The Well-Tempered Ear
The UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra will provide a welcome break on Election Night
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you find yourself needing some relief or a short break from vote counting and the barrage of election news this coming Tuesday night, Nov. 3, the masked and socially distanced UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra (below) fits the bill.
The group’s refreshingly short, one-hour and intermission-free online video premiere begins at 7 p.m. CST on YouTube. There is no fee for watching the event in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall in the Hamel Music Center, although donations are welcome.
No in-person attendance is allowed.
The program features “Strum” (1981) by Jessie Montgomery (below, in a photo by Jiyang Chen); the famous and familiar Adagietto from the Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler (which you can hear with conductor Claudio Abbado in the YouTube video at the bottom); and the youthful Sinfonia No. 7 in D minor by Felix Mendelssohn, who wrote 13 of the string symphonies between the ages of 12 and 14.
Here is a direct link to the UW-Madison music school’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/TMNCy9qooCM
Just a personal note of appreciation and encouragement from The Ear: If you are a fan of orchestral music and pay attention to the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Middleton Community Orchestra, for example, then you owe to it yourself to become acquainted with the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra if you don’t already know it.
It is that good, as you can hear for yourself in this virtual concert during the pandemic. You will probably find yourself wanting to hear more.
The programs are outstanding and often feature neglected, modern and contemporary music as well as classic repertoire, and the playing is usually first-rate.
The orchestra sounds exceptionally good, often even professional, under its new conductor Oriol Sans (below), a native of Spain who arrived here last season from a post at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Sans has provided remarkable leadership both in the orchestra’s programs and in accompanying the University Opera productions and the UW Choral Union.
For more information, including the names of the orchestra’s members, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-madison-symphony-orchestra-video-premiere/
If you listen to it, please let us know: What did you think?
Did the performances please or impress you?
Did you like or dislike the scheduling on Election Night?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Did anyone else hear Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and think of Donald Trump’s America as well as Stalin’s Russia?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has to agree with a knowledgeable friend.
If you heard the Madison Symphony Orchestra, under music director John DeMain, perform the famous Symphony No. 5 in D minor — the same key as Beethoven’s Ninth — by Dmitri Shostakovich almost two weeks ago, you heard a performance that rivals or surpasses any other one, live or recorded, you’ve probably heard.
The performance was nothing short of stunning. And it was especially moving, given its timing in coming right after the presidential election in which Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence won an upset surprise victory over Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine.
So here is what The Ear wants to know:
Was The Ear the only one who found himself thinking that the symphony proved an especially fitting, perhaps perfect, choice even though it was programmed a year ago? (You can hear the moving third movement, a lament with such pathos that people cried at its premiere, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Was The Ear the only one who identified with Shostakovich, who felt an even deeper empathy with the oppressed composer (below), who, fearing with good reason the dictator Joseph Stalin and his reign of Terror in the USSR, always kept a small suitcase packed with pajamas and a toothbrush by the front door in case the KGB secret police came knocking at 3 a.m., the usual arrest hour?
The symphony is dark music for dark times. And The Ear hopes he wrong when he fears that America is headed for some dark times of its own, times when various people and members of our society will live in constant fear and dread of what they might suffer?
This is not to suggest that President-elect Donald Trump can be equated to the murderous Joseph Stalin (below), or the United States in 2016 to the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
But it is to suggest that some comparisons — if not equations — might be in order.
It is to suggest there will be a constant and unsettling anxiety in the US created by a new ruling order that seems based on insults and intolerance, that excludes and condemns what it doesn’t approve of, that seeks to suppress or destroy opposition?
Like Latino and Syrian immigrants.
Like Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians.
Like African-Americans, Native Americans and other non-whites.
Like poor people.
Like liberals and progressives, dissenters and protesters .
Like LGBT people.
Like women and women’s health advocates and organizations that favor reproductive rights.
The list could go on and on.
But you get the idea.
If either as a musician or an audience member you agree – or disagree – leave a COMMENT.
The Ear wants to hear.
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