The Well-Tempered Ear
A biopic about Vivaldi is in the works
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By Jacob Stockinger
The baroque master and violin virtuoso Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741, below) composed the most recorded piece of classical music of all time: “The Four Seasons.”
The work was composed around 1720 and published in 1723, but because Vivaldi died in poverty and his music fell into obscurity, it was not rediscovered and recorded until 1939. And scholars are still finding manuscripts and rediscovering works by the prolific composer who has some 500 concertos and 40 operas to his credit.
The Roman Catholic priest with flaming red hair who was admired by J.S. Bach and who taught at an orphanage for girls in Venice, Italy, has been the subject of numerous biographies, critical studies and even novels, including mystery novels.
But now — after a 20-year delay since the script was completed and submitted — Vivaldi is about to hit the Big Screen in a biopic.
Last year saw “Maestro” about Leonard Bernstein and his wife. And a movie about opera diva Maria Callas is in the works with Angelina Jolie in the title role.
It seems a trend that might perhaps help attendance as concert organizations still are struggling to recover from the Covid pandemic. One wonders if we will see more Vivaldi programmed in response to his increased visibility and publicity his music will get thanks to Hollywood.
For more background and details, here is a link to the story on Classic FM:
Which is your favorite of the four violin concertos that make up “The Four Seasons”?
And what about Vivaldi’s other pieces, including the glorious “Gloria”?
The Ear particularly likes Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins. It is in A minor, RV 523, and you can hear the first movement played by Simon Standage and Collegium 90 in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Do you recommend a particular work by Vivaldi?
What is your favorite piece — choral, operatic, instrumental — by The Red Priest?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Muti to conduct an opera academy in China
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By Jacob Stockinger
Italian maestro Riccardo Muti (below) — the 83-year-old retired music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and longtime music director of the iconic La Scala Opera House in Milan— will take his workshops for young conductors and musicians to China for the first time this coming November and December.
Muti is a devoted advocate and practitioner of music education, and has led similar academies in: Ravenna and Milan, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; and Seoul, South Korea.
In a story published in Chinese media, Muti explains why he chose China this time. There he will work in the city of Suzhou with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra and with individual applicants from around the world.
“During the past decades, classical music has gained a large fan base in China, with new concert halls and new symphony orchestras appearing in the country,” Muti adds. “There are also many great Chinese musicians performing around the world — pianists, violinists, singers and conductors — who have become like bridges, bringing our countries closer to each other.”
The repertoire he has chosen to work on is the one-act Italian opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” (Rustic Chivalry) by Pietro Mascagni.
It seems a perfect choice to The Ear. It is shorter and easier to stage than most full-length operas. It uses the Roman Catholic Church and religion as well as other aspects of European and Italian society and culture. This includes the famous “Regina Coeli” or Easter Hymn (below):
The opera itself has beautiful parts for the vocal soloists, the chorus and the orchestral instrumentalists — as you can hear above and in the famously melodic Intermezzo (in the YouTube video at the bottom) that was used in the film “The Godfather.”
Here is a link to the full story from the China Daily newspaper:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202404/13/WS661a1d39a31082fc043c1c81.html
You might also recall an earlier blog post about the recent successes of Asian classical musicians:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Asian+musicians
When it comes to Western classical music in China, it seems that success keeps building on success.
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Meet the 2024 winners of the Classic Piano International Competition in Dubai, UAE
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By Jacob Stockinger
Did you know that the fourth and final round of a major international piano competition was taking place in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates this past week?
The Ear didn’t — until now.
That when he saw the nine 2024 winners (below), chosen from 70 participants, named in a post on The Violin Channel website.
The third edition of Classic Piano International Competition — which started during the 2017-28 season — makes sense when you think about it.
Dubai has lots of oil money but not a lot of Western culture or prestige. But Piano World contains more than enough competitors and venues for the event — even after such top-ranked, career-boosting competitions as the Tchaikovsky in Russia, the Arthur Rubinstein in Israel, the Leeds in the UK, the Chopin in Poland and the Van Cliburn in the United States.
So why not a major piano event for the Middle East and the Arab world? (Readers: Do you know if any other music competitions take place in that area?)
Its format is unusual.
Pianists cannot apply directly. Instead, they have to participate in the early rounds that are held in countries around the world. Those who finish in the Top Five of a preliminary competition get invited to the final round in Dubai.
The competition’s preliminary rounds took place in the USA, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Kazakhstan, Poland, UK, Armenia, China, South Korea, Japan, Israel, and Spain.
Here is some general background:
And here are details including the jury members, the various prizes, and the restricted and required repertoire that the pianists must select from:
https://classicpiano.eu/competition
Russian and Asian pianists dominated this year, with veteran Andrey Gugnin of Russia (below and in the YouTube video at the bottom) taking home the first prize of 100,000 Euros ($108,300) plus 10 concert dates and a 50,000-Euro honorarium for performing with two different orchestras: the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. Gugnin, who protested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now lives in Croatia.
Here is a link to the story with the complete list of winners:
Like many major music competitions these days, Dubai’s was live-streamed. Its global media partners are medici.tv; euronews; and bachtrack. You can or will soon be able to find various artists and rounds of the competition on YouTube.
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Brrr! It’s time to hear the ‘Polar Vortex’ aria
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By Jacob Stockinger
We in the Upper Midwest — like much of the rest of the United States down to the Gulf of Mexico — have been treated to an Arctic gift from Canada for the next week or so.
It is called the Polar Vortex (below).
As you can see if you look closely or enlarge the diagram, the vortex has dropped way south from the North Pole, bringing with it way-below average temperatures, many of them going into the double digits below zero. And that doesn’t even include wind chill. (China has also been experiencing recording-breaking extreme cold.)
So it seemed only reasonable to see how a composer has expressed such extreme cold in a piece of vocal music — especially as the cold weather might seriously affect the Republican presidential caucuses that get started tomorrow in Iowa.
So here — complete with lyrics by the famous English writer John Dryden — is “The Cold Song” from 1691 opera “King Arthur” by the British baroque composer Henry Purcell (below), who did a terrific job of word painting and sound painting.
The Ear calls it the “Polar Vortex” aria. Officially its title is “What Power Art Thou Who From Below” and is sung by a character called The Cold Genius.
In the YouTube video below it is interpreted by the world-renowned countertenor Andreas Scholl (below) who is accompanied by the highly praised period-instrument early musical ensemble Accademia Byzantina under director Stefan Montenari.
The quivering repetitive rhythm you see in the notes duplicates shivering as a kind of extreme vibrato.
It is a literally chilling performance.
If you follow the words, the lyrics add to the sense of being stuck in a deep freeze.
How well do you think the imaginative song captures the extreme cold of The Polar Vortex?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music predictions for 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger
The classical music blogger LudwigVan has made some interesting predictions about where classical music will go in the coming year.
Not all of the subjects might come to pass in classical music.
But many do seem possible or even plausible.
Like ticket prices dropping because of rising post-pandemic demand and tight family and personal budgets.
Or rising wages for musicians because of inflation.
Or the growing use of VR or virtual reality.
Or hearing more local music and musicians that appeal to younger audiences.
See for yourself. Here is a link:
The Ear will venture his own predictions:
First is that more and more audiences — especially the oldest baby boomers — will increasingly watch and listen to concerts via live streaming and recorded streaming.
It certainly is not as exciting as attending in person. But it is convenient. And it is way cheaper. For example, one good ticket to the Madison Symphony Orchestra or the Madison Opera will buy you a one-year unlimited subscription to the Paris-based arts streaming site medici.tv, which features live and recorded performances of all kinds, plus interviews, competitions and master classes, from around the world and especially Europe.
Then there are other factors to consider such as the artists and the programs you want to see and hear, or the inconvenience, expense and dangers of finding parking or navigating icy walking and driving at night and in bad weather.
And The Ear’s second prediction is that Asian musicians, especially Chinese and Korean, will continue to dominate international competitions.
See: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=asian+musicians
Which predictions by Ludwig-Van do you think apply to classical music and are correct?
Do you have your own thoughts or predictions about trends in the classical world?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Here are winners of major international music competitions in 2023. What’s next?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Which young, up-and-coming classical musicians should you keep an eye on during the coming year?
Which ones, if any, will be booked in coming years to performance locally, say, at the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Wisconsin Union Theater; or at the Salon Piano Series; or as a University of Wisconsin Mead Witter School of Music guest artist?
One guide to 2024 and beyond might be to review the winners of the international music competitions held in 2023.
Thanks to The Violin Channel, here is a list of many such winners who may go on to establish more prominent careers. If you click on the names of the competitions, posted in red, you will be linked to fuller stories about the competitions, many of which you have probably never heard of. The Ear follows many contests but had never heard of many of these.
Here is a link:
You can find out about histories of the competitions, other prize winners, places they are held and how often, jury members and contest rules and formats, and more. And you can hear excerpts from some prestigious competitions including the Bischoff Chamber Music competition and a competition for young child prodigy violinists in Italy.
At the bottom of the story, you can hear a YouTube video with the 19-year-old, Asian-American pianist Magdelena Ho in her contest-winning performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at the Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland. She looks to have a promising future.
The winners came all continents — Asian, Africa, North America, South America and Europe.
And the competitions were held in many different places and focused on many different kinds or genres of classical music: violin, viola, cello, double bass and guitar; piano; saxophone;mharp; percussion and drums; chamber music and symphonic music; conducting; singing; and early music.
At the bottom is a vibrant performance of a familiar Bach suite by Canadian cellist Luka Coetzee who won Finland’s Paulo Competition and also took first prize at the Pablo Casals Competition on 2022.
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Remembering the classical musicians who died in 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger
It remains an end-of-the-year ritual: remembering the dead who brought beauty to us through music.
Here are remembrances of the classical musicians we lost in 2023.
From Presto Music comes a list of world-known talents who died this past year — plus those who died in recent past years. It is relatively short and has links to the full obituaries, including the of American mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry (below, in 2009, in the singing the famous Habanera from Bizet’s “Carmen” in the YouTube video at the bottom). A pioneer, she was the first Black singer to perform at the annual summer Wagner festival in Beyreuth, Germany, and she performed at the Wisconsin Union Theater during the 1978-79 season:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/obituary/browse
Here is a longer, less renowned and more international list from The Violin Channel.
It includes many very well known musicians, including Menahem Pressler (below who co-founded and played for more than 50 years with the Beaux Arts Trio, which performed several times at the Wisconsin Union Theater. He also taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
It also includes the jazz and classical bassist Richard Davis (below), who spent decades teaching and performing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
The Ear especially likes this list because ordinary “house” musicians — and not just stars — are remembered. After all, the majority of musicians who add so much to our lives are not stars — but usually just mainstream workers in the arts.
Click on the names in red to see the full biographies, many of which are more touching than you might expect — for example, the Ukrainian conductor who died young while defending his country against Russia.
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20 women composers talk about classical music
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By Jacob Stockinger
What do women composers think about themselves, their careers and the place they occupy in the world of classical music?
Here are quotes — with YouTube videos, great vintage still photographs and musical excerpts — by 20 women composers throughout history from Hildegard von Bingen in the Middle Ages to contemporary living composers such as Americans Joan Tower, Missy Mazzoli, Jennifer Higdon and Jessie Montgomery.
That many of the names will seem familiar to many readers is a sign of how the “canon” has expanded in recent years and brought a new appreciation of neglected women composers, many of whom have been completely overlooked but are now featured prominently on concert programs and radio shows.
Mind you, insightful observations and great quotes about sexism, racism, ambition, creativity and history don’t guarantee music of superior quality.
But their music has to be played and listened to before it can be judged.
The Ear found this collection well worth paying attention to by men as well as women, especially young ones pursuing a career in music. Everyone can use a little inspiration and encouragement.
Here is a link to the website based in Hong Kong, China that has the story:
What about Louise Ferrenc or Florence Price?
Barbara Strozzi and Asian women?
Are there other names you would include?
What do you think of the collage of quotes, music and videos?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Apple bets again on classical music and buys BIS records
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By Jacob Stockinger
Since its founding in 1976 — on April Fools Day — Apple has often demonstrated a contrarian or oppositional streak that has helped to explain its enormous success among high-tech companies.
At a time when many critics and observers are questioning the future of classical music — and usually see major problems to overcome — Apple has taken the opposite tack.
This past year it bought the record label Primephonic in 2021 and then launched a separate streaming platform for classical music — Apple Music Classical — as part of Apple Music below).
Apple Music’s new all-Classical streaming service launches March 28. Here are details
The new Apple Music Classical app is now available for Android users
This month, Apple doubled down and bought another record label that specializes in classical music — the acclaimed Swedish independent label BIS that just marked its 50th anniversary. No price was given.
Some analyses suggest that this recent acquisition gives Apple Music Classical the largest catalogue, with more than 5 million tracks, of any classical music streaming service.
Here is an excellent story from TechCrunch that gives the details and some context and background:
And here is another good story from the classical music website LudwigVan:
If you wonder about why BIS was sold to Apple in particular, here is a statement from CNBC by BIS founder Robert von Bahr (below):
“Von Bahr, who recently turned 80, said that both BIS Records and Apple share a “fundamental belief in the importance of preserving audio quality,” citing the iPhone maker’s surround-sound spatial audio technology as “something I have followed with interest.”
“BIS’s specialty, while paying our dues to the core repertoire, has been to nurture young classical artists and interesting living composers and to safeguard the musical treasure that we all represent long into the future. (Editor’s note: It also seeks to rediscover repertoire. See and listen to the YouTube video at the bottom for BIS’s promotion of release with baroque Neapolitan cantatas and arias for countertenors.)
“Apple, with its own storied history of innovation and love of music, is the ideal home to usher in the next era of classical and has shown true commitment towards building a future in which classical music and technology work in harmony.”
Are you familiar with BIS records?
What do you think of the repertoire, performers and recordings?
Do you subscribe to Apple Music Classical — or would now subscribe with the new acquisition?
The Ear wants to hear.
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