The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day concert, with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and new concert attire, will air Sunday on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television
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| By Jacob Stockinger
Here is the latest on a popular tradition to kick off the New Year: The Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day concert, From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2017,” conducted for the first time by Gustavo Dudamel, will air on Great Performances on PBS stations across the country on Sunday, January 1. It will air at 10 a.m.-noon on Wisconsin Public Radio, and at 6:30-8 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television. (At noon, WPR will broadcast another celebratory work for the New Year: the Madison Symphony Orchestra under John DeMain performing the Ninth Symphony “Choral,” with its “Ode to Joy” finale, by Ludwig van Beethoven,)
For more than 75 years, the Vienna Philharmonic has ushered in the New Year with the light and lively, quintessentially Austrian music of Johann Strauss, his family, and their contemporaries, performed at the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein. Since 1987, the concert has featured a different conductor each year, and this year Mr. Dudamel, 35, will be the youngest-ever to lead the popular and festive New Year’s concert.
The Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert is broadcast in over 90 countries and will have an estimated 50 million television viewers, making it the largest worldwide event in classical music. Among traditional waltzes, polkas and other works, Mr. Dudamel will conduct Strauss’s famous “Blue Danube” Waltz on the occasion of the work’s 150th anniversary, and pieces by Otto Nicolai, founder of the Vienna Philharmonic. Host Julie Andrews (below) will also take the viewer to picturesque Viennese landmarks, including Otto Nicolai’s study in the Haus der Musik, and will join Mr. Dudamel in visiting the student musicians of Superar, the El Sistema organization for Central Europe. Mr. Dudamel was famously a product of the El Sistema program in his native Venezuela, and this broadcast will offer a special look at these talented musicians of tomorrow.
While the Vienna Philharmonic, which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year, honors tradition and history with the New Year’s concert, it also looks to the future with the debut of its new concert attire designed exclusively for the orchestra by Dame Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler. Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, Andreas Großbauer, recognizes the importance of linking the past and present and uniting practicality with modern elegance. “In the age of video streaming and HD broadcasts, it is increasingly important how an orchestra appears onstage. In Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler, we have found a design duo which suits the high standards of the Vienna Philharmonic brand.” The new philharmonic suit features an updated design to the traditional garments worn by the orchestra. Customarily, men of the Philharmonic have performed in the Stresemann, a semi-formal suit with striped formal trousers, grey waistcoat and necktie for daytime concerts and a formal tailcoat, striped formal trousers, and white waistcoat and bow tie for evening performances, while the women have chosen their own formal black concert attire.
Vivienne Westwood and her design partner and husband, Andreas Kronthaler, who are known for their nonconformist yet historically inspired fashion, have redesigned and modernized the traditional day and evening suits with contemporary functionally in mind. The designers have also created a first-ever Philharmonic ladies suit for both day and evening concerts. The new suits are tailored in the traditional cut of Savile Row Bespoke and feature a modern black cutaway jacket, worn in lieu of the tailcoat, paired with the traditional striped trousers and waistcoat. For day concerts, the men will wear a silver-grey waistcoat and tie embroidered with the Vienna Philharmonic logo, and for evening concerts, a white waistcoat and bow tie inspired by a classic white-tie suit. The ladies suit features a black collarless coat and slim-cut trousers. For day concerts, the suit is paired with a silver-grey top that complements the men’s day suits, and for evening, a black silk top. Here is a summary and the playlist: Vienna Singverein Concert Choir Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor Julie Andrews, Host FRANZ VON SUPPE Queen of Spades, Overture (Pique Dame) C.M. ZIEHRER Right This Way, Waltz – Ballet OTTO NICOLAI Moon Chorus OTTO NICOLAI The Merry Wives of Windsor JOHANN STRAUSS Pepita Polka JOHANN STRAUSS The Extravagant, Waltz JOHANN STRAUSS, SR Indian Galop JOSEF STRAUSS The Nasswald Forest Maiden, Ländler JOHANN STRAUSS Let’s Dance, Quick Polka – Ballet JOHANN STRAUSS A Thousand and One Nights, Waltz JOHANN STRAUSS Tick Tock Quick Polka EDUARD STRAUSS With Pleasure! Quick Polka JOHANN STRAUSS On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Waltz JOHANN STRAUSS, SR Radetzky March |
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Leon Fleisher, the inspirational pianist and teacher who died a week ago, had ties to Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
Famed American pianist and teacher Leon Fleisher (below, in a photo by Chris Hartlove), who also conducted, died of cancer at 92 last Sunday, Aug. 2.
Wisconsin Public Radio, like many other media outlets including National Public Radio (NPR) and most major newspapers and television stations, devoted a lot of time to tributes to and remembrances of Fleisher.
That is as it should be. If any musician deserved it, Fleisher did.
Fleisher (1928-2020) was a titan who became, over many years and despite major personal setbacks — stemming from an almost paralyzed right hand — a lot more than a keyboard virtuoso.
But despite lots of air time, less well covered has been his relationship to Madison audiences, who had the pleasure of seeing and hearing him several times in person.
In 2003 and then again in 2016 (below top) — at age 88 — Fleisher performed with the University of Wisconsin’s Pro Arte String Quartet (below bottom).
Both times he played the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, a masterpiece of chamber music. He and his wife, Katherine Jacobson, also performed a joint recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater in 2009.
Fleisher felt at home in Baroque, Classical, Romantic and even modern music. He was renowned as an interpreter of Brahms. Indeed, his early and widely acclaimed recordings of both Brahms piano concertos as well as of the Waltzes and Handel Variations remain landmarks.
Once he was again playing with both hands, Fleisher also recorded the piano quintet for Deutsche Grammophon with the Emerson String Quartet, another frequent and favorite performer in Madison. (You can hear the finale in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a this blog’s review of his last Madison appearance: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Leon+Fleisher
Fleisher liked performing with the Pro Arte, and therein lies another historical tale.
His most influential teacher — the famed pianist Artur Schnabel, with whom the San Francisco-born Fleisher went to study in Europe when he was just 9 — also played often with the earlier members of Pro Arte Quartet. Together they recorded Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet by Franz Schubert, and that recording is still in the catalogue and available on Amazon.
Fleisher discusses studying with Schnabel in his entertaining and informative 2010 autobiography “My Nine Lives” (below).
Fleisher was a child prodigy who made his name while still young. Famed French conductor Pierre Monteux – who conducted the world premiere of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” in Paris — called Fleisher the “musical find of the century.” Fleisher made his concerto debut at 16 with the New York Philharmonic under Monteux.
Fleisher was just 36 and preparing for a tour with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell – a perfect pairing and a conductor with whom he recorded all the Beethoven and Brahms concertos among may others – when he found he could not uncurl the last three fingers of his right hand.
Various diagnoses and causes were offered, and many cures were tried. In the end, it seems like that it was a case of focal dystonia that was caused by over-practicing, especially octaves. “I pounded ivory six or seven hours a day,” Fleisher later said.
After a period of depression and soul-searching, Fleisher then focused on performing music for the left hand; on conducting; and especially on teaching for more than 60 years at the Peabody Institute, located in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University.
There he helped shaped the career of many other famous pianists, including André Watts, Yefim Bronfman and Jonathan Biss (below, in a photo by Julian Edelstein), who played when Fleisher received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007. (All three have performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)
Here is an inspiring overview of Fleisher’s life and career from the Peabody Institute: https://peabody.jhu.edu/faculty/leon-fleisher/
And here is another short biography from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Fleisher
Here are three especially noteworthy obituaries:
NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2020/08/02/702978476/leon-fleisher-the-pianist-who-reinvented-himself-dies-at-92
The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/arts/music/leon-fleisher-dead.html
The Washington Post, written by critic Anne Midgette who worked with Fleisher on his memoir: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/leon-fleisher-sublime-pianist-with-one-hand-or-two-dies-at-92/2020/08/02/c7c98f90-527d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
The Ear has always found Fleisher’s playing remarkable for its technical fluency combined with the utmost clarity and exacting but flexible sense of rhythm. He always managed to make a piece of music sound just right, as it was intended to sound. His musicality always seemed innate and perfectly natural.
Sample it for yourself. The Ear thinks the performance of all five Beethoven concertos with George Szell still sets a high standard with its exciting, upbeat tempi, its exemplary balance between piano and orchestra, and its exceptional engineering.
The affable Fleisher will long remain an inspiration not only for his playing and teaching, but also for his determination to overcome personal obstacles and go on to serve music — not just the piano.
Did you ever hear Leon Fleisher play live or in recordings? What did you think?
Do you have a comment to leave about the legacy of Fleisher?
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