The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: NPR explores Opus 1 works to mark Jan. 1 and New Year’s Day
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By Jacob Stockinger
Each year, the media look for new ways to mark the holidays and especially New Year’s Day.
One of the best and most original The Ear has seen and heard in a long time came from National Public Radio (NPR).
On Morning Edition, the radio network consulted Miles Hoffman (below), a violist, conductor and educator, about the first works – the Opus 1 works – that various composers published.
Hoffman’s remarks touch on quite a few young composers and prodigies, including Ludwig van Beethoven (below top), Felix Mendelssohn (below middle) and Ernst von Dohnanyi (below bottom).
Here is a link to the story, which should be listened to, and not just read, for the sake of the music and sound samples:
And from YouTube here are two more Opus 1 works that The Ear would add.
The first is the Rondo in C Minor, Op. 1, by a young Frédéric Chopin (below, in a drawing from Getty Images) and performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy. It shows just how early Chopin had found his own style and his own distinctive voice:
And here are the “Abegg” Variations by critic-turned-composer Robert Schumann (below), played by Lang Lang:
Can you think of other Opus 1 works to add to the list?
Please leave the composer’s name, the work’s title and a YouTube link to a performance, if possible, in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: This week the UW School of Music offers two free classical concerts: two symphonies by Beethoven and a cello recital by Parry Karp.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday night — Halloween Eve — will be a busy one.
So far, three fine classical music concerts compete for your attendance. They including a UW faculty cello recital, a program of Johannes Brahms and Franz Schubert by Con Vivo and a concert of violin and piano sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Edvard Grieg and Karol Szymanowski by the Mosaic Chamber Players.
All will receive preview attention here.
But first things first.
The Ear tends to favor FREE and PUBLIC concerts. So he is starting with the two very appealing events at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the strings (below) of the UW Symphony Orchestra will perform the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Graduate student Kyle Knox (center right) will conduct.
For more information about the program and about clarinetist-turned-conductor Kyle Knox, here is a link:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-symphony-strings/
FRIDAY
On Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW-Madison cello professor Parry Karp (below left), who is also a member of the Pro Arte Quartet, will perform with pianist Eli Kalman (below right), who received his doctorate from the UW-Madison and now teaches at the UW-Oshkosh.
The exotic program mixes the known and the unusual. It includes:
The “Ruralia Hungarica” for Cello and Piano, Op. 34/d (1923) by Hungarian composer Ernst Dohnanyi; the Violin Sonata in E-flat Major for Piano and Violin, Op. 12 No. 3 (1798) by Ludwig van Beethoven, as transcribed for piano and cello by Parry Karp; the Capriccio for Violoncello and Piano (1985) American composer William Bolcom; the First Rhapsody for Cello and Piano (1928) by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (you can hear the work in a YouTube video at the bottom); and the Sonata in B-flat Major for Cello and Piano, Op. 8 (1899) by Ernst Dohnanyi.
PLEASE NOTE: Parry Karp and Eli Kalman will also repeat their Friday night recital program this Sunday, Nov. 1, for “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen.” The FREE and PUBLIC performance will start at 12:30 p.m. for the audience in Brittingham Gallery 3. The recital will be streamed LIVE on the website for the Chazen Museum of Art.
Here is a link:
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