The Well-Tempered Ear
Will using first names with Beethoven and Mozart help fight racism and sexism in the concert hall?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Why do concert programs read simply Beethoven for Beethoven (below top), but Florence Price for Florence Price (below bottom)?
According to a recent controversial essay by Chris White (below), a professor of music theory at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, it reflects and reinforces sexism and racism.
White is calling for universal “fullnaming” to put women composers and composers of color on an equal footing with the traditional canon of dead white male composers. All people may be equal, but all composers and their music are not.
You can certainly make a case for his interesting argument against using “mononyns,” as he calls them. But it still seems less than convincing to many, including The Ear. It many ways it seems downright silly and arbitrary. Isn’t it obvious that not all composers are equal in quality of their work?
It is the latest dustup in the classical music world, coming right on the heels of, and logically linked to, the idea that Beethoven is responsible for sexism and racism in the concert hall and the so-called “cancel culture” that is allied with the social and political protest movements of the past year, including Black Lives Matter.
That was treated here in a previous post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/did-beethoven-and-his-music-especially-the-iconic-fifth-symphony-foster-racism-exclusion-and-elitism-in-the-concert-hall-the-ear-thinks-that-is-pc-nonsense-what-do-you-think/
Here is a link to the complete article by White about the inclusion and absence of first names as it appeared on Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/fullname-famous-composers-racism-sexism.html
Funny, The Ear thinks of using only last names as little more than a function of: quality, importance and time; of fame and familiarity; and sometimes of promoting clarity and preventing confusion — not of race or gender.
It is why we say Bach (below) when we mean Johann Sebastian, and why we say Wilhelm Friedemann or Carl Philipp Emmanuel or Johann Christian when we mean one of his sons.
It is why we say Richard Strauss to distinguish him from Johann Strauss.
But it also why Haydn means Franz Joseph (below), not his less important brother Michael Haydn.
And why the American composer Henry Cowell is listed with his full name and not just Cowell.
Perhaps one day – if we hear enough of the music by the recently rediscovered Black female composer Florence Price often enough and like it enough – she will be known simply as Price. After all, the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu is not usually listed as simply Takemitsu.
Actually, the Ear prefers using full names for all composers — famous or not, male or female, white or black — especially when it is for the general public. But it seems more a matter of politeness, respect and education than of sociopolitical change and social justice.
That is not to say that those of us in classical music don’t see a need to correct the racism and sexism of the past, to foster diversity and inclusiveness. White has a point. Still, the whole idea of using both names in all cases seems more than a bit naïve, superficial and simplistic as a solution to racism and sexism.
It sounds a lot like the kind of theoretical speculation and contrarian thinking you might expect from an assistant professor trying to get noticed and make his mark on big contemporary issues so that he can get tenure and become an associate professor. A high public profile certainly helps that.
But whatever you think of White’s motives or purpose, his essay is causing a “meltdown” on Twitter: https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/‘fullnaming’-mozart-and-beethoven-to-fight-sexism-and-racism-twitter-squabbles-over-slate-article.1108776/
Should you want to know more about Professor White or to leave a message of either support or disagreement, here is a link to his home website: http://www.chriswmwhite.com
What do you think about the idea of using first names for all composers as a way to combat racism and sexism in classical music?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music education: Spring concerts by the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) start this Saturday and continue on Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends at the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) sent this timely reminder:
Starting this Saturday, May 9, and continuing on Saturday and Sunday, May 16-17, the Eugenie Mayer Bolz Family Spring Concerts will be held in Mills Concert Hall in the UW George Mosse Humanities Building, 455 North Park Street, Madison.
Tickets are available at the door: $10 for adults and $5 for children under 18 years of age.
On Saturday, May 9 at 1:30 p.m., WYSO will kick off the concerts with performances by its Percussion Ensemble (below top), Brass Choir, and Harp Ensemble (below bottom).
The following week, on Saturday, May 16, the Philharmonia Orchestra will start the day at 11 a.m. They will play four different works that morning beginning with Symphony No. 9, op. 95, E minor “From the New World,” movement 4, by Antonin Dvorak.
They will transition to Zoltan Kodaly’s Háry János: Intermezzo followed by two pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Overture to “The Magic Flute” and the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459. The piano concerto will feature concerto competition winner, Moqiu Cheng. Moqiu (below) is a seventh-grader at Hamilton Middle School and is also a violinist with WYSO.
At the 1:30 p.m. concert, the Concert Orchestra will take the stage with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Simpson Dance of the Tumblers from ‘The Snow Maiden’. Hatikvah, a traditional tune arranged by Del Borgo is next followed by Richard Meyer’s, Tales of Vandosar. They will end their set with Robert Sheldon’s Triumph of the Argonauts.
Following the Concert Orchestra, WYSO’s string orchestra, Sinfonietta will end the day’s performances with several pieces including The Abduction from the Seraglio: Overture by Mozart, Richard Meyer’s, Carpe Diem!, and the Allegro from Sinfonia No. 6 in G minor by Johann Christian Bach.
On Sunday, May 17, at 4 p.m., the Youth Orchestra (below top) will take stage at OVERTURE HALL — NOT Mills — along with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below bottom) in a side-by-side concert. The program will feature five different works showcasing the abilities of both orchestras.
They will start with the Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich’s. Following that Soloist Adam Yeazel (below top), a senior at Middleton High School, will perform the Concertino da Camera for Alto Saxophone by Jacques Ibert.
That will be followed by the cadenza and fourth movement of Violin Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich featuring sophomore Maynie Bradley (below bottom) as the soloist.
After a brief intermission the program will continue with Sir Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations – including Theme I, VII, VIII, IX, XI, Finale and end with Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky in an orchestration by Maurice Ravel.
This is the third “Side by Side” collaboration between the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and WYSO.
According to WCO Maestro Andrew Sewell, “Side by Side” concerts give students “tremendous inspiration and the confidence to play difficult repertoire next to seasoned musicians. We are thrilled to bring this notable musical performance to Overture Hall.”
The public is invited to this free concert. Reservations must be made by calling the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra office at (608) 257-0638. Please note that places are being reserved for this concert, but there will be no tickets. Seating is General Admission. For more information please visit www.wcoconcerts.org.
These concerts are generously supported by the Eugenie Mayer Bolz Family, along with funds from Dane County, the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of the The Capital Times, W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation. This project is also supported in part by additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board, the State of Wisconsin, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tags: Arts, Bach, brass, Cello, Classical music, concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich, Dvorak, Edward Elgar, Enigma Variations, harp, Jacob Stockinger, Jacques Ibert, Johann Christian Bach, Madison, Maurice Ravel, Modest Mussorgsky, Mozart, Music, New World Symphony, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Orchestra, orchestration, Overture Center, percussion, Piano, Piano concerto, Pictures at an Exhibition, Saxophone, sinfonia, symphony, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Violin concerto, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, WYSO, YouTube, Zoltan Kodaly, Zoltan Kolday
Classical music: Happy Father’s Day! Music is filled with bad paternal role models and some good ones too. NPR discusses some bad fathers and praises good ones.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today, June 15, 2014, is Father’s Day.
Classical music is filled with notable father figures and not all of them are fathers you would want to emulate.
Take the overbearing and ambitious Leopold Mozart (below top), who browbeat and exploited his young son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (below bottom).
And what about Ludwig van Beethoven’s father (below top) who used to come home drunk and threatened his young prodigy son with a beating to force him to practice the piano?
One has to wonder: Did such paternal abuse actually yield positive results on these two towering figures of classical music? Or did Mozart and Beethoven succeed despite their fathers’ bullying. Does an unhappy childhood benefit the art even when it hurts the artist?
On the other hand, maybe some good parenting by Johann Sebastian Bach -– the “old wig” as his more “modern” Classical-era sons called him –- led to such good achievements by his composer sons Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
The same might be said for Baroque composers Alessandro Scarlatti (below top), best known for vocal music, and his son Domenico Scarlatti (below bottom), best known for his keyboard music.
There are a lot of fictional fathers to mention on this holiday too.
Especially in opera.
Those fathers were discussed this past week on NPR by Miles Hoffman. Hoffman is himself both the father of two daughters and a professional musician, both a performer and a teacher. His interview, with musical samplings, covered works by Christoph Willibald Gluck, Mozart, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi and, as a positive counterpoint, Giacomo Puccini.
Here is a link:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321544999/just-in-time-for-father-s-day-bad-dads-in-opera
What real or fictional fathers -– good or bad — in classical music come to your mind?
The Ear would like to see the Father’s Day discussion of musical fathers expanded. So share good stories and bad stories about music and paternity — even if it is your own, because there are a lot of fathers who played a positive and encouraging role in music careers and musical stories.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alessandro Scarlatti, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Classical era, Classical music, Classical period (music), Classical style, Domenico Scarlatti, fathers day, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, harpsichord, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Keyboard, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart, Music, NPR, opera, Piano, Scarlatti, sonatas, vocal music, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Classical music: Two concerts of New Music and Early Music by three local groups will both take place on the Saturday of this very busy weekend.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This is a crazy busy weekend for classical music fans in Madison.
On Friday night at 8 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra closing out its season with pianist Stewart Goodyear playing his own Piano Concerto and Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Choral” Fantasy (plus the “Eroica” Symphony) on Friday night.
On Friday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall is also the University of Iowa Center for New Music in a FREE concert.
Also on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall is the University Opera’s first of three performances of Hector Berlioz’ opera “Beatrice and Benedict.” It is the farewell production of director William Farlow, who is retiring this spring.
Then on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Morphy Hall is the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music’s Perlman Piano Trio, in a FREE concert of Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert and Antonin Dvorak. At 8 p.m. in Mills Hall is the UW-Madison Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John Passion” under conductor and director Beverly Taylor.
And on Sunday at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. is the First Unitarian Society of Madison performing Gabriel Faure’s lovely and calming Requiem. Admission is FREE and open to the public. And the on Sunday evening at 7 p.m., the UW Chorale Concert, under Bruce Gladstone, will perform a FREE concert in Mills Hall.
BUT…
But two concerts on Saturday by smaller local groups presenting old music and new music should also not be overlooked.
On Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. in Luther Memorial Church (below) at 1021 University Avenue, there is a FREE concert featuring new music by two local groups.
“New Music Concert and Conversation” is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and features new works for the percussion group Clocks in Motion (below top) and the woodwind quintet Black Marigold (below bottom) by student composers across the country. Two of the four winning composers will be in attendance to speak about their work and answer questions from the audience.
Immediately following the performance, Clocks in Motion and Black Marigold members will speak about the challenges and rewards of performing new music.
The New Music Concert is part of the 18th annual conference of the Midwest Graduate Music Consortium (MGMC), which will take place at UW-Madison on April 11 and 12. MGMC is a joint venture organized by graduate students from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and UW-Madison. MGMC encourages the presentation of original research and the composition of new music by graduate and advanced undergraduate students.
Details about the conference, including a full schedule and list of abstracts, can be found at the MGMC website. The conference includes papers by students from MGMC sister schools and institutions across the U.S. and Canada. Tamara Levitz, UCLA, will give a keynote lecture, “Riot at the Rite: Racial Exclusion and the Foundations of Musical Modernism.” Registration is FREE. Please send an email to kahiser@wisc.edu or mgmc2014conference@gmail.com if you plan to attend. (No registration is necessary for the New Music Concert).
The program includes:
Works for Clocks in Motion:
Kristina Warren, University of Virginia . . . Adelaide
Benjamin O’Brien, University of Florida . . . cadenceStudie
Works for Black Marigold (below):
Kenn McSperitt, University of Oklahoma . . . Eight
Matthew R. Durrant, University of Utah . . . Quintet No. 2
Then on Saturday night at 8 p.m. in the historic Gates of Heaven Synagogue (below), located at 300 East Gorham Street, in James Madison Park in downtown Madison, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble will perform a concert of vocal and instrumental early music on period instruments.
The program includes:
1. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – Duet No. 2 for two flutes in E-flat major, F. 55
2. Jean Baptiste Barrière – Cello Sonata No. 3, Book 2
3. Georg Philipp Telemann – Suite 1 from “Six Paris Quartets”
4. Johann Friedrich Fasch – Sonata for bassoon and continuo in C major
INTERMISSION
5. Benoit Guillement – Sonata No. 1 for two traversi
6. Johann Sebastian Bach – “Die Schätzbarkeit der weiten Erde” from cantata BWV 204 (heard at the bottom in a YouTube video featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman and soprano Kathleen Battle.)
7. Carl Friedrich Abel – Sonata a viola da gamba solo et basso, WKO 160.
8. Johann Christian Bach – Quartetto for traverso, violin, viola, and bass.
9. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier – Concerto a cing parties, from Op.37.
Tickets are available only at the door. Admission is $15, $10 for students. Feel free to bring your own chair or pillow. For more information, call (608) 238-5126 or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org.
Members of the Wisconsin Barqoue Ensemble are: Theresa Koenig – baroque bassoon; Brett Lipshutz – traverse; Mary Perkinson – baroque violin; Consuelo Sañudo – mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger – traverse; Eric Miller – viola da gamba, baroque cello; Anton TenWolde – baroque cello; and Max Yount – harpsichord.
Tags: Antonín Dvořák, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Chamber music, chamber orchestra, choral music, Classical music, concerto, Early music, Fasch, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Franz Schubert, Gates of Heaven Synagogue, Jacob Stockinger, James Madison Park, Johann Christian Bach, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Metropolitan Opera, Music, New Music, Orchestra, Overture Center, Passion, percussion, Piano, Piano Trio, Quartet, quintet, Requiem, Saturday, Sonata, Telemann, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, woodwind, Woodwind quintet, YouTube
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