The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: A veteran reviewer bids farewell with a rave review of this summer’s last concert by the Willy Street Chamber Players and UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a very special posting, the final review that will be written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker.
Barker (below), who is dealing with medical issues, is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who wrote for The Capital Times, Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who, until two weeks ago, hosted an early music show once a month on a Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gave pre-concert lectures in Madison.
Please use the comment section to join The Ear in thanking Barker for his many years of public service and wishing him well.
By John W. Barker
I had to miss the first concert this summer by the Willy Street Chamber Players (below) on July 12; and the next one, on July 19, was cancelled because of power failures. But the final one, last Friday night, was well worth waiting for — one of the really memorable events of the year, I think.
The program, performed at the usual near East Side venue of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, began with some short items.
First, there was a set of Three Nocturnes (1924) for piano trio — violin, cello and piano — by Ernest Bloch. They contain elements of the Hebraic sound that Bloch cultivated but also had their own individualities, the first two contemplative and the third marked “tempestuoso.” Interesting was Bloch’s alternating uses of muting the strings.
After this came an example of the short pieces for string quartet by the contemporary composer Jessie Montgomery, her “Voodoo Dolls” (2008). Much is packed into this five-minute piece. A few lyrical touches aside, it sounded like a hoedown gone crazy, full of quite novel sounds, including rhythmic thumping on the wood of the instruments.
All that was a curtain-raiser to the big event of the program: the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, by Antonin Dvorak. This 40-minute work is one of the composer’s best-known chamber music compositions, and one of the standouts in the whole chamber music literature.
The very opening notes of the first movement bring a flood of warm well-being. (After hearing just that, I commented, “I haven’t felt such happiness in months.”)
The fecundity and richness of invention pervaded the entire work. For me, its high point is the second movement, in which Dvorak (below) used the Czech formula of the dumka, a kind of folk music lament that is paced slow-fast-slow-fast. (You can hear the Dumka movement, played by the Jerusalem Quartet and pianist Stefan Vladar, in the YouTube video below.)
Dvorak liked to play viola in chamber music, and so he always wrote some good things for himself. The sublime passages for viola in this movement were played with such transcendent beauty by Rachael Hauser (below) – who is leaving Madison for New York City — that I felt I was hearing the composer’s voice directly. Put simply, this was one of the greatest examples of chamber-music performance that I have ever heard.
All of the players, many of whom play in the Madison Symphony Orchestra, of course matched remarkable skill with humane vitality and vibrancy.
And a measure of the Willys’ standards was the fact that they were able to draw as a partner no less than that magnificent UW-Madison music school pianist, Christopher Taylor (below), who also performed the same Dvorak Piano Quintet in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he won a bronze medal. Much of his excellence here was demonstrated by the fact that he did not play the star, but joined with the Willys in perfect collegial integration.
This ends the Willy Street group’s fifth summer season. As a symbol of vibrancy and fresh spirit, they are among the most important of Madison’s classical music world today. They have drawn steadily growing audiences, and the house was truly packed for this concert. We can only hope that they will continue to brighten that world in the years ahead.
I am now ending my time as a music critic. I can think of no more satisfying a final review to write than of the Willy Street Chamber Players.
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Classical music: With much of Wisconsin underwater from historic flooding, Britten’s opera “Noah’s Flood” seems timely. Can you think of other works inspired by floods and natural disasters?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Right now much of Wisconsin lies underwater.
This past week has seen record-setting rain and historic flooding along with high winds and tornadoes that have left many towns and counties declared official disasters.
Then yesterday, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency for the entire state. More rain and thunderstorms are predicted for all weekend and next week.
The flooding is not on the order of the deadly and destructive wildfires out west. But the situation seems nonetheless the kind of emergency or natural disaster that usually draws some kind of attention of the national media — on a smaller scale something like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria that devastated respectively, New Orleans, Houston and Puerto Rico.
But this time The Ear can’t recall seeing or hearing even mentions or 10-second spot reports about the flooding of a state capital on national news programs. Can you?
New programs always seem to focus more on weather stories when they occur on the coasts and in the south. And right now the media also appear preoccupied with offering ever more words about the deaths of Senator John McCain and singer Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul.”
But the situation got The Ear to thinking and searching.
Are there works of classical music inspired by flooding and other natural disasters?
And he doesn’t mean just music inspired by and celebrating calmer and less destructive water such as George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” or Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony or Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Ebb and Flow” Music.
One important discovery that met the criterion was the children’s opera, “Noah’s Flood,” composed by British composer Benjamin Britten (below) in the wake of his own personal and home experience with floods – as you can see in the YouTube video below.
Can you think of other works composed in response to a natural disaster?
If so, in the comment section please leave the names of the work and composer and, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #ArethaFranklin, #BenjaminBritten, #BritishComposer, #Children'sOpera, #EastCoast, #EbbandFlow, #FloodinginWisconsin, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #Gov.ScottWalker, #GreatBritain, #HurricanceMaria, #HurricaneHarvey, #HurricaneKatrina, #JohnMcCain, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #NationalMedia, #NaturalDisaster, #NewOrleans, #NewsProgram, #Noah'sFlood, #PacificNorthwest, #PersonalExperience, #PuertoRico, #QueenofSoul, #StateofEmergency, #StateofTexas, #StateOfWisconsin, #TheBible, #TheSouth, #WaterMusic, #WeatherPredictions, #WestCoast, #YouTubevideo, Arts, Baroque, Beethoven, Bible, Britain, Britten, Chamber music, children, choral music, Classical music, composer, conductor, counties, county, deadly, death, disaster, Early music, East Coast, emergency, England, flood, flooding, George Frideric Handel, Gov. Scott Walker, governor, Houston, Hurricane, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, Jacob Stockinger, Louisiana, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Maria, media, Music, national media, natural, natural disaster, news, Noah, opera, Orchestra, Pacific Northwest, PastoralSymphony, prediction, program, Puerto Rico, queen, rain, Scott Walker, soul, south, storm, story, symphony, Texas, thunderstorm, tornado, towns, UK, underwater, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, weather, week, weekend, west coast, wildfire, Wind, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Today is the summer solstice. Here is information about the solstice plus 20 pieces of classical music to mark the coming of summer
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ALERT: Today is the fifth annual Make Music Madison. More than 300 FREE outdoor performances will be featured at some 100 venues. For information about artists, kinds of music, places and times, go to: http://www.makemusicmadison.org
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Thursday, June 21, 2018.
The summer solstice arrives in Wisconsin early today at 5:07 a.m. Central Daylight Time.
If you want to know more about the summer solstice, here are two stories from NBC and The Washington Post with some interesting information you might not know:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-summer-solstice-ncna884991
Quite a few composers and works of classical music celebrate the coming of summer.
Twenty of the best-known are featured on a blog at the famous classical radio station WQXR FM in New York City. Here is a link:
https://www.wqxr.org/story/20-summertime-classical-pieces-maximum-chill/
The blog posting features many terrific sound samples, including such well-known works as “Summer” section from “The Four Seasons” violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi.
Still, some of the titles – including the famous Overture to “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream” by Felix Mendelssohn – are not accompanied by sound.
That includes one of The Ear’s favorites, “Knoxville, Summer 1915” by the American composer Samuel Barber with words by the journalist and documentarian James Agee.
Here it is, in a much-praised recording by soprano Dawn Upshaw, in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Here’s hoping summer is better in this part of the country than spring was, what with record cold in April and record rainfall in May that seems to be continuing with disastrous flooding in June.
Happy Summer, all.
Tags: #AntonioVivaldi, #AntonWebern, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CentralDaylightTime, #DawnUpshaw, #EdvardGrieg, #FelixMendelssohn, #FrankBridge, #FrederickDelius, #GabrielFaure, #HectorBerlioz, #JamesAgee, #JosefSuk, #Knoxvile, #MarkO'Connor, #MidsummerNight'sDream, #MikhailGlinka, #NaturalDisaster, #NBCNews, #NedRorem, #NewYorkCity, #PeterTchaikovsky, #PeterTchaikowsky, #SamuelBarber, #SergeiProkofiev, #SummerSolstice, #TheWashingtonPost, #ViolinConcerto, #ViolinMusic, #WilliamGrantStill, #ZoltanKodaly, April, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Berlioz, blog, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, cold, Compact Disc, composer, concerto, country, Delius, disaster, documentarian, documentary, Early music, flood, flooding, georgegershwin, Gershwin, Glinka, Grieg, information, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, journalism, journalist, June, Kodaly, Madison, Mark O'Connor, May, Music, NBC, Ned Rorem, New York City, news, Overture, posting, Prokofiev, Radio, rainfall, solstice, soprano, station, Stonehenge, storms, Suk, Summer solstice, Summer1915, Tchaikovsky, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Webern, wet, William Grant Still, WQXR-FM
Classical music: What music best expresses the “bomb-cyclone” and Arctic blasts?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Weather-wise, the past couple of weeks have been unforgettable and, in many ways, unbearable.
First, around Christmas, we had one bitterly cold Arctic blast.
Then after New Year’s Day came the massive “bomb-cyclone” that brought snow and ice, high winds and flooding, to the East Coast all the way from Florida to Maine.
Next came another Arctic blast – that put most of the country into the deep freeze with sub-zero temperatures that broke records over a century old.
(How, The Ear wonders, does the Arctic blast differ from the Polar Vortex of a few years ago? And who invents such colorful names that certainly seem new.)
Such extreme wintry weather has brought misery, hardship and even death to wherever it struck.
With luck, the coming week will see a return to more normal temperatures and more normal winter weather.
Still, the past few weeks got The Ear to wondering: What music best expresses such extreme kind of winter weather?
The highly virtuosic and aptly named “Winter Wind” Etude in A minor, Op. 25, No. 11, by Frederic Chopin came to mind. Its swirling notes suggest the howling wind and bitter cold while the minor-key melody has a certain dirge-like or funereal quality to it.
You can hear it played by Evgeny Kissin in the YouTube video at the bottom.
But The Ear is sure that many readers could suggest other musical depictions of extreme winter weather.
So please leave the name of the composer, the title of the work and, if possible, a link to a YouTube video performance at the bottom.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: What composers and what pieces give you shelter and sanctuary during troubled times?
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By Jacob Stockinger
A week ago, The Ear went to the inspired all-Mozart program given by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet with guest cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau (below center) and guest clarinetist Alicia Lee (below right), who was making her debut as a new UW faculty member.
He expected a fine performance and he was not disappointed. Indeed, he shares the same very positive reactions that critic John W. Barker expressed in his review for this blog. Here is a link to that review:
But something else happened too.
The sublime music of Mozart (below) – especially the Larghetto slow second movement of the late Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, but also the other movements and the String Quartet in G Major, K. 387 -– took The Ear into another world, into a parenthesis in time.
(You can hear a live performance in Japan by Yo-Yo Ma and others in the Larghetto movement, plus the rest of the Clarinet Quintet, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For a brief time – perhaps a total of about 80 or 90 minutes – The Ear was totally transported. He temporarily blocked out the political strife in Washington, D.C. and the Trump White House; the government turmoil here in Madison and around the world; and the terrible, deadly natural disasters of floods, hurricanes and wildfires in the U.S. and elsewhere around the globe.
He just let the transcendent music and the performances wash over him, refreshing him with their beauty before he reemerged onto the street and into the painful reality of current events after the concert ended.
So The Ear offers a deeply felt thank you to the performers for planning and playing such a timely and therapeutic program. He needed that more than he knew. And he hopes more such concerts are in store. The times demand such balm, not as escapism but as a reminder of great good things that endure.
So here is The Ear’s question: What other composers and what other pieces or works do you find offer the same kind of sanctuary or shelter?
Leave a COMMENT with a link to a performance on YouTube if possible.
Tags: African-American music, Alicia Lee, America, Arts, Asia, balm, beauty, blog, Campus, Cello, Chamber music, clarinet, Clarinet Quintet, Classical, Classical music, composer, critic, curent events, current, current events, D.C., dead, deadly, debut, Donald Trump, endure, escape, escapism, event, faculty, flood, global, globe, good, good thing, good things, government, great, Hurricane, inspiration, inspired, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, John W. Barker, late, live, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, movement, Mozart, Music, natural disaster, New York City, parenthesis, performance, piece, planning, play, political, Politics, positive, President, President Donald Trump, President Trump, Pro Arte Quartet, program, Quartet, quintet, review, sanctuary, shelter, strife, String quartet, sublime, terrible, therapeutic, therapy, time, timely, times, turmoil, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, video, Viola, Violin, Washington, White House, wildfire, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, world, Yo-Yo Ma, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Critics for The New York Times name their Top 10 online classical concerts for May
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Even as we wait to see whether concerts in the next season will be mostly streamed or live, the critics for The New York Times have named their Top 10 classical concerts to stream and hear online in May.
The Times critics have been doing this during the pandemic year. So perhaps if and when they stop, it will be a sign of returning to concert life before the pandemic.
Then again, maybe not, since The Ear suspects that many listeners have liked the online format, at least for some of the times and for certain events. So maybe there will be a hybrid format with both live and online attendance.
As the same critics have done before, they mix an attention to contemporary composers, world premieres and up-and-coming performers, including the Finnish conductor Susanna Maliki (below top) in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times).
In a welcome development, the recommendations for this month also seem to mention more Black composers, performers and pieces than usual, including the rising star bass-baritone Davon Tines (below, in a photo by Vincent Tullo for The New York Times).
But you will also find many of the “usual suspects,” including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bartok, Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen and Shostakovich. (On the play list is Schubert’s last song, “The Shepherd on the Rock,” which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
You will also find dates and times (all are Eastern), links to the event and some short commentaries about what makes the concerts, programs and the performers noteworthy.
Here is a link to the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/arts/music/classical-music-streaming.html
Do you know of local, regional, national or international online concerts that you recommend? Leave word with relevant information in the Comment section.
Happy Listening!
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