By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear is not alone in viewing the official opening of the new fall season as being the annual FREE Karp Family Labor Day concert, which takes place on the holiday Monday night before classes begin at the UW-Madison. (Below and from left, in the 2011 photo, are pianist and violinist son Christopher Karp; violist Katrin Talbot; the late pianist Howard Karp; cellist son Parry Karp (who is married to Katrin Talbot); and pianist wife Frances Karp.)
This year, that means the concert is on this coming Monday night, Sept. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
In the decades-long history of the event, pieces never get repeated.
That may help to explain why this year’s program features the new and the neglected rather than the tried-and-true.
Here is how cellist and patriarch of the Karp family Parry Karp (below) explains it:
“The program includes a world premiere performance of a brand new piece for Cello and Piano by Joel Hoffman (below), to be performed by my brother Christopher Karp and myself. It is entitled “Riffs on a Great Life.”
“The great life he is writing about is our Dad’s, longtime UW-Madison pianist Howard Karp, who died two years ago at 84.
“Robert Kahn (below) was a wonderful composer of chamber music and lieder whom Johannes Brahms admired very much. They initially met in 1885 when Kahn was only 20 years old. Brahms was impressed both by his compositions and his piano playing. We are greatly enjoying learning his Piano Quartet No. 2, which will feature my mother Frances Karp.
Pro Arte Quartet second violinist Suzanne Beia and my wife, violist Katrin Talbot, will join in the performance.
“The “Rhapsody” by Rebecca Clarke (below) is an unjustly neglected masterpiece that unfortunately has never been published. Frances and I are playing it from a copy of the manuscript. It was commissioned by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1923, and is a very romantic and expressive piece.
Also on the program is “Fratres” for cello and piano by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (below), who turns 82 on Sept. 11. According to one source, he has been the most performed living composer in the world for five consecutive years.
The dramatic and insistent piece was used as part of the soundtrack or film score for the movie “There Will Be Blood” with Daniel Day-Lewis. Here is a link to a performance with over one million hits on YouTube:
ALERT: Tonight’s recital by pianist Marco Grieco at Farley’s House of Pianos has been CANCELLED due to visa problems.
By Jacob Stockinger
What else can you do except admire the quiet courage and persistence to keep going?
It is exactly what the 20th-century French poet Paul Eduard described as “Le dur désir de durer,” or the hard desire to endure.
Perhaps that is one of the enduring appeals and rewards of great art – to help all of us, artists and audiences alike, get through difficult times, to bear the unbearable.
Last summer, you may recall, the Karp family lost pianist patriarch Howard Karp, a wonderful talent and personality who died suddenly of heart failure at 84 while on vacation in Colorado.
Karp (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) had been a longtime piano teacher and beloved performer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. He also was a devoted first-rate chamber music partner who performed frequently with the other members of his family.
Here is a link to the blog post about that death that drew so many readers and reader comments:
You can also use the blog’s search engine to see several posts about the memorial held for Howard Karp.
Now the remaining family members – apart from the three granddaughters who have participated in previous concerts – will take to the stage of Mills Hall this Saturday night at 8 p.m. to continue the longtime Karp tradition of performing.
Eldest son and UW-Madison cellist Parry Karp (below), who also performs with the Pro Arte Quartet, is the centerpiece of the FREE concert.
He will be joined by his pianist mother Frances, and his brother Christopher, a gifted pianist and violinist (one-time concertmaster of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra) who is also a medical officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Here is the program:
Second Suite for Solo Cello, Op. 80 (1967) by Benjamin Britten (below)
Declamato: Largo
Fuga: Andante
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Andante lento
Ciaccona: Allegro
Sonata in F Major for Piano and Violin, Op. 24 “Spring” (1801-2) by Ludwig van Beethoven; transcribed for Piano and Cello by Parry Karp
Allegro
Adagio molto expressivo
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo
With pianist Frances Karp (below bottom, on left beside the late Howard Karp, and below bottom playing with Parry Karp, Pro Arte violinist and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra concertmaster Suzanne Beia, and daughter-in-law violist Katrin Talbot, who also plays with the Madison Symphony Orchestra)
INTERMISSION
Sonata for Solo Cello (1955) by George Crumb (below)
Fantasia: Andante espressivo e con molto rubato
Tema pastorale con variazioni
Toccata: Largo e drammatico-Allegro vivace
Sonata in G Major for Piano and Violin, Op. 96 (1812) by Ludwig van Beethoven; transcribed for Piano and Cello by Parry Karp. (At bottom in a YouTube video with a performance by violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov of the appealing first moment of the original version of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata, Op. 96. The work is one of The Ear’s all-time favorites.)
Adagio espressivo
Scherzo: Allegro
Poco Allegretto
with pianist Christopher Karp (below top and bottom, playing with his brother Parry)
By Jacob Stockinger
As you probably already know by now, tomorrow, Sunday, Aug. 31, will bring a FREE and PUBLIC memorial celebration of the life of Howard Karp (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) -– who died in June at 84 — on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in Mills Hall at 3 p.m.
It is scheduled to run about two hours and then have a free and public reception after it.
Parking in nearby Grainger Hall is also free.
The memorial will feature live music and recorded music. Works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff will be featured.
Here is a link to a post a few days ago with more details:
But if you can go, and especially if you can’t, you might be interested in some other stories about Howard Karp, who was both a wonderful man and wondrous musician.
He was written up no less than twice by Anthony Tommasini (below), the celebrated senior classical music critic for The New York Times who is himself an accomplished pianist with degrees from Yale University and who studied piano with the late Donald Currier, the same terrific teacher with whom The Ear studied privately in high school. (Small world, no?)
Here is the first story published in 1998, about the differences in temperament more than talent between academic teaching pianists and professional touring pianists. It is full of insight and affection:
And here is a recently published review by Anthony Tommasini of the new 6-CD set of performances by Howard Karp that have been released by Albany Records. You will hear music from this set and from some CDs issued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, at the memorial:
Here is a story — a tribute, really — by the local critic Greg Hettmansberger (below), who writes the Classically Speaking blog for Madison Magazine:
http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Blogs/Classically-Speaking/August-2014/Howard-Karp-Memorial/
And here is a long and beautifully written personal essay done in 1994 by Jess Anderson, a fine amateur pianist and former longtime music critic for Isthmus:
http://www.madisonmusicreviews.org/doc/p_199401_karp.html
There may be more. If you know of them, please leave word – and a link, if possible – in the Comments section. This seems like the right time.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received a request from the Karp Family.
It seems there is still some ignorance and some confusion about the memorial event -– a life celebration, really –- set for this Sunday afternoon for the late pianist Howard Karp, who died in June at 84 in Colorado and who had taught and performed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music from 1972 to 2000.
The event is FREE and OPEN to the public.
Here are the details:
“Dear Jake,
“I hope all is well.
“Here is the program for Sunday.
“I am still hearing from people who want to go to the celebration, but don’t know when or where it will be.
“My very best to you,
“Parry Karp”
A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF HOWARD KARP (1929-2014, below in a 2000 photo by Katrin Talbot)
The celebration will be held this Sunday, August 31, 2014, at 3 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall (below) in the Mosse Humanitites Building, with a FREE and PUBLIC reception to follow.
FREE parking can be found in nearby Grainger Hall of the University of Wisconsin Business School.
“Performances” by Howard Karp come from recordings issued by Albany Records and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
Welcome
Sonata in B-Flat Major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier) by Ludwig van Beethoven: Movement I. Allegro, Howard Karp, pianist
Words from Bill Lutes (below, with his wife UW-Madison pianist Martha Fischer, and a former student and friend of Howard Karp)
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47, by Robert Schumann, Movement III. Andante cantabile, performed by Frances Karp, pianist (wife of Howard Karp, below top with Howard); Leanne League (violinist, below bottom, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and is the assistant concertmaster of both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra as well as a member of the Ancora String Quartet); Katrin Talbot, violist (daughter-in-law and wife of Parry Karp); Parry Karp, cellist (eldest son of Howard Karp who teaches cello and chamber music at the UW-Madison and is a member of the Pro Arte Quartet.)
Readings from William Shakespeare by granddaughter actresses Isabel Karp (bel0w top) and Natasha Karp (below bottom).
“Fantasie” in C Major, Op. 17, by Robert Schumann, Movement I: Durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen, Howard Karp, pianist
Words and music from Malcolm Bilson (below, a well-known teacher and keyboard performer with Howard Karp at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a retired professor from Cornell University); Sonata in F-sharp Minor, D. 571, by Franz Schubert, Movement I. Allegro moderato
Words from pianist and friend Ira Goodkin
Concerto Per Due Pianoforte Soli by Igor Stravinsky, Movement 1. Con moto; Sergei Rachmaninoff, Fantasy-Tableaux: Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos, Op. 5: 1. Barcarolle: Allegretto; Howard and Frances Karp, duo-pianists
Words from actress granddaughter Ariana Karp (below), via video
“Kol Nidre” by Max Bruch, Parry Karp, cellist (below top), and Christopher Karp (below bottom), pianist and youngest son of Howard Karp who is a medical doctor with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.)
Words from Parry Karp
Sonata in B Minor, Op. 58, Frederic Chopin, Movement IV. Finale: Presto non tanto, Howard Karp, pianist
FREE PUBLIC RECEPTION TO FOLLOW
Here is a link to the posting on the new UW-School of Music blog A Tempo:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/2014/07/17/howard-karp/
And here is a link to another performance by Howard Karp on SoundCloud, a rarely heard work by Johann Sebastian Bach that features a Fugue on a Theme by Tomaso Aliboni as well as works by Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn:
https://soundcloud.com/uw-madisonsom/sets
By Jacob Stockinger
Members of the Karp family have asked The Ear to fill you in about some more details concerning the memorial celebration for the late Howard Karp (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot).
As you may recall, Howard Karp, who taught for decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and the University of Kentucky, died unexpectedly this summer on June 30. He was 84. Here is a link to an announcement that was posted on this blog about Karp’s death.
A FREE memorial celebration of his life and career is planned for Sunday, Aug. 31, at 3 p.m. in Mills Hall.
And here is a link to a previous post, with link to other sources, about the reception:
Although some official announcements and this blog have said the memorial will run from 3 to 6 p.m., The Ear has been told that the celebration will probably last from 3 p.m. to about 5 p.m. with a reception to follow.
That reception will be held either in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music courtyard, if the weather permits, or in the lounge outside Mills Hall.
The master of ceremonies for the event will be Bill Lutes (below right, with his wife, UW-Madison pianist Martha Fischer. Lutes studied with Howard Karp and still teaches piano in Madison. You may also recall his name from his days at Wisconsin Public Radio and as a coach with the University Opera.
Most of the music will be recordings made by Howard Karp himself, including a new 6-CD set of live performances from Albany Records. (On a CD from the UW-Madison School of Music, at the bottom in SoundCloud, you can hear Howard Karp playing the well-known “Heroic” Polonaise in A-flat, Op. 53 by Frederic Chopin.)
There will also be some live performances.
Cellist son Parry Karp will be joined by his violinist-pianist brother Christopher Karp, who is a medical doctor specializing in infectious diseases and who works with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to perform “Kol Nidre” by Max Bruch.
Then the Karp Family, which usually gave a FREE Labor Day concert for more than 30 years, will perform the slow movement from the Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann. The players will be violinist son Christopher Karp, pianist wife Frances Karp, cellist Parry Karp and his violist wife Katrin Talbot.
Acclaimed keyboard artist Malcolm Bilson (below), who has retired from teaching at Cornell University is slated to play the piano – rather than his specialty, which is the early music fortepiano — in music by Franz Schubert.
As more details develop, they will get posted here.
Here is Howard Karp’s stirring and daring reading of Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise.
https://soundcloud.com/uw-madisonsom
By Jacob Stockinger
Where has the summer gone? And so fast!
It is hard to believe that Labor Day is now only three weeks away. And that means the opening of a new concert season is not far off.
As a result, many groups are finally announcing their new lineups of concert dates, programs and performers.
Big organizations such as the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater and the Overture Center for the Arts have already done so, mostly in the spring. But the push is now on for both season subscription tickets and single tickets.
As a result, this week and next will be largely devoted to some of the smaller groups and their new seasons.
So get out your datebooks. There is that much going in the Madison area.
One major organization has just checked in. It is the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. And its lineup includes, as usual, resident faculty and guest artists. It also includes solo recitals, chamber music, orchestral music, choral music and opera. Most seasons, more than 300 events take place at the UW-Madison School of Music in Mills Hall (below top), Morphy Hall (below middle) and Music Hall (below bottom).
But there are quite a few new things to be aware of.
One major item is that the School of Music (SOM) website has been completely and impressively revamped, thanks to the hard work and continuing efforts of concert manager Katherine Esposito (below).
The appearance is crisper and more appealing as well as professional, and the content is more informative and varied. You are also asked, but not required, to register for concerts, which is new. Plus there are links to events on SoundCloud, a YouTube-like site for sound rather than for videos. You can hear the wide variety of UW recorded offerings for yourself:
https://soundcloud.com/uw-madisonsom
On the other hand, apparently the ability to stream SOM concerts from the school’s website within 24 hours of the performance will stop, again as a matter of staffing and finances.
Many programs of SOM concerts are missing or incomplete, but that is usually the fault of performers not deciding on the programs until later or not sending them on before publication deadlines. (A brochure of the UW-Madison concert season will soon be available.)
Here is a link: http://www.music.wisc.edu
Some snags have already emerged – which is typical for new websites — and no doubt more will be found. Esposito assures The Ear that they will be taken care of.
The worst and most annoying one right now is that when you click to go forward from when the calendar begins in August to, say, October, to see and read about the University Opera’s production of the chamber opera “Albert Herring” by Benjamin Britten (below), you cannot click on the arrow to return to the previous page (to see say, about other competing concerts in October). Instead you get linked back to the beginning month of August. That is very time-consuming and frustrating. Try it out and see for yourself:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/events/brittens-albert-herring-2/
So then you have to start your search all over again for each event, which is a major pain. That oversight shouldn’t be very hard to fix, so The Ear sure hopes it gets fixed quickly.
More important to many concert-goers will be that, for the first time in many years, the UW-Madison will return to charging admission — not for all concerts but for many of the ones that used to be free. (The Choral Union concerts — which this fall in late November will feature music by Antonin Dvorak, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Giuseppe Verdi — and the University Opera productions, which will include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s “The Magic Flute” in the second semester, have always been exceptions and charged admission to offset costs.) The fact that charging admission is common among peer institutions apparently sealed the deal.
Here are some examples of the “Showcase Concerts,” as was the Concerto Competition with the UW Symphony Orchestra last season. Last season’s sublime and intimate “Schubertiade,” which was free, will now be part of a larger package, as will the solo faculty recital by star pianist Christopher Taylor. On the other hand, concerts by the Pro Arte Quartet will remain free.
The need to charge admission, especially to high-profile and popular events, is due to an ongoing “structural deficit,” according to the school’s director Susan Cook (below).
Anyway, take a look at the calendar and the events at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and see what you think.
Then let the rest of us know.
The Ear wants to hear.
And while you check it out, you can listen to the late Howard Karp (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) playing the rarely heard “Fugue on a Theme by Tomaso Albinoni” by Johann Sebastian Bach on SoundStream. The FREE memorial celebration for Howard Karp, who died this summer, will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, in Mills Hall.
https://soundcloud.com/uw-madisonsom/howard-karp-bach-fugue-on-a-theme-by-albinoni-bwv-951
By Jacob Stockinger
The word is in: There will be NO annual Labor Day Concert by the Karp family this year.
Instead, on the day before Labor Day, friends, students and family members will gather to celebrate the life of professor, pianist and musical patriarch Howard Karp (below, playing with his son, fellow UW-Madison School of Music professor and Pro Arte Quartet cellist Parry Karp), who taught and performed for many decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, in a memorial event.
The memorial is set for Sunday, August 31, at 3 p.m. in Mills Hall. Initial plans call for playing recorded live performances by Howard Karp; for selected speakers; and perhaps for some live music performances. As details develop, this blog will pass them along.
On June 30, in Colorado. Howard Karp died at 84 of cardiac arrest. He was so loved and so respected that news of his death brought this blog a record number of comments and remarks (more than 70 so far), and close to a record number of “hits” or views:
Here is a link to the post, which has a lot of photos provided by the family, that broke the news:
Here is a link to the obituary that appeared two Sundays ago in The Wisconsin State Journal (below, Howard Karp is seen performing at a recent Labor Day Concert with his wife Frances Karp and his two of his four grandchildren, actors Isabel and Ariana Karp):
Two stories have also celebrated Howard Karp as the patriarch of Madison’s First Family of Music (below in a past photo by Mike DeVries of The Capital Times, are, from left, violinist-pianist and doctor son Christopher Karp, who works for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; daughter-in-law biologist and violist Katrin Talbot; Howard Karp; cellist son Parry Karp; and pianist wife Frances Karp):
One is from Isthmus by Sandy Tabachnick, who got statements from fellow pianists and teachers Christopher Taylor, Bill Lutes, Martha Fischer and Jessica Johnson:
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=43120
Another memorable story about Howard Karp (below with his wife of 63 years Frances, who survives him) was filed by Susannah Brooks, who also spoke with UW-Madison School of Music head Susan Cook (below bottom), for the University of Wisconsin-Madison News Service:
And here is a wonderful appreciation of Howard Karp and the new 6-CD set of Karp’s live recordings by UW-Madison and WYSO alumnus Kenneth Woods (below). Woods is a composer, professional cellist and now the conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra, who is also an acclaimed blogger (“A View From the Podium”) and an honored recording artist whose releases include world premiere recordings of music by Hans Gal.
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2014/07/07/6162/
And, finally, here is a small excerpt from that new 6-CD set on Albany Records. It is a triumphant recording of the first movement of the epic Fantasy in C Major, Op 17, by the Romantic composer Robert Schumann, which was written to raise money for a memorial statue to Ludwig van Beethoven.
In mood and meaning, the masterpiece is a fitting tribute to Howard Karp and to the art, generosity and devotion to both beauty and love with which he lived his life. As a teacher, a friend, a family man and a performer, Howard Karp lived his long, rich life in the service of bringing and sharing whatever beauty he could to other people.