for all of Wisconsin – it’s practically a different orchestra.
I still have many friends and former mentors in the orchestra and it’s going to be wonderful to see them all and make music together again after so long.
But it’s more than a homecoming. It’s a chance to celebrate where we’ve all been and what we’ve all done the last 20 years or so. My musical life has mostly been in the UK for a long time, so to re-connect with my musical roots here is rather magical.
What are your major current and upcoming projects?
The English Symphony Orchestra (below) represents the biggest chunk of my musical life. This year we’re celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday and the orchestra’s 40th anniversary.
The ESO has a special commitment to new and unknown music, and right now we’re in the midst of something called the 21st Century Symphony Project, which involves commissioning, premiering and recording nine new symphonies by diverse composers. It’s one of the most ambitious commissioning projects I’ve ever heard of, let alone been involved in.
I’m also excited about this year’s Colorado MahlerFest in Boulder, where we’re focusing on Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” this May, which will crown a week of music exploring themes of color and visual art with music by Wagner, Messiaen and British composer Philip Sawyers.
Is the MSO program special to you?
I must say that it was incredibly generous of John DeMain to offer me such a fantastic program. Not every music director is gentleman enough to let a guest have Ein Heldenleben.
What would you like the public to know about your approach to music and about the specific works by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss?
Haydn’s music is maybe the richest discovery of my adult life. I didn’t get it as a kid, largely because most performances I heard were so dull.
His music is so varied, and his personality so complex, one mustn’t try to reduce him down to a simplistic figure. The late symphonies, of which this is one of the finest, are inexhaustible sources of wisdom, beauty, humor and sanity.
The Mendelssohn is really an astonishing piece. I’ve probably conducted it as much as any piece of music, with so many different soloists, all of whom had hugely different temperaments, personalities, sounds and approaches.
I’ve played it with some of the greatest violinists in the world and with young students. Somehow, whoever is playing, it always leaves me, and the audience, smiling. I’m pretty sure we can continue that streak with Blake Pouliot (below, in a photo by Jeff Fasano).
The Strauss is a rich, personal, wise, funny and moving work. It’s always a challenge, particularly bringing out all the astonishing detail in the score, but it’s also a real joy to perform. If the Mendelssohn always leaves me smiling, the Strauss always leaves me smiling with a tear in my eye.
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Classical music: This Friday brings a FREE concert at noon of cello and violin sonatas by Beethoven. At night, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra explores rarely heard works and composers plus the “Jupiter” Symphony by Mozart
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ALERT: This Friday’s FREE Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features the Mosaic Chamber Players performing a one-hour, all-Beethoven concert in honor of the Beethoven Year, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
The program is: Cello Sonata, Op. 5, No. 1; and two violin sonatas, Op. 12, No. 3, and Op. 30, No. 2. For more information, go to: http://www.mosaicchamberplayers.com
By Jacob Stockinger
Can you tell the difference between the real Mozart and the “Swedish Mozart”?
You’ll have the chance to find out this Friday night, Feb. 21, if you go to the concert by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below, in a photo by Mike Gorski) at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
That is when you can hear the Symphony in C-Sharp Minor, VB 140, by Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1791, below), an 18th-century German-born, short-lived composer who, as an exact contemporary of Mozart, spent most of his career at the court in Stockholm, Sweden, and became known as the “Swedish Mozart.”
(You can hear the opening movement of the Kraus symphony, played by Concerto Koln, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is more about Kraus (below): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Martin_Kraus
The Kraus symphony opens the WCO concert.
Then for the purpose of comparison, the concert closes with Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551. It is often cited as Mozart’s most accomplished work in the symphonic form, and is renowned for its melodies and harmonies, and for the masterful, even spectacular, counterpoint in the last movement.
But that kind of discovery and approach to programming is not unusual for WCO maestro Andrew Sewell (below, in a photo by Alex Cruz), who has a penchant for exposing audiences to rarely heard works and composers as well as to well-known masterpieces.
For this concert, Sewell will be helped by the return of guest violin virtuoso Giora Schmidt (below in a photo by David Getzschman), who has been acclaimed for his technique, tone, lyricism and riveting interpretations. He played the Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor by Sergei Prokofiev with the WCO in 2018.
Schmidt will solo in two rarely heard works for violin and orchestra: the 16-minute Violin Concerto, Op. 48, by the Russian composer Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987); and the 8-minute Romance by the Norwegian composer Johan Svendsen (1840-1911).
For more about Kabalevsky (below), go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Kabalevsky
For more about Svendsen (below), who was a conductor and violinist as well as a composer, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Svendsen
To purchase tickets ($10-$77) and to read a detailed biography of soloist Schmidt and find out more about the concert, go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-ii-5/
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Classical music: This weekend guest violinist Rachel Barton Pine solos with the Madison Symphony Orchestra in an all-Russian program
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend the acclaimed Chicago violinist Rachel Barton Pine (below) makes her debut with the Madison Symphony Orchestra playing Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor.
The concert by the orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) opens with Prokofiev’s Suite from Lieutenant Kijé and concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State St., on Friday night, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, Oct. 20, at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall. Tickets are $19-$95. See below for details.
“There will be great discoveries in our all-Russian concert, starting with the MSO debut of virtuoso violinist Rachel Barton Pine playing the Khachaturian Violin Concerto, a big, bold and beautiful work in its MSO premiere,” said MSO music director and conductor John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson). Lieutenant Kijé is sure to delight you with its wonderful melodies and infectious rhythms. Shostakovich has become a favorite with our audiences, and his ninth symphony is delightfully upbeat.”
Lieutenant Kijé is the fictional protagonist of an anecdote about the reign of Emperor Paul I of Russia. The story was used as the basis of a novella by Yury Tynyanov published in 1928 and filmed in 1934, with music by Sergei Prokofiev (below). The plot is a satire on bureaucracy and is often parodied in fictional works making fun of bureaucracies, most famously in the form of the M*A*S*H television episode “Tuttle,” featuring a fictional captain of similar provenance. (You can hear the popular “Troika” episode in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Many of the themes in Violin Concerto in D minor are evocative of the native Armenia of Aram Khachaturian (below). Although the folk melodies aren’t played explicitly, one can hear the Armenian roots through the oriental essence of the scales and the rhythmic range of the featured dances. The piece won the Stalin Prize in 1941, becoming one of Khachaturian’s favorites.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 is entirely unlike his other symphonies. In fact, it completely disregards the expectations for its programmatic elements. Shostakovich’s prior two symphonies are thematically tied to the ongoing war, therefore the public presumed that the ninth symphony would be a grand culmination to Stalin and mark the end of World War II. Instead, the composer (below) produced a short, neo-classical work that generated an abundance of controversy.
ABOUT RACHEL BARTON PINE
In both art and life, violinist Rachel Barton Pine (below) – who has performed in Madison before with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra — has an extraordinary ability to connect with people.
Celebrated as a leading interpreter of great classic and contemporary works, her performances combine her innate gift for emotional communication and her scholarly fascination with historical research. She plays with passion and conviction, thrilling audiences worldwide with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and infectious joy in music-making.
A prolific recording artist, she has also championed the works of female composers and African-American composers.
Pine was also recently named the recipient of the Cedille Records Musical Partnership Award for her Rachel Barton Pine Foundation. The Foundation was recognized as an organization that has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the classical music community in Chicago. Cedille noted the Foundation’s “support of the Chicago musical community’s most valuable asset — its musicians and composers.”
Pine was presented with the award by U.S Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose son, Jim Ginsburg, founded Cedille Records. Pine began her Foundation in 2001 to provide instruments and instruction to children who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
You can read the Artist Story online about how Rachel Barton Pine overcame severe injuries and her own personal adversity to achieve her goals: https://madisonsymphony.org/19-20-artist-story-rachel-barton-pine-overcomes-adversity/
CONCERT, TICKET AND EVENT DETAILS
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert.
One hour before each performance, retired MSO trombonist and UW-Whitewater professor Michael Allsen (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket holders.
The MSO recommends that concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center’s security stations, and so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Program notes for the concerts are available online: http://bit.ly/msooct19programnotes.
- Single Tickets are $19-$95 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/rachel-barton-pine-plays-khachaturian/through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street, or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online/phone sales.
- Groups of 10 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information, visit, https://www.madisonsymphony.org/groups.
- Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $15 or $20 tickets. More information is at: https://www.madisonsymphony.org/studentrush
- Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
- Flex-ticket booklets of 8-10 vouchers for 19-20 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
- Subscriptions for the 2019–2020 season are available now. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/19-20
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
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Classical music: YOU MUST HEAR THIS: Three piano pieces by the forgotten American composer William Mason that are worth rediscovering
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By Jacob Stockinger
As often happens, The Ear was listening to Wisconsin Public Radio and yesterday afternoon he made a discovery during The Midday program with Norman Gilliland.
It was piano piece called “Amourette” by the American 19th-century composer William Mason (below). Unfortunately, you won’t find that piece on YouTube. But here, in the YouTube video at the bottom, are three other fine works, probably from the same Naxos CD, that are also noteworthy discoveries of a forgotten, if minor, composer who had a knack for pleasing and melodic salon music.
Here are a brief biography and an introduction from YouTube and Wikipedia:
William Mason (below, 1829-1908) was an American pianist, composer and teacher. He was from a musical family, son of the famous and prolific hymn composer Lowell Mason, and brother of Henry Mason, co-founder of Mason and Hamlin pianos.
William studied in Europe and was the first American student of Franz Liszt. In his music, you can hear reflected some of the major piano composers of the 19th century.
Here is a link to his entry in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mason_(composer)
Although these William Mason pieces are largely forgotten now, his work is wonderfully melodic and certainly deserves to be heard more often.
These three pieces are from the Naxos CD “William Mason” (No. 8.559142) The CD contains 14 other Mason compositions – including his best known “Silver Spring.” (The CD is part of the American Classics Collection.)
For those tired of hearing the same classical music on the radio or the concert hall – the Naxos collection provides a wide spectrum of superb but rarely heard music.
The pianist on this album is Kenneth Boulton. On the third piece, “Badinage,” which is for piano four-hands, Kenneth Boulton is joined by his wife and pianist JoAnne Barry.
Track Listings: 0:00 “Improvisation”; 4:30 “Lullaby”; 7:35 “Badinage”
Do you like Mason’s music?
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Classical Music: The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble will take Madison listeners on a FREE concert of ‘Imaginary Journeys’ TONIGHT at 7 p.m.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement for a concert that sounds in keeping with the spirit of Halloween:
The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble (below, in a photo by Thomas Mohr) will lead listeners on aural adventures through space, time and fantasy at its “Imaginary Journeys” concert TONIGHT, Oct. 27.
The concert is FREE and open to the public, and will take place at 7 p.m. at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 5701 Raymond Road, in Madison.
For more information, call (608) 271-6633 or visit www.gslcwi.com or gargoylebrass.com.
The professional ensemble of brass quintet and pipe organ, with percussion, will perform the Madison premieres of new works and arrangements it recently commissioned for its novel array of instruments.
The concert’s namesake work, “Imaginary Journeys,” was written for the ensemble by Chicago-area composer Mark Lathan. It takes listeners on a rocket-powered interstellar adventure, inspired by recent astronomical discoveries.
“For this piece,” Lathan says, “I wanted to bring in some drama, somewhat in the manner of a film score.” Lathan earned a doctorate in music from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received the Henry Mancini Award in Film Composition and studied film scoring with Jerry Goldsmith.
Another Madison premiere is Craig Garner’s brass-and-organ arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s ever-popular Suite from “The Firebird,” a ballet based on Russian fairy tales. “The audience will hear an all-time favorite orchestral work like it’s never been heard before,” says Rodney Holmes, founder and artistic director of the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble.
Concertgoers will also hear the first local performances of “Short Fuse” for brass, organ and percussion by Chris Reyman (below), a jazz performance specialist teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso. Holmes says, “This piece shows off a very different face of what a pipe organ and brass can do.”
Other first hearings include Garner’s two-part instrumental suite from English Baroque composer Henry Purcell’s “Come Ye Sons of Art.”
The concert’s journey into the Baroque era includes brass and organ arrangements of movements from Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale cantata “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), BWV 80.
The concert’s imaginative works include “Earthscape” by David Marlatt (below, and heard in the YouTube video at the bottom) as well as pipe-organ versions of “Clair de lune” (Moonlight) by Claude Debussy and Louis Vierne.
Performers will include Madison-based organist Jared Stellmacher (below), an award-winning musician heard on the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble’s critically acclaimed 2015 debut CD “Flourishes, Tales and Symphonies.” He holds a master’s degree in music from Yale University.
Gargoyle ensemble players are trumpeters Lev Garbar and Andrew Hunter, horn player Amy Krueger, trombonist Ian Fitzwater, tuba player Jason Lyons, and percussionist Logan Fox. Conductor will be Jakob Noestvik.
About the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble
“The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble plays with warmth, elegance, and panache,” said U.S. music magazine Fanfare in a review of the ensemble’s debut CD. “[They] are perfect companions for the music lover in need of calming nourishment.”
The group takes its whimsical name from the stone figures atop gothic buildings at the University of the Chicago, where the now-professional ensemble got its start in 1992 as a brass quintet of faculty and students.
Under its founder and artistic director Rodney Holmes, it has evolved over the decades into an independent organization of classically trained musicians that focuses on commissioning and performing groundbreaking new works and arrangements for brass and pipe organ. More information can be found at gargoylebrass.com.
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Classical music: The 29th Token Creek Festival closes with the world premiere of a song cycle by John Harbison and dramatic, affecting Schumann
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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. 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
The third and final program of this summer’s 29th Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, held in a refurbished barn (below) was given on last Saturday afternoon, when I caught it, and then was repeated the following day.
There were adjustments down to the wire, as co-director John Harbison noted in his opening comments. The originally planned opening piece, Mozart’s Sonata in G Major, K. 301, for Violin and Piano, was cancelled, and the program actually began with Haydn’s Piano Sonata in E Major (H. XVI:22).
Harbison (below) played this himself, having observed that, if not noteworthy, it was representative of its kind. In fact, it is a worthy work, its third and final movement is a little set of delightful variations on a minuet tune. Harbison obviously loves this whole Haydn literature, and he played the piece with affection.
Then it was vocal music, sung by tenor Frank Kelley — who has worked with Harbison in the Emmanuel Music activities in Boston — with pianist Janice Weber.
Their first offering was the world premiere of a cycle-in-progress by Harbison, titled In Early Evening, to texts by poet Louise Glück (below): specifically, of its first three songs. The texts are dreamy and nostalgic, and the composer has attempted to capture their multi-layered implications.
The two performers (below) then completed the concert’s first half with a presentation of the complete 16 songs of the cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love) by Robert Schumann. This sets the reflections on failed love, written by the great German poet Heinrich Heine.
Kelley is not an ingratiating singer. His voice sounds raw and worn. Nevertheless, he has splendid diction, in both English and German. He sounded much more confident and secure in the magnificent Schumann cycle, which he sang without a score. In this music he conveyed the varying moods and emotions with genuine engagement and expression.
But pianist Janice Weber (below) proved a real discovery. In his program notes, Harbison rightly pointed out that Schumann’s piano writing was not so much accompaniment as individualized piano writing with its own character and even independence. Indeed, the final song of the Heine cycle ends, after the voice is finished, with a substantial little epilogue of reflection for the piano alone.
Weber projected that very strong piano dimension wonderfully, and she repeated the feat when, for the program’s second half, she was joined in Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 63, by violinist and Festival co-founder Rose Mary Harbison and cellist Karl Lavine.
This is a lively and quintessentially Schumanesque work that the audience loved. (You can hear the energetic first movement, played by the Beaux Arts Trio, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
But I found the ensemble not well balanced. Lavine was surprisingly mild, deferential and understated in his playing. But Weber provided the sturdy backbone of the performance. We should hear more of this splendid artist.
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Classical music: Acclaimed a cappella vocal ensemble Cantus performs a world premiere in Edgerton this Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
“Cantus: Inspiring Through Song“ will perform in concert this coming Saturday night, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Edgerton Performing Arts Center, 200 Elm High Drive in Edgerton, Wisconsin.
In its 2017-18 touring program “Discovery of Sight,” the a cappella ensemble Cantus (below) explores the essence of light and vision, reveling in the mystery, science and poetry of what it means to truly “see” with music.
The program features works by Richard Strauss, Franz Schubert, Eric Whitacre (below top) and Einojuhani Rautavaara (below middle, in a photo by Getty Images) alongside a world premiere by Gabriel Kahane (below bottom).
Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased online at www.edgertonpac.com or by phone at (608) 561-6093.
Praised as “engaging” by the New Yorker magazine, the men’s vocal ensemble Cantus is widely known for its trademark warmth and blending, and for its innovative programming and involving performances of music ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century.
The Washington Post has hailed the Cantus sound as having both “exalting finesse” and “expressive power,” and refers to the “spontaneous grace” of its music making.
As one of the nation’s few full-time vocal ensembles, Cantus has grown in prominence with its distinctive approach to creating music. Working without a conductor, the members of Cantus rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing to the entirety of the artistic process.
Cantus performs more than 60 concerts each year both in national and international touring, and in its home of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Cantus has performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, UCLA, San Francisco Performances, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
You can hear Cantus perform a Tiny Desk Concert for National Public Radio (NPR) in the YouTube video at the bottom. The Ear is especially fond of the way they sing “Wanting Memories.”
For more information about Cantus, go to the ensemble’s website: www.cantussings.org
The performance is funded by the William and Joyce Wartmann Endowment for the Performing Arts.
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Classical music: Farley’s underappreciated Salon Piano Series shines again with duo-pianists Robert Plano and Paola Del Negro
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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
Roberto Plano appeared last season in a four-piano concert in the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos. This year, to open the 2017-18 season in the same series on last Sunday afternoon, the Boston-based pianist brought along his pianist wife, Paola Del Negro, for a duo program of utter fascination. (They are below.)
The first half of the program was devoted to music for piano-four hands, the duo alternating between primo and secondo parts. Robert Schumann’s six “Pictures From the East,” Op. 66, are examples of the composer’s important duo output.
Burgmein was the pen name of the covert composer better known as the influential music promoter and publisher Giulio Ricordi (below). His set of six duet pieces evoking characters from the Italian Renaissance Commedia dell’Arte tradition followed.
Then came two of the Hungarian Dances (No. 2 and 5) by Johannes Brahms in their original piano-duo form. (You can hear them play Hungarian Dances by Brahms in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Ending the program’s first half was one of its biggest hits. After composing the great orchestral cycle of six patriotic scenes called “My Country,” Bedrich Smetana (below) made four-hand piano arrangements of each. Plano and Del Negro played that for the popular “Moldau.” This arrangement managed to capture a good deal of the orchestral original’s coloristic and dramatic effects, and was played with particular power.
The entire second half was devoted exclusively to a major work by Brahms, his Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 34b. This work was created first as a string quintet, then later discarded. But the two-piano version (below) was superseded by Brahms’ transformation of its material into a Quintet for Piano and Strings (reckoned as plain Op. 34).
The Quintet — which, by the way will be performed by the UW’s Pro Arte Quartet in the Salon Series next March — is, of course, one of the composer’s masterpieces. But the Two-Piano Sonata survives on its own merits. The parallel material is presented cogently, all of it redistributed in consistently keyboard terms, as against the mixed media of the Quintet.
The duo played it with the necessary Brahmsian burliness and power, and on Farley’s wonderful vintage pianos it sounded simply magnificent.
As an encore, the duo played a two-piano arrangement of an energetic tango piece by Astor Piazzolla, but then followed with another, in this case, an eight-hand piano trifle in which the Plano-Del Negro duo were joined as parents by their two young daughters (below). The audience could hardly resist that!
Plano and Del Negro are great discoveries. And once again, the Salon Piano Series has shown itself as one of the exciting, if too-little-known of Madison’s musical treasures.
For more information about the Salon Piano Series and its upcoming concerts, go to: http://salonpianoseries.org
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