The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Grace Presents HD offers a free virtual online concert by the acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players this Saturday at noon
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By Jacob Stockinger
Cellist and UW-Madison graduate student James Waldo has sent the following announcement about a FREE virtual online concert by Grace Presents, which he coordinates.
The hi-def, one-hour concert by the critically acclaimed and popular Willy Street Chamber Players (below) is at noon (CDT) this Saturday, Aug. 22.
Says Waldo:
“This is a pre-recorded event, and as such, I had the singular pleasure of sitting in the room while these fantastic musicians recorded their program. This event is not to be missed!
“Grace Presents HD brings you free, crystal-clear performances by local Madison musicians in the nave of historical Grace Episcopal Church – located downtown on the Capitol Square — from the comfort and safety of your own home.
“The Willy Street Chamber Players will have a video premiere that will be available on the Grace Presents YouTube channel on this Saturday, Aug. 22 at noon CDT. (This virtual concert is available for a limited time only!)
You can see and hear a preview of the concert in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Artists in the Willy Street Chamber Players are: Paran Amirinazari, artistic director, violin and viola; Eleanor Bartsch, violin and viola; Mark Bridges, cello; and Lindsay Crabb, cello, five-string cello.
You can find more information about the chamber music ensemble, including a link to a post in which The Ear named them as Musicians of the Year for 2016, at: http://willystreetchamberplayers.org
As is typical for The Willys, the program reflects diversity and includes both classical masters and contemporary composers:
Schubert: String trio in B-flat major, D. 47
Tania León (below) – Four Pieces for Solo Cello: II. Prayer
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber – Passacaglia
George Walker (below) – “Bleu”
J.S. Bach – Solo Cello Suite No. 6 in D major: I. Prelude and IV. Sarabande
Kimo Williams (below): “Quiet Shadows”
Beethoven: String Trio in G major, Op. 9, No. 1 / I. Adagio-Allegro
“We will be hosting a Zoom meet-and-greet with our guest artists following the performance. If you’d like to attend this virtual gathering, please RSVP to Grace Presents Program Coordinator James Waldo (gracepresents@gmail.com) for more information.
“Here is biographical background: The Willy Street Chamber Players (WSCP) are dedicated to creating community through classical music. Established in 2015, the group has become a fixture of the Willy Street neighborhood’s vibrant cultural scene.
“Recently awarded a gold medal in Madison Magazine’s prestigious “Best of Madison” reader poll, WSCP has received numerous accolades for its accessible and exciting performances, intelligent and fun programming, and community partnerships.
“Today, the group consists of four core members. Led by Artistic Director and violinist Paran Amirinazari, each player brings a fresh, imaginative take to classical music.
WSCP convenes each July – this summer’s concerts were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic — to present their popular summer concert series at Immanuel Lutheran Church (below) on Spaight Street. For these programs, the group has collaborated with many well-known guest artists from Madison and beyond.
“In addition, WSCP presents an array of events throughout the year including the admission-free Community Connect series that aims to bring classical music to inclusive spaces.
“WSCP has also performed at many other popular Madison venues including Marquette Waterfront Fest; Summer Serenades at Memorial Union Terrace; the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin compound in Spring Green; the Madison New Music Festival; and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA).”
OTHER DETAILS
Video recording and editing has been done by: https://www.microtonemedia.com/
Audio engineering has been done by Bruce Kasprzyk.
Grace Presents is supported in part by generous project grants from Dane Arts, the Madison Arts Commission, the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) and the Grace Episcopal Development Fund Trust as well as individual gifts and in-kind support.
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and Salon Piano Series cancel and postpone concerts and master classes
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By Jacob Stockinger
The coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll. The Ear has received notification of the following cancellations and postponements.
WISCONSIN BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) has cancelled its April 18 concert, due to the COVID-19 virus threat. Its next concert is re-scheduled for the fall, on Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church at 1833 Regent Street.
SALON PIANO SERIES
Concerts by the Grammy-nominated, New York jazz pianist Bill Charlap (below) on April 25 and April 26 plus his master class on April 25 are all cancelled and indefinitely postponed.
New dates for Charlap’s concerts and master class are yet to be determined. They will be announced via email, on the Salon Piano Series website, and on the Salon Piano Series social media. The necessary decision is made out of concern for the public’s health and well-being.
In the event that it is not feasible to reschedule the concerts, or you have a conflict and cannot attend the rescheduled event, you can get a credit for a future Salon Piano Series performance or be issued a refund.
Everyone who bought a ticket will have one week after the announcement of the new concert date in order to request a refund.
If you have a ticket for the concert, please see additional information at the end.
| The Salon Piano Series — which takes place at Farley’s House of Pianos — also says that the concert by Drew Petersen (below), which was to have taken place this spring is rescheduled for Aug. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and the master class is rescheduled for Aug. 16 at a time to be determined.
To purchase tickets, go to: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4275242) If you have a ticket and cannot attend the rescheduled event, Salon Piano Series asks that you help support the arts by not requesting a refund. For those who request a refund, the deadline for refunds has been extended through Thursday, April 9, as a courtesy. For more information about the concert, visit salonpianoseries.org. |
| If you would like a refund, please follow the instructions below and allow several business days for refunds to be processed.
Paper Tickets If you have a paper ticket, please take a photo of your ticket and email the photo to cristofori@salonpianoseries.org explaining that you would like a refund. Online Tickets If the ticket is not part of a season ticket, call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-(800) 838-3006. If your ticket is part of a season ticket, contact Salon Piano Series at (608) 271-2626. Refunds for season ticket holders will be issued through Salon Piano Series by check, not through Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets Ordered by Phone If you purchased a ticket by phone, contact Salon Piano Series at (608) 271-2626 to request a refund. |
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Classical music: This Sunday afternoon at the Chazen Museum of Art, you can attend or live stream a FREE sampler of the upcoming Bach Around the Clock festival
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
It’s March – time for Bach!
Every March, the 12-hour FREE Bach Around The Clock (BATC) festival (below top, the Suzuki Strings of Madison) takes place in Madison on a Saturday near the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below bottom) on March 31, 1685.
This year BATC is on Saturday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street.
And every year the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen concert series invites BATC to send a representative sampling of musicians to perform at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art on the first Sunday in March, giving the public a taste of the offerings from the festival.
This year the Chazen program on this Sunday – tomorrow, March 1 – features: the Madison Youth Viol Consort in four chorales; pianist Tim Adrianson (below top) playing the English Suite No. 6 in D Minor (you can hear Murray Perahia play the opening Prelude in the YouTube video at the bottom); violist Dierdre Buckley and pianist Ann Aschbacher playing the Gamba Sonata No. 1 in G Major; and BATC’s Ensemble-in-Residence, Sonata à Quattro (below bottom in a photo by Barry Lewis, attached), performing Cantata 209, Non sa che sia dolore (He knows not what sorrow is).
Doors at the Chazen Museum of Art’s Elvehjem Building open at noon, and the concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.
Admission is free and open to the public, and the event will be live audio-streamed on the Chazen website.
Here is a link to the page on the Chazen website, with more information and the streaming portal:
For more information about Bach Around the Clock, including the full and complete schedule of amateur and professional performances, go to: https://bachclock.com or facebook.com/batcmadison
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Classical music: Saturday night the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will perform rarely heard works. Plus, tickets are still available for the Dec. 6 “Messiah” by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Festival Choir of Madison
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ALERT 1: Tickets are still available for the 11th annual performance of Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Festival Choir of Madison with guest soloists (below). The performance, under the baton of Andrew Sewell, takes place on Friday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. at the Blackhawk Church in Middleton. The critically acclaimed performance usually sells out. Tickets are $30. For more information about the performers and tickets, go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/messiah-2/
By Jacob Stockinger
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) will perform a concert of varied and rarely performed baroque chamber music on this coming Saturday night, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street, in Madison.
Performers are: Eric Miller, viola da gamba, baroque cello; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Chelsie Propst, soprano, Charlie Rasmussen, viola da gamba and baroque cello; Monica Steger, traverse flute and recorder; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
Tickets at the door only are $20, $10 for students.
The program is:
Marin Marais– Pieces for Viol, selections from Book 1
Tomaso Albinoni– Sonata for recorder and basso continuo, Op. 6, No. 5
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault– “Orphée” (Orpehus) a cantata
INTERMISSION
Antoine Forqueray – Pieces for Viol, selections from Suite No. 2
Anna Bon– Sonata No. 5 for traverso flute and basso continuo
Nicolas Métru– Duos for viols
Georg Philipp Telemann– Trio sonata in C major for two recorders and basso continuo, TWV 42:C1 (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
For more information, go to www.wisconsinbaroque.org
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Classical music: This week brings Baroque music from Just Bach this Wednesday at noon and Sonata a Quattro next Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This week brings authentic Baroque music from two newer groups that employ period instruments and historically informed performance practices: Just Bach and Sonata a Quattro.
The concert for November by Just Bach (below, in a photo by John W. Barker, takes place this Wednesday, Nov. 20, from noon to 12:30 p.m. at Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Ave, in Madison.
The performance is free and open to the public, with a good will offering collected.
Performers are: Sarah Brailey, soprano; Lindsey Meekhof, mezzo-soprano; Thore Dosdall, tenor; Paul Rowe, baritone; Linda Pereksta, flute; Kangwon Lee Kim and Nathan Giglierano, violins; Marika Fischer Hoyt, viola; James Waldo, cello; and Mark Brampton Smith, organ.
The program opens with the six-minute instrumental Sinfonia from Cantata 209. Just Bach favorite Linda Pereksta will be the featured flute soloist, backed up by the strings-and-organ band. (You can hear the Sinfonia in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Cantata 151 ‘Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kommt‘ (Sweet comfort, my Jesus comes) closes the program. Each of the first four movements of this cantata features a different vocal soloist — the serene soprano aria also boasts a lovely flute obbligato — concluding with the chorale in which all take part.
Those who attend are invited to “bring your lunch, bring your ears and your voice, bring a friend, but most of all bring yourself to this stirring program of J.S. Bach.”
The next Just Bach program is Wednesday, Dec. 18, at noon.
For more information, go to:
https://www.facebook.com/events/451732972120968/
SONATA A QUATTRO
This week the Madison-based group Sonata à Quattro (below) will give two performances of its program “A Dark and Stormy Night”:
- Saturday, Nov. 23, at 7 p.m. at the St. Matthias Episcopal Church, 11 East Main St. in., Waukesha. Tickets for the general public, seniors and students are $15, $10 and $5 in advance; and $20, $15 and $10 at the door. Go to: stmatthiasepiscopalchurch.ticketleap.com/sonata-a-quarttro
- Sunday, Nov. 24 at 2:30 p.m. at the Madison Chinese Christian Church, 1510 Madison St., in Madison. Tickets $15 in advance or at the door. Online, go to: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4429975
The program is:
- Motet: “In furore iustissimae irae” (In the fury of most righteous wrath), RV 626 by Antonio Vivaldi
- Quartet No. 1 in D Major by Johann Joachim Quantz
- Cello Sonata in C Minor, Book II No. 6 by Jean-Baptiste Barrière
- Concerto for 4 in D Minor, TWV 43:d2 by Georg Philipp Telemann
- Cantata 209: “Non sa che sia dolore” (He does not know what sorrow is) by Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonata à Quattro performers are: Christine Hauptly Annin and Nathan Giglierano, violins; Marika Fischer Hoyt, viola; Charlie Rasmussen, cello; Daniel Sullivan, harpsichord; and Kristin Knutson, soprano. Special guest artist is flutist Linda Pereksta (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot).
Says founder and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (below): “Join us for a program of dark and stormy pieces, on period-instruments. Sonata à Quattro’s third season opens with a program exploring the darker side of human experience, from Vivaldi’s motet, burning with godly rage, to Bach’s secular Cantata, deploring the departure of a beloved friend.
“Quantz’ bubbly Flute Quartet in D Major provides some needed moments of optimism, before we turn to the poignant, brooding Cello Sonata by Barrière. Even the viola gets a turn, in the Telemann, to unfold a haunting saga of tragic beauty.
“But the composers do not leave us in despair; each one leads the listener through the dark night of the soul, to the morning after.”
The Bach Cantata opens with an instrumental Sinfonia, heard in the YouTube video at the bottom, that features flutist Linda Pereksta, who also plays in the works by Quantz and Telemann.
For more information, go to:
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Classical music: Two noteworthy concerts of Baroque chamber music, organ music and vocal music take place this Wednesday midday and Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
This is another very busy week for classical music in the Madison area. If Baroque music interests you, there are two noteworthy concerts this week that should attract your attention.
JUST BACH
This Wednesday, Feb. 20. at 1 p.m. in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, the February midday concert by Just Bach (below, at its September concert) will take place.
Admission to the all-Johann Sebastian Bach concert is FREE with a goodwill offering accepted.
Because it will be lunchtime, food and drink are allowed.
This month’s concert includes three diverse works.
Organist Mark Brampton Smith (below) will open the program with the first movement of the Concerto in D Minor BWV 596. This is Bach’s arrangement for organ of the popular Concerto for Two Violins by Antonio Vivaldi, and it comes off with dramatic effect when transcribed to the organ.
Violinist Leanne League will take the stage next, with the Sonata for Violin in A Minor, BWV 1003.
The program ends with the hauntingly beautiful Cantata 82 “Ich habe genug”(I have enough), scored for solo bass voice and oboe, strings and continuo. The vocal soloist will be UW-Madison bass-baritone Paul Rowe (below). You can hear the incomparable Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing the aria in YouTube video at the bottom.)
The orchestra of baroque period-instrument specialists will be led by concertmaster Leanne League, and will include oboist Claire Workinger (below), in her Just Bach debut.
Organizers and performers say the goal of this series is to share the immense range of Bach’s vocal and instrumental repertoire with the Madison community at large. The period-instrument orchestra will bring the music to life in the manner and style that Bach would have conceived.
The audience will be invited to sing along during the opening hymns and the closing cantata chorales.
The other Just Bach dates, all Wednesdays, this semester are March 13, April 24 and May 29.
WISCONSIN BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
The veteran Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will perform a varied concert of vocal and instrumental chamber music this coming Saturday night, Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street.
Tickets can be purchased only at the door. Admission is$20, $10 for students.
Performers are: Nathan Giglierano, baroque violin; Eric Miller; viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Charlie Rasmussen, baroque cello and viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Daniel Sullivan, harpsichord; and Anton TenWolde, baroque cello.
The program is:
Nicolas Bernier – “Diane” Cantata for voice and basso continuo
Marin Marais – Pièces de violes (Pieces for Viola da Gamba), selections from Book 4
Louis Couperin – Pièces de clavecin (Pieces for harpsichord)
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier – Trio sonata, Op. 37, No. 2
INTERMISSION
Francesco Paolo Supriani – Sinfonia for cello and basso continuo
Georg Fridrich Handel – “Nel dolce dell’ oblio” (In Sweet Forgetfuness)
Tommaso Giordani – Duo for two cellos, opus 18 no 5
Georg Philipp Telemann – Quartet in G minor TWV 43 g4
Following the concert, there will be a reception at 2422 Kendall Ave., Apt. 2.
For more information, go to www.wisconsinbaroque.org
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Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs a concert of music by Handel, Strozzi, Sammartini and rarely heard other composers this Friday night at 7:30
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below bottom) will perform a concert of baroque chamber music on this coming Friday night, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below top), 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.
Tickets are at the door ONLY: $20 for adults, $10 for students.
Members of the ensemble are: Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Chelsie Propst, soprano; Charlie Rasmussen, baroque cello and viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverso, harpsichord and recorder; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
The program is:
Giulio Ruvo – Sonata for cello and basso continuo in A minor (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom played by cellist Charlie Rasmussen and harpsichordist Max Yount of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble)
Andreas Lidl – Trio for flute, viola and cello
George Frideric Handel – Cantata “Dite, mie piante” (Say, My Plants)
Unico Wilhelm Count Van Wassenaer – Sonata No. 1 for recorder and basso continuo
INTERMISSION
Barbara Strozzi (below): “L’amante segreto” (The Secret Lover) from Opus II (1651)
Giuseppe Tommaso Giovanni Giordani – Duo No. 2 for two cellos, Op.18
Giuseppe Sammartini – Trio Sonata No. 5 for two flutes and basso continuo (1727)
Handel – “Tanti Strali” (Many Rays) HWV 197
Michel Corrette – Concert “Le Phénix”
For more information: (608) 238-5126, email: info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or got to: www.wisconsinbaroque.org
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Classical music: The veteran Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble opens its season with a variety of vocal and instrumental works
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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
The new season’s first concert by the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble opened in Madison on Saturday evening, Oct. 13, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. It offered, as always, a program of wide range and variety.
There were nine performers involved this time, two of them singers — the familiar UW-Madison soprano Mimi Fulmer and mezzo-soprano Consuelo Sañudo.
Fulmer sang an Italian cantata of contested authorship, with Sigrun Paust on recorder (below). Later, Sañudo sang a Latin motet by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, with helpers (violinist Nathan Giglierano, Monica Steger on recorder, Eric Miller on gamba and Max Yount on harpsichord).
The two joined in three items from Claudio Monteverdi’s Third Book of Madrigals (below). They were a bit of a twist, for they were meant for five singers. So the other three parts were taken by three viola da gamba players (Anton TenWolde, Miller, Charlie Rasmussen) — which actually proved not the best way to project the madrigal textures.
The bulk of the program was instrumental.
Variations, or “divisions” made two appearances. From the obscure August Kuehnel, there was an aria given long elaborations by two gambas (Miller, Rasmussen). Another set of variations, from a collection published by John Playford, was dashed off by violinist Giglierano, with gamba (Miller) and harpsichord (Steger) for continuo (below).
The duo form was also represented by such a piece for two cellos (below), by Tommaso Giordani, played by TenWolde and Rasmussen. A cello sonata by a certain Franceso Alborea was the solo spot for TenWolde, with Rasmussen and Steger on continuo.
With a more conventional ensemble, we heard a Trio Sonata in A minor by Georg Phiipp Telemann, with Giglierano and Faust, plus TenWolde and Steger as the continuo. (You can hear the Telemann Trio Sonata in the YouTube video at the bottom)
It was for the final item, as a grand finale (below), that all seven of the instrumentalists joined in a little ballet suite by Boismortier.
Music lovers who attend concerts such as these should remember that the works presented were, by and large, not intended for presentation to a “public.” This is mostly “parlor” music (“chamber,” you recall), meant for the players to exercise their playing skills for themselves and any friends.
There are masterpieces in this literature, but seeking them out is not the primary goal of the WBE. Rather, that is to allow performers to test and show off their skills in music they find challenging and satisfying. The pleasures which that gives to an audience are the bonus.
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble has been around as a performing group in Madison since 1997. As such, it is the oldest surviving ensemble in town devoted to early music, and might be said to have inaugurated the taste and audience for that literature.
Such taste and audience have now expanded extensively, but the WBE continues to make its own chamber contributions with unfailing devotion.
For more information, about the WBE and its upcoming season, go to: https://wisconsinbaroque.weebly.com
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Classical music: The veteran Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble opens its new season this Saturday night with a program of rarely heard works and composers
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement from one of the pioneering groups in Madison for playing Baroque music with period instruments and historically informed performance practices:
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) invites you to a concert of baroque chamber music.
The concert is this coming Saturday night, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street on Madison’s near west side.
Tickets at the door only: $20 general admission and $10 students
Members of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble are: UW-Madison professor Mimmi Fulmer, soprano; Nathan Giglierano, baroque violin; Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Charlie Rasmussen, baroque cello and viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverso, harpsichord and recorder; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello and viola da gamba; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
The program includes:
- Giovanni Bononcini/Johann Jakob Greber – “Fuori di sua capanna” (Outside in Front of Her Hut) – Cantata for mezzo-soprano, alto recorder and basso continuo
- August Kuehnel – Sonate ò Partite for viola da gamba, Aria Solo “Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut” (Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Greatest Good)
- Claudio Monteverdi – Madrigals, Book 3
O Rossignol (O Nightingale)
Rimanti in Pace (Remain in Peace)
Ond’ei di Morte (Whereupon Death Marked on His Face)
- John Playford – Divisions for the violin, “Paul’s Steeple”
- Georg Philipp Telemann – Trio sonata for violin, recorder and basso continuo TWV 42:a4
INTERMISSION
- Francesco Alborea – Sonata in G Major for cello and basso continuo
- Joseph de Bodin Boismortier – Motet for the Holy Virgin, Op. 23
- Giuseppe Tommaso Giovanni Giordani – Duo No. 1 for Two Cellos, Op. 18 (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
- Boismortier – Ballet de Village No. 4, Op. 52
For more information: 608 238-5126, email: info@wisconsinbaroque.org or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
A post-concert reception will be held on the second floor at 2422 Kendall Avenue.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet closes out its season with polished, precise and emotionally intense performances of contrasting music by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Caroline Shaw
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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.
By John W. Barker
The Ancora String Quartet (below) is closing its season with a cluster of concerts around the area, including a central one Tuesday night at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Regent Street in Madison.
Of the three works in the program, the centerpiece was the Entr’acte by the American musician and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw (below, in a photo by Kait Moreno). It was written in 2011 when Shaw was 29, and has won some acclaim over the years.
It is cast roughly in the traditional form of a minuet and trio, but its point is less any musical substance than the invention of new and utterly eccentric ways of string playing for ear-catching sound effects. Many of those effects are, to be sure, intriguing.
Surrounding this was a pair of quartets seemingly very distinct from each other but related.
The first published quartet, in A major, Op. 13, by Felix Mendelssohn (below), was written in the wake of a romantic song he wrote and whose motives he then used in the quartet.
Emotional suggestions aside, however, it is notable as a darker and more intense work than his subsequent ones in this form. It was composed in 1827, when Mendelssohn was 18, but also the year in which Beethoven died. And it is the shadow of Beethoven, and of Beethoven’s innovations in his later quartets, that hangs over the Mendelssohn work.
Clearly the young master was trying to see how he could absorb the older master’s progressive style into his own still emerging one. I think he found in the process that the two could not be reconciled, and so his subsequent quartets were to be in a less stressful vein.
Against that 1827 work, we were then offered a composition from Beethoven’s own earlier years when he was 29 or 30. This was the final quartet in the set of six published as his Op. 18.
This Op. 18, No. 6, by Beethoven (below) in B-flat major — the program had it mistakenly in G major — is a Janus-faced work, its first two movements still rooted in the late 18th-century background, but with a scherzo full of quirks and tricks that point to the future, and a finale that plays on emotional contrasts.
Its opening Malinconia – or melancholic – music is contested by music of rousing joy, somewhat prefiguring Beethoven’s absorption with recovering his health in the Heiliger Dankgesang (Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving) of his late string quartet, Op. 132. (You can hear the two contrasting moods and themes in the last movement, played by the Alban Berg Quartet, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For all three of these scores, a quartet member gave some introductory comments. (Below, first violinist Wes Luke introduces the work by Caroline Shaw.)
Members of the Ancora String Quartet are violinists Wes Luke and Robin Rynan, violist Marika Fischer Hoyt and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb. As a group, the Ancora players displayed intensity and absorption as well as polished precision, in a program of contrasts.
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