The Well-Tempered Ear

How do you rank Beethoven’s five piano concertos? Which is your favorite set of recordings?

July 12, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

Lately, The Ear has been listening to the five piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven (below).

That, of course, is not counting the composer’s rarely performed piano transcription of his own violin concerto.

The five concertos are so different but so consistently great that they are always in demand for programming and always a pleasure to listen to as well, I imagine, to play.

Lately I have been sampling two new complete recordings that have received high praise from critics: one (below top) by the Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang, who won the Van Cliburn competition in 2009 and recorded his set, including a cadenza by him, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Nathalie Stutzmann; and the other, a complete live set (below bottom) by the American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, the winner of the 1970 Chopin competition, recently recorded at the Grand Teton Festival. 

Both are fine recordings and well worth listening to.

They made me once again recalculate my personal ranking of the five piano concertos. I don’t mean a ranking by quality or which one is the best, but simply which individual concertos I prefer to listen to by frequency. Here is any order: 4, 3, 5 (Emperor), 1, and 2.

How would you rank these five masterworks?

There are so many excellent recordings of these glorious works. I have listened to individual concertos and complete sets by Claudio Arrau, Emanuel Ax, Alfred Brendel (who has recorded them three times), Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Daniel Barenboim, Murray Perahia, Leif Ove Andnes, Glenn Gould, Arthur Rubinstein (who recorded them twice), Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jan Lisiecki, Rudolf Buchbinder, Krystian Zimerman, Yefim Bronfman; and on and on. It is hard to pick just one favorite and the idea of a “definitive” performance is impossible.

And truth be told, I generally turn to different performers for different concertos. Martha Argerich has not recorded all five but I love her performances of Piano Concertos 1, 2 and 3. I admire the late Nelson Freire in the Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”). And I am very moved by Krystian Zimerman’s playing of the inspired and unconventional middle movement of the Piano Concerto No. 4 in the YouTube video at the bottom.

But overall the most consistent sets I continue to like are classics by the late Leon Fleisher and Richard Goode, who completely understands and captures what is special about Beethoven, as he demonstrated in his pioneering complete set of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas.

How would you personally rank the Beethoven pianos concertos as your favorites by appeal and listenability?

Which pianist in Beethoven’s five piano concertos do you listen to and like the most often?

Is there a complete set you find irresistible and recommend to others?  Or a particular recording of a particular concerto?

The Ear wants to hear.


UW-Madison will forego in-person concerts through the fall and go virtual. The FREE online concerts start TONIGHT, Monday, Sept. 14, at 6-8:30 p.m. with a graduate student recital

September 14, 2020
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PLEASE NOTE: The following post has been updated with more information since it first appeared.

By Jacob Stockinger

In ordinary times, the yearlong schedule would be set and concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music would be already well underway.

But these are not ordinary times – as you can tell from the silence about the UW season that usually presents some 300 events.

It has taken time, but the music school has finally worked out the basic approach to concerts during the pandemic. It will allow worldwide listening.

Audiences will NOT be present for any Mead Witter School of Music concerts or recitals this fall. Instead, a live stream of faculty recitals and all required student recitals, many of them in the new Hamel Music Center (below), will be available.

The portal to the live streaming, along with a scheduling clock and time countdown, can be found at: youtube.com/meadwitterschoolofmusic

The concert season starts tonight at 6:30 to 8 p.m. The performer is graduate student flutist Heidi Keener (below), who is giving her recital for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. The recital was postponed from March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

On the school of music’s concert website you will find a biography and the program — just hover the computer’s cursor over the event: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/recital-heidi-keener-dma/.

The same information will also be on the YouTube website for the actual concert. Just click on MORE: https://youtu.be/gA6S3OXUKCc

Given so few calendar listings so far, clearly the format is still a work-in-progress.

For updated listings of other events, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/events/

The next events are slated for Oct. 2 with a student recital and another installment of the Pro Arte Quartet’s Beethoven cycle (below).

That other programs and dates are still missing is not surprising.

The entire UW-Madison from classes to sports, is in a state of flux about how to deal with the pandemic, with in-person classes paused through Sept. 25, and possibly longer.

Many questions about concerts remain as the process plays out.

All live-stream concerts will be free. But they will NOT be archived, so they will be taken down as soon as they end.

A donation link to the UW Foundation will be included to help cover the costs of the livestreaming and also other expenses.

Will choral concerts even take place, given that singing is especially risky because the singers can’t wear masks and social distancing is nearly impossible to provide with groups?

What about chamber music groups like the Pro Arte Quartet, the Wingra Wind Quintet and Wisconsin Brass Quintet? Many faculty members, who have to teach virtually and online right now, are no doubt concerned about the possible health risks of playing in groups.

And what about the excellent UW Symphony Orchestra, which The Ear considers a must-hear local orchestral ensemble? Those musicians too will have a hard time social distancing – unless individual safe performances at home or in a studio are edited and stitched together.

So far, though, we know that the University Opera will offer “I Wish It Were So,” an original revue of the American opera composer Marc Blitzstein on Oct. 23.

Here is a link to a story with more details about the production: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/classical-music-the-university-opera-announces-a-new-season-that-is-politically-and-socially-relevant-to-today-the-two-shows-are-a-virtual-revue-of-marc-blitzstein-and-a-live-operatic-version-of/

What do you think of the plans for the concert season?

Do you have any suggestions?

The Ear wants to hear.


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Classical music: The Met just canceled its entire fall opera season. Can local groups be far behind?

June 3, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The question has weighed on The Ear ever since local groups started announcing their new concert seasons.

Will audiences – especially older and more vulnerable ones — be ready to risk venturing into crowds of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 people without an effective treatment or vaccine for global pandemic of the coronavirus (below) and the growing number of deaths from COVID-19?

Now such suspicions have been supported or even confirmed by news that the world-famous Metropolitan Opera (below), at Lincoln Center in New York City, has just canceled all of its live fall productions.

It cited concerns about the safety of both the public and the performers. And its reasoning makes sense — even though it is estimated that the Met will lose up to $100 million. It is hard or impossible in concert halls and on stages (below is a photo of the Met’s stage) to use masks and maintain social distancing.

All in all, it sounds all too familiar, similar to the reasons given for cancellations this past winter and spring, and even this summer.

Here’s a link about the Met cancellation, with lots of details and quotes, in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-cancels-season-virus.html

Locally, it seemed like the show might go on when many groups – despite the public health crisis growing worse — went ahead and started announcing their fall seasons or even an event this summer, as in the case of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s Concerts on the Square, which were postponed by a month.

After all, the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson), the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Middleton Community Orchestra and the Madison Bach Musicians have all announced new seasons — as did the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. (You can hear about the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new “Ode to Joy” season in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

The UW-Madison – the biggest presenter of live concerts in the Madison area with some 300 events a year – has wisely not yet announced its concert season, let alone how it will hold lessons and classes.

The Ear suspects that more cancellations are in the making, especially when it comes to mass gatherings such as concerts, movies, plays and sports events.

Indeed, it seems like many of the groups even took possible cancellations into consideration when it came to planning programs; cutting back on expenses and staffing; and using local or regional guest artists, who might be less expensive and less difficult to cancel, rather than long-distance imported ones.

Even if a vaccine is perfected by Jan. 1, it will take a while to produce enough of it, then to administer it and then to have it take effect.

But perhaps those suspicions and speculations are overly cautious or too pessimistic.

What do you think will happen to the fall concert season?

Will going online and streaming new or past concerts once again be a substitution?

Has the pandemic changed your own habits — perhaps waiting to purchase single tickets rather than renew a season subscription? Or your plans for the fall season, perhaps even the entire season?

The Ear wants to hear.


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Classical music: Acclaimed local soprano Sarah Brailey explains why performing artists and presenters need help during the COVID-19 pandemic

March 23, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Sarah Brailey (below) is worried.

And with good reason.

Chances are good that you have seen the local soprano or heard her sing.

She is the artistic director of the Handel Aria Competition, which she herself won in 2015. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Brailey sing the aria “Will the Sun Forget to Streak” from Handel’s oratorio “Solomon,”  with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra under conductor Julian Wachner, in the St. Paul Chapel in New York City.)

Brailey is a co-founder of and participant in the monthly free Just Bach concerts here. In addition, while pursuing graduate studies at the UW-Madison, she is a concert artist with a budding international career. For more about her, including a rave review from The New York Times and sample videos, go to: https://sarahbrailey.com

But right now the Wisconsin native is especially concerned about the lasting impact that the Coronavirus pandemic will have on her own career as well as on the careers of others like her and on the well-being of arts presenters.

Brailey (below, in photo by Miranda Loud) sent The Ear the following essay:

By Sarah Brailey

This is a scary time for everyone, but particularly for anyone who works as an independent contractor.

I am a freelance classical soprano based in Madison. I maintain a very active performing career, traveling all over the globe, and I am also a doctoral student at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.

When COVID-19 hit the United States, presenting organizations on the east and west coasts started canceling concerts to comply with social distancing recommendations.

I initially thought I was lucky to be living in the middle of the country where our lesser population density might save us. Plus, I am a Teaching Assistant at the UW right now, so I will still be getting my stipend — although teaching virtual voice lessons will be its own special challenge!

But many of my colleagues are not so lucky and are facing bankruptcy. If the government doesn’t include independent contractors in its relief packages, a lot of people are going to be insolvent.

And I myself am not immune. As the seriousness of the situation became clear, all my concerts in the next two months soon disappeared one by one.

While not being able to perform is emotionally devastating, these cancellations are also financially devastating.

There exists a clause in every standard performance contract called “force majeure” (superior force), which is idiomatically referred to as, “an act of God.” This clause excuses a party from not honoring its contractual obligations that becomes impossible or impracticable, due to an event or effect that the parties could not have anticipated or controlled.

This can come in handy for a presenter if there is, say, a blizzard that necessitates the cancellation of a concert. (This happened to me a few seasons ago with the Boston Symphony.) If the presenter will not make any money on ticket sales, they are not then further injured by having to pay the musicians for the canceled concert. (Below, Brailey sings Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” with the Colorado Symphony.)

The ramifications of this pandemic are unprecedented. Every freelance musician I know is suddenly out of work. The current conventions put all of the upfront financial burden on the artists. We are paid in one lump sum at the end of a project. We do not get a fee for the countless hours of preparation.

We often book travel and lodging on our own dime, and are not reimbursed until the end of the gig. We pay for our own health insurance, and we cannot file for unemployment because our work is paid via IRS Form 1099 and not W2s. The abrupt work stoppage caused by this pandemic means insolvency – or even bankruptcy — for many artists. (Below, Brailey sings Handel’s “Messiah” at the famed Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York City.)

Many institutions — and, unfortunately, many of the bigger players like The Metropolitan Opera — are invoking force majeure without much regard for how their artists are struggling.

My colleague, tenor Zach Finkelstein, is covering this in great detail on his blog The Middle Class Artist, as is Alex Ross, the prize-winning music critic for The New Yorker. Read his piece on force majeure here.

However, there are also thankfully some good stories to tell. The Bach Society of Minnesota reimbursed all my travel expenses and is paying 75 percent of my fee, as is the Lyra Baroque Orchestra.

I am helping Zach keep track of the organizations that are helping their artists in this time of need. (Read about them here. Madison Opera is on the list.)

The arts are not just cultural enrichment; they are an essential part of our economy. In 2017, the industry contributed $877.8 billion, or 4.5 percent, to U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed over 5 million workers. We cannot afford to let this industry disappear. I fear that many individual artists and arts organizations will not recover from this. (Below, Brailey sings Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Magnificat” at the Bucknell Bach Festival.)

While we wait out this storm, I implore you to donate to a Madison arts organization. Here is a short list of recommendations along with some national relief funds for artists.

Local Arts Organizations

Madison Bach Musicians

Handel Aria Competition

Madison Early Music Festival

Madison Opera

Madison Youth Choirs

List of National Relief Funds


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