The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: On Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, the Madison Bach Musicians explore the miracle of Mozart across his lifetime and across different genres
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Bach Musicians concludes its 15th season on this coming Saturday night, April 6, at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon, April 7, at 3:30 p.m. with The Mozart Miracle .
The program features performances of beloved music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791, below) with an all period-instrument chamber orchestra in the magnificent acoustic setting of the First Congregational United Church of Christ (below), 1609 University Avenue, near Camp Randall Stadium.
Period-instrument specialists hailing from Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Omaha, Seattle, Philadelphia and New York City will perform on natural or valveless horns, classical oboes, gut-strung violins, violas, cellos and a double bass played with 18th-century transitional bows.
Early music specialist and bassoon professor Marc Vallon (below to, in a photo by James Gill) of UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music will lead the orchestra (below bottom, in a performance last year at the First Unitarian Society of Madison).
Internationally acclaimed soprano Ariadne Lih (below), from Montreal, Canada, will join the ensemble for Exsultate Jubilate — a ringing example of how Mozart could seamlessly fuse religious zeal with vocal pyrotechnics. (You can hear Renée Fleming sing “Exsultate Jubilate” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The program also features dance sequences, choreographed by Karen McShane Hellenbrand (below) of the UW-Madison, from Mozart’s ballet Les Petits Riens (The Little Nothings).
Also included are pre-concert lectures: On Saturday, April 6, at 7:15 p.m. there is a lecture by MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson with an 8 p.m. concert . On Sunday, April 7, his lecture is at 2:45 p.m. with the concert at 3:30 p.m.
Advance-sale discounted tickets are $35 for general admission.
Tickets are available at Orange Tree Imports and Willy Street Coop (East and West). You can also buy advance tickets online at www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are: $38 general for adults, $35 for seniors 65-plus, and student rush for $10, on sale 30 minutes before lecture.
MBM artistic director Stephenson (below) sent the following remarks to The Ear:
Here are two fantastic quotations about Mozart:
“Together with the puzzle he gives you the solution.” Ferrucio Busoni on Mozart
“It may be that when the angels go about their task of praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together as a family, they play Mozart…” Karl Barth
Both quotes underline, I believe, Mozart’s charismatic generosity of spirit, his sense of play and camaraderie. We’re all in this together! Mozart’s music is a perfect fusion of melodic inspiration — tunes so good they can stay in your head for joyous weeks at a time, or even a lifetime — and structural clarity.
His sense of proportion — when to display 18th-century balance and when to step outside the frame — is uncanny and always a delight. And for me, as a five-year-old-boy, dancing about the living room to the old LP vinyl — dancing lightly, though, so the record wouldn’t skip — it was Mozart’s boundless energy and joy, pouring out of the speakers, that really revved me up.
The Madison Bach Musicians program on this coming Saturday and Sunday will explore several sides of Mozart’s genius: master orchestrator and symphonist; aficionado of fugues; virtuoso keyboard player and mesmerizing improviser; ballet composer; and the greatest fashioner of material for the soprano voice.
MBM has assembled a Classical-period chamber orchestra, replete with gut strings and transitional bows, natural horns, and classical oboes. To this we’ll add: a fortepiano — the type of instrument Mozart toured with; an elegant dancer — for dance was an integral part of 18th-century living; and a magnificent soprano — Mozart was virtually besotted with the magic of the high female voice, and he wrote for it throughout his life with imagination and a sense of thrilling experiment that has never been equaled before or since.
Here is a bit about each selection:
Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major – Composed 1764 when Mozart was just eight years old (below), during an extended stay in London with his father Leopold and sister Nannerl. Strongly influenced by the symphonies of C. F. Abel and J. C. Bach (The London Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian).
Symphony No. 29 in A major – Composed 1774 when Mozart was 18 years old (below). It is often considered the pinnacle of his early symphonic writing.
Exsultate Jubilate for soprano and orchestra – Written 1773 in Milan for the castrato, or male soprano, Venanzio Rauzzini, it is an elegant fusion of rapturous melodies and vocal display.
Adagio & Fugue in C minor for strings – Composed in 1788, certainly the latest Mozart work on the program when the composer was 32. Mozart had by this time — largely through the Sunday soirees at Baron van Swieten’s—been studying Bach’s fugues closely for several years. This fugue is an arrangement of a work for two fortepianos, K. 426, which Mozart had composed five years earlier in 1783. Mozart added the opening Adagio for the strings version.
Fantasy in D minor for fortepiano – Mozart improvised frequently as part of both private and public performance. This Fantasy, with its dark distinctive opening which explores the fantastical low register of the fortepiano, may give us a good idea of what Mozart might have done one night just sitting down to “jam” for his friends.
Two French Songs for soprano and fortepiano — Birds follow the warm weather, so they never cease their courtship. And in the woods one day the protagonist foolishly rouses a sleeping Cupid — and pays a terrible price.
Ballet excerpts from Les Petit Riens – literally The Little Nothings. Mozart composed most, but not all, of this ballet in Paris 1778 for Jean-Georges Noverre, ballet master of the Paris Opera. The work served as an interlude to an opera by Niccolo Piccinni that closed after just four performances.
For more information, go to: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
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Classical music: The populist group Classical Revolution Madison will perform chamber music and songs by Brahms, Shostakovich, Haydn, Schumann and Walter Piston, and then hold an open-mic classical jam session on this Thursday night at the Brocach Pub on the Capitol Square. Plus, the concert next Tuesday night by the Rhapsodie Quartet has been CANCELLED.
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ALERT: The concert of chamber music by Mozart, Verdi and Puccini next Tuesday night, Feb. 25, by the Rhapsodie Quartet (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) of the Madison Symphony Orchestra has been CANCELLED.
By Jacob Stockinger
Word reaches The Ear with an intriguing and appealing tavern concert with some outstanding music by the laudable local chapter of a national populist movement that brings classical music to non-traditional audiences in non-traditional venues such as bar, cafes and coffee houses. Many of the members and performers come from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music:
“Classical Revolution Madison will be back with a jam-packed show of classical and contemporary favorites at Brocach Irish Pub (below) on the Capitol Square, 7 West Main Street) on Thursday, February 20th at 7 p.m.
From 7-8 p.m., members of CRM (below) will present a dynamic program featuring works by Brahms, Shostakovich, Haydn, and more! (See below for more information on the pieces and performers)
Then, from 8-9 p.m., we will open up the floor for anyone who wants to sight read or jam, so come with your fiddle or the sheet music of your favorite chamber work if you would like to join in on some casual music making!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Best wishes,
Zou Zou Robidoux and Emily O’Leary
Here is the program for the Brocach appearance:
Clarinet Quintet by Johannes Brahms
I. Allegro
Kai-Ju Ho, clarinet (below)
Thalia Coombs and Nathan Giglierano, violins
Mara Rogers, viola
Zou Zou Robidoux, cello
String Quartet Op. 76, No. 3 by Joseph Haydn (below, and you can hear the beautiful namesake first movement played by the acclaimed Takacs Quartet, in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
II. Poco adagio; cantabile
Tony Oliva and Keisuke Yamamoto, violins
Marissa Reinholz, viola
Chris Peck, cello
Excerpts from “Duo” by the 20th-century American composer Walter Piston (below)
Mara Rogers, viola
Tori Rogers, cello
Excerpts from “Dichterliebe” (A Poet’s Loves) by Robert Schumann (below)
Tom Leighton, tenor
Emily O’Leary, piano
String Quartet No. 3 by Dmitri Shostakovich
III. Allegro non troppo
Thalia Coombs and Teddy Wiggins, violins
Mikko Utevsky, viola (below)
Rachel Bottner, cello
Tags: Arts, bar, Brocach, cafe, Cello, Chamber music, clarinet, Classic Revolution, Classical music, Classical Revolution Madison, coffee house, Dmitri Shostakovich, duo, Haydn, Ireland, Irish, Jacob Stockinger, jam, Johannes Brahms, Joseph Haydn, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, open mic, open mike, populism, populist, pub, Puccini, Robert Schumann, Shostakovich, songs, String quartet, tavern, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Walter Piston, Wisconsin, YouTube, Zou Robidoux
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