The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Soprano Sarah Brailey and nine UW-Madison cellists team up for the FREE concert of songs at Grace Presents this Saturday at noon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday, Sept. 21, at noon, a FREE one-hour program in the Grace Presents series will feature soprano Sarah Brailey (below) in “My Loyal Heart,” a recital of songs by Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Guillaume de Machaut, Dmitri Shostakovich and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
The concert is at Grace Episcopal Church (below), located downtown on the Capitol Square at 116 West Washington Avenue.
Brailey is an acclaimed professional singer who often tours and who is doing graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Brailey will be joined by friends and colleagues. They include UW baritone Paul Rowe and members of the UW Madison Cello Ensemble, featuring nine local Madison cellists who include Grace Presents program coordinator James Waldo. (Below is a summer cello choir at the UW-Madison from several years ago.)
The works will be sung in Russian, Portuguese, and both modern and medieval French.
Here is an introduction from Waldo:
“It is often said that the cello is the instrument most like the human voice.
“My Loyal Heart,” devotes an entire program to music for soprano Sarah Brailey and cello from the 14th century to the 20th century.
“It opens with Arvo Pärt’s L’abbé Agathon about the legend of Father Agathon from the 4th century book “The Desert Fathers,” followed by a new arrangement by Brailey for soprano and cello trio of Guillaume de Machaut’s elegant love song Se quanque amours puet donner.
“This intimately ardent piece is followed by a more tragic love story, that of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, in the opening movement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok.
“The program continues in Russian with Sir John Tavener’s powerful and darkly spiritual Akhmatova Songs with poetry by Russian-Soviet Modernist poet, Anna Akhmatova.
“The concert concludes with the hauntingly beautiful and famous first movement and the playful concluding dance of Bachianas Brasileiras (Brazilian Bach Suites) No.5 for soprano and eight cellos by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. (You can hear the Villa-Lobos aria in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“Text and translations will be provided.
“This program will not be performed anywhere else in Madison.”
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Classical music: This Saturday, Aug. 31, at 11 a.m. in Overture Hall is the last FREE Farmers’ Market organ concert of the season. On Sunday afternoon, guitarist Steven Meyer performs at the Chazen Museum of Art
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ALERT: Madison guitarist Steven Meyer will perform a FREE concert on “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” this Sunday, Sept. 1, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3. The program features music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Gustav Holst, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Fernando Sor, himself and others. Also included is music by the Beatles, jazz and folk music. For more information about the series, go to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen8/
This Sunday’s performance will, as always, be live streamed starting at 12:30. Here is a portal link for streaming: https://c.streamhoster.com/embed/media/O7sBNG/OS1C0ihJsYK/iqf1vBMs3qg_5
By Jacob Stockinger
This Saturday morning, Aug. 31, will see the last FREE Farmers’ Market organ concert of the season.
The 45-minute concert, sponsored by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and played on the Klais concert organ, takes place in Overture Hall at 11 a.m. No tickets or reservations are needed and the public is welcome.
The performer is David Ball (below), who was trained at the Juilliard School in New York City and who is based in Orange County, California, at the Christ (formerly Crystal) Cathedral.
The program features music by French composer Jean Langlais, French composer Camille Saint-Saens, German composer Max Reger, British composer Herbert Howells, Argentinean composer Norberto Guinaldo, French composer Leon Boellmann, French composer Jeanne Demessieux, contemporary American composer Alan Terricciano and American composer John Philip Sousa. (You can hear David Ball playing a different work by Herbert Howells in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For the specific works and much more background about the performer, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/free-farmers-market-concert-2019-david-ball/
Tags: #AmericanComposer, #BaroqueMusic, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BritishComposer, #CamilleSaint-Saens, #ChazenMuseumofArt, #ChristCathedral, #ChristianChurch, #ClassicalGuitar, #ClassicalGuitarist, #ConcertOrgan, #CrystalCathedral, #DaneCounty, #DaneCountyFarmers'Market, #DavidBall, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #Farmers'Market, #FernandoSor, #FolkMusic, #Frenchcomposer, #GreatBritain, #GuitarMusic, #GustavHolst, #HeitorVilla-Lobos, #HerbertHowells, #HomeWebsite, #JazzMusic, #JeanLanglais, #JesusChrist, #JohannSebastianBach, #JohnPhilipSousa, #JuilliardSchool, #KlaisOrgelbau, #LeonardBernstein, #LeonBoellmann, #LiveStreaming, #LivingComposer, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MaxReger, #NewMusic, #NewYorkCity, #NorbertoGuinaldo, #OrangeCounty, #OrganMusic, #OvertureHall, #RockandRoll, #RockMusic, #SaturdayMorning, #SchoolofMusic, #StevenMeyer, #SundayAfternoonLiveattheChazen, #TheBeatles, #YouTubevideo, American, American composer, Argentina, Arts, audience, Bach, background, Baroque music, Beatles, blog, Boellmann, Britain, British, California, Camille Saint-Saëns, cathedral, Chazen Museum of Art, Christ, Christ Cathedral, Christian, church, classical guitarist, composer, Concert, contemporary, Crystal Cathedral, Dane County, Dane County Farmers' Market, David Ball, event, Facebook, farmer, Farmer's Market, Fernando Sor, folk, forward, France, free, French, Guinaldo, guitar, guitarist, Gustav Holst, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Herbert Howells, Holst, Howells, information, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Jean Langlais, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Philip Sousa, Juilliard School, Klais, Langlais, Leon Boellmann, Leonard Bernstein, like, link, live streaming, Living composer, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, market, Max Reger, Music, New Music, New York City, Norberto Guinaldo, Orange County, Orchestra, organ, Overture Center, Overture Hall, performance, performer, portal, post, posting, program, public, reader, reservation, rock and roll, Saint-Saens, Saturday morning, School of Music, share, Sor, Steven Meyer, subscriber, Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen, Sweden, Swedish, tag, ticket, United States, video, Villa-Lobos, Website, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Is Prokofiev more Romantic than modernist? Hear for yourself at the concert Friday night by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and violinist Giora Schmidt. Plus, the UW Symphony Orchestra performs a FREE concert Thursday night
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ALERTS: This Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra will perform a FREE concert under the baton of alumnus and guest conductor Mikko Rankin Utevsky, the founder and director of the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO). The program features the Symphony No. 5 by Franz Schubert; “Entr’acte” by Caroline Shaw; and the “Holberg Suite” by Edvard Grieg.
The week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features guitarist Steve Waugh and flutist Sridhar Bagavathula playing music by Frederic Chopin, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Astor Piazzolla, Francisco Tarrega, Francois Morel and Jerome Kern. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m.
By Jacob Stockinger
Sometimes the frame helps to define the picture, to reveal or at least reinforce the picture’s meaning.
Such is the case with this Friday night’s appealing and stand-out concert by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra with conductor Andrew Sewell and Israeli violin soloist Giora Schmidt (below, in a photo by David Getzschman).
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in The Capitol Theater of the Overture Center, 201 State Street.
Tickets are $15-$80 with student tickets available for $10. For more information about the performers and the program, as well as how to obtain tickets, go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances/masterworks-ii-3/
The program features the “Petite Symphonie” (Small Symphony) for winds by the Romantic French composer Charles Gounod (below), who is much better known for and more often performed for his operas “Faust” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
Then there is the melodic, popular and often performed Serenade for Strings by the Russian arch-Romantic Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (below). Like so much Tchaikovsky – both his Piano Concerto No. 1 and his Violin Concerto, now staples of the repertoire, were deemed unplayable when first composed – the Serenade can sound less challenging than it really is.
In between comes a modern masterpiece that The Ear is especially fond of: The Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor by the Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev (below).
And that is where it gets especially interesting.
Prokofiev is often lumped together with his Russian contemporary Dmitri Shostakovich (below). Both were virtuoso pianists. Both faced hardships from the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. And while it is true that some of Prokofiev’s music shares a certain spikiness as well as harmonic darkness and dissonance with that of his contemporary, the pairing can be misleading.
To The Ear, much more — maybe even most — of Prokofiev’s music shares a lot more with the late Russian Romantics, including Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Roughly and with some exceptions, he sees Prokofiev as modern Russia’s Mozart for his melodic clarity, and Shostakovich as modern Russia’s Beethoven for his harmonic thickness.
The Ear doesn’t know if that same point is intended and was in mind when maestro Andrew Sewell (below) set up the concert, but he suspects it was because Sewell is a canny and intelligent programmer.
But intentional or not, no matter: the point stands.
If a single moment offers proof, The Ear would single out the opening of the slow movement of the Prokofiev concerto.
It has a beautiful melodic line, moving harmonies and a hypnotic clock-like rhythm to a theme-and-variation development that sounds unmistakably modern but accessibly modern in the same way that the never-fail Violin Concerto by the American composer Samuel Barber does.
You can hear the second movement in a YouTube video at the bottom and make up your own mind. It is performed by the way by the great David Oistrakh for whom Prokofiev composed the concerto.
Suffice it to say that The Ear has never heard that movement without the little hairs on the back of his neck standing up, much like happens with the famous 18th Variation in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” or the opening of the first and second movements of the Barber Violin Concerto.
If you know that music by Prokofiev, you will be happy you hear it again. And if you don’t already know it, you will be forever grateful to have made its acquaintance.
Anyway, The Ear will assume that the programming was deliberate and establishes for the audience a context for the Prokofiev, which is the most important and substantial work on the program.
And Giora Schmidt (below),k who is making his Madison debut, certainly sounds like the kind of virtuoso who will do justice to the work. Just read the critics’ raves on his website:
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