The Well-Tempered Ear
Can American film director Ron Howard make a sensitive and accurate biopic of Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang? Or is it a cultural appropriation that deserves to be condemned?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The self-appointed PC diversity police have struck again.
This is getting silly and tiresome, insulting and embarrassing.
Some advocates of cultural diversity are crying foul over the latest project of the American and Academy Award-winning Hollywood film director Ron Howard: making a biopic of the superstar Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang (below).
The script will be drawn from the pianist’s bestselling memoir “Journey of a Thousand Miles” — which has also been recast as an inspirational children’s book — and the director and scriptwriters will consult with Lang Lang.
It seems to The Ear a natural collaboration, as well as a surefire box office hit, between two high-achieving entertainers. Check out their bios:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Lang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Howard
But some people are criticizing the project in the belief that because Ron Howard (below) is white and Western, he cannot do justice to someone who is Chinese or to Asian culture.
Here is an essay, found on the website of Classic FM, by one objector. She is Chinese film director Lulu Wang (below), who says she has no interest in doing the project herself: https://www.classicfm.com/artists/lang-lang/pianist-biopic-ron-howard-faces-criticism-lulu-wang/
Talk about misplaced alarm over “cultural appropriation.”
Don’t you think that Lang Lang will have a lot to say about how he is depicted?
Do you wonder if Wang thinks cultural appropriation works in reverse?
Should we dismiss Lang Lang’s interpretations of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Bartok simply because he is non-Western and Chinese rather than German, French or Russian?
Of course not. They should be taken on their own merits, just as the interpretations of any other Asian classical musician, and artists in general including Ai Weiwei, should be.
But however unfairly, cultural appropriation just doesn’t seem to work in reverse.
Mind you, The Ear thinks that cultural appropriation is a valid concept and can indeed sometimes be useful in discussing cross-cultural influences.
But it sure seems that the concept is being applied in an overly broad and even misdirected or ridiculous way, kind of the way that the idea of “micro-aggressions” can be so generously applied that it loses its ability to be truthful and useful.
Take the example of the heterosexual Taiwanese movie director Ang Lee. He certainly proved himself able to depict American culture in “The Ice Storm” and the gay world in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Let’s be clear. The Ear is a piano fan.
But if he objects to the project, it is because he doesn’t like Lang Lang’s flamboyant playing, his Liberace-like performance manners and showmanship, and his exaggerated facial expressions.
Yet there is no denying the human appeal of his story. He rose from a young and suicidal piano student (below) who was emotionally abused by his ambitious father – shades of the lives of young Mozart and Beethoven and probably many other prodigies – to become the best known, most frequently booked and highest paid classical pianist in the world.
Yet not for nothing did some critics baptize him with the nickname Bang Bang.
Still, the Curtis Institute graduate does all he can to foster music education, especially among the young and the poor.
And there is simply no denying his virtuosity. (See Lang Lang playing Liszt’s Paganini etude “La Campanella” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
So there is plenty to object to about Lang Lang the Piano Star besides the ethnicity of Ron Howard, who also did a biopic of opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, in telling his story.
What do you think?
Is it culturally all right for Ron Howard to direct a film about Lang Lang?
Do you look forward to the movie and seeing it?
What do you think of Lang Lang as a pianist and a celebrity?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Trevor Stephenson announces the new season of the Madison Bach Musicians on YouTube. It features smaller concerts and familiar comfort music
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By Jacob Stockinger
At a time when so many concerts are being canceled, it is especially welcome when a local ensemble announces plans for the 2020-21 season.
To announce the 17th season of the Madison Bach Musicians — a period-instrument group that uses historically informed performance practices — the founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below), who also plays the harpsichord, fortepiano and piano, has made and posted a 13-1/2 minute YouTube video.
The season will also be posted on the MBM website in early June, and will also be announced with more details about times and ticket prices via email and postal mailings.
In the video, Stephenson plays the harpsichord. He opens the video with the familiar Aria from the “Goldberg” Variations and closes with two contrasting Gavottes from the English Suite in G minor.
As usual, Stephenson offers insights in the programs that feature some very well-known and appealing works that are sure to attract audiences anxious to once again experience the comfort of hearing familiar music performed live.
One thing Stephenson does not say is that there seems to be fewer ambitious programs and fewer imported guest artists. It’s only a guess, but The Ear suspects that that is because it is less expensive to stage smaller concerts and it also allows for easier cancellation, should that be required by a continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
If the speculation proves true, such an adaptive move is smart and makes great sense artistically, financially and socially given the coronavirus public health crisis.
After all, this past spring the MBM had to cancel a much anticipated, expensive and very ambitious production, with many out-of-town guests artists, of the “Vespers of 1610” by Claudio Monteverdi. Nonetheless, MBM tried to pay as much as it could afford to the musicians, who are unsalaried “gig” workers who usually don’t qualify for unemployment payments.
“Hope and Joy” is a timely, welcome and much-needed theme of the new season.
The new season starts on Saturday night, Oct. 3, at Grace Episcopal Church downtown on the Capitol Square, and then Sunday afternoon, Oct. 4, at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton.
The program is Haydn and Mozart: songs composed in English and German by Haydn plus songs by Mozart; the great violin sonata in E minor by Mozart; and two keyboard trios, one in C major by Haydn and one in G major by Mozart.
Only four players will be required. They include: Stephenson on the fortepiano; concertmaster Kangwon Kim on baroque violin; James Waldo on a Classical-era cello; and soprano Morgan Balfour (below), who won the 2019 Handel Aria Competition in Madison.
On Saturday night, Dec. 12, in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, near Camp Randall Stadium, MBM will perform its 10th annual holiday concert of seasonal music.
The program includes several selections from the “Christmas Oratorio” by Johann Sebastian Bach; a Vivaldi concerto for bassoon with UW-Madison professor Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill) as soloist; and the popular “Christmas Concerto” by Arcangelo Corelli.
On Saturday night, April 24, at Grace Episcopal Church and Sunday afternoon, April 25, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, the MBM will perform a concert of German Baroque masterworks with the internationally renowned baroque violinist Marc Destrubé (below).
The program features Handel and Bach but also composers who are not often played today but who were well known to and respected by Bach and his contemporaries.
Specifically, there will be a suite by Christoph Graupner (below top) and a work by Carl Heinrich Graun (below bottom).
There will also be a concerto grosso by George Frideric Handel and two very well-known concertos by Bach – the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and the Concerto for Two Violins.
Here is the complete video:
What do you think of the Madison Bach Musicians’ new season?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will start this summer’s six Concerts on the Square in late July and move them to Tuesdays at 6 p.m. Plus, other changes for the WCO are in the works
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcements from the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra:
Greetings to the family of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO, below in photo by Mike Gorski)!
For 37 summers, Concerts on the Square (below) has brought us together as a community to enjoy world-class music with our friends, family and neighbors.
To try and ensure these performances continue despite uncertain times, the WCO is delaying the start of Concerts on the Square to July 28, 2020 — starting at our new time, Tuesdays at 6 p.m.
The opening concert will feature 2020 Gilmore Young Artist Maxim Lando (below, in a photo by Matt Dine) – who recently gave a solo recital on the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos – performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1
It’s our hope that by delaying the concerts by five weeks, larger community gatherings will be safe and permitted, and we can continue to entertain the thousands of patrons who join us at each Concerts on the Square performance.
We plan to retain the same number of key performances. Visit www.wconconcerts.org for an up-to-date schedule, the names of guest artists and the programs.
Concerts on the Square is something we all look forward to each year, which is why our goal is to preserve it this summer. We will all be eager to get outside and enjoy the WCO tradition, but we need to be smart and safe about it.
The series will return to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays next year.
Here is the complete schedule of the series of FREE concerts that draw an average of 20,000 people to the downtown Capitol Square for each concert:
Concerts on the Square #1 – Tuesday, July 28, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #2 – Tuesday, Aug. 4, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #3 – Tuesday, Aug. 11, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #4 – Tuesday, Aug. 18, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #5 – Tuesday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m.
Concerts on the Square #6 – Tuesday, Sept. 1, 6 p.m.
The WCO moved the series to Tuesday for scheduling needs and to avoid interrupting other local performances in late summer.
To keep up-to-date with performance schedules, community members can sign up for email updates on the WCO website or follow the orchestra on Facebook and Instagram.
“The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is alive and well – and there is nothing more we want than to perform for our community during these uncertain times,” says Joe Loehnis (below), CEO of the WCO. “At the same time, we want to be responsible and mindful of community safety. In that light, we believe the best thing to do is to push the start of Concerts on the Square into late July.”
OTHER NEWS
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is also using this time to move the organization forward for its fans.
In the coming weeks the orchestra is rolling out a new logo and new website, as well as launching the Friends of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra membership program.
#Coucherto: WCO MUSICIANS PERFORM ONLINE
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra is home to talented and creative musicians, so it’s no surprise they are reaching for their instruments during the stay-at-home order.
Sharing solo performances from their homes as part of the WCO’s #coucherto series, orchestra members are delivering music – and messages – for everyone to enjoy while stuck on their sofas.
“Our musicians are the backbone – the lifeblood – of the WCO, and we couldn’t just sit back and not perform,” Loehnis said. “I firmly believe music makes everything better and if we can provide a bright spot for our community right now we’re going to jump at the opportunity.”
The #coucherto series is available on the WCO’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and website pages. Additionally, the WCO will share previously recorded concerts during the order.
MUSICIAN RELIEF FUND IS LIVE
With live performances delayed, the WCO remains committed to helping its musicians.
Through its newly created Musicians Relief Fund, the orchestra has raised more than $10,000 to help pay its musicians during this time. The WCO is working on several fronts to ensure its artists receive financial support.
“Our musicians aren’t just wonderful artists, they’re wonderful people. They’re our friends. They have families. And it’s vital as an organization we support them at all times,” says maestro Andrew Sewell (below, in a photo by Alex Cruz), who is in his 20th year as WCO’s music director. “The music will go on. But first and foremost, we need to do everything we can to help our musicians.”
To donate, visit wcoconcerts.org/donate.
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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
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