The Well-Tempered Ear
The Willy Street Chamber Players give a free virtual concert this Sunday at noon. It will be posted until Dec. 31
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement from The Willy Street Chamber Players (below), a relatively new group that is critically acclaimed for both its adventurous and eclectic, exploratory programming and for its outstanding performances of both the traditional repertoire and new music.
The Willy Street Chamber Players (WSCP) will play a virtual online concert this Sunday, Nov. 15, at noon CST.
Access to the “Beyond the Screen” concert is FREE and no registration is required. It will be available for free online until Dec. 31 on the group’s website. Here is a link to YouTube: https://youtu.be/j5Ved4FqYSQ
Listeners can visit the WSCP website or Facebook page Sunday at concert time for links to the 70-minute performance. Here is a link to the home website: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
The dynamic WSCP program was recorded live, with masks and social distance, at the historic Gates of Heaven Synagogue (below, exterior and interior during the taping) in James Madison Park in downtown Madison.
The concert will premiere on Facebook live and YouTube, providing two ways to watch from the comfort and safety of your own home.
Members of WSCP will be on hand to interact with viewers in real time through the Facebook and YouTube virtual chat during the performance. They will provide spoken program notes.
Then, immediately following the concert, you can join WSCP members for a Q&A “reception” on ZOOM at 1:15 pm.
The concert program is:
Sonata for Violin and Cello (1922) by French composer Maurice Ravel (below)
“Allegro,” the first of Four Pieces for Solo Cello (1983) by Cuban-born composer Tania León (below), which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tania_León
Canción de Cuna Del Niño Negro (Cradle Song of the Black Baby, 1937) by Cuban composer Amadeo Roldán y Gardes (below), as arranged by Rachel Barton Pine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Roldán
“Heart O’ the Hills” from Appalachian Duets, Op. 38, No. 8 (2001) by American composer Maria Newman (below), who is the youngest daughter of famous Hollywood film composer Alfred Newman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Newman
Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 (1914), by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly
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Classical music: The Ear listens with eyes open and finds interesting photos at concerts
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By Jacob Stockinger
It was the famous 20th-century composer and pioneering modernist Igor Stravinsky (below) who advised us to listen to music with our eyes open.
For one, it fosters our appreciation of the sheer physicality of making music. Musicians are, as the pianist Vladimir Horowitz once observed, athletes of the small muscles.
If you listen with your eyes open you can see a lot of things.
You can see how musicians give each other cues.
You can see the expression on their faces, the joy and pleasure that making music gives them.
You can observe how different members of the audience react differently to different music.
You can appreciate the many kinds of instruments with the eye-catching shapes, sizes and colors.
And you can see patterns that make for good photographs – if taking photos is allowed.
Of course even if it is, there are rules to follow so that the musicians and other audience members are not disturbed: no flash and no shutter sound are the main ones besides the rule of intellectual property and the forbidding of taking photographs – kind of a difficult one to enforce these days, what with all the smart phones out there.
But some musicians and groups are very friendly and open to photographing, especially if the photos are strictly personal and not for commercial use to earn a profit.
At the last regular concert this summer by the Willy Street Chamber players a little over two weeks ago, The Ear found two that showed patterns for good composition.
It’s just fun. But productive fun that can capture the fascination with music and musicians, especially if you sit close to the performers.
Here they are.
First is “Three Clarinets,” a portrait of guest artist Michael Maccaferri, from the Grammy-winning chamber music group eighth blackbird, with the three clarinets he used in the Argentinian-Jewish composer Osvaldo Golijov’s “The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind.” The black verticality of the clarinets is heightened by the same quality of the music stands.
The second is “Two Cellos and One Violin,” taken during the bows after the string sextet version of Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante.” The shapes and shades of brown wood draw the eye.
Tell The Ear of you like this kind of photo essay and want to see more of them on the blog.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Argentinian, Arts, athlete, audience, blind, brown, Business, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, color, commercial, composer, Composition, concerto, cue, different, dream, Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, eighth blackbird, essay, expression, face, flash, Grammy, instruments, intellectual property, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, Madison, Michael Maccaferri, modern, modernism, Mozart, muscle, Music, musicians, Osvaldo Golijov, pattern, photo, photography, Piano, pioneer, prayer, profit, reaction, shade, shape, shutter, Sinfonia Concertante, smart phone, Sound, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, verticality, Viola, Violin, Vladimir Horowitz, Willy Street Chamber Players, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, wood, YouTube
Classical music: The Willy Street Chamber Players wrap up their third season this Friday night at 6 with music by Mozart, Schubert and Osvaldo Golijov
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Friday night, the acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players (below) wrap up their third summer series.
The 90-minute performance is at 6 p.m. in the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight St., on Madison’s near east side.
A post-concert reception will be held with snacks from the Underground Food Collective and the Willy Street Coop.
Tickets are $15 at the door.
The program is typical for the relatively new group – a small ensemble making big waves — in that it features regular members with a guest performer, and also mixes old music and new music, sometimes with an unusual twist.
The program offers three works.
The dramatic “Quartettsatz” (1820), or “quartet movement,” by Franz Schubert (below) was intended be a part of another string quartet. It never found that home, and now exists as a popular work on its own. (You can hear it played by the Amadeus Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
“The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind” (1994), by the eclectic contemporary Argentinean-American composer Osvaldo Golijov (below, in a photo by Kayana Szymczak for the New York Times), has proven to be among contemporary music’s more popular works. (It has been performed in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater and by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.)
As you can gather from the title, it has Hebraic or Yiddish elements typical of Golijov, who is Jewish and has lived in Israel, and it possesses an appealing klezmer sound. The featured soloist is guest clarinetist Michael Maccaferri (below)
Ending the concert is the popular and supremely beautiful “Sinfonia Concertante” for Violin and Viola in E-flat Major, K. 364, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was composed originally for a string orchestra and is usually performed that way.
But The Willys, always inventive, will use an anonymous “house music” reduction for string sextet that was done in 1808, almost 30 years after the composer’s death.
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society has done many similar reductions of piano concertos by Mozart and symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn with great success.
So The Ear is very anxious to hear this transcription or arrangement, which could make yet another great masterpiece even more accessible with smaller forces at less expense.
To The Ear, it has all the makings of yet another MUST-HEAR concert by a MUST-HEAR group.
See you there.
Tags: African American, Amadeus Quartet, American, Argentinia, Arts, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Cello, Chamber music, clarinet, Classical music, co-op, collective, concerto, coop, drama, dramatic, Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, food, Franz Schubert, Haydn, Hebrew, Herbaic, house music, Israel, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Johann Sebastian Bach, klezmer, Madison, Michael Maccaferri, Mozart, Music, Osvaldo Golijov, Quartettsatz, reception, series, Sinfonia Concertante, Sinfonie Concertante, snacks, String quartet, string sextet, summer, ticket, Underground Food Collective, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Willy Street Chamber Players, Willy Street Coop, Wisconsin Union Theater, Yiddish, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival will perform familiar and unfamiliar Spanish Renaissance music. What composers and works will be performed? And what makes them different? Part 2 of 2
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts to explore Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.
To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers Cheryl Bensman Rowe and Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.
All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.
Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).
(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)
How does early Spanish music differ from its counterparts in, say, Italy, France, Germany and England. What is the historical origin and importance of the music from that era in that part of the world?
The music from the Iberian Peninsula reflects the influences and changes that were happening all over Europe throughout the period that MEMF is examining this summer.
From the “romances” and “villancicos” of Juan del Encina during the time of Columbus to the Baroque era masses, secular songs and instrumental music of Antonio Soler (organ), Luis de Briceño and Gaspar Sanz (vihuela/guitar, below top) and Domenico Scarlatti (below bottom), Spanish music maintained its own unique traditions born of its complicated mixture of cultures and expanding global empire while still reflecting the overall developments that were occurring in Italy, France and Germany.
Some crucial differences include the presence of the Muslim and Jewish poetic and musical influence in the predominantly Catholic region reflected in preferred instrumentation where the vihuela was used more often than the lute, the exotic stories from Middle Eastern sources and the harmonies and melodies that are unique to the Spanish repertoire.
The fact that the political makeup of the area was constantly changing and being buffeted by global changes can make it difficult to understand what really constitutes “Spanish” just as Italy and Germany were not unified in the way we think of them today but were made of individual and distinct regions.
There was much blurring of borders between countries. For example, Naples, which we would think of as Italian, was a Spanish city for most of this time period, with a flourishing court, which supported the flourishing of the musical culture. Artistic changes and developments reflect this rather flexible organization of regions which did not take its current shape until well into the 19th century. (below is an old map of the Iberian Peninsula)
What music and composers of that era have been most neglected and least neglected by historians and performers?
The music from the Iberian Peninsula has been receiving increasing attention in the last 50 years or so. MEMF has focused on this area several times as new editions and discoveries are coming to light.
There are many reasons for this, including the German bias created by musicologists from that area starting in the 19th century. The lack of understanding of a complicated history and a condescension directed towards all things from the “hotter” regions of Europe except for Greece also prevented research, recording and appreciation of this varied repertoire.
The composers that will be most familiar to audiences will be Cristobal de Morales (below top), Francisco Guerrero (below middle) and Tomas Luis de Victoria (below bottom), who are known for their choral music including motets and settings of the Catholic Mass and Mateo Flecha (father and son), who composed secular choral pieces featuring popular tunes of the day put together in a kind of musical pastiche called an “ensalada.”
There are many less known composers from the various regions of Spain.
Juan del Encina is probably responsible for the collection titled ” Cancionero de Palacio” and is credited with 60 pieces from this volume of nearly 500 first published in the 1490s. Juan Hidalgo (below top and in the YouTube video at the bottom) is credited with the creation of the zarzuela, a theatrical form similar to the Neapolitan opera of the time. There is Diego Ortiz, who flourished in Naples, and Antonio de Cabezón (below bottom), who composed primarily keyboard music and Gaspar Sanz, who is familiar to modern guitarists and composed many pieces for the vihuela.
Can you tell us about the program and performers for the All-Festival concert on July 15?
The All-Festival Concert is unique to MEMF. All week long, workshop participants and faculty will work side by side to create Iberian Tapestry: Music and Conquest from the Spanish Golden Age, which includes sacred and secular compositions by Victoria, Guerrero, Flecha, Vasquez, music from the Moors of the Reconquista, Sephardic music for the heritage of the Jews, and from the New World.
This concert will include narrations selected from Don Quixote.
This year, the program was created and will be directed by Grant Herreid (below), who also curated the Piffaro program that opens the MEMF 2017 Concert Series.
Are there other sessions, guest lectures and certain performers that you especially recommend for the general public?
The week is so full of wonderful adventures that I really encourage people to experience it all.
Besides the concert series and workshop classes there are pre-concert lectures and a dance event, ¡Bailemos!, on Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 7:30 p.m., in the Frederic March Play Circle on the second floor of the Memorial Union.
Several free events, besides the Harp concert and master class are the Participant Concert on Friday, July 14, at 1 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall; the Early Opera Workshop; and the Loud Band free concert on Saturday, July 15, at 2 p.m. at Music Hall featuring participants from the Advanced Loud Bound Intensive and the Early Opera & Continuo Workshop performing works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero and several cancioneros plus scenes from La púrpura de la rosa by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco.
MEMF provides a wonderful opportunity to go back in time and be immersed in the Spanish Renaissance through music, art, dance, concerts and lectures, plus workshop classes. People can play an active role participating as a student, or join us in the audience to listen to the glorious sounds of the historical instruments and voices as we recreate the music from the Golden Age of Spain.
Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets: www.madisonearlymusic.org
Tags: American Girl Place Theater, Arts, Baroque, Catholic, Cello, Cervantes, Chamber music, Cheryl Bensman Rowe, choral music, city, Classical music, composer, Concert, conquest, Cristóbal de Morales, culture, dance, Diego Ortiz, Don Quixote, Early music, England, event, festival, France, Francisco Guerrero, Gaspar Sanz, Germany, Grant Herreid, guitar, Iberia, instrumental, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, Luis de Briceno, Madisn Early Music Festival, Madison, mass, Mateo Flecha, MEMF, Middle Eastern, Moor, Music, Muslim, Neopolitan, novel, novelist, opera, organ, pastiche, Paul Rowe, Piffaro, political, Politics, popular, Renaissance, Romance, romances, Scarlatti, secular, Sephardic, series, Soler, song, Spain, Spanish, tapestry, theater, ticket, Tomas Luis de Victoria, tradition, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, vihuela, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, workshop, Writer, YouTube, zarzuela
Classical music: Did anyone else hear Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and think of Donald Trump’s America as well as Stalin’s Russia?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has to agree with a knowledgeable friend.
If you heard the Madison Symphony Orchestra, under music director John DeMain, perform the famous Symphony No. 5 in D minor — the same key as Beethoven’s Ninth — by Dmitri Shostakovich almost two weeks ago, you heard a performance that rivals or surpasses any other one, live or recorded, you’ve probably heard.
The performance was nothing short of stunning. And it was especially moving, given its timing in coming right after the presidential election in which Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence won an upset surprise victory over Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine.
So here is what The Ear wants to know:
Was The Ear the only one who found himself thinking that the symphony proved an especially fitting, perhaps perfect, choice even though it was programmed a year ago? (You can hear the moving third movement, a lament with such pathos that people cried at its premiere, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Was The Ear the only one who identified with Shostakovich, who felt an even deeper empathy with the oppressed composer (below), who, fearing with good reason the dictator Joseph Stalin and his reign of Terror in the USSR, always kept a small suitcase packed with pajamas and a toothbrush by the front door in case the KGB secret police came knocking at 3 a.m., the usual arrest hour?
The symphony is dark music for dark times. And The Ear hopes he wrong when he fears that America is headed for some dark times of its own, times when various people and members of our society will live in constant fear and dread of what they might suffer?
This is not to suggest that President-elect Donald Trump can be equated to the murderous Joseph Stalin (below), or the United States in 2016 to the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
But it is to suggest that some comparisons — if not equations — might be in order.
It is to suggest there will be a constant and unsettling anxiety in the US created by a new ruling order that seems based on insults and intolerance, that excludes and condemns what it doesn’t approve of, that seeks to suppress or destroy opposition?
Like Latino and Syrian immigrants.
Like Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians.
Like African-Americans, Native Americans and other non-whites.
Like poor people.
Like liberals and progressives, dissenters and protesters .
Like LGBT people.
Like women and women’s health advocates and organizations that favor reproductive rights.
The list could go on and on.
But you get the idea.
If either as a musician or an audience member you agree – or disagree – leave a COMMENT.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: -elect, 2016, African American, Americans, Arts, Beethoven, Beethoven's Ninth, black, Christian, Classical music, Compact Disc, dissent, dissenters, Donald Trump, Election Day (United States), Elections in the United States, immigrants, Islam, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, John DeMain, Judaism, KGB, Latino, LGBT, liberal, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mike Pence, Music, Muslim, Native American, non-white, Orchestra, Overture Center, people of color, poor, poverty, President of the United States, progressive, protest, protester, protesters, reproductive rights, Shostakovich, Stalin, symphony, Symphony No. 5, Syria, Syrian, terror, United States, United States presidential election, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, white, Wisconsin, women, YouTube
Classical music: Turning chaos into order. Conductor Beverly Taylor explains what makes Haydn’s “The Creation” special and fun to listen to. The UW-Madison Choral Union and UW Chamber Orchestra with soloists will perform it on Sunday afternoon.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the campus-community UW-Madison Choral Union (below), the UW Chamber Orchestra and soloists will perform the oratorio the “The Creation” by the Classical-era master Franz Joseph Haydn.
First, The Ear wants to clear up any confusion about the date of the performance – which is ONE-TIME ONLY. (In the past, the Choral Union usually gave two performances.) The performance was originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Then it was moved to Saturday night and then, after a conflict with the Jewish Passover was seen, moved back to Sunday afternoon.
Tickets are $15 for the general public, $8 for students. For more information about tickets, the work and the performers, here is a link:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-choral-union2/
Beverly Taylor, director of choral activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music who will conduct the performance, agreed to do an email Q&A with The Ear:
What is the place of Haydn’s “The Creation” is the choral literature? Was it influential? Popular?
It’s considered wonderful and innovative. Its choruses are magnificent, and the opening depiction of Chaos is unlike anything that had been heard up to that time.
It was written late in Haydn’s career, and showed many aspects of his wonderful talent, including musical depictions of non-musical things—water, birds, dawn — and has terrific pacing of the extended choruses building to majestic climaxes.
The premiere was enthusiastically received. It was indeed popular, although the composer’s late masses also deserve great attention. The other vocal works by Haydn (below), such as “The Seasons,” are more slowly paced, and although they contain great music, they are not often felt to be as compelling as “The Creation” with its easy-to-follow sequence of creative days.
Are there special moments or parts of the work you would like to point out to the public? How about special aspects of the performance?
Yes! One thing to do is to listen with an open mind to Chaos. (You can preview “Chaos” in a YouTube video at the bottom as performed by Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music.)
When I first heard a dull performance of it years ago, I wondered what the big deal was. Then I took a good look at it: It contains chaotic oddities — a horn suddenly blaring loudly with no reference to other instruments, a trilling flute that never resolves its trill, bassoons and clarinets who play bubbling and pointless arpeggios until it all settles down to begin the first day of the Creation (famously depicted below by the British artist and poet William Blake).
There are also delightful musical depictions and sound paintings of weather that can be confusing unless you know that the orchestra depicts the weather before the bass tells us about it. That way hail won’t sound like snow! The same holds true for the description of animals — we hear the leaping stags before our singer tells us.
There will be terrific moments in the work — orchestral playing, fabulous choral singing. And there will be wonderful solo work by our experienced alumni and faculty artists soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine (below top), tenor James Doing (below second), bass-baritone Benjamin Schultz (below third) and baritone Benjamin Li (below bottom). It’s a pleasure to make music with them.
Composer John Harbison says that Haydn is the most neglected of all the great composers. Why do you think Haydn isn’t thought of more highly and performed more often?
Among musicians, Haydn is certainly thought of highly, and many people enjoy his work, especially the element of surprise in his work — sforzandos, sudden silences, changes of rhythm.
But many of his works are chamber works designed for smaller rooms and audiences. And in our modern life, the size of the orchestra and special instruments and added theatrical elements often attract more people. Haydn’s chamber works are fabulous, but sometimes subtle. However, they repay well those who pay attention to them.
What else would you like to say about the composer, this particular work or this performance?
Haydn was influenced by and had influence on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, on all the European composers. But what inspires audiences — including, we hope, ours — is the immediacy of the beauty of the music. You don’t need special training to jump right in and listen.
Tags: Academy of Ancient Music, animal, arpeggio, Arts, baritone, Baroque, bass, Bassoon, bassoons, Beethoven, Benjamin Li, Benjamin Schultz, Chamber music, chaos, choral music, Christopher Hogwood, clarinet, clarinets, Classical era, Classical music, Creation, flute, Genesis, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, James Doing, Jamie-Rose Guarrine, Jew, Jewish, John Harbison, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Moment of silence, Mozart, Music, oratorio, Orchestra, Passover, popular music, rhythm, soprano, sound painting, symphony, tenor, The Creation, The Seasons, trill, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Chamber Orchestra, UW Choral Union, Viola, Violin, vocal music, weather, William Blake, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music education: Alumna violist Vicki Powell returns this weekend to perform with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) and kick off WYSO’s 50th anniversary season. Plus, Madison Music Makers gives a free concert at noon on Saturday
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ALERT: This Saturday, from noon to 1 p.m. at Grace Episcopal Church, downtown on the Capitol Square, Madison Music Makers will give a FREE concert in the monthly Grace Presents series of music that includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Pachelbel, Antonio Vivaldi and Ludwig van Beethoven as well as popular music, country music and American, Bolivian, French, German, Jewish, English folksongs. Founded in 2007 by Bonnie Green and sponsored by many individuals and groups, including the Madison public schools, Madison Music Makers is dedicated to giving low-income students in the Madison area high-quality music lessons.
For more information about how to support or participate in the organization, visit: www.MadisonMusicMakers.org
By Jacob Stockinger
The Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) will present its first concert series of its 50th anniversary season, the Evelyn Steenbock Fall Concerts, on Saturday, Nov. 14, and Sunday, Nov. 15.
Nearly 400 young musicians will display their talents to the community during the three concerts, which are dedicated to private and school music teachers.
The Evelyn Steenbock Fall Concerts will be held in Mills Concert Hall in the University of Wisconsin-Madison‘s George Mosse Humanities Building, 455 North Park Street, in Madison.
WYSO concerts are generally about an hour and a half in length, providing a great orchestral concert opportunity for families.
Tickets are available at the door, $10 for adults and $5 for youth 18 and under.
WYSO’s Percussion Ensemble (below), led by director Vicki Jenks will kick off the concert series at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Immediately following the Percussion Ensemble, the Philharmonia Orchestra (below) and its conductor Michelle Kaebisch will take the stage and perform the Masquerade Suite by Aram Khachaturian; Reigger’s Rhythmic Dances; the Light Calvary Overture by Franz Von Suppe; and the Berceuse (Lullaby) and Finale from the “Firebird Suite” by Igor Stravinsky.
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, the Concert Orchestra (below) under the direction of conductor Christine Eckel will perform The Quest by Kerr, Romany Dances by DelBorgo and Slane by Douglas Wagner. The Concert Orchestra will also perform two works by John Williams in Star Wars: Episode 2 Attack of the Clones, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which Williams co-composed with Alexandre Desplat.
Following the Concert Orchestra, WYSO’s string orchestra, Sinfonietta (below), will take the stage. Conductor Mark Leiser will lead the orchestra in seven works including the Adagio movement from the Symphony No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff; Silva’s The Evil Eye and the Hideous Heart; Edward MacDowell’s Alla Tarantella; Shenandoah arranged by Erik Morales, Forever Joyful and Lullaby to the Moon by Balmages; and the Entrance of the Queen of Sheba by George Frideric Handel.
On Sunday, Nov. 15, WYSO’s Harp Ensemble (below), under the direction of Karen Atz, will open the 1:30 p.m. concert.
Following the Harp Ensemble, the Youth Orchestra (below), under the baton of WYSO music director Maestro James Smith, will perform three pieces.
In honor of WYSO’s 50th Anniversary, WYSO welcomes back one of their illustrious alumni, violist Vicki Powell (below). Powell began her vibrant musical career studying with UW-Madison faculty members Eugene Purdue and Sally Chisholm, who plays with the Pro Arte Quartet.
From there, she graduated from the Julliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. She has performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. For her full bio, please visit our website at http://www.wysomusic.org/evelyn-steenbock-fall-concerts/vicki-powell.
Vicki Powell, along with the Youth Orchestra will perform the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by Bela Bartok. (You can hear the rhapsodic slow first movement played by Yuri Bashmet and the Berlin Philharmonic in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Following that performance, the Youth Orchestra will continue the concert with Rainbow Body by Theofanidis and the Symphony No. 9 by Dmitri Shostakovich.
This project is supported by Dane Arts with additional funds from the Evjue Foundation, Inc. charitable arm of The Capital Times. This project is also supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information about WYSO, visit:
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Classical music: The Ear sees blackmail, censorship, self-censorship and moral weakness –- NOT “compromise” – in the Metropolitan Opera’s decision to cancel the “Live in HD” broadcast of John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer” next fall.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It sure doesn’t seem like the Metropolitan Opera (below) could or should be the hero in this opera. More like it plays the role of the bad guy, the villain.
Or is it really more of a soap opera?
In case you haven’t been following the news, the general director of the Metropolitan Opera Peter Gelb has caved in to pressure from Israeli lobbies and agreed to cancel the scheduled “Live in HD” broadcast of the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” by the acclaimed contemporary American composer John Adams (below and at bottom in a YouTube video with the stage director of the Met’s production.)
The Ear finds that action thoroughly reprehensible.
It seems the pro-Israeli lobby thinks the opera is anti-Semitic and too kind in the way it treats the four Palestinian terrorists — from the Palestine Liberation Organizations — who in 1985 took over the luxury cruise ship the Achille Lauro and killed the disabled Jewish passenger Leon Klingerhoffer in his wheelchair and then threw him overboard.
Well, I want to tell the head honchos at the famed Met: Don’t do my thinking about terrorism and Mideast peace for me. Just give me the facts and let me make up my own mind.
I want to see art, not propaganda, which is apparently what some pro-Israeli activists think would be good for the rest of us. I think I can see tragedy where there is tragedy, whether it is Jewish or Arab tragedy, Israeli or Palestinian tragedy. Just listen to the “Night Chorus” (below) and watch the videos that go with it:
This whole affair sound more than a little to my mind like a protester who would censor William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” or Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” in the name of a higher morality.
I say: Let us see the opera –- it is one of next season’s “Live in HD” satellite broadcasts that I would like most to attend -– and then decide for ourselves.
Stop condescending to us, stop underestimating us.
Now, one suspects that the poor finances of the Met would help to explain a lot of the shameful action. And Gelb admits that donors didn’t pressure him but that groups connected to donors did.
So here is the compromise: There will be no protesting at the actual opera production in New York City –- where tickets can run hundreds of dollars and seating is limited and most of the world cannot and will not see it — and no boycotting or withdrawing of financial support if the Met doesn’t broadcast it worldwide to a much larger audience.
I think I smell blackmail.
What do you smell?
I know I smell censorship on the part of the protesters and self-censorship of the part of the famed opera company’s administrators who caved in to their demands.
“The Death of Klinghoffer” would seem to build on the other news-based or reality-based operas of John Adams that the Met has staged and then broadcast so successfully by the Met: “Nixon in China” (below) about President Richard Nixon meeting Chairman Mao; and “Doctor Atomic,” about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the building of the first atomic bomb.
Here is a line to the story in The New York Times about the original decision:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/arts/music/met-opera-cancels-telecast-of-klinghoffer.html?_r=0
And here is a link to reaction from the composer John Adams, who counters objections and make convincing points:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/arts/music/klinghoffer-composer-responds-to-mets-decision.html
Here is a link to a fine critique from the longtime senior music critic for The New York Times Anthony Tommasini:
Here a link to a fine editorial that appeared in The Boston Globe:
And here is another great editorial, this one from The New York Times, which is located in a city known for its large Jewish population and, one presumes, its large body of Jewish subscribers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/opinion/the-metropolitan-operas-backward-move.html
Tags: anti-Semitic, Arab, Arts, atom bomb, Chairman Mao, China, Classical music, Death of Klinghoffer, Doctor Atomic, Huckleberry Finn, Israel, Israeli, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, John Adams, Madison, Mao-Zedong, Mark Twain, Metropolitan Opera, Mideast peace, Music, New York City, New York Times, Nixon in China, opera, Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian, Peter Gelb, reality-based, Richard Nixon, terrorism, United States, William Shakespeare, YouTube
Classical music Q&A: Shakespeare turns 450 today. Pianist Ryan McCullough talks about Beethoven’ problematic profundity and his Shakespearean sense of pacing and rhetoric. He will perform Beethoven’s titanic last three piano sonatas -– through which he sees a progression — this Saturday night at Farley’s House of Pianos.
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NOTE: Today’s in the 450th birthday of playwright William Shakespeare — a fitting date for the blog post below to appear. Do you have a favorite work or composer who stands up to comparison with Shakespeare or whose music or opera best incorporates work by The Bard? Leave a COMMENT.
By Jacob Stockinger
At 8 p.m. on this Saturday night, April 26, pianist Ryan McCullough (below top) will play the last three Beethoven piano sonatas, Opp. 109, 110 and 111, on the new Salon Series of concerts at Farley’s House of Pianos (below bottom is Farley’s Steinway‘s 1877 Centennial Concert Grand), located 6522 Seybold Road, on Madison’s far west side, not far from West Towne.
McCullough has appeared with orchestras including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he performed to acclaim at the Token Creek Festival in Madison in 2010. For more information, visit his website www.rmmpiano.com.
He is comfortable with repertoire ranging from classical works to electro-acoustic improvisation, and serves as Sage Fellow in Contemporary Performance Practice at Cornell University.
For this concert he will play Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas No. 30 in E major, No. 31 in A-flat major and No. 32 in C minor. You can call (608) 271-2626 to reserve your tickets. Tickets are $30 in advance; $35 at the door. A free reception follows the performance and is included.
McCullough graciously answered an email Q&A for The Ear.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your major accomplishments, and talk about your background including when you started piano lessons and what was your Aha! Moment when you knew you wanted to become a concert pianist?
By my nature, it is hard for me to claim any major “accomplishments” since I attribute any such thing to luck and circumstance (provided I’ve done the work!). But I will say I am very happy and feel very lucky that I’m a concert pianist, and especially that I’m satisfied with the breadth and variety of musical projects I get to work on. I can’t really even take sole credit for that, though, since I’ve had a lot of support from family and teachers all along the way.
My mom started me on piano when I was 5, but at the time I wasn’t really into it–I wanted to be a pilot. Something happened when I was 11, however, and suddenly music became an insatiable fascination for me.
I began composing, I began playing the clarinet, which gives me a lot of respect for the musicians on the “other side of the podium.” I started going to little competitions and I just knew that this was what I was going to do. I never decided, I just found myself.
What is it about Beethoven and especially late Beethoven sonatas that appeals to you? Do you have a favorite among the last three sonatas?
There is a lot of cultural baggage that comes with Beethoven’s music, and this is of course nothing new. Composers, performers and music-lovers have racked their brains over his music and especially his late music for close to 200 years, and so I often wonder if it is really possible to unpack what is really Beethoven from what is just the Beethoven mythology.
But trying to think as objectively as possible about these works, I have been thinking recently about how much I love the pacing of his music. It’s very dramatic, in the thespian sense of the word, and revelations and changes to the motion of the music seem to happen at exactly the right moment. It is well-known that Beethoven (below top) loved Shakespeare, and the connections between dramatic rhetoric and music were very deep in the 18th-century, so I imagine this was a very serious consideration for him.
One of the challenges of playing Beethoven’s late works is grappling with profundity. Ask anyone who knows a little about Beethoven’s music to describe his late music and you’ll get responses like spiritual, profound, transcendental, mystical, otherworldly, and so on. This is just a part of our cultural understanding of Beethoven, which is of course backed up by Beethoven’s own words, such as the indication atop the third movement of op. 109, “mit innigster Empfindung,” or “with deepest feeling.”
Of course, while I do believe Beethoven was a very spiritual man with a deep interest in the philosophical and cultural trends of his time, 200 years of critical hyperbole since his death have made it such that playing this music feels to us as if his notes contain the secrets of the universe, and so as a performer it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to be profound through these works when just letting them be what they are is already profound enough.
Why do you think that the last three sonatas, and the late sonatas in general, have replaced the more “heroic” middle period sonatas like the “Tempest,” the “Appassionata” and the “Waldstein” that used to figure so prominently in piano recitals?
There is probably no accounting for why certain pieces begin to feature more regularly in concerts, especially in the piano circuit, which is so heavily influenced by (or contrary to) competitions. I also think it depends where you’re looking. I have heard many performances of the “Hammerklavier” Sonata recently, especially at top-tier competitions where it seems to be the “no s/he didn’t!” piece of choice these days.
I heard the last three sonatas played by my teacher, John Perry, back in 2004, before I began studying with him, and got it stuck in my head at that point that I would do that one day as well, so I think that’s at least one reason how certain repertoire disseminates.
That being said, I also heard a performance of the complete 32 Beethoven sonatas in one day by one person, and that is not something I would ever want to do.
Do you see any kind of connection or relationship among the last three sonatas? What would you like to point out to readers about each sonata, and about your performance in Madison?
This ties into the notion of profundity I mentioned a moment ago, whether it’s latent in the work or imposed by the observer (which of course includes the performer). Obviously Beethoven made the decision to put them in that particular order (Opp. 109, 110, 111), and opus order is something we know he was conscious of, especially with his late string quartets.
Whether that actually means anything specifically is anyone’s guess, and probably has as much to do with the composer’s business relationships with his publishers as it does with the actual music.
For the purposes of performance as a set, I do perceive a progression through the three.
Op. 109 (a manuscript page is below) feels very domestic, grounded in the realities of everyday living. Emotions ebb and flow, from comfortable simplicity to passionate arguments, but the piece never really wanders very far from home and there’s a certain quiet satisfaction that overrides the whole work, even in its most ecstatic moments.
Op. 110 (a manuscript page is below) is a much more complicated piece, and for me is the hardest of the three. It seems to begin somewhat where Op. 109 leaves off — comfortable, satisfied, glittering, but there is a certain disquietude in the first movement, evidenced by the fact that Beethoven keeps leaning towards the dark key of F minor but manages just to avoid it or only touches on it briefly. The second movement is a wild romp in, not surprisingly, F minor, so whatever it was Beethoven was trying to avoid in the first movement seems to eventuate in full.
The third movement, which emerges out of the second, is one of the most depressing, emotionally draining pieces of music Beethoven ever penned, so whatever happened in the second movement was evidently quite a test. After a couple of attempts to pull the music out of this stupor, the piece ends up in a wildly ecstatic version of where the sonata began, but with the same harmonic hints at disquietude as the first movement, suggesting a kind of cyclical story-telling that Beethoven was very interested in at that time. It’s this combination of tightly-woven composition and boundless, fantasia-like wandering that makes the piece hard to pull off. The pacing, as I mentioned before, is very important.
Op. 111 (below is the title page form the first edition) is undoubtedly my favorite, certainly conceptually. Its two movements could not be more different from each other. The first movement is very much the stormy Beethoven we all read about, unkempt, his chamber pot full, frantically and obsessively scribbling the same short musical gestures over and over until he’s found just the right version (which was usually the first version, 20 versions ago), the deaf man beating out this wild music at the piano while listening through his earhorn.
The second movement, then, is as if you woke up from that bad dream and found yourself watching some sort of eternal celestial ritual that had no beginning, no terminus, and only seemed to exist for as long as you were there watching it. The way the movement is constructed reminds me somewhat of the great old science film “Powers of 10” (http://vimeo.com/6150677) where the universe is shown proportionally in both its infinite vastness and smallness—the falling motive Beethoven starts with is continually divided in half, somewhat like a single bacteria, and becomes such a cloud of activity that it seems to engulf us until inadvertently we find ourselves back where we started. (You can hear the second movement played in a live performance by the great Rudolf Serkin in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Many see Beethoven’s sense of musical abstraction as a precursor to 20th-century modernity; but the 18th-century was a pretty crazy time conceptually, and artists and philosophers were already considering ideas that modernists in the 20th-century would claim as their own invention. Beethoven just happened to be a very effective bullhorn for these ideas. (Below is a manuscript page of Op. 111.)
Is there something else you would like to add or say?
I am dedicating this performance and another that I am giving at Cornell University to a great friend and music-lover Leon Berliner (below), who owned a Classical music recording shop in my hometown of Eureka, California.
Leon was born into a Jewish family in Belgium, and Beethoven was one of the first sounds he heard after the liberation of his country from the Nazis. He held an annual Beethoven’s birthday party at his store on December 16, and he died this last year from lung cancer on December 15. That’s as amazing a coincidence as you’re ever likely to get, and I very much hope he’s enjoying his “eternal celestial ritual.”
Tags: Appassionata, Arts, Beethoven, Beethoven piano sonatas, Belgium, Canada, clarinet, Classical music, Cornell University, Farley's House of Pianos, Hammerklavier, Jacob Stockinger, Jew, Jewish, Leon Berliner, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, manuscript, Mccullough, Music, Nazi, Orchestra, Piano, Piano sonata, Rudolf Serkin, Ryan McCullough, Sonata, The Bard, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Waldstein, William Shakespeare, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Symphony Orchestra announces its new 2014-15 season. It includes programs from Bach to Hollywood exiles from Hitler and the Nazis, acclaimed soloists and ticket prices with only modest increases.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Symphony Orchestra (below) has just announced its next season for 2014-15.
It strikes The Ear as both deeply interesting and tightly cohesive, a good blend of sure-fire hits and unknown or rarely heard repertoire. It also features some fine local talent and some unusual repertoire, though, unlike the past several seasons, no new or contemporary music is included. After all, this is a business with seats to fill, not some theoretical exercise in programming.
“You can’t have everything, especially when you are playing only eight concerts,” lamented MSO maestro John DeMain (below, in a photo by Prasad) when he discussed the new season with me.
But, DeMain added, the MSO is exploring doing another Chicago Symphony Orchestra “Beyond the Score” format concert — like this season’s presentation of Antonin Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, which sold out — probably in January and probably with more than one performance, if they can find a sponsor to front the $50,000 cost. Then he will decide on what work out of more than 20 possibilities would be right.
Concerts take place in Overture Hall in the Overture Center on Friday nights at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday nights at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m.
The deadline for subscriptions renewals and keeping your current seat is May 8.
Here is the official press release that unveils the new season. The Ear also talked at length one-on-one with MSO music director and conductor John DeMain. Since the announcement is long enough for one post, DeMain’s insightful comments will appear a bit later in another post.
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES 2014-15 SEASON
Maestro John DeMain and the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) will deliver a diverse and exciting season of composers and guest artists for 2014-2015.
Beginning with a September program that focuses on the highly-talented musicians in the orchestra, DeMain will lead the audience through an exhilarating variety of themes and cultures throughout the season. Russia, Scandinavia, and Golden-Age Hollywood are just a few of the sound worlds the MSO will explore, while monumental works central to the orchestra, such as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, will anchor the year.
A world-class roster of guest artists has been invited to Madison for the season’s performances, including violinist Sarah Chang, pianist Olga Kern, violinist Daniel Hope, pianist Ingrid Fliter and University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music pianist Christopher Taylor.
SEPTEMBER 19, 20 and 21, 2014
“Orchestral Splendor,” John DeMain, Conductor
RICHARD STRAUSS, “Also sprach Zarathustra”
FRANK MARTIN, Concerto for Seven Winds
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS, Symphony No. 3 (“Organ” Symphony)
German composer Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra was once among his least performed works, but it is now firmly established as standard orchestral repertoire. The trumpet theme and thunderous timpani entrance (heard in Stanley Kubrick’s epic film “2001: A Space Odyssey”) are unmistakable.
Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Concerto for Seven Winds was written in 1949. It features seven solo instruments, exploring differences in sonority and expression. The virtuosic and conversational writing in these piece results in a playful, sportive character.
French composer Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3, known also as the “Organ” Symphony, draws on elements of both the conventional symphony and the tone poem. Formally unusual in its own time, yet popular from its conception, the work features virtuosic piano and organ passages and a masterful display of the vast colors possible in the symphony orchestra.
OCTOBER 17, 18 and 19, 2014
“The Russian Spirit” with John DeMain, conductor, and Olga Kern (below), piano
PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, Suite from “Swan Lake”
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF, Concerto No. 1 for Piano
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, Symphony No. 6
The Suite from “Swan Lake” tells the magical tale of a young prince enchanted by a swan maiden under the moonlight. Peter Tchaikovsky’s charming work utilizes haunting melodies, captivating waltzes, Russian and Hungarian folk themes, and a Spanish dance.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 1 for Piano displays a youthful freshness and an assertive, extroverted personality. Indeed, the composer began this work when he was 17! For audience members who delight in keyboard fireworks, this piece will thrill.
Symphony No. 6 by Dmitri Shostakovich, written as war clouds were gathering in Russia, was quite a contrast to Symphony No. 5. Lopsided movement lengths, a lack of obvious theme, and characters of anxiety and desolation reflect the intriguing political situation of the time, as well as Shostakovich’s own remarkably wide emotional compass.
NOVEMBER 7, 8 and 9, 2014
“Scandinavian Wonders” with John DeMain, conductor, and Sarah Chang (below), violin
EDVARD GRIEG, Lyric Suite
JEAN SIBELIUS, Concerto for Violin
CARL NIELSEN, Symphony No. 4 (“The Inextinguishable”)
Over the course of his long career, Edvard Grieg composed 66 Lyric pieces for piano, strongly rooted in the songs, dances, mythology, and spirit of Norway. He selected four of these fragrant and diverse miniatures for an orchestral suite, premiered in 1906.
“…For…10 years it was my dearest wish to become a great virtuoso.” wrote Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in his diary. Unfortunately the composer never reached great proficiency on the instrument, and his Concerto for Violin, awash in Nordic textures, expresses a melancholic farewell to that childhood dream.
As a philosophical guideline to his often raging Symphony No. 4, Danish composer Carl Nielsen said, “Music is life, and, like life, inextinguishable”. Four interlinked movements of frequently agitated energy lead to a climax of ultimate triumph and grand 19th century symphonic tradition.
DECEMBER 5, 6 and 7, 2014
A Madison Symphony Christmas
With John DeMain, conductor; Alyson Cambridge (below), soprano; Harold Meers, tenor; the Madison Symphony Chorus, Beverly Taylor, director; the Madison Youth Choirs, Michael Ross, artistic director; and the Mt. Zion Gospel Choir, Leotha Stanley, director.
John DeMain and the Madison Symphony don their Santa hats for this signature Christmas celebration. This concert is filled with traditions, from caroling in the lobby with the Madison Symphony Chorus to vocal performances by hundreds of members of Madison’s musical community. Christmas classics are interwoven with enchanting new holiday music. The culminating sing-along is Madison’s unofficial start of the holiday season!
FEBRUARY 13, 14 and 15, 2015
“Fliter Plays Chopin” with John DeMain, conductor, and Ingrid Fliter (below), piano
BENJAMIN BRITTEN, Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge
FREDERIC CHOPIN, Concerto No. 2 for Piano
ROBERT SCHUMANN, Symphony No. 4
Frank Bridge, one of Benjamin Britten’s earliest composition teachers, was certainly responsible for the surpassing clarity, individuality, and discipline in Britten’s most cherished works. Britten’s “Variations” on Bridge’s theme range from passionate to playful, capturing the heartfelt musical admiration of a pupil for his teacher.
From the moment he arrived in Paris at age 21, Frederic Chopin drew the admiration of both the public and esteemed critics, alike. Concerto No. 2 was in fact his first concerto, displaying the composer’s prolific improvisatory and imaginative style.
In composing Symphony No. 4, Robert Schumann departed significantly from the standard Classical form he previously employed, connecting all four movements with recurring musical ideas–a novel proposition at the time.
MARCH 6, 7 and 8, 2015
“Composers in Exile: Creating the Hollywood Sound” with John DeMain, conductor, and Daniel Hope (below), violin
FRANZ WAXMAN, Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani Ride of the Cossacks from “Taras Bulba”
MIKLÓS RÓZSA, Theme, Variations and Finale; Parade of the Charioteers from “Ben Hur”; Love Theme from “Ben Hur”; Love Theme from “Spellbound”
ERICH KORNGOLD, Concerto for Violin and the Suite from “Captain Blood”
This unique concert features the works of great classical composers before they fled Nazi persecution and also showcases their later brilliant contributions to Hollywood film scores.
Franz Waxman (below) is responsible for a long list of memorable Hollywood scores, including “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Rebecca.” His Sinfonietta, written for only strings and timpani, is comprised of three wildly different movements. Waxman also composed the soundtrack for the 1962 epic, “Taras Bulba.” “Ride of the Cossacks” is the exhilarating theme to which Taras and his army gallop to Dubno.
According to Miklos Rózsa (below), his “Theme” was conceived in the manner of a Hungarian folk song, then treated in variations of contrasting feeling, and summarized in a wild and swift finale. The 1934 work earned him his first international success. By the late 1940’s Rózsa was an Oscar-winning, film score composer, and joined the staff of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer. His thrilling score for the 1959 film “Ben Hur” is one of his lasting achievements, earning him his third and final Oscar.
The Concerto for Violin, written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (bel0w top) in 1945, perfectly blends the two musical lives of the composer, unapologetic in both its rigorous craftsmanship and its Hollywood charm. “Captain Blood” was a milestone for Korngold, as it was his first fully symphonic movie score. Produced in only three weeks, the music evidences his most professional and imaginative effort.
APRIL 10, 11 and 12, 2015
“Piano Genius” with John DeMain, conductor, and Christopher Taylor (below), piano
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH, Concerto No. 4 for Clavier
FRANZ LISZT, Concerto No. 1 for Piano
ANTON BRUCKNER, Symphony No. 7
Concerto No. 4 by Johann Sebastian Bach is part of a set of six concertos, dated to 1738. The piece was originally written for harpsichord and is ripe with movement and ornamentation. Bach’s concertos laid a crucial formal and harmonic groundwork for centuries of composition to follow.
Franz Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 for Piano is more than a century-long leap forward in time. Liszt’s Romantic genius is unabashedly on display, with thick orchestration, cadenzas that range from delicate to thundering, and lush harmonies.
Anton Bruckner was a country man, transplanted into bustling cosmopolitan Vienna, and he and his music were unlikely successes with audiences and critics. His music was said to “compel the element of the divine into our human world”.
MAY 8, 9 and 10, 2015
“Ode to Joy” with John DeMain, conductor; concertmaster Naha Greenholtz (below top), violin; Melody Moore, soprano; Gwendolyn Brown, contralto; Eric Barry, tenor; Morris Robinson (below bottom), bass; and the Madison Symphony Chorus, Beverly Taylor, director.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN, “Serenade” (after Plato’s “Symposium”)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”)
Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade” for violin and orchestra, resulted from a rereading of Plato’s charming dialogue, “The Symposium.” The music dances through a series of inter-related “speakers” at a banquet (Phaedrus, Aristophanes, Erixymachus, Agathon, and Socrates), praising love.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s last and monumental Symphony No. 9 stands apart from his other symphonies by virtue of its humanistic message, enormous scale and organic unity of design. The mammoth fourth movement, operating like a symphony in miniature, is like nothing else in symphonic music. Four soloists, full chorus, the entire orchestra, and the famous “Ode to Joy” theme will conclude the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s season. (You can hear a populist flash mob version of the “Ode to Joy” at the bottom in a popular YouTube video that had almost 4-1/2 million hits.)
Single tickets for individual concerts have increased slightly and are $16 to $84 each, and go on sale Aug. 16. They are available at www.madisonsymphony.org/singletickets and through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street or call the Box Office at (608) 258-4141.
New subscribers can receive savings up to 50%. For more information and to subscribe, visit www.madisonsymphony.org/newsub or call (608) 257-3734.
Groups of 15 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information visit, www.madisonsymphony.org/groups
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
You can also check out the official MSO website announcement of the new season by visiting:
http://www.madisonsymphony.org/14-15
The Madison Symphony Orchestra engages audiences of all ages and backgrounds in live classical music through a full season of concerts with established and emerging soloists of international renown, an organ series that includes free concerts, and widely respected education and community engagement programs. Find more information at www.madisonsymphony.org.
Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Adolf Hitler, Also sprach Zarathustra, Alyson Cambridge, Anton Bruckner, Antonín Dvořák, Arts, Austria, Bach, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Bernstein, Beyond the Score, Camille Saint-Saëns, Carl Nielsen, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Choir, Chopin, chorus, Christmas, Classical music, concerto, conductor, contralto, Denmark, dialogue, Dmitri Shostakovich, Dvorak, Edvard Grieg, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, exiles, Finland, Flash mob, France, Frank Bridge, Frank Martin, Franz Liszt, Franz Waxman, Frédéric Chopin, Germany, gospel, Grieg, Hitler, Ingrid Fliter, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Jew, Jewish, Johann Sebastian Bach, John DeMain, Leonard Bernstein, Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mezzo-soprano, Miklos Rozsa, MSO, Music, New World Symphony, Nielsen, Ninth Symphony, Norway, Ode to Joy, Olga Kern, Orchestra, organ, organ symphony, Overture Center, Peter Tchaikovsky, Piano, Plato, populist, Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann, Russia, Santa, Sarah Chang, Scandinavia, Schumann, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, soprano, Stanley Kubrick, Switzerland, symphony, Tchaikovsky, tenor, The Inextinguishable, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, YouTube
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