The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: How did Baroque composer Telemann get overshadowed and why is he being rediscovered? Trevor Stephenson talks about his all-Telemann concerts this weekend
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend, the Madison Bach Musicians (MBM) will give two performances of a concert devoted exclusively to the music of Baroque composer Georg Philip Telemann (below).
The performances are: Saturday night, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, where MBM will be artists-in-residence this season; the second performance is on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 6, at 3:30 p.m. at the Holy Wisdom Monastery, 4200 County Road M, in Middleton.
Tickets are $35 in advance and are available at the Willy Street Coop East and West, and at Orange Tree Imports. Tickets at the door are $38 for the general public; $35 for seniors; and $10 for student rush tickets that go on sale 30 minutes before each lecture. The lectures take place 45 minutes before the performance, at 7:15 p.m. and 2:45 p.m, respectively.
Why focus on the music of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)?
Trevor Stephenson, the founder and director of the Madison Bach Musicians, talks about it in an email Q&A with The Ear:
Why does Telemann, who was so respected in his day, seem to get far less play, fewer performances and less mentioning today than his contemporaries Bach, Vivaldi and Handel?
Telemann was born in 1681 — three years after Vivaldi and four years before Bach and Handel. He was astonishingly prolific and it is estimated that he wrote more than Bach and Handel combined.
On top of this, he was very highly respected and was widely published and performed during his life. Remember, it was Telemann — not Bach — whom the Leipzig council wanted to hire for the music director position in 1723. But Telemann was enjoying his wonderful new post in Hamburg—a thriving port city — and was not about to go back to landlocked Leipzig where he had spent his student days.
At any rate, after the 18th century had passed and its music became somewhat marginalized, in the early 19th century it was Bach’s music, not Telemann’s, that suddenly re-emerged.
Bach’s tremendous emotional depth, contrapuntal mastery and ability to control large-scale forms in an almost heroic way spoke with greater urgency to the Romantic sensibility than did Telemann’s elegant craftsmanship. Indeed, 19th-century Bach scholars often mean-spiritedly used Telemann as a foil for Bach.
Telemann’s music nevertheless received a modicum of performances in the early 20th century, but in the 1980s and 1990s, as the Early Music movement really got rolling—and the level of period-instrument performance increased—it became apparent that Telemann’s music really was hot stuff!
Now his music is enjoying a wonderful and well-deserved revival.
What are the appealing and admirable qualities you see in Telemann’s music? Are there any drawbacks to his compositions?
Telemann had a wonderful sense of melodic invention — probably music’s analog to an artist’s ability to draw — and his tunes seem to flow out effortlessly. And although his output was opulent, he had an uncanny sense of form and how much weight – duration — any given musical scene could bear.
He also was a masterful musical polyglot, able to jump back and forth easily between Italian, French and German musical idioms; and like Bach, he was also adept at integrating them into a unified style—this integration of national styles was a frequently acknowledged goal of 18th-century composers.
Telemann’s limitations are apparent when he is juxtaposed with Handel, who could dramatically really take the roof off and who could also find the inner essence of the human voice, and Bach who, like Shakespeare, through a near alchemy of sound and meaning could consistently define and further what it means to be human.
How and why did you put this program together? What unifies it and what would you like the public to know about it?
Madison Bach Musicians’ concertmaster and assistant artistic director Kangwon Kim (below left with Emily Dupere) did the heavy lifting in putting together this wonderful program of Telemann’s chamber music. MBM will present three of Telemann’s programmatic or story works, one church cantata and three purely instrumental selections.
With narration and graphics, we’ll walk you through how he cleverly depicts scenes from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726, below), which had been in print only two years when Telemann wrote his topical Gulliver Suite in 1728. Telemann loved ludicrous irony, like the tiny Lilliputians dancing a heavy chaconne—which Telemann notates in a hilarious, confounding mass of 64th and 128th notes. And then there’s the Brobdingnagian giants doing their rendition of a light-footed gigue, rendered in loopy, cumbersome whole notes!
We’ll also present the marvelous Suite Burlesque based upon Cervantes’ Don Quixote (below): Quixote’s love for Dulcinea, his jousting with windmills, and how a crowd mocks Quixote’s faithful, world-weary servant Sancho Panza.
To top it off, guest artist mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski (below) will sing the droll and sweetly amusing cantata about the demise — brought about by the cat! — of a favorite and very artistic canary. Osowski will also sing the church cantata Weicht, ihr Sünden, bleibt dahinten (Yield, You Sins, and Stay Behind Me). Telemann wrote more than 1,000 church cantatas.
The concert includes non-programmatic works for string band: the dramatic and Corelli-esque Sonata à 6 in F minor for two violins, two violas, cello and continuo; and the sparkling Sinfonia Spirituosa (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom). I will also perform some fascinating Fantasy miniatures for solo harpsichord, and will give a pre-concert lecture at both events.
For more information about the program, the performers and tickets, go to: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tags: #18thCentury, #19thCentury, #20thCentury, #AntonioVivaldi, #ArcangeloCorelli, #AtriumAuditorium, #BaroqueComposer, #BaroqueContinuo, #BaroqueMusic, #BlogInterview, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CelloMusic, #ChamberMusic, #ChristianChurch, #ClaraOsowski, #ClassicalMusician, #ContrapuntalMusic, #DonQuixote, #EarlyMusicMovement, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FirstUnitarianSocietyofMadison, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #GuestArtist, #Gulliver'sTravels, #HamburgGermany, #HarpsichordMusic, #HeavyLifting, #HolyWisdomMonastery, #HotStuff, #HumanVoice, #InstrumentalMusic, #JohannSebastianBach, #JonathanSwift, #KangwonKim, #Large-scale, #LeipzigGermany, #MadisonBachMusicians, #Mezzo-sopranoSinger, #MigueldeCervantes, #MusicalStyle, #MusicDirector, #OrangeTreeImports, #PeriodInstrument, #PortCity, #Pre-concertLecture, #RomanticMusic, #SacredCantata, #SacredMusic, #SanchoPanza, #SaturdayNight, #SeniorCitizen, #StringMusic, #Sundayafternoon, #ViolaMusic, #ViolinMusic, #VocalMusic, #WholeNotes, #WilliamShakepseare, #WillyStreetCoop, #WillyStreetCoopEast, #WillyStreetCoopWest, 18th century, 19th century, 20th-century, ability, afternoon, alchemy, analog, analogue, Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, artist, artist-in-residence, Atrium Auditorium, Bach, band, Baroque, behind, blog, Burlesque, Cantata, cellist, Cello, chaconne, Chamber music, Christian, Christianity, church, Clara Osowski, Classical music, classicalmusic, composer, Concert, concertmaster, contemporary, continuo, contrapuntal, control, Corelli, council, counterpoint, craftsmanship, crowd, cumbersome, dance, dancing, days, depth, devoted, Don Quixote, draw, Dulcinea, Early music, elegant, email, emotional, enjoy, exclusive, Facebook, faithful, fantasy, fascinating, First Unitarian Society of Madison, form, forward, French, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, German, giant, giants, gigue, goal, guest artist, Gulliver's Travels, Hamburg, Handel, harpsichord, heavy lifting, heroic, hire, Holy Wisdom Monastery, hot stuff, human voice, idiom, instrumental, interview, invention, irony, Italian, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Swift, jousting, Kangwon Kim, landlocked, lecture, Leipzig, like, Lilliputian, link, loopy, Love, ludicrous, Madison Bach Musicians, marginalized, marvelous, mastery, me, mean-spirit, meaning, melodic, melody, mention, Mezzo-soprano, Middleton, Miguel de Cervantes, miniature, movement, Music, Music director, musical, musical style, national, night, notes, opulent, Orange Tree Imports, output, performance, performer, period-instrument, play, polyglot, port city, position, post, posting, programmatic, prolific, public, pure, Q&A, rediscover, respect, revival, Romantic, sacred cantata, sacred music, Sancho Panza, Saturday night, scene, scholar, senior, sense, sensibility, servant, Shakespeare, share, sins, solo, Sonata, Sound, story, string, Student, style, subscriber, Suite, Sunday, tag, tickets, tiny, tune, tunes, uncanny, unified, urgency, use, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, Vivaldi, vocal music, weight, well-deserved, whole, whole notes, Willy Street Coop, windmill, Wisconsin, wonderfu, world-weary, yield
Classical music: A busy week at the UW-Madison brings the debut of a new conducting professor with the UW Symphony Orchestra plus a major voice recital, a string quintet and two master classes.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It will be a busy week for classical music in Madison, especially at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
Certainly the standout event is the debut of Chad Hutchinson (below). He is the new conducting teacher and succeeds James Smith.
The FREE concert by the UW Symphony Orchestra will take place on Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall.
The intriguing program features the Prelude to the opera “Die Meistersinger” by Richard Wagner (you can hear George Solti perform it with the Vienna Philharmonic the YouTube video at the bottom); the orchestral arrangement by Leopold Stokowski of the piano prelude “The Sunken Cathedral” by Claude Debussy; the “Mothership,” with electronics, by the American composer Mason Bates; and the Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” by Ludwig van Beethoven, a work that was recently voted the best symphony ever written by more than a hundred conductors.
Here is a link to more about Hutchinson’s impressive background:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/chad-hutchinson/
And here is a schedule of other events at the UW:
WEDNESDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall conductor Scott Teeple leads the UW Wind Ensemble (below top) in its FREE season opener featuring music by Percy Grainger, Aaron Copland, Roger Zare and Jennifer Higdon. Also featured is guest oboist, faculty member Aaron Hill (below bottom).
Here is a link to program notes:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/wind-ensemble/
Also at 7:30 p.m. in nearby Morphy Recital Hall, the internationally renowned guest violist Nobuko Imai (below), from Japan, will give a free public master class in strings and chamber music.
THURSDAY
At noon in Mills Hall, guest violist Nobuko Imai (see above) will perform a FREE one-hour lunchtime concert with the Pro Arte Quartet, which has San Francisco cellist guest Jean-Michel Fonteneau substituting for the quartet’s usual cellist, Parry Karp, who is sidelined temporarily with a finger injury.
The ensemble will perform just one work: a driving and glorious masterpiece, the String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111, by Johannes Brahms.
At 1 p.m. in Old Music Hall, Demondrae Thurman (below), a UW alumnus who is distinguished for playing the euphonium, will give a free public master class in brass.
For more information, go to:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/master-class-demondrae-thurman-euphonium/
NOTE: The 3:30 master class for singers by Melanie Helton has been CANCELLED. The UW hopes to reschedule it for late fall or spring.
FRIDAY
At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW baritone Paul Rowe (below top, in a photo by Michael R. Anderson) and UW collaborative pianist Martha Fischer (below middle) will give a FREE concert of three songs cycles by Robert Schumann (the famed “Liederkreis); Maurice Ravel; and UW alumnus composer Scott Gendel (below bottom).
For the complete program, go to:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/faculty-recital-paul-rowe-voice-martha-fischer-piano-2/
SATURDAY
At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Symphony Orchestra (below) will perform under its new conductor Chad Hutchinson. See above.
SUNDAY
At 3 p.m. the afternoon concerts by Lyle Anderson at the UW Carillon (below) on Observatory Drive will resume.
Here is a link with a schedule and more information:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/carillon-concert/2017-10-08/
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Classical music: The 18th annual Madison Early Music Festival concludes its look at the Spanish Renaissance with another outstanding “concept concert” featuring all participants
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By Jacob Stockinger
Nobody here does “concept concerts” better than the Madison Early Music Festival.
Proof came again last Saturday night in Mills Hall when the large forces of professional faculty members and workshop student participants (both below) joined to present a comprehensive overview of Renaissance music in Spain.
The program featured various combinations, including a quartet (below) as well as choral music and instrumental music. It offered sacred and secular fare, courtly music and folk music, Latin and vernacular Spanish.
Once again, the impressive program was assembled and conducted by Grant Herreid (below top) of the internationally acclaimed Renaissance band Piffaro (below bottom), a popular and regular guest at MEMF. (You can hear Piffaro perform music from the Spanish Renaissance in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
As in past years, history, biography, literature, religion and music get layered on top of each other and interwoven among each other. As a formula, from year to year the concept keeps getting refined and keeps succeeding.
In this case, the narration and story line centered on the surprisingly adventurous life of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (below), who wrote the first important novel, “Don Quixote.”
Last year, the festival celebrated the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare; this year, it was the 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes.
The Ear really likes the format. The All-Festival concert ran 75 minutes and was done without intermission. Even if you are not a big fan of such early music, the concert was varied enough and short enough to hold your attention.
Unity was provided by excerpts from various texts of Cervantes, including “Don Quixote” as well as less well-known works. Some of his words were even substituted for other texts in songs and choruses.
The chorus and soloists sounded very well rehearsed, and the large instrumental section – with all those unusual-looking early instruments like sackbuts and shawms – was exceptional.
Herreid kept an outstanding sonic balance between the vocal and instrumental forces throughout the event.
There were quite a few narrators (below) who presented the short texts by Cervantes. And they proved the only weak point. Some people just don’t seem as up to the task as others do.
Perhaps in future years, the festival could pick, say, one man and one woman to alternate in the readings. The audience would have a better sense of their identities, and the effect would be better if the narrators were chosen for their ability to project dramatically and enunciate clearly but with expression – something that proved uneven with so many different narrators taking turns.
The Ear didn’t go to a lot of the festival events. He confesses that he is more a Baroque than a Renaissance person who looks forward to next year’s theme of “A Journey to Lübeck,” with German Renaissance and even Baroque music, especially music by Dietrich Buxtehude. (The 19th annual festival will be held July 7-14, 2018.)
But this final wrap-up concert is proof that even if very early music is not your thing, you shouldn’t miss the final event.
The All-Festival concert really is a MUST-HEAR.
You learn a lot.
And you enjoy even more.
Certainly the audience seemed to agree.
Were you there?
What did you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: adventure, Arts, audience, balance, band, Baroque, Baroque violin, biography, Cello, Cervantes, Chamber music, choral music, chorus, Classical music, concept, Dietrich Buxtehude, Don Quixote, duo, Early music, enunciate, expression, faculty, formula, German, Germany, Golden Age, Grant Herreid, History, instrument, instrumental, Jacob Stockinger, Latin, literature, Lubeck, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, MEMF, Music, narrator, novel, opera, Orchestra, Piffaro, professional, project, projection, Quartet, reading, Religion, Renaissance, sackbut, sacred, secular, Shakespeare, shawm, solo, solos, song, sonic, Spain, Spanish, Student, symphony, text, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vernacular, Viol, viol da gamba, Viola, Violin, vocal, vocal music, Wisconsin, workshop, Writer, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival will perform familiar and unfamiliar Spanish Renaissance music. What composers and works will be performed? And what makes them different? Part 2 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts to explore Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.
To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers Cheryl Bensman Rowe and Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.
All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.
Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).
(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)
How does early Spanish music differ from its counterparts in, say, Italy, France, Germany and England. What is the historical origin and importance of the music from that era in that part of the world?
The music from the Iberian Peninsula reflects the influences and changes that were happening all over Europe throughout the period that MEMF is examining this summer.
From the “romances” and “villancicos” of Juan del Encina during the time of Columbus to the Baroque era masses, secular songs and instrumental music of Antonio Soler (organ), Luis de Briceño and Gaspar Sanz (vihuela/guitar, below top) and Domenico Scarlatti (below bottom), Spanish music maintained its own unique traditions born of its complicated mixture of cultures and expanding global empire while still reflecting the overall developments that were occurring in Italy, France and Germany.
Some crucial differences include the presence of the Muslim and Jewish poetic and musical influence in the predominantly Catholic region reflected in preferred instrumentation where the vihuela was used more often than the lute, the exotic stories from Middle Eastern sources and the harmonies and melodies that are unique to the Spanish repertoire.
The fact that the political makeup of the area was constantly changing and being buffeted by global changes can make it difficult to understand what really constitutes “Spanish” just as Italy and Germany were not unified in the way we think of them today but were made of individual and distinct regions.
There was much blurring of borders between countries. For example, Naples, which we would think of as Italian, was a Spanish city for most of this time period, with a flourishing court, which supported the flourishing of the musical culture. Artistic changes and developments reflect this rather flexible organization of regions which did not take its current shape until well into the 19th century. (below is an old map of the Iberian Peninsula)
What music and composers of that era have been most neglected and least neglected by historians and performers?
The music from the Iberian Peninsula has been receiving increasing attention in the last 50 years or so. MEMF has focused on this area several times as new editions and discoveries are coming to light.
There are many reasons for this, including the German bias created by musicologists from that area starting in the 19th century. The lack of understanding of a complicated history and a condescension directed towards all things from the “hotter” regions of Europe except for Greece also prevented research, recording and appreciation of this varied repertoire.
The composers that will be most familiar to audiences will be Cristobal de Morales (below top), Francisco Guerrero (below middle) and Tomas Luis de Victoria (below bottom), who are known for their choral music including motets and settings of the Catholic Mass and Mateo Flecha (father and son), who composed secular choral pieces featuring popular tunes of the day put together in a kind of musical pastiche called an “ensalada.”
There are many less known composers from the various regions of Spain.
Juan del Encina is probably responsible for the collection titled ” Cancionero de Palacio” and is credited with 60 pieces from this volume of nearly 500 first published in the 1490s. Juan Hidalgo (below top and in the YouTube video at the bottom) is credited with the creation of the zarzuela, a theatrical form similar to the Neapolitan opera of the time. There is Diego Ortiz, who flourished in Naples, and Antonio de Cabezón (below bottom), who composed primarily keyboard music and Gaspar Sanz, who is familiar to modern guitarists and composed many pieces for the vihuela.
Can you tell us about the program and performers for the All-Festival concert on July 15?
The All-Festival Concert is unique to MEMF. All week long, workshop participants and faculty will work side by side to create Iberian Tapestry: Music and Conquest from the Spanish Golden Age, which includes sacred and secular compositions by Victoria, Guerrero, Flecha, Vasquez, music from the Moors of the Reconquista, Sephardic music for the heritage of the Jews, and from the New World.
This concert will include narrations selected from Don Quixote.
This year, the program was created and will be directed by Grant Herreid (below), who also curated the Piffaro program that opens the MEMF 2017 Concert Series.
Are there other sessions, guest lectures and certain performers that you especially recommend for the general public?
The week is so full of wonderful adventures that I really encourage people to experience it all.
Besides the concert series and workshop classes there are pre-concert lectures and a dance event, ¡Bailemos!, on Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 7:30 p.m., in the Frederic March Play Circle on the second floor of the Memorial Union.
Several free events, besides the Harp concert and master class are the Participant Concert on Friday, July 14, at 1 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall; the Early Opera Workshop; and the Loud Band free concert on Saturday, July 15, at 2 p.m. at Music Hall featuring participants from the Advanced Loud Bound Intensive and the Early Opera & Continuo Workshop performing works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero and several cancioneros plus scenes from La púrpura de la rosa by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco.
MEMF provides a wonderful opportunity to go back in time and be immersed in the Spanish Renaissance through music, art, dance, concerts and lectures, plus workshop classes. People can play an active role participating as a student, or join us in the audience to listen to the glorious sounds of the historical instruments and voices as we recreate the music from the Golden Age of Spain.
Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets: www.madisonearlymusic.org
Tags: American Girl Place Theater, Arts, Baroque, Catholic, Cello, Cervantes, Chamber music, Cheryl Bensman Rowe, choral music, city, Classical music, composer, Concert, conquest, Cristóbal de Morales, culture, dance, Diego Ortiz, Don Quixote, Early music, England, event, festival, France, Francisco Guerrero, Gaspar Sanz, Germany, Grant Herreid, guitar, Iberia, instrumental, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, Luis de Briceno, Madisn Early Music Festival, Madison, mass, Mateo Flecha, MEMF, Middle Eastern, Moor, Music, Muslim, Neopolitan, novel, novelist, opera, organ, pastiche, Paul Rowe, Piffaro, political, Politics, popular, Renaissance, Romance, romances, Scarlatti, secular, Sephardic, series, Soler, song, Spain, Spanish, tapestry, theater, ticket, Tomas Luis de Victoria, tradition, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, vihuela, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, workshop, Writer, YouTube, zarzuela
Classical music: Starting this Friday, the Madison Early Music Festival will devote a week to exploring familiar and unfamiliar Iberian music during the age of Cervantes. Part 1 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts its week-long exploration of Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.
To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers soprano Cheryl Bensman Rowe and baritone Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.
All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.
Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).
(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)
How successful is this year’s festival compared to others in terms of enrollment, budgets, performers, etc.? How does this program of MEMF’s reach nationally or even internationally compare to previous years?
We will have about 100 students at our workshop this summer, which has been a steady number for the past five years. Our budget increased to cover the big Don Quixote project by Piffaro, which you can read about below.
We continue to attract workshop participants and performers from all over the United States and Canada, and this year our concert series will present Xavier Diaz-Latorre from Spain. For more information, go to: www.xavierdiazlatorre.com
What is new and what is the same in terms of format, students, faculty members and performers?
The following events are new to MEMF this summer:
The Historical Harp Society will be giving a conference before MEMF begins, from Thursday, July 6 through Saturday, July 8, with classes and lectures that will culminate in a concert of Harp Music from the Spanish Golden Age on Friday, July 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall, which is FREE and open to the public. Go to www.historicalharpsociety.org
Master teacher and performer Xavier Diaz-Latorre will be giving a master class in Morphy Recital Hall on Saturday, July 8, from 10 a.m. to noon. It is free and open to the public.
We have a new partnership with the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS) Program at UW-Madison. LACIS has helped us translate materials and supported MEMF with two grants. www.lacis.wisc.edu
A new display in the Memorial Library foyer will celebrate the 2017 Madison Early Music Festival with a special exhibit of Don Quixote Through the Ages, featuring a selection of books, musical scores, and other materials from the UW-Madison Libraries. While viewing the exhibition, patrons can scan a QR code and listen to a Spotify playlist featuring music that will be heard at the MEMF 2017 Concert Series! This is a MEMF first, created by co-artistic director Paul Rowe.
We worked with several librarians to select the materials: Paloma Celis-Carbajal, Ibero-American Studies and Romance Languages Librarian; Jeanette Casey, head of Mills Music Library; and Lisa Wettleson from Special Collections at Memorial Library (below, in a photo by Brent Nicastro).
Dates: June 26 – August 10, 2017
Location: Memorial Library foyer | 728 State Street | Madison
Library Hours: 8 a.m.-9:45 p.m.
We have several new performers this year.
Xavier Diaz-Latorre, a vihuela player from Spain, and the ensemble Sonnambula from New York. Xavier is a world-renowned musician, and plays the vihuela, a Spanish Renaissance type of guitar, and the lute.
Xavier will perform a solo recital featuring music of the vihuela by composers Luis Narváez, Alonso Mudarra, Gaspar Sanz and Santiago de Murcia. The link below will give you more information about the predecessors to the guitar:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/aboutLute/Vihuela.html
Daphna Mor and Kane Mathis will present a program featuring music from the geographic regions of Andalusia, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and the Sephardic Diaspora. Based on the monophonic music of modes referred to as the Makam, the audience will be drawn to distinct beauty and great similarities of music from the courts, liturgical forms, dance airs and folk music.
Daphna Mor (below top) sings and plays several historical wind instruments, and Kane Mathis (below bottom) plays the oud, a lute type of stringed instrument with 11 or 13 strings grouped in 5 or 6 courses, commonly used in Middle Eastern music.
Percussionist Shane Shanahan (below) will join them. Shane is an original member of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and a Grammy award winner. https://www.stepsnyc.com/faculty/bio/Shane-Shanahan/
And watch Shane play frame drum in the Cave Temples of Dunhuang at the Getty Museum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjC3y6CXQ8
Hear and read about Daphna Mor: http://www.daphnamor.com/
You can watch Kane Mathis play the oud at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tHrxEohai8
Sonnambula (below), an ensemble of violins and viol da gambas, has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and have a regular series at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. It played a sold-out program of Spanish Golden Age works drawn from the over 450 pieces in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, a manuscript at the Royal Palace of Madrid. This same program will be presented at MEMF on Friday, July 14. (You can hear them perform Spanish music in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Why was the theme of the Spain’s Golden Age and The Age of Cervantes and Don Quixote chosen for the festival? What composers and works will be highlighted?
We liked the connection with last year’s theme, Shakespeare 400, because, although they never knew one another, Cervantes and Shakespeare (below) were contemporaries and share a “deathaversary,” as they both died on April 23, 1616. They led quite different lives, as Shakespeare was very successful throughout his lifetime and Cervantes wasn’t well known until the end of his life, when Don Quixote was published in 1605.
http://www.dw.com/en/shakespeare-and-cervantes-two-geniuses-and-one-death-date/a-19203237
Also, the Renaissance band Piffaro (below, in a photo by Church Street Studios) — an ensemble from Philadelphia that is well loved by MEMF audiences — suggested we explore this connection to Don Quixote and present their program The Musical World of Don Quixote, a huge project that they have been researching for several years.
They created a musical soundtrack to the novel in chronological order, and their program will open our 2017 concert series. This link from the Early Music America article “Piffaro Tilts At Musical Windmills” will tell you about their project in depth:
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/emag-piffaro-tilts-at-musical-windmills/
The other concerts in the series draw from the music that is mentioned in Don Quixote and from the Spanish Renaissance, known as Siglo de Oro, or the Century of Gold. Many composers from this time period will be represented: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, Luis de Milán and Alonso Lobo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/concerts.htm
Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets:
Tomorrow: What makes Renaissance music in Spain different? What composers and music will be featured in concerts?
Tags: air, Alonso Lobo, Alonso Mudarra, American, Andalusia, Arts, award, baritone, Baroque, beauty, Book, budget, Canada, cave, Cello, Cervantes, Chamber music, Cheryl Bensman Rowe, choral music, class, Classical music, Concert, concerto, court, Cristóbal de Morales, dance, Daphna Mor, diaspora, Don Quixote, Early music, Early Music America, enrolllment, exhibit, explore, faculty, familiar, festival, folk, Folk music, Francisco Guerrero, Gaspar Sanz, Getty Museum, Golden Age, Grammy, guitar, harp, Hispanic, Hispanic Society of America, historical, History, Iberian, Iberian Peninsula, Jacob Stockinger, Kane Mathis, lecture, librarian, library, liturgical, liturgical music, liturgy, Luis de Milan, Luis Narvaez, lute, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madrid, manuscript, master class, Memorial Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Middle East, Middle Eastern, mode, monophonic, Music, music library, new, New York, New York City, North Africa, novel, novelist, Ottoman Empire, palace, participants, patrons, Paul Rowe, performer, Piffaro, playlist, rare books, Renaissance, Romance language, royal, sacred, Santiago de Murcia, score, secular, Sephardic, Shakespeare, Shane Shanahan, Silk Road Ensemble, soprano, Spain, special collections, Spotify, strings, temple, theme, ticket, Tomas Luis de Victoria, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, video, vihuela, viol da gamba, Viola, Violin, vocal music, windmill, winds, Wisconsin, work, workshop, Xavier Diaz-Latorre, Yo-Yo Ma, YouTube
Classical music: On Saturday, the UW-Madison hosts a FREE and PUBLIC day of workshops, master classes and performances for pianists and other keyboard players
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By Jacob Stockinger
Attention all pianists– amateurs, professionals and students — as well as other keyboard players.
This Saturday brings the first University of Wisconsin-Madison “Keyboard Day.” The focus is comprehensive, having the title “From the Practice Room to the Stage: The Pathway to Artistry.”(The official logo is below.)
The underlying reason may be to attract and recruit talented undergraduate students to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. But the net effect is that a lot of wisdom about keyboard playing – from practicing to performing — will be on display to be shared with those who attend.
All events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
The event takes place in Morphy Recital Hall from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Here is a schedule:
9:30-10 a.m. Coffee and Pastries (Mills Lobby)
10 a.m.-noon UW-Madison Keyboard Faculty Workshops
Strategies for Learning a New Piece with Professor Martha Fischer (below top) and Professor Jess Johnson (below bottom)
Getting Inside a Composer’s Head with Professor John Stowe
Beyond Repetitive Drilling: Custom Exercises for Every Difficult Passage with Professor Christopher Taylor
Mindfulness and Self-Compassion in the Practice Room with Professor Martha Fischer and Professor Jess Johnson
1:30-3:30 p.m. Master class for high school students with UW-Madison keyboard faculty
Etude in E major, Op. 10, No. 3 by Frederic Chopin; Yunyao Zhu, a student of Kangwoo Jin
Sonata in G major, Op. 49, No. 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven. George Logan, a student of Liz Agard
Sposalizio, by Franz Liszt. Owen Ladd, a student of William Lutes
Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31, by Frederic Chopin. Jacob Beranek, a student of Margarita Kontorovsky
3:30-4 p.m. Reception in Mills Lobby
4-5 p.m. Recital featuring UW-Madison Keyboard Faculty
Sonata, Wq. 49 No. 5 by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). From Sei Sonate, Op. 2 (1744). John Chappell Stowe, harpsichord (below top)
Quasi Variazioni. Andantino de Clara Wieck by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) from Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 14. Jess Johnson, piano. *Performed on a Steinbuhler DS 5.0 TM (“7/8”) alternatively-sized piano keyboard.
Don Quixote a Dulcinea (1933) by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Poetry by Paul Morand. Paul Rowe, baritone, and Martha Fischer, piano
The Banjo by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869). Christopher Taylor, piano (below middle). You can hear the piece in the YouTube video at the bottom. Taylor will also play “Ojos criollos” (Creole Eyes) and “Pasquinade” by the American composer Gottschalk.
Nature Boy by George Alexander “eden ahbez” Aberle (1908-1895) Johannes Wallmann, jazz piano (below bottom)
Tags: American, Arts, Bach, baritone, Beethoven, boy, C.P.E. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Chamber music, Chopin, Christopher Taylor, Clara Wieck, Classical music, coffee, compassion, composer, Creole, custom, Don Quixote, drill, Dulcinea, etudfe, exercise, faculty, harpsichord, high school, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Jess Johnson, Johannes Wallmann, John Chappell Stowe, Keyboard, learning, Liszt, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Madison, Martha Fischer, master class, mindfulness, Music, nature, passage, pastry, Paul Morand, performance, Piano, poem, Poetry, practice, Ravel, repetition, Scherzo, Schumann, Sonata, Sposalizio, strategy, Student, The Banjo, United States, University of Wisconsin System, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, variations, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival announces the theme and dates for next summer
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By Jacob Stockinger
The final figures from this summer’s 17th annual Madison Early Music Festival – which celebrated William Shakespeare and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I — are not in yet.
But from what The Ear saw and heard, it sure looked like a successful one.
So what can we expect next summer?
The 18th annual Madison Early Music Festival will take place July 8-15, 2017 and have the theme “The Musical World of Don Quixote.” That would suggest Spanish and Iberian music of the 17th century Golden Age during the time when Miguel de Cervantes (below) wrote and published what is generally considered the first modern novel.
From what The Ear has learned so far, the group Piffaro (below top) has been booked to return and the always impressive All-Festival Concert will be assembled and directed by MEMF veteran faculty member and performer Bob Wiemken (below bottom), who is a member of the Renaissance band Piffaro.
According to MEMF officals, more information will become available at the end of September.
Here is a link to the MEMF website:
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/
Tags: Arts, Baroque, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, Don Quixote, Early music, Elizabethan England, Iberian, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, MEMF, Miguel de Cervantes, Piffaro, Queen Elizabeth I, Renaissance, Spain, Spanish, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, William Shakespeare, Wisconsin
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