The Well-Tempered Ear
Library of Congress streams UW pianist Christopher Taylor’s online Liszt-Beethoven symphony recital for free this Thursday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Thursday night, Dec. 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. CST, University of Wisconsin-Madison virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor (below) will close the celebration of the Beethoven Year, marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, at the Library of Congress. After the concert’s premiere, it will stay posted online.
For the past several years, Taylor has been performing the solo piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies both in Russia and at the UW-Madison.
Here is more from the website of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music:
“It takes extraordinary skill as an orchestrator to condense an entire symphony by Beethoven (below top) into a version for a solo instrument, but that is just what Franz Liszt (below bottom) accomplished in his piano transcriptions. (You can hear a sample, along with a visual representation, of the Fifth Symphony transcription in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“Hear virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor perform three of these transcendent symphony transcriptions, works he describes as a “new perspective on something familiar.” (The Ear, who has heard Taylor’s impressive performances of almost all nine symphonies, finds that comparing the two versions is like looking at the same photograph in color and then black-and-white. Color emphasizes details while black-and-white emphasizes structure. You hear new things by comparing the two.)
The performance was pre-recorded in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall of the Hamel Music Center.
The program is:
BEETHOVEN/LISZT
Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
You can find more details at: https://loc.gov/concerts/christopher-taylor.html
You can Register on Eventbrite
Hailed by critics as “frighteningly talented” (The New York Times) and “a great pianist” (The Los Angeles Times), Taylor has distinguished himself throughout his career as an innovative musician with a diverse array of talents and interests.
He is known for a passionate advocacy of music written in the past 100 years — Messiaen, Ligeti and Bolcom figure prominently in his performances — but his repertoire spans four centuries and includes the complete Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and a multitude of other familiar masterworks.
Whatever the genre or era of the composition, Taylor brings to it an active imagination and intellect coupled with heartfelt intensity and grace.
Taylor has concertized around the globe, with international tours taking him to Russia, Western Europe, East Asia and the Caribbean.
At home in the U.S. he has appeared with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, the Madison Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony. As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, in Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Ravinia and Aspen festivals, and dozens of other venues.
In chamber music settings, he has collaborated with many eminent musicians, including Robert McDuffie and the Borromeo, Shanghai, Pro Arte, and Ying Quartets.
His recordings have featured works by Liszt, Messiaen and present-day Americans William Bolcom and Derek Bermel.
Throughout his career, Taylor has become known for undertaking memorable and unusual projects. Examples include: an upcoming tour in which he will perform, from memory, the complete transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies by Liszt; performances and lectures on the complete etudes of Gyorgy Ligeti; and a series of performances of the Goldberg Variations on the unique double-manual Steinway piano (below) in the collection of the University of Wisconsin.
Numerous awards have confirmed Taylor’s high standing in the musical world. He was named an American Pianists’ Association Fellow for 2000, before which he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1996 and the Bronze Medal in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In 1990 he took first prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, and also became one of the first recipients of the Irving Gilmore Young Artists’ Award.
Taylor lives in Middleton, Wis., with his wife and two daughters. He is a Steinway artist.
For more biographical information — including his piano teachers and his education as well as his interest in mathematics and engineering — go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/christopher-taylor-concerts-from-the-library-of-congress/
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Classical music: Is this summer’s Token Creek Festival on or off? And if it is on, what form will it take? We will know the delayed decision by July 15
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By Jacob Stockinger
For 30 years, the Token Creek Festival (below), which takes place in a refurbished barn, has been a welcome and distinguished bridge from the summer concert season to the autumn season.
It usually takes place from late August through early September.
And by this time we usually know the theme, the performers and the ever-inventive programs that co-directors John and Rose Mary Harbison (below), along with managing director Sarah Schaffer, have put together. (Editor’s note: You can hear festival participants rehearsing the beautiful opening of the slow movement to the Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
But not this year.
Thanks to challenges and complications from the coronavirus and the public health crisis posed by COVID-19, a stop-or-go decision has been postponed until July 15.
Will there be one or more live events? Will the festival be virtual and online? Will guest artists and even the Harbisons risk traveling by plane? Will the mainly older public attend? There are many variables to take into account.
Here is an official announcement from the festival:
Dear Friends,
The middle of June is when we usually announce our concerts for the season, scheduled every year to begin in late August and run through Labor Day.
As we continue to endure the many shifts of the crises of health, politics and civil rights, we find ourselves struggling to understand all the contradictions.
In spite of it all, we have some hopes for a concert emblematic of the festival — perhaps a single event taking advantage of the small venue (below top and bottom), with the audience socially distanced or virtually engaged, or perhaps new dates later in the season — having a chance to recall what we have enjoyed together.
So we are delaying our announcement of what the Token Creek Festival might present, with a final decision by July 15. (Editor’s note: You can check at: http://tokencreekfestival.org.)
It is hard to give up something that has been evolving for 30 years and counting. It is a luxury and a lifeline for both the performers and the listeners, something that holds us fast in spite of the present challenges.
We are not yet advertising or taking ticket orders or building new facilities. But we, and the artists who are holding dates for us, are doing something else: We are practicing, imagining, thinking in real terms about presenting concerts again.
If for no other than those reasons, we beg the indulgence of our friends as we become perhaps the last to depart the season, or among the few to be able to propose some radical, slim, socially distanced, barn-size festival.
We hope you will stay tuned, as we are staying tuned.
And we’ll let you know what’s possible by mid-July.
With warm wishes,
John and Rose Mary and Sarah, TCF Directors
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Classical music: The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival starts this Friday and marks 30 years with jazz plus music by Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Brahms, Ravel, Schoenberg and John Harbison
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By Jacob Stockinger
Starting this coming Friday, Aug. 16, and running through Sept. 1, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival will mark its 30th anniversary with the theme of “Sanctuary.” (The festival takes place in a refurbished barn, below, at 4037 Highway 19 in DeForest.)
Add the festival directors: “The term ‘sanctuary’ attempts to capture in a single word something essential about what the festival has meant to players and listeners over all these years. From the start it aspired to offer something of retreat, an oasis, a place of refreshment and nourishment in art, both for musician participants who find a welcoming environment to “re-charge” their work, and for audience attendees who engage in and become a part of it.”
“In our small country barn,” writes prize-winning composer John Harbison (below top, in a photo by Tom Artin) who co-directs the festival with his violinist wife Rose Mary Harbison (below bottom, in a photo by Tom Artin), “we have always remained devoted to the scale and address of much chamber music, which speaks as often in a whisper as in a shout.
“Where larger musical institutions have been habitually frustrated by trying to live in the business model of growth, we have remained devoted to the intensity of the experience, which explains why the music never goes away, rather than to claims of numbers, which begs the music itself to change its very nature.
“Our conviction is that today’s composers, just like Schubert and Mozart, are still striving to embody daily experience, to connect to the natural world, and to ask philosophically and spiritually unanswerable questions, surrounded and interrupting silence, asking only for our most precious commodity — time. We continue to look for valuable ways to offer this transaction to our listeners, and are grateful for their interest over so many years.”
The first two concerts, at 5 p.m., on Friday and Saturday nights, feature the return of a jazz cabaret featuring standard works in the Great American Songbook. For more information about the program and performers, as well as tickets, go to: www.tokencreekfestival.org or call (608) 241-2525.
Tickets for the two jazz concerts are $40 for the balcony and $45 for cafe seating. Tickets for the other concerts are $32 with a limited number of student tickets available for $12.
HERE IS THE LINEUP FOR THE REST OF THE FESTIVAL
Program 2: Music of Brahms at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, and Sunday, Aug. 25
Johannes Brahms is the only composer whose complete catalogue of chamber music is still in constant use. This is due to his fastidious high standards, and to his ideal temperament for music played by smaller groups of players. His music is universally admired for the astounding combination of sheer craft and deep emotional impact.
The program includes the Regenlied (Rain Song), Op. 57 no. 3; Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 78; the Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, Op. 38; and the Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60. (The “Rain Song” is used as the theme of the last movement of the violin sonata. You can hear it performed by violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang in the YouTube video at the bottom, which also features the score so that you can follow along.)
Performers are Edgewood College mezzo-soprano Kathleen Otterson (below top); violinist Rose Mary Harbison; violist Lila Brown (below second); cellist Rhonda Rider (below third, in a photo by Liz Linder); and pianist Janice Weber (below bottom).
Program 3: Then and Now, Words and Music – An 80th Birthday Tribute to John Harbison. Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 7:30 p.m.
Last February, when Madison launched a citywide celebration of co-artistic director John Harbison’s 80th birthday, bitter cold and deep snow made it impossible for the festival to open up The Barn and join in the festivities.
The Wednesday program – an intimate concert of words and music curated by the Harbisons — is the festival’s belated birthday tribute. Harbison will read from his new book about Johann Sebastian Bach, and Boston poet Lloyd Schwartz (below top) will offer a reading of his poems that are the basis of a song cycle to presented by baritone Simon Barrad (below bottom). The evening will include a discussion on setting text, “Poem to Song,” and the world premiere of new Harbison songs, still in progress, on poems of Gary Snyder.
The program includes: Selections from the Violin Sonata in B minor, with violinist Rose Mary Harbison, and “The Art of Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Four Songs of Solitude” and “Nocturne” by John Harbison; the Violin Sonata in G Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the “Phantasy” for violin and piano by Arnold Schoenberg; the “SchwartzSongs” and “Four Poems for Robin” by John Harbison.
Program 4: The Piano , at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, and Sunday, Sept. 1.
The closing program welcomes back husband-and-wife pianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang, playing together and as soloists.
Chuang (below top) is acclaimed by critics in the U.S. and abroad for performances of stunning virtuosity, refinement and communicative power. Levin (below bottom, in a photo by Clive Barda), who teaches at Harvard University, is revered for his Mozart completions and classical period improvisations.
Their program explores the question of the composer-performer — that is, composers who were also formidable pianists: Mozart, Ravel and Liszt.
Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto, arranged by the composer for chamber ensemble, and excerpts of Harbison’s Piano Sonata No. 2, written for Levin, will be performed. Also on the program are Mozart’s Allegro in G Major, K. 357 (completion by Robert Levin); Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit”; and Franz Liszt’s “Reminiscences of Don Juan.”
Other performers are: violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Laura Burns, of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Rhapsodie String Quartet; violists Jen Paulson and Kaleigh Acord; cellist Karl Lavine, who is principal cello of both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra as well as the Chamber Music Director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); and double bassist Ross Gilliland.
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Classical music: Do Stephen Sondheim musicals qualify as opera?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Do Broadway musicals by Stephen Sondheim (below) qualify as opera?
Granted, putting strict boundaries or criteria on certain musical genres only artificially limit their appeal.
But the question matters since this month will see two local opera companies stage two different works by Sondheim, who got his big break back when he collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on “West Wide Story.”
This Friday night at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m., on Feb. 8 and 10 respectively, the Madison Opera will stage its production of the popular “A Little Night Music” – a great offering about many varieties of love so close to Valentine’s Day — in the Capitol Theater at the Overture Center.
For more information about the production (photos of it are by James Gill for Madison Opera) and performances, including ticket sales, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=sondheim
(Below are Charles Eaton and Katherine Pracht.)
Then later in the month, for five performances from Feb. 21 through Feb. 24 in Shannon Hall of the Wisconsin Union Theater, University Opera and University Theatre team up to stage Sondheim’s popular “Into the Woods,” based on classic fairy tales.
Find out more information here: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/into-the-woods/
So, do Stephen Sondheim musicals deserve to be included with operas by Mozart and Verdi, Wagner and Puccini?
The Madison Opera’s general director Kathryn Smith (below, in a photo by James Gill) — a Harvard graduate and an opera veteran who worked at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera before coming to Madison — agreed to discuss that question as it relates to her company’s production of “A Little Night Music” this weekend.
Smith writes:
A Little Night Music has been performed by opera companies around the world since 1983, so it is a natural part of the repertoire.
Sondheim himself says, “For me, an opera is something that is performed in an opera house in front of an opera audience. The ambience, along with the audience’s expectation, is what flavors the evening.”
A Little Night Music is particularly intriguing because it is a modern operetta; that’s what the New York Times called it when it premiered in 1973.
The costumes and scenery make it look a bit like traditional operettas such as The Merry Widow, but its story and wit are distinctly modern, with a clear-eyed view of the complexities of adult relationships. (Below, from left, are Cassandra Vasta, Benjamin Barlow, Sarah Day, Emily Pulley and Maddie Uphoff.)
Sondheim’s musical sophistication is on brilliant display; the Act I finale (“A Weekend in the Country”) reminds me of the way Mozart or Rossini finales build scene upon scene. (You can hear a concert version of “A Weekend in the Country,” performed at the BBC Proms, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
I find A Little Night Music compelling for its beauty, style and humanity. The book and lyrics are laced with witty lines, but the underlying relationships are very real, as is the way people stumble on the way towards a happy ending.
It manages the trick of being simultaneously moving and entertaining, with glorious music underscoring it all.
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Classical music: The talented new director of the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble sets the acclaimed and still impressive group on a new path with mixed results and hopeful expectations
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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 Isthmus Vocal Ensemble (IVE, below) is a well-established part of Madison’s musical summers. It offers dedicated choral singers a chance for intensive rehearsal preparation of highly accomplished choral music, and has delivered some truly memorable events over the years.
Of its concerts this year, I caught the second performance on Sunday afternoon. The choir itself doesn’t need to be shown off by now, but it was the choir’s chance to show off its new conductor in his first appearance here.
Michael McGaghie (below) is that new conductor. He is very plainly a brilliant choral technician who knows how to make a choir sound wonderful. (For more about McGaghie, who is the Director of Choral Activities at Macalester Collge in St. Paul and who leads the Harvard Glee Club Alumni Chorus in Cambridge, Mass., go to: https://www.isthmusvocalensemble.org/artisticdirector/)
That he did throughout the program. The IVE — 69 singers strong — certainly responded with an infectious enthusiasm that was also communicated to the large audience that filled the Christ Presbyterian Church. The concert was certainly a feast of great choral singing.
But what about the music?
To begin with, the actual music amounted to no more than about an hour’s worth. McGaghie planned the program as a progress of emotional moods, and he introduced each piece himself.
But what were the contents? McGaghie largely turned his back on the centuries of great choral music, the kind that his predecessor Scott MacPherson explored so ambitiously.
There were, at the beginning, two examples of that, motets by Thomas Tallis of the 16th century and Heinrich Schütz of the 17th century.
There was also an interesting nugget from the Russian composer and conductor Nikolai Golovanov (below), an early work of his (1917), setting the Lord’s Prayer (Otche naš) In a style departing from the previous two centuries of great Russian Orthodox choral writing.
Beyond those, however, the remaining nine items in the program — and the encore — were entirely by recent composers, mostly living and mostly American. These were his introductory calling cards, and so they invite scrutiny.
Ours is not an age of great, idiomatic choral writing, and composers go their own ways variously. Many of them rely upon a kind of chordal declamation with little sense of line or full-bodied texture.
Some pieces I don’t think I would want to hear again, and a couple I would not have wanted to hear even the first time.
An example of the latter is a piece about sirens and sailors by Chinese-American Chen Yi (below top), a collage of weird choral sounds but no musical content recognizable to any but Chinese ears.
Another was a loudly trashy adaptation of a Civil Rights “freedom song” by Jeffrey Douma (below bottom), plus the gesture to multicultural triviality in a Philippine folksong arrangement.
Three of the items came with piano accompaniment. In The Whole Sea in Motion by Dale Trumbore (below top) — which uses a text from Anne Brontë — the piano gave an underlying ripple to support declamatory, non-linear writing.
In Eternity by Donald Martino (below), the pleasantly lyrical choral writing really didn’t need the piano at all. And that part was much too prominent against Morten Lauridsen’s nicely polyphonic, and quite self-sufficient, choral texture in “Sure on This Shining Night” that treated James Agee’s famous poem. (You can hear the Lauridsen work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
There were certainly some among these contemporary items that I found quite enjoyable.
In Ophelia, a setting the account of that woman’s death in Hamlet, Jocelyn Hagen (below top) was overly concerned with story-telling, but the work certainly contained some lovely writing. O Radiant Dawn by Scottish master James MacMillan (below bottom) was a beautifully sonorous tribute to Catholic liturgical tradition.
What does this conducting debut point to for the future?
McGaghie can create the most splendid choral beauty — though often at the sacrifice of clear diction. On the basis of this program, it looks like he could now focus the IVE on lots of short contemporary pieces, rather than on the vast traditional literature.
We will have to see.
Tags: #Americancomposers, #AmericanRecordGuide, #AnneBrontë, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CambridgeMassachusetts, #ChenYi, #ChoralMusic, #ChristianChurch, #ChristianReligion, #ChristPresbyterianChurch, #CivilRights, #DaleTrumbore, #DonaldMartino, #EmeritusProfessor, #GleeClub, #HarvardUniversity, #HeinrichSchütz, #IsthmusNewspaper, #IsthmusVocalEnsemble, #JamesAgee, #JamesMacMillan, #JeffreyDouma, #JesusChrist, #JocelynHagen, #JohnW.Barker, #Lord'sPrayer, #MacalesterCollege, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MedievalHistory, #MichaelMcGaghie, #MortenLauridsen, #MusicCritic, #NikolaiGolovanov, #PianoAccompaniment, #PolyphonicMusic, #RomanCatholicism, #RussianComposer, #ScottMacPherson, #St.PaulMinnesota, #ThomasTallis, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WilliamShakespeare, #WORT-FM89.9, 16th century, 17th century, accompaniment, alumni, American Record Guide, Anne Brontë, arrangement, Arts, Baroque, beauty, brilliant, Chen Yi, Chinese, Chinese-American, Choir, choral, choral music, chordal, Christ, Christ Presbyterian Church, church, civil rights, Classical music, classicalmusic, collage, composer, Concert, conductor, Dale Trumbore, declamation, director, Donald Martino, Early music, earlymusic, emeritus, emotion, emotional, enthusiasm, event, famous, feast, folk song, folksong, gesture, Glee Club, Hamlet, Harvard, Heinrich Schütz, History, infectious, Isthmus, Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, Jacob Stockinger, James Agee, James MacMillan, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jocelyn Hagen, John W. Barker, lecture, liturgical, Lord, Lord's Prayer, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Medieval, MEMF, memorable, Michael McGaghie, Morten Lauridsen, motet, multicultural, Music, Nikolai Golovanov, Ophelia, Philippine, photo, Piano, piece, plan, poem, Poetry, polyphonic, polyphony, prayer, Presbyterian, professor, program, recent, rehearsal, Roman Catholicism, Russian, Scotland, Scott MacPherson, Scottish, sea, Shakespeare, singer, Singing, St. Paul, summer, Thomas Tallis, tribute, triviality, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, Wisconsin, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: ECM Records finally streams its entire catalogue of award-winning artists and recordings
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By Jacob Stockinger
The critically acclaimed and award-winning independent label ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) was founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by the Grammy-winning producer Manfred Eicher (below).
Known for its penchant for the contemporary and even avant-garde, Eicher’s label was nonetheless a conservative hold-out when it came to the newer technology of digital streaming.
The old technology has its points besides superior sound quality. When you got an ECM CD, you usually also got one of their terrific black-and-white photographs, often a square-format landscape, as a cover. (ECM even published a book of its photographic covers.)
But as of this past Friday, ECM finally gave into the inevitable and streamed its entire catalogue. Its rationale was that it was more important for its music and musicians to be heard than to remain loyal to certain platforms.
ECM also cited the pressure from unauthorized uploads to YouTube and bootleg versions of its recordings as the reason for the decision.
So as of yesterday, ECM, which has won many awards for individual titles and artists, will be available on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, Tidal and other streaming services.
ECM is known for its popular and critically acclaimed jazz artists including pianist Keith Jarrett (below, of “The Köln Concert” or The Cologne Concert) and saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble (“Officium”). But it also included classical chamber music groups such as the Keller Quartet, the Trio Medieval, the Danish Quartet and others.
ECM is also known for championing contemporary classical composers (Arvo Pärt, below, who is the most performed contemporary composer, as well as Tigur Mansurian, Lera Auerbach, Gyorgy Kurtag and Valentin Silvestrov among others) and some outstanding crossover classical musicians, including Jarrett, a jazz great who has also recorded Bach, Handel and Shostakovich on both piano and harpsichord.
The Ear especially likes violist Kim Kashkashian and Harvard pianist Robert Levin (a frequent performer at the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival) in sonatas of Brahms. He is also fond of Alexei Lubimov in various piano recitals as well as the many recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Janacek and Robert Schumann by the superb pianist Andras Schiff (below). In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Schiff in a live performance of the Gigue from Bach’s Keyboard Partita No. 3.)
And there are many, many more artists and recordings worth your attention. Here is a link to an extensive sampler on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ECMRecordsChannel
Who are your favorite ECM artists?
What are your favorite ECM recordings?
What ECM downloads do you recommend?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: acclaim, Alexei Lubimov, Amazon, András Schiff, Apple, Apple Music, Arts, Arvo Part, avant-garde, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, black-and-white, Book, bootleg, catalogue, Cello, Chamber music, champion, choral music, Classical music, Cologne, Compact Disc, composer, concerto, conservative, contemporary, critic, crossover, Danish Quartet, Deezeer, digital, Dmitri Shostakovich, download, Early music, ECM, ECM Records, format, Franz Schubert, fugue, George Frideric Handel, Germany, gigue, Grammy Award, great, Gyorgy Kurtag, harpsichord, Harvard, Harvard University, Hilliard Ensemble, independent, Jacob Stockinger, Jan Garbarek, Janacek, Jazz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Keller Quartet, Keyboard, Kim Kashkashian, Koln Concert, label, landscape, Lera Auerbach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Manfred Eicher, Mansurian, modern, Munich, Music, Musician, new, New Music, Officium, partita, photography, Piano, popular, Prelude, producer, publish, quality, Quartet, recital, recommend, recommendation, Robert Levin, sampler, Saxophone, Schubert, Schumann, service, Silvestrov, Sonata, Sound, Spotify, square, stream, streaming, technology, Tidal, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Trio Medieval, unauthorized, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, upload, Viola, Violin, vocal music, YouTube
Classical music: Why do Americans hear so few American symphonies and so many German and Austrian symphonies?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here we are, living and listening to music in America.
So why is it that we hear so few 19th-century symphonies by American composers and so many symphonies by German and Austrian composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler, Bruckner and Richard Strauss?
To be specific, why have we heard the New York Philharmonic perform so much by Johannes Brahms and so little by composers such as John Knowles Paine (below, in a photo from The Library of Congress), who also headed the music department at Harvard University?
You might think it has to do with the quality of the music.
But that just isn’t so, says Douglas W. Shadle (below, by Steven Green of Vanderbilt University), a musicology scholar at Vanderbilt University. He has just published a long study of the issue. The book is called “Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century Symphonic Enterprise” (330 pages, Oxford University Press, $55).
The Ear would have to hear more American music to believe that argument.
Which makes it a vicious cycle: More American music won’t be programmed until it gets heard and liked by the public, and it won’t get heard or liked by the public until it is programmed more frequently.
What will break that cycle?
Which end gives way first?
Wouldn’t it be nice if some of that music was programmed by the Madison Symphony Orchestra or the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra or even the University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra?
Or if it were featured on Wisconsin Public Radio or WORT-FM? Perhaps one or the other radio station could even established an hourlong weekly program of American music — normally highlighted mostly on Thanksgiving — to help educate us about ourselves and our own cultural history, past and present?
Anyway, The Ear found the review of the book in The New York Times to be fascinating and highly informational, even revelatory.
Here is a link to the book review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/books/review-douglas-w-shadles-orchestrating-the-nation.html?_r=0
And here is a link to a YouTube video of a symphony by John Knowles Paine. I think you will be impressed, as was The Ear:
Tags: American, Arts, Beethoven, Bruckner, Classical music, Douglas W. Shadle, Harvard, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mahler, Mozart, Music, New York City, New York Times, Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann, Schubert, Strauss, The New York Times, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Symphony, Vanderbilt University, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wisconsin public radio, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: Go inside the Money Opera at the Met with the Pulitzer Prize-winning financial reporter James B. Stewart.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It is no secret that the famed Metropolitan Opera in New York City has been having major financial and labor problems during the tenure of its General Director Peter Gelb (below).
But it is hard to find a better researched or more detailed account of what is going on than the account that was written by the journalist James B. Stewart and appeared in the March 23 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
A graduate of the Harvard University Law School, Stewart (below), you may recall, is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and currently a columnist for the New York Times. He has also written best-selling books. Such qualifications give him added credibility when reporting on the fiscal state of the arts.
Plus, Stewart got access to documents and records as well as to members of the board of directors. His account is filled with specific details about costs and fundraising that are convincing.
The discrepancy, for example, between what the Met said was the official cost of its recent and controversial “Ring” cycle (below) by Robert Lepage of Cirque du Soleil and what others say it cost is both astonishing and appalling.
In an interview with Jim Zirin, Peter Gelb defends himself and his tenure in a YouTube video at the bottom.
To The Ear, the larger question is whether some of the same criticisms apply to other large performing arts groups, opera companies and symphony orchestras in other cities.
But that is another story for another day.
Here is a link to the story about the Met by James B. Stewart:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-fight-at-the-opera
Tags: Arts, choral music, Cirque de soleil, Classical music, Harvard, Jacob Stockinger, James B. Stewart, MANHATTAN, Metropolitan Opera, Music, New York City, New York Times, opera, Peter Gelb, Pulitzer Prize, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, Robert Lepage, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, YouTube
Classical music: Is there more to say about Beethoven and his music? Acclaimed musicologist Jan Swafford thinks so, and says so in his new biography of The Ludwig.
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By Jacob Stockinger
By most polls and surveys, the most popular composer of classical music remains Ludwig van Beethoven (below). The surly, willful and influential musician bridged the Classical and Romantic eras, and his music retains much of its power and universal appeal even today.
All you have to do is mention the names of works in virtually all the various musical genres and forms — solo sonatas, chamber music, symphonic music, concertos, vocal music — that Beethoven mastered and pushed into new realms of expression:
The “Eroica” Symphony.
The Fifth Symphony.
The “Pastoral” Symphony.
The Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy.”
The “Emperor” Concerto for piano.
The “Razumovsky” and “Late” String Quartets.
The “Ghost” and “Archduke” piano trios, and the “Triple” Concerto.
The “Moonlight,” “Pathetique,” “Tempest,” “Appassionata,” “Waldstein” and “Hammerklavier” piano sonatas.
The “Spring” and “Kreutzer” violin sonatas.
The “Missa Solemnis.”
“Fidelio.”
And on and on.
Such nicknames and so many! Talk about iconic works!
What more is there to be said about Beethoven?
Well, quite a lot, apparently, according to the acclaimed music historian Jan Swafford (below), who did his undergraduate work at Harvard University and his graduate work at Yale University and who now teaches composition and music history at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Swafford, who has also written biographies of Johannes Brahms and Charles Ives, has just published his 1,000-page biography of Beethoven with the subtitle “Anguish and Triumph.”
It is getting some mixed or qualified reviews. But before you look into that, better check into the pieces that NPR (National Public Radio) did on Swafford and his takes on Beethoven, some of which defy received wisdom and common sense.
Here is a summary of some common perceptions about Beethoven that may -– or may NOT –- be true, according to Swafford. It i s an easy and informative read.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/08/05/337857557/ask-us-anything-about-beethoven
And here is another piece on NPR’s Deceptive Cadence blog that deals with how the powerful Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” reveals Beethoven’s personality. (You can hear the opening, played by the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/03/336656578/beethovens-eroica-a-bizarre-revelation-of-personality
Some critics have questioned whether the book (below) is too long, whether it repeats things that are already well known and whether the writing style is accessible to the general public.
But nobody is ignoring it.
Here are two reviews by reputable media outlets.
From The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-beethoven-anguish-and-triumph-by-jan-swafford-1406927297
From The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/books/review/beethoven-by-jan-swafford.html?_r=0
Have you read Jan Swafford’s other work?
What do you think of his music histories and biographies?
Or of his new Beethoven book, if you have read it?
And what is your favorite work by Beethoven?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Appassionata, Archduke Trio, Arts, Beethoven, Chamber music, Charles Ives, choral music, Classical, Classical music, concerto, Emperor Concerto, Eroica Symphony, Fidelio, Fifth Symphony, Ghost Trio, Hammerklavier, Harvard, Jacob Stockinger, Jan Swafford, Kreutzer Sonata, Ludwig van Beethoven, Missa Solemnis, Moonlight Sonata, Music, musicology, National Public Radio, New England Conservatory, New York Times, Ninth Symphony, NPR, Ode to Joy, Pastoral Symphony, Pathetique Sonata, Piano, Piano Trio, Romantic, Romantic music, sonatas, Spring sonata, String quartet, Swafford, symphony, Tempest Sonata, Violin, Waldstein, Wall Street Journal, Yale, Yale University, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The future of Western classical music is in Asia – specifically China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Why is that?
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s not just about Lang Lang.
The signs are everywhere.
They were present at a recent piano recital by elementary school, middle school and high school students that The Ear attended.
You see it at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and at top music schools, including the Curtis Institute of Music, across the U.S. and Western Europe. And you see it in youth groups such as the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (below).
Western classical music recording labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical, are looking to develop new markets and so are signing more Asian musicians, such as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai String Quartet, and releasing more Asian performances. (Below is the Taiwanese-Australian, prize-winning violinist Ray Chen, who is also a master at using social media to build his meteoric career.)
All these items point to the same conclusion: The future of Western classical music looks more and more likely to be found in Asian culture and in Asia – specifically in China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. (Next season, prize-winning South Korean pianist Joyce Yang (below) returns to Madison, where she first gave a recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater, to solo with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)
Consider some of the following:
There are, The Ear read somewhere, now more piano students in China than in all of Europe, North America and South America combined. And he is reading about more and more concert tours of China and other Asian countries by Western performers — even while in the U.S. the number of pianos in homes are on the decline.
Increasingly the winners of major international competitions — such as the Chopin competition, the Van Cliburn competition, the Tchaikovsky competition, the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium competition and the Leeds competition – come from Asia or are Asian. (Below, in a photo by Simon Fowler, is American pianist George Li, who immigrated from China as a child and attended Harvard and the New England Conservatory before winning a silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition. His concert career is now blossoming fast.)
In recent years, China has been building a lot of first-rate concert halls, opera houses and music schools. And the famed Juilliard School in New York City will open its second campus this fall in Tianjin, near Beijing.
China has certainly come a long way from the days of the Cultural Revolution when people could be imprisoned for listening to Beethoven, who is now a cultural icon in China — as you can hear at the bottom in the YouTube video of Li Jing Zhan conducting the orchestra at the Chinese National Opera in Beethoven’s No. 7. (Below is the striking new National Center for the Performing Arts in China.)
https://www.interlude.hk/front/culture-construction-chinas-new-concert-halls/
Nineteen of the 24 final competitors, ages 13-17, in the second Van Cliburn Junior Competition – which starts in Dallas, Texas, on May 31 and ends on June 8 – are Asian, Asian-American and Asian-Canadian, all with astonishingly impressive credentials and experience. It will be streamed live and free. Take a look and listen:
https://www.cliburn.org/2019-cliburn-junior-competitors/
Why this Asian shift is happening remains somewhat of a mystery to The Ear, although he had been thinking about for a long time.
Then he came across a op-ed column confirming the prevalence of Asian classical musicians. It was written by the American concert pianist and teacher Inna Faliks (below), who teaches at UCLA and who wrote convincingly about her recent concert experiences in China in The Washington Post.
Read it and see what you think, and tell us whether you agree:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-future-of-classical-music-is-chinese/2019/03/22/2649e9dc-4cb5-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html?utm_term=.7f149e0f8eb9
Why are Asians so interested in Western classical music and music education? And why do they respect it or even revere it so much?
Does it have to do with the “tiger mom” phenomenon of strong parental pressure to succeed and achieve?
Is it largely a function of population?
Is it because of the collective teamwork required to make a lot of chamber music and orchestral music, or with the intense and instructive teacher-student relationship?
Is it because the cultural depth and seriousness in Western music education – ing contrast to the increasingly pop culture of the West – that prepares students well for the training and intellectual discipline required in other educational fields and careers, including the STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)?
Is Asia simply fascinated by Western culture the same way that Western culture was fascinated by the exotic Asian cultures – especially in China and Japan — during the 19th century and earlier? Or is the West increasingly ignoring its own culture. (The Ear can’t recall any classical musicians performing at President Donald Trump’s White House. Can you?)
How do you see the situation and react to it? And what do you think about the causes and effects?
Please leave your reactions and thoughts in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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