The Well-Tempered Ear
This year’s Handel Aria Competition is now available on YouTube
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By Jacob Stockinger
This summer marked the 10th anniversary of the Handel Aria Competition.
From modest beginnings, the competition — founded by local business owners and longtime classical music supporters Orange and Dean Schroeder — has grown into an international professional-level event. For 2023, more than 125 singers from around the world applied and those selected as finalists received a travel allowance.
Now with former first-prize winner and Grammy-winning soprano Sarah Brailey as its artistic director, the competition took place on Aug. 18 in the historic Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square. (Photographs are by Lewis Photography.)
The competition, where singers are accompanied by the early-music, period-instrument ensemble Madison Bach Musicians (below, with soprano Olivia Doig) under Trevor Stephenson at the harpsichord, has also had an impact on the local scene.
You can see the participants’ names and backgrounds as well as bios of\ the judges, along with the history of the competition, at: https://handelariacompetition.org/
The Ear has learned that next year’s competition will see a return to the high school version of the competition, which was suspended during the covid pandemic along with the competition itself.
The Handel Aria Competition is working with Mike Ross and the Madison Youth Choirs to bring back the competition’s High School Singers Showcase. The 2024 high school event will be a master class open to the public on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 24, 2024 at the MYArts building, 1055 E. Mifflin St. (The website is madisonyoutharts.org)
Orange Schroeder, who is pleased by and proud of the competition over its 10 years, writes:
“Emily Donato, who took third prize last year, won first prize this year. All five of our finalists (below with Donato in the center), were great! You can judge for yourself now that all their performances are on YouTube.
“We were down from seven finalists due to covid and other unforeseen circumstances, but it was still a full evening of amazing performances.
“Our two tenors took second prize (Andrew Reardon Brown, far right) and third prize (Fran Daniel Laucerica, second from right). Coincidentally they both sang the same aria from “Messiah” as their second piece, but their performances were different in the very way that Handel hoped singers would vary his works.
“The PDF of the program in on our home page. Chea Kang is still listed but was unable to come.”
Here is a link to the 1 hour, 11-minute competition concert on the YouTube channel, where you can also watch and listen to full performances from the past decade of the Handel Aria Competition and decide whether you agree with the judges:
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Classical music: Con Vivo will perform a “Winter Warmth” chamber music concert this Sunday afternoon. Plus, a FREE viola da gamba concert is Friday at noon
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features the viola da gamba duo ViolMedium in “Façades and Duplicities,” a multi-dimensional exploration of the rich harmonic, timbral and dramatic potentials offered by violas da gamba.
The viol is the medium through which gambists Eric Miller of Madison and Phillip Serna of Chicago bridge contemporary and historically informed performance. They use experimental and innovative programming as exemplified in masterworks by Carl Friedrich Abel, Bela Bartok, Gottfried Finger, Marin Marais, Christoph Schaffrath and others.
The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. Food and beverages are allowed.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison-based chamber music group Con Vivo (below) will perform a “Winter Warmth” program of chamber music this coming Sunday afternoon, Feb. 3.
The concert will include the Finale from Symphony No. 6 for organ by Charles Marie Widor; the Quartet for oboe and strings by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and the Piano Quintet for piano, clarinet and strings, Op. 42, by Czech composer Zdenek Fibich.
The concert takes place this Sunday afternoon, Feb. 3, at 2:30 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave. across from Camp Randall Stadium.
Tickets can be purchased at the door. Admission is $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and students.
Audience members are invited to join the musicians after the concert for a free reception to discuss the concert.
New to this concert is that Con Vivo will perform in two different spaces. The first half of the concert will be in the sanctuary, and the second half in the chapel at the First Congregational Church. This will provide the audience with different experiences for hearing the chamber music.
In remarking about the concert, Con Vivo’s artistic director Robert Taylor said, “We continue our 17th season with music evocative of warm winter thoughts during these cold, dark winter days that we often have.
“The wonderful lush strains of Charles Marie Widor’s organ music are contrasted by the bright cheerful music of Mozart in his oboe quartet. (You can hear the opening movement of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.) The afternoon is capped off by the rarely played Piano Quintet by Fibich (below). What better way to spend a cold winter afternoon?”
Con Vivo is a professional chamber music ensemble comprised of Madison area musicians assembled from the ranks of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and various other performing groups familiar to Madison audiences.
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Classical music: University Opera’s “Poppea” proves engaging, satisfying and timely. Performances remain this afternoon at 2 and Tuesday night at 7:30
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By Jacob Stockinger
Larry Wells – who is The Opera Guy for The Well-Tempered Ear blog – went to the recent production of the University Opera and filed this review, with rehearsal photos of students, who alternate roles in different performances, by Michael R. Anderson.
By Larry Wells
The only other time I attended a performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea” (1643) was in the early 1980s at The San Francisco Opera. Despite the appearance of Tatiana Troyanos as Poppea, I remember being baffled by both the static nature of the music and the grandness of the production of what seemed should be an intimate opera.
That memory, in addition to my being a fan of 20th-century music, made attending the opening performance of University Opera’s performance Friday evening fraught with foreboding.
Despite the production being a lengthy three hours, I must praise the ensemble and director David Ronis — who never disappoints — for keeping my attention throughout the evening as I witnessed an intimate retelling of the passion between Nero and Poppea (portrayed below by Benjamin Hopkins and Anja Pustaver).
The opera was staged in Music Hall on a semicircular platform with the small instrumental ensemble directly to the front side of the audience. Stunning lighting and beautiful costumes made up for the minimal set. I was seated in the center of the first row of the balcony and must say that the sightlines and the sound were superb, even though it was very hot up there. (Below is the coronation scene with Hopkins and Pustaver in the center.)
The ensemble was conducted by Chad Hutchinson (below) whom I had heard conduct the UW Symphony Orchestra the night before in a rousing Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. The plucked instruments – harp, guitars, theorbo (I had to look it up, too) and harpsichords – were the backbone of the accompaniment. Strings and recorders completed the orchestra, and they were a delight to the ear – totally delicate and restrained.
The plot of the opera involves love triangles and political intrigue. The supertitles created by David Ronis (below, in a photo by Luke Dalalio) were amusing and colloquial. So much of the political posturing by Nero, whose main motivation is consistently self-interest, seemed to be pertinent to our time.
Nero was sung by countertenor Thomas Aláan who has a voice of great agility and expressiveness. His lover, Poppea, who yearns to be his empress, was sung by Talia Engstrom. Hers is a voice of great suppleness and flexibility. Throughout the evening she acted and sang with great subtlety, and I admired her performance very much.
I had been primed for the opera’s very final duet (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom) to be the most sublime moment of the opera, but I was much more aroused by the farewell duet between Nero and Poppea toward the end of the first act. It was highly charged vocally and erotic in its beauty and delivery.
Other characters included Seneca, portrayed by bass Benjamin Galvin (below left front, surrounded, from left to right, by Eliav Goldman, Jack Innes, Jiabao Zhang, Jake Elfner and Noah Bossert.) The lower range of his voice is profound and impressive.
Kevin Green (below right with Pustaver) portrayed the hapless Ottone, and his baritone voice shows promise.
It was, however, a night for the female singers. Cayla Rosché’s Ottavia was beautifully sung. She was completely believable as the spurned wife of Nero. Likewise Kelsey Wang’s Drusilla, Ottone’s second choice, was also wonderfully sung.
In the first scene we were introduced to Fortuna, Virtù and Amore who shone vocally. Throughout the remainder of the opera they silently hovered in the background as visual reminders of the forces driving the plots. Love, portrayed by Emily Vandenberg, eventually triumphed and got to sing a bit more.
There were moments of humor sprinkled throughout the production. I do not know how historically informed they were, but they did help to lighten the heaviness of the political intrigue and amorous complexities.
Some were perhaps unintentional – particularly the absurdly amusing wig that Fortuna wore. But Professor Mimmi Fulmer, in the small role as Nutrice, had a moment of complete hilarity. Her performance – both vocally and as an actress – underlined the contrast between earnestly serious, focused students and a relaxed, confident professional. (Below is the final scene with Nero and Poppea).
Altogether, it was a surprisingly engaging evening. There remain chances to see it this afternoon and Tuesday evening. It is not a brief or light evening of entertainment, but it is wholly engaging, thought provoking, timely and certainly something out of the ordinary.
Two more performances take place in Music Hall: today at 2 p.m. and Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. For more information including how to get tickets – adults are $25, seniors are $20 and students are $10 — go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/university-opera-monteverdis-the-coronation-of-poppea/
Tags: #20thCentury, #AncientRome, #BaroqueComposer, #BaroqueMusic, #BaroqueOpera, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChadHutchinson, #ClaudioMonteverdi, #DavidRonis, #EarlyBaroque, #EmperorNero, #FacebookPost, #FacultyMember, #FemaleSingers, #FirstAct, #GuitarMusic, #HarpMusic, #HarpsichordContinuo, #LarryWells, #LoveTriangle, #MichaelR.Anderson, #MimmiFulmer, #ModernMusic, #MusicHall, #MusicReview, #NewMusic, #OperaReview, #OurTime, #OutoftheOrdinary, #PeterIlyichTchaikovsky, #PluckedInstruments, #PoliticalIntrigue, #RecorderMusic, #SanFrancisco, #SanFranciscoOpera, #SightLines, #StringMusic, #Sundayafternoon, #TatianaTroyanos, #TheCoronationofPoppea, #TheOperaGuy, #theorbomusic, #TheWell-TemperedEar, #ThoughtProvoking, #Tuesdaynight, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UniversityOpera, #VocalMusic, #YouTubevideo, accompaniment, actress, afternoon, agility, amorous, amusing, Ancient Rome, Arts, backbone, balcony, baritone, Baroque, bass, beauty, brief, California, Chad Hutchinson, Chamber music, Classical music, Claudio Monteverdi, colloquial, composer, conductor, contrast, coronation, costumes, countertenor, David Ronis, delicate, delight, delivery, director, duet, ear, early Baroque, Early music, earlymusic, earnest, Emperor Nero, empress, engaged, engaging, ensmeble, Entertainment, erotic, evening, expressiveness, Facebook, faculty, faculty member, female, female singers, first act, flexibility, foreboding, fortune, grandness, guitar, harp, harp music, harpsichord, hilarity, historical, Historically informed performance, historically informed performance practices, hot, Humor, impressive, informed, intimate, Jacob Stockinger, Larry Wells, lengthy, light, lighting, link, Love, love triangle, lover, Madison, Michael R. Anderson, Mimmi Fulmer, minimal, modern, modern music, moment'duet, motivation, Music Hall, music review, nature, Nero, New Music, opera, Opera review, Orchestra, ordinary, out of the ordinary, Passion, performance, pertinent, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, photo, plot, plucked instruments, political, political intrigue, Poppea, production, professional, professor, profound, provocative, recorder, rehearsal, restrained, rousing, scene, self-interest, Seneca, serious, set, share, sing, singer, Sound, stage, staged, static, strings, students, subime, Sunday, sung, superb, supertitles, suppleness, symphony, tag, The Coronation of Poppea, The Opera Guy, The Well-Tempered Ear, theorbo, thought provoking, time, Tuesday, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, UW, UW-Madison, Viola, Violin, virtue, vocal, vocal music, voice, wife, wig, Wisconsin, witness, YouTube
Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble plays a concert of familiar and unfamiliar baroque chamber music this Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble — an acclaimed and veteran group specializing in early music performed on period instruments and with historically informed performance practices — will give a concert of baroque chamber music on this coming Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.
The concert is in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below are exterior and interior views), 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.
Members and performers in the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble include: UW-Madison professor Mimmi Fulmer – soprano; Nathan Giglierano – baroque violin; Brett Lipshutz – traverse flute; Eric Miller – viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust – recorder; Consuelo Sañudo – mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger – traverse flute and harpsichord; Anton TenWolde – baroque cello; and Max Yount – harpsichord.
Tickets at the door are: $20 for the general public; $10 for students.
For more information, call (608) 238 5126, or email: info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
A FREE post-concert reception will be held at 2422 Kendall Ave, second floor.
The program features:
Giovanni Legrenzi – “Ave Regina Coelorum” (Hail, O Queen of Heaven)
Jacques Morel – Chaconne en trio, from “Livre de pieces de viola” or Book of Pieces for Viol)
Jean-Baptiste Lully – “Plaite de Vénus sur la mort d’Adonis” (Lament of Venus on the Death of Adonis)
Georg Friedrich Handel (below) – Sonata for violin and basso continuo, Opus 1, No. 3 (You can sample the lovely opening movement, played by Simon Standage on violin and The English Concert’s director Trevor Pinnock on harpsichord, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Intermission
Georg Philipp Telemann (below) – “Hemmet den Eifer, verbannet die Rache” (Restrain Your Zeal, Banish Your Revenge)
Jacob Friedrich Kleinknecht – Sonata for traverso and basso continuo, Opus 1, No. 2
Giacomo Carissimi – “Rimante in pace ormai” (Remain in Peace Henceforth)
Georg Philipp Telemann – Quartetto in G major, TWV 43:G6
For more information about the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, go to: http://wisconsinbaroque.org
Tags: Adonis, Arts, Baroque, Cello, chaconne, Classical music, Early music, English Concert, flute, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, Giacomo Carissimi, Giovanni Legrenzi, harpsichord, Historically informed performance, Jacob Friedrich Kleinknecht, Jacob Stockinger, Jacques Morel, Jean-Baptiste Lully, lament, Madison, Mezzo-soprano, Music, Quartet, recorder, Simon Standage, singer, Sonata, soprano, traverso, Trevor Pinnock, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Venus, video, Viol, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, YouTube
Classical music: Remembering The Modest Maestro. English conductor Sir Neville Marriner died this past week at 92
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By Jacob Stockinger
He played in a string quartet and a symphony orchestra before founding and directing a chamber orchestra that rose to the top ranks of the music world. Then he became a world-famous conductor of larger ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra.
He was Sir Neville Marriner (below, in old age), and he died at 92 on Oct. 2.
Perhaps because Marriner, who pioneered period practices on modern instruments when playing music of the Baroque and Classical eras, was famous for recording the soundtrack to the Academy Award-winning film “Amadeus,” his death was announced the same day on radio news programs – something that doesn’t happen often and speaks to his popularity and influence.
By all accounts, in the world of many egotistical maestros, Marriner remained modest. For this friendly titan, music mattered most and he was busy conducting right up until the end. Apparently, Marriner was a wonderful man to know and to work with.
Chances are good that by now you have already heard about Marriner’s death. So The Ear is offering some homages that repeat the details of his career and his passing. (Below is a photo of the young Neville Marriner.)
First are two moving testimonies from Marriner’s friend, the British critic Norman Lebrecht, published on Lebrecht’s blog Slipped Disc:
http://slippedisc.com/2016/10/sad-news-neville-marriner-is-gone-at-92/
http://slippedisc.com/2016/10/the-unforgettable-neville-marriner/
Here is the announcement of his death from the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (heard playing the Adagio by Tomaso Albinoni in the YouTube video at the bottom), which Marriner founded and led for many years:
http://www.asmf.org/sir-neville-marriner/
Here is an exhaustive obituary from The New York Times:
And here is another obituary from The Washington Post:
Here is a good overview with some audio-visual samples, from the Deceptive Cadence blog on NPR or National Public Radio:
And here is a good summary from famed radio station WQXR-FM in New York City:
Sir Neville Marriner was a prolific recording artist, with more than 500 recordings to his credit. The Ear fondly remembers an LP that had the Serenades for Strings by the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak and the “Holberg” Suite by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, which has been reissued as a “Legends” CD by Decca. The playing was warmly heart-felt and superb.
The Ear also loved his complete set of piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, done with pianist Alfred Brendel.
What are your favorite Marriner recordings?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The Madison Bach Musicians perform Baroque and Renaissance English music this coming Friday night and Sunday afternoon
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ALERT: The strike by the players in the Philadelphia Orchestra has been settled. For details, go to this website:
For more background about that strike and others, which The Ear writes about yesterday, go to:
By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Bach Musicians will open its 2016-17 season this coming weekend with two performances of a program that features English music from the Baroque and Renaissance eras.
The first performance is this Friday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m., preceded by 6:45 lecture, in the Atrium Auditorium (below, in a photo by Zane Williams) of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive.
The second is this coming Sunday, Oct. 9, at 3:30 p.m., preceded by a 2:45 lecture, at the Holy Wisdom Monastery (below), 4200 County Highway M in Middleton.
If bought in advance, tickets are $28 for the general public and $23 for students and seniors over 65; at the door tickets will be $30 and $25, respectively. Student rush tickets are $10, require a student ID and are available 30 minutes before the lectures. For more information, visit www.madisonbachmusicians.org
The program features: Sonata in Four Parts in F major “Golden Sonata” by Henry Purcell (1659−1695); Suite No. 2 in D major from “Consort of Four Parts” by Matthew Locke (c. 1621−1677); Songs to texts by William Shakespeare by Robert Johnson (1583−1633); “Diverse bizzarie Spra La Vecchia” by Nicola Matteis (c. 1650−c. 1709); Division No. 7 for two bass viols by Christopher Simpson (c. 1606−1669); “Solus cum sola” for solo lute solo by John Dowland (1563−1626); “The Broken Consort” Part 1, Suite no. 2 in G major by Matthew Locke; “The Carman’s Whistle” by William Byrd (c. 1540−1623); “Light of Love” by Anonymous as arranged by David Douglass; “John Come Kiss Me Now” by John Playford (1623−c. 1686) as arranged by David Douglass; “Long Cold Night” and “Queen’s Jig.”
Performers include: Dann Coakwell, tenor; David Walker, lute and theorbo; Kangwon Kim violin and concertmaster; Brandi Berry, violin; Anna Steinhoff and Martha Vallon, viola de gamba; and Trevor Stephenson, harpsichord.
Here are some edited notes by MBM founder and director Trevor Stephenson (below):
Madison Bach Musicians is delighted to start off its 13th season with a foray into new repertoire for the group: English music from the Renaissance and Baroque.
A special feature of the program will be the recognition in song of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
Both the smaller lute and the larger theorbo were considered ideal for accompanying the voice in songs, and the theorbo could project a bit better in larger ensembles.
Like the lute, the viola da gamba is also fretted, but it is bowed and not plucked. Moreover, the gamba is held between the legs, the “gams,” and its name literally means “viol of the legs.”
The baroque violins we’ll use in this program will be strung in the usual fashion of the 16th and 17th centuries, that is, with gut strings (from dried sheep intestine); and the bows will be of the Elizabethan “short” variety (shorter length, and with the stick arching away from the hair), which make them ideally suited for the intricate articulations and lively dance rhythms of this repertoire.
All of these instruments enjoyed great popularity in England during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Henry Purcell (below) flourished during the arts boom of the Restoration period under King Charles II and is widely known for his theater music and operas. However, he also wrote quite a bit of instrumental music.
The four parts of this sonata refers here not to numbers of movements, but to the number of simultaneous instrumental lines—in this case, four, which is notably different from the typical three-part (or trio sonata) Italianate texture of the 17th century.
The Purcell sonata is followed by an instrumental Suite in D major by Matthew Locke (c. 1621-1677). Locke was a close friend of the Purcell family and in particular of Purcell’s father, Henry Purcell Sr. The younger Henry Purcell wrote a musical elegy on Locke’s death in 1677.
Locke’s years of greatest musical activity in London began as the period of Puritanical Commonwealth rule, under Oliver Cromwell, was waning in the late 1650’s. The Commonwealth had severely restricted the theater and the arts in general. Fun fact: Locke (below) was the first composer to indicate a musical crescendo and decrescendo in a score.
The texts for the songs are from various Elizabethan poets—John Fletcher, John Webster and Shakespeare himself—and all of the music was composed by lutenist Robert Johnson (below, 1583-1633).
Johnson worked closely with Shakespeare in theatrical productions at the court of James I during the first few years of the 17th century. Johnson even provided music for Shakespeare’s original production of “The Tempest.”
The first part of the MBM program will conclude with two works that explore a favorite 17th-century technique of ornamentation over a repeated bass line, sometimes called a ground bass or chaconne.
The first is by the Italian virtuoso violinist Nicola Matteis (below, in a painting by Gottfried Kneller, c. 1650-1709), who enjoyed a successful career in London during an era when the English were importing Italian music masters by the dozens.
The second work, by Christopher Simpson (below, c. 1606-1669), explores “divisions” or variations tossed back and forth between two bass viols (gambas) while they simultaneously repeat a ground bass.
The second half of the program will feature songs for tenor and voice by John Dowland (below). We’ll also play Locke’s Broken Consort, “broken” meaning “mixed”–in that violins and gambas, which were considered in Elizabethan times to be artistically quite different instruments—were being asked by the composer to play nicely together.
Following that, I’ll play a rousing set of variations for harpsichord, “The Carman’s Whistle,” by William Byrd (below).
And to conclude the program, the consort will play a set of sprightly dances originally published in 1651 in the collection “The English Dancing Master” by John Playford (below).
Tags: Arts, Baroque, bow, chaconne, Christopher Simpson, Classical music, dance, David Douglass, Early music, Elizabethan, Elizabethan England, Elizabethan music, English, English Renaissance, ground bass, hair, harpsichord, Historically informed performance, Italian music, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, John Playford, King Charles II, lecture, London, lute, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Matthew Locke, Music, Nicola Matteis, Orchestra, period instruments, Purcell, Renaissance, restoration, Robert Johnson, score, Shakespeare, Sonata, song, Student, Suite, tenor, theorbo, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, viola da gamba, Violin, vocal music, William Byrd, William Shakespeare, Wisconsin
Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will perform a Thanksgiving concert on this coming Sunday afternoon.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear’s friends at the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble have sent the following word:
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will perform a Thanksgiving concert on this coming Sunday afternoon, Nov. 29, at 3 p.m. in Saint Andrew‘s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side. (Below are photos of the church’s exterior and interior.)
Performers include Brett Lipshutz, traverse; Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverso, recorder, harpsichord; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
Tickets at the door are $20, $10 for students.
For more information: Call (608) 238-5126; or email info@wisconsinbaroque.org; or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
The program features: “Ricercata X sopra il violoncello” (1687) by Giovanni Battista Degli Antonii; “Nel dolce dell’ oblio,” HWV 134, by George Fridrich Handel; Sonata 5 for traverse and basso continuo by Johann Kirnberger; the Second Concert, from Concerts Royaux (1722) by François Couperin; Pièces de Violle, Suite 4 (1685) by Monsieur de Machy; “Mi palpita il cor,” HWV 132c, by George Friderich Handel: Suite No. 6 in E-flat Major by Georg Boehm (1661-1733): and Quartet in E Minor by Georg Philipp Telemann (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom as played on Baroque period instruments and historically informed performance practices by members of the Freiburger Barockorchester.)
PLEASE NOTE: There will be a reception at our studio at nearby 2422 Kendall Ave, second floor, immediately following the concert.
Tags: Arts, Baroque, basso continuo, Cello, Classical music, continuo, Early music, François Couperin, Freiburger Barockorchester, Georg Boehm, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, Giovanni Battista, harpsichord, Historically informed performance, Holiday, holiday music, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Kirnberger, Le sieur de Machy, Madison, Mezzo-soprano, Music, period instruments, Quartet, recorder, Sonata, Suite, Thanksgiving, traverse, traverso, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viol, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, YouTube
Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs a program of instrumental and vocal music of 16th-18th centuries on Saturday night. Plus, tenor J. Adam Shelton gives a FREE song recital at noon on Friday.
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, held from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature tenor J. Adam Shelton and pianist Rayna Slavova in music by Robert Schumann, Lee Hoiby, Ricky Ian Gordon and Richard Hunley.
By Jacob Stockinger
The very accomplished musicians and friends at what is probably the oldest early music, period instrument and historically informed performance group in the area write to The Ear:
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble invites you to a concert of baroque chamber music on this Saturday night, Oct. 10, at 8 p.m. in the Gates of Heaven historic synagogue, 300 East Gorham Street, in James Madison Park in downtown Madison.
Members (below) include Mimmi Fulmer, soprano; Nathan Giglierano, baroque violin; Brett Lipshutz, traverse; Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Mary Perkinson, baroque violin; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverse; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
Tickets will be sold at the door only: Admission is $20; $10 for students. For more information: call 608 238-5126, email at info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
The program includes:
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643): “Occhi che sète” and “Begli occhi, io non provo”
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (ca. 1620–1680): Sonata Quarta
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704): Miserere à deux dessus, deux flûtes et basse continue H 157
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Suanate da Camera, Due Violini e Violone e Cembalo, Sonata XII (Folia), opus 1 nr 12; Theme with 19 variations
Benedictus Buns (1642-1716): Ave Maria, Due Cantus cum III Instrumentis
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767): Suite in e-minor from Tafelmusik, selected movements (performed in a YouTube video at the bottom by the acclaimed Jordi Savall and the Concert des Nations).
Tags: Antonio Vivaldi, Arts, Baroque, Baroque music, basso continuo, Benedictus Buns, Cello, Chamber music, Charpentier, Classical music, Early music, flute, Gates of Heaven, Georg Philipp Telemann, Girolamo Frescobaldi, harpsichord, Historically informed performance, Jacob Stockinger, Jordi Savall, Jordi Svall, Le Concert des nations, Lee Hoiby, Madison, Mezzo-soprano, Music, Richard Hunley, Ricky Ian Gordon, Robert Schumann, Schmelzer, sonat, song, soprano, Suite, synagogue, Tafelmusik, tenor, theme and variations, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viol, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Bach Musicians opens its new season with an impressive performance of unusual Baroque concertos in a new venue. Plus, UW students give a FREE concert of opera arias Saturday night.
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ALERT: This Saturday night at 7 p.m., voice students from the UW-Madison School of Music will give a FREE and PUBLIC concert of opera arias at Capitol Lakes Retirement Community, 333 West Main Street, off the Capitol Square.
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 for 12 years hosted an early music show every other Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
The Madison Bach Musicians gave the first of their three concerts of this season on Saturday night. And this time they did so in a novel venue, Immanuel Lutheran Church (below is the exterior). This handsome space on the near East Side has emerged in recent months as a concert site of growing popularity.
The program was devoted to “Baroque Concertos,” and it was introduced by MBM founder and director Trevor Stephenson (below) with his usual wit and insight. (Performance photos are by John W. Barker.)
The chronological span of the music presented ran from the High Baroque of the late 17th century through the Late Baroque, and even Post-Baroque of the first half of the 18th century.
Of the four works presented, the first one was not a concerto at all, but an extraordinary ensemble piece by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704, below). Many Renaissance and early Baroque composers had created sound paintings — both vocal and instrumental evocations of battle. But Biber’s Battaglia, with its polytonalities, went far beyond anything before, and perhaps since, all the way down to Charles Ives.
The second of its eight short movements evokes a military encampment of an army of very mixed personnel, each celebrating its individuality in a quodlibet or medley piece of eight separate song tunes played simultaneously, in willful chaos. And the penultimate seventh represents the battle itself with surging textures and wild string plucking to suggest gunshots.
The 11 string players, plus Stephenson on the harpsichord, made a whale of a show out of it, all on their elegant “early instruments.”
Throughout the program, the concertmaster, violinist Kangwon Kim (below), played a notable role as the true leader of the ensemble. But she was also given her place as a brilliant soloist — first in the Violin Concerto in A Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, the most familiar selection in the concert. This she played with her usual sensitivity and stylistic confidence.
The most novel work was a Cello Concerto in A Major by Leonardo Leo (1694-1744, below top), the leader of the important Neapolitan School of instrumental and vocal music in the early 18th century. The least familiar music on the program, this four-movement work gave soloist Steuart Pincombe (below bottom, seated in center) a chance to display a blazing virtuosity.
Finally came a rarely heard work by a well-known composer, Antonio Vivaldi. His Concerto for Violin, Cello, Strings and Continuo, in B-flat (RV 547) gave the vivacious Kim and the fiery Pincombe a perfect duet vehicle for display of their talents. The final movement was dazzling, and if they had repeated it as an encore — which I wish they had done — they would have raised the roof. (You can hear the double concerto by Vivaldi in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Clearly, Immanuel Lutheran has a growing future as a concert site. And the Madison Bach Musicians are off to a brilliant season. Watch for the annual Christmas concert on Dec. 12, and the correctly scheduled Easter (NOT Christmas) performance of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah on April 8 and 10; all of these will be at the First Congregational Church.
Tags: American Record Guide, arias, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Biber, Capitol Lakes, Cello, Chamber music, Charles Ives, Christmas, Classical music, concerto, early instrument, Early music, Easter, harpsichord, Historically informed performance, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John W. Barker, Leonardo Leo, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Early Music Festival, Messiah, Naples, Neopolitan School, opera, Orchestra, period instruments, polytonality, Trevor Stephenson, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Vivaldi, Wisconsin, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: Trevor Stephenson talks about the Baroque concertos that the Madison Bach Musicians will perform this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
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ALERT: The Ear apologizes for mistakenly listing this item last week: The weekly FREE Friday Noon Musicales at the historic First Unitarian Society of Madison, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and located at 900 University Bay Drive, begin the new season this week. This coming Friday, Oct. 2, at 12:15-1 p.m. in the Landmark Auditorium, mezzo-soprano Consuelo Sanuda and pianist-composer Jeff Gibbens will perform songs by Gustav Mahler, Gabriel Faure, Manuel de Falla and Jeff Gibbens.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear’s friend Trevor Stephenson, the founder and artistic director as well as the keyboard player of the Madison Bach Musicians, writes:
The Madison Bach Musicians (below) is thrilled to start its 12th season this weekend with an entire program of baroque concertos for strings. I will be discussing the program today on Wisconsin Public Radio’s The Midday program with host Norman Gilliland from noon to 12:30 p.m.
There will be two performances: this coming Saturday night at 8 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church (below), 1021 Spaight Street, on the near east side; and Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. at Holy Wisdom Monastery on the far west side at 4200 County M in Middleton. I’ll give pre-concert lectures at both events at 7:15 p.m. and 2:45 p.m., respectively.
Tickets are $28, $23 for students and seniors over 65, in advance; $30 and $25 respectively at the door. Student rush tickets are $10 and are available 30 minutes before the concert. For information about single tickets and subscriptions, go to:
http://madisonbachmusicians.org/buy-tickets-online/
Our soloists will be MBM concertmaster Kangwon Kim (below top) and internationally renowned baroque cellist Steuart Pincombe (below bottom).
Right out of the gate, we’ll dive into a programmatic 17th-century masterpiece, Battalia (Battle, heard played by the renowned Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations in a YouTube video at the bottom) , by Heinrich Biber (below).
Composed around 1673, Battalia’s sequence of epigrams outlines a timeless narrative: from the drunken good humor and singing of disparate songs in several keys at once (long, long before Charles Ives) in the soldiers’ camp, to the sabre rattling of Mars, to the love song (aria) before the battle, to the battle itself, to the lament of the wounded musketeers (the slow descending chromaticism must be the oozing of wounds).
Biber’s sense of just how far to take each scene is what makes the work memorable. His instinct here is unerring in knowing how many repetitions to give a motive before finally closing it with a cadence — Scarlatti and Stravinsky are later masters of this technique.
After Biber, we’ll move on to the elegant and rightly famous Violin Concerto in A minor by Johann Sebastian Bach (below). Bach learned an immense amount about ritornello form from his careful study of Antonio Vivaldi, whose music we’ll hear from at the end of the program.
In ritornello structure, the band and the soloist trade off sections; the band’s sections are full and fleshed out, more like a crowd or a Greek chorus, the soloist’s material is usually more intricate and virtuosic.
But the soloist and the band are only minimally contrasted in baroque style, since usually the band backs up the soloist and in many performance approaches the soloist will also play along during the band’s louder sections; the feeling is very convivial.
I’m always amazed by how much Bach’s music is at once thoroughly inspired by Italian music — with its leaps, drive and energy — and yet is never overrun with Italianisms.
Take the opening ritornello of this violin concerto. The first four measures could come from almost any Italian master, and then Bach brilliantly extends and twists and cantilevers the cadence for another 20 measures to set the stage for the soloist’s refined entrance in the upbeats to measure 25.
The Andante middle movement has a compelling, heartbeat-like rhythmic underpinning (regularly punctuated by a swaying figure) in the opening ritornello, which then gives way to the solo violin’s utmost tenderness and rhetorical conviction. The finale is a propulsive gigue in the somewhat unusual meter of 9/8.
The piece on our program that very few in the audience will have heard before is the Cello Concerto in A major by Leonardo Leo (below). Leo was born near the end of the 17th century in Naples, where he worked for much of his career, writing primarily both comic and serious operas.
His cello concertos date from around the mid-1730s and are characterized by transparency of texture and form that in some ways make them precursors to the coming neo-classical style of the later 18th-century. It is not certain that he played the cello, but the writing in the concertos is idiomatic, colorful and virtuosic. MBM is delighted that guest cellist Steuart Pincombe has brought this work forward for these concerts.
The final work is Vivaldi’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in B-flat major, RV 547. Vivaldi (below), nicknamed the “Red Priest” because of his magnificent mane of red hair, was of course a spectacularly gifted violinist who wrote hundreds of compositions for that instrument. But he also teamed the violin with the cello on several occasions.
I’m always awed by Vivaldi’s consistently successful use of irregular phrase lengths. The music just seems to roll on out there and be perfectly balanced, but the measure groupings are often in fives or sevens, and not so much in the four-measure groupings that typically connote stability. A few other composers have mastered this technique of hiding wonderfully asymmetrical structures, and J. S. Bach is most notable.
The entire concert will be played on period instruments: gut strings and baroque bows. We’re also delighted to welcome to this concert the specialist on the violone (baroque double bass) Marilyn Fung(below) from Michigan.
Tags: Arts, Bach, Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, Baroque, Baroque music, Biber, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, concerto, double concerto, Early music, Frank Lloyd Wright, Historically informed performance, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, La Battalia, Leonardo Leo, Madison, Music, Naples, opera, Orchestra, ritornello, Scarlatti, Stravinsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Vivaldi, wisconsin public radio, YouTube
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