The Well-Tempered Ear
The New York Times names the top 25 classical recordings of 2020 and includes sample tracks
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By Jacob Stockinger
What did the holidays bring you?
Did Hanukkah, Christmas or Kwanzaa bring you a gift card?
A subscription to a streaming service?
Maybe some cash?
Or maybe you just want to hear some new music or new musicians or new interpretations of old classics?
Every year, the music critics of The New York Times list their top 25 recordings of the past year. Plus at the end of the story, the newspaper offers a sample track from each recording to give you even more guidance.
This year is no exception (below).
In fact, the listing might be even more welcome this year, given the coronavirus pandemic with the lack of live concerts and the isolation and self-quarantine that have ensued.
The Ear hasn’t heard all of the picks or even the majority of them. But the ones he has heard are indeed outstanding. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear a sample of the outstanding Rameau-Debussy recital by the acclaimed Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafssen, who scored major successes with recent albums of Philip Glass and Johann Sebastian Bach.)
Here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/arts/music/best-classical-music.html
Of course not all critics agree.
The Ear has already listed the nominations for the Grammy Awards (a link is below), and more critics’ picks will be featured in coming days.
You should also notice that a recording of Ethel Smyth’s “The Prison” — featuring soprano Sarah Brailey (below), a graduate student at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and a co-founder of Just Bach — is on the Times’ list as well as on the list of Grammy nominations.
What new recordings – or even old recordings — would you recommend?
The Ear wants to hear.
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UW-Madison will forego in-person concerts through the fall and go virtual. The FREE online concerts start TONIGHT, Monday, Sept. 14, at 6-8:30 p.m. with a graduate student recital
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PLEASE NOTE: The following post has been updated with more information since it first appeared.
By Jacob Stockinger
In ordinary times, the yearlong schedule would be set and concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music would be already well underway.
But these are not ordinary times – as you can tell from the silence about the UW season that usually presents some 300 events.
It has taken time, but the music school has finally worked out the basic approach to concerts during the pandemic. It will allow worldwide listening.
Audiences will NOT be present for any Mead Witter School of Music concerts or recitals this fall. Instead, a live stream of faculty recitals and all required student recitals, many of them in the new Hamel Music Center (below), will be available.
The portal to the live streaming, along with a scheduling clock and time countdown, can be found at: youtube.com/meadwitterschoolofmusic
The concert season starts tonight at 6:30 to 8 p.m. The performer is graduate student flutist Heidi Keener (below), who is giving her recital for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. The recital was postponed from March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On the school of music’s concert website you will find a biography and the program — just hover the computer’s cursor over the event: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/recital-heidi-keener-dma/.
The same information will also be on the YouTube website for the actual concert. Just click on MORE: https://youtu.be/gA6S3OXUKCc
Given so few calendar listings so far, clearly the format is still a work-in-progress.
For updated listings of other events, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/events/
The next events are slated for Oct. 2 with a student recital and another installment of the Pro Arte Quartet’s Beethoven cycle (below).
That other programs and dates are still missing is not surprising.
The entire UW-Madison from classes to sports, is in a state of flux about how to deal with the pandemic, with in-person classes paused through Sept. 25, and possibly longer.
Many questions about concerts remain as the process plays out.
All live-stream concerts will be free. But they will NOT be archived, so they will be taken down as soon as they end.
A donation link to the UW Foundation will be included to help cover the costs of the livestreaming and also other expenses.
Will choral concerts even take place, given that singing is especially risky because the singers can’t wear masks and social distancing is nearly impossible to provide with groups?
What about chamber music groups like the Pro Arte Quartet, the Wingra Wind Quintet and Wisconsin Brass Quintet? Many faculty members, who have to teach virtually and online right now, are no doubt concerned about the possible health risks of playing in groups.
And what about the excellent UW Symphony Orchestra, which The Ear considers a must-hear local orchestral ensemble? Those musicians too will have a hard time social distancing – unless individual safe performances at home or in a studio are edited and stitched together.
So far, though, we know that the University Opera will offer “I Wish It Were So,” an original revue of the American opera composer Marc Blitzstein on Oct. 23.
Here is a link to a story with more details about the production: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/classical-music-the-university-opera-announces-a-new-season-that-is-politically-and-socially-relevant-to-today-the-two-shows-are-a-virtual-revue-of-marc-blitzstein-and-a-live-operatic-version-of/
What do you think of the plans for the concert season?
Do you have any suggestions?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #AcademicCalendar, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BrassMusic, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralMusic, #CollinsRecitalHall, #ConcertSeason, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #DoctorofMusicalArts, #EventsCalendar, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FacultyMember, #FluteMusic, #Googlesearch, #GraduateStudent, #HamelMusicCenter, #HeidiKeener, #JacobStockinger, #LaborCosts, #LiveStreaming, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MarcBlitzstein, #MeadWitterFoundationConcertHall, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #Musicfaculty, #OrchestralMusic, #ProArteQuartet, #SocialDistancing, #StringQuartet, #TheEar, #TheUW, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UniversityOpera, #UW-SymphonyOrchestra, #UWFoundation, #VocalMusic, #WindMusic, #WingraWindQuartet, #WisconsinBrassQuintet, #YouTubeChannel, #YouTubevideo, academic calendar, American, appear, approach, archive, archived, Arts, ask, audience, basic, Beethoven, blog, brass, calendar, cancel, canceled, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, classes, Classical music, click, Clock, Collins Recital Hall, computer, Concert, concert season, coronavirus, costs, countdown, cursor, degree, details, Doctor of Musical Arts, donation, editstich, ensemble, event, excellent, expenses, Facebook, faculty, fall, flute, flutist, flux, free, Google, graduate student, group, groups, Hamel Music Center, Health, hear, Heidi Keener, Home, hover, impossible, in person, individual, Jacob Stockinger, labor costs, like, link, listening, listing, live streaming, live-stream, livestream, local, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Marc Blitzstein, mask, masks, Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, Mead Witter School of Music, more, Music, music school, Musician, must-hear, news, online, opera, Orchestra, orchestral music, ordinary, original, pandemic, PAQ, paused, payment, performance, plans, play, portal, post, posting, postpone, postponed, present, Pro Arte Quartet, process, production, progress, question, recital, require, research, revue, risk, risky, safe, schedule, school, School of Music, search, Season, share, silence, sing, singer, Singing, social distancing, Sports, state, story, String quartet, Student, suggestion, symphony, tag, teach, The Ear, time, times, together, tonight, underway, United States, university, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, updated, UW, UW Foundation, UW Symphony Orchestra, UW-Madison, Viola, Violin, virtual, vocal music, Website, wind music, Wind quintet, Wingra Wind Quintet, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Brass, Wisconsin Brass Quintet, work, worldwide, yearlong, you, YouTube
Classical music: Today is the Summer Solstice. What music best greets summer during this odd year? Plus, here is information about Make Music Madison this Sunday
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today – Saturday, June 20, 2020 – is the Summer Solstice.
Summer officially arrives this afternoon at 4:43 p.m. CDT.
Is The Ear alone in thinking that the time since the winter solstice has passed both more slowly and also more quickly than usual, thanks to the pandemic?
And now the days will start getting shorter. Can that be possible? Is the year really half over?
Well, it has been an unusual spring and promises to be an unusual summer, to say the least.
So how about some unusual Vivaldi?
If you listen to Wisconsin Public Radio, chances are good that today or sometime soon you will hear the hyper-popular original version of “Summer” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”
But The Ear finds this unusual contemporary version a welcome change from the over-programmed and too familiar original version, and more appropriate to the special summer that will follow the special spring.
It is a version that has been “recomposed” by British composer Max Richter (below top) with violin soloist Daniel Hope (below bottom), a protege of the legendary Yehudi Menuhin, who performed several years ago with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The Ear finds the entire work very appealing, but here is the YouTube video of just the Summer section as it was being recorded.
If you don’t like this music, what music would you choose to listen to as you celebrate the coming of summer?
And if you like this excerpt, here is a link to the complete version of “Vivaldi Recomposed”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJnxPgT83rw
MAKE MUSIC MADISON
Today may be the Summer Solstice, but this year’s Make Music Madison will take place this Sunday, which also happens to be Father’s Day.
The eight annual Make Music Madison – which includes classical music but also rock, jazz, folk, blues, hip-hop and country — is part of Make Music Day, an international celebration of the Summer Solstice that this year will take place in some 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Here is a helpful listing with locations, time, performers and programs as well as form (virtual and online, with links, or real): http://www.makemusicmadison.org
Here is a story with more background about the event: http://www.makemusicday.org
If you attend or hear some of the events, let us know what you thought.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Musical America offers an exhaustive and helpful guide to international FREE streaming of operas, concerts and recitals, complete with program notes and links for listening
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By Jacob Stockinger
During the COVID-19 pandemic, so much music is being streamed – through both live streaming and delayed pre-recorded streaming – that it can be hard to keep track of it all.
After all, the events are taking place locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
How do you know what operas, orchestral concerts, chamber music concerts and individual recitals will take place? Where and when they will take place? What time is it in your time zone? And where do you find links to the performances, such as those by the famed Berlin Philharmonic (below)?
Getting so much information can be daunting.
But one loyal reader has helped The Ear by sending word about the most exhaustive compilation or online guide to FREE streaming of classical music events he has seen so far.
It is done by Musical America, and The Ear highly recommends it.
The Musical America website advises users that the guide will be updated twice weekly, and that Central European Time (CET) is six hours ahead of Eastern Daylight time (EDT) — or seven hours ahead of Central Daylight Time (CDT).
It also tells you how long many of the streamed videos are available for. A full 23 or 24 hours after the initial airing seems pretty average. But many appealing events – by some of the most prestigious organizations and individual performers in the world — will be available for the entire duration of the coronavirus pandemic.
You also get concise notes about the performers and the programs.
Today and tonight, for example, you could take in productions by the Berlin State Opera, the Zurich Opera and Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera (below) and the Vienna State Opera.
You could also take in the historical performances from the ongoing Cliburn Watch Party from the Cliburn International Piano Competition, and the twice weekly concerts by the six musically talented children in the acclaimed Kanneh-Mason family in England, now dubbed “The Von Trapp’s of classical music.” (Below is cellist brother Sheku Kanneh-Mason performing at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.)
And you could listen to award-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein (below) will also discuss and play all 36 movements of the six solo cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach that she recently recorded and just released.
The guide lists some of the more outstanding paid websites such as Medici TV but also lists events that took place much earlier but are still available for free watching and listening.
The guide has a link so that organizations can submit their own events for listing or users can make suggestions.
In short, the Musical America guide is extremely useful. You should probably bookmark it if you are planning to listen to a lot of musical events online through streaming.
But don’t take The Ear’s word for it. Take a look and check it out for yourself.
Here is a link: https://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?storyid=44766&categoryid=1&archived=0
What do you think of it?
Do you find it useful and think you will?
Do you see any major shortcomings or overlooked events?
Recommendations of your own?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Rediscovering the music of composer Florence Price is a great way to start the celebration of Black History Month
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By Jacob Stockinger
February is Black History Month.
There are a lot of African-American performers and composers to emphasize during the month. Check out this exhaustive listing – conveniently organized into categories such as composers, conductors and pianists — in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-American_classical_musicians
But this year one of the best ways to mark the event is to rediscover the composer Florence Price (below, in photos from the University of Arkansas Libraries).
Much of her work was until recently hidden in 30 boxes in her abandoned and dilapidated summer home located 70 miles south of Chicago.
A good introduction to Price (1887-1953) – who was famous in her day and was the first African-American woman composer to be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — can be found in the Deceptive Cadence blog of National Public Radio (NPR).
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/21/686622572/revisiting-the-pioneering-composer-florence-price
Here is a link to an excerpt from a new Albany recording of her two violin concertos:
And if you want to hear more of what her music sounds like check out the YouTube video at the bottom that has excerpts from the new Naxos recording, in the American Classics line, with her Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4.
You can also find quite a bit more of Price’s music, including a piano concerto, a piano sonata and orchestral suites, on YouTube.
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Classical music: The fifth FREE citywide annual Make Music Madison – featuring 300 concerts at 100 venues — takes place all day tomorrow
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By Jacob Stockinger
Tomorrow – Thursday, June 21, 2018 — is the Summer Solstice.
That means summer arrives.
That makes it the longest day and shortest night of the year.
And that also makes it the day when the fifth annual Make Music Madison will take place. The FREE citywide festival of outdoor music-making will go on all day.
According to the official website, there will be more than 300 concerts at more than 100 venues.
The website also has a very well-organized listing of concerts, artists and venues. It features a very user-friendly search engine – called a Filter Map — where you can check out the events by genre of music, name of the performers and the venue. It also includes rain accommodations, and given the weather this week, that could come in handy.
Here is a link to the complete listings:
http://www.makemusicmadison.org/listings/2018/locations/
Here is a link to the website, which has a fascinating and impressive overview and also a gallery of photos from last year’s event:
http://www.makemusicmadison.org
Of course the majority of the music that will be played by both amateurs and professionals, both individuals and groups, will be non-classical: jazz, pop, hip-hop, rock and roll, folk, world, musical theater, early music, blues, Celtic, funk, gospel and many more.
But from what The Ear sees there are about 25 noteworthy classical offerings too. They include music for guitar, organ, brass, strings, cello, flute and piano, including a public piano that will be at the UW-Madison’s Alumni Park from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Other venues include churches and libraries, schools and shopping malls, parks and businesses.
Here is a more detailed list of classical offerings with artists as well as venues (you can hear a vocal group from 2015 in the YouTube video at the bottom):
http://www.makemusicmadison.org/listings/2018/artists?artist_name=&genre=Classical
Happy Listening!
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Here are many more FREE online and streamed concerts to follow and listen to as you quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic
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By Jacob Stockinger
During the COVID-19 public health crisis and coronavirus pandemic, live streaming of concerts has taken off. It started with daily broadcasts of past productions by the Metropolitan Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Local organizations have followed suit. They include the Madison Symphony Orchestra; the “couchertos” of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra; the twice weekly “tiny desk concerts” by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society sent to email newsletter subscribers and other recorded audiovisual performances; and local recordings made by Rich Samuels and aired on WORT-FM 89.9.
Here is a compilation, from the British radio station Classic FM with many other FREE listings that also get updated: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/live-streamed-classical-music-concerts-coronavirus/
Here is another listing of FREE live streams and archived performances from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR): https://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2020/03/16/free-online-classical-concerts
And below are several more that The Ear has checked out and recommends:
CARNEGIE HALL LIVE
Carnegie Hall (below), America’s premier concert venue, has started a series of live streams that include world music, jazz and of course classical music.
The format includes conversation and remarks from homes as well as first-rate live performances from the past. (You can also hear many of the concerts on radio station WQXR in New York City: https://www.wqxr.org)
This past week, The Ear heard an outstanding concert with three pianists, all of whom appeared in Madison last season: Emanuel Ax, who performed an all-Beethoven recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater, played the piano and acted as host; Orion Weiss, who performed a Mozart concerto with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra; and Shai Wosner, who gave a terrific master class and a memorable recital on the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos. If you missed it, it is still archived and accessible.
On this Thursday, April 30, at 1 p.m. CDT you can hear violinist Joshua Bell with pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis.
Here is a link: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Watch-and-Listen/Live-with-Carnegie-Hall?sourceCode=31887&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsYigzumB6QIVjIbACh061Qz2EAAYASABEgJE3fD_BwE
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
Deutsche Grammophon, the world oldest record label, which was established in 1898, has several online series of live streams and archived concerts.
They include “Moment Musical” (Musical Moment) by Daniel Barenboim and guest artists, broadcast from the Pierre Boulez Saal (concert hall) in Berlin.
Barenboim, who started as a child prodigy pianist and ended up being a world-class conductor who once headed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has done solo piano and chamber music concerts with the Piano Quintet and two solo pieces by Robert Schumann; the epic Diabelli Variations by Beethoven; and an all-Chopin program of encores. You can also find individual ones on YouTube.
Along more promotional lines, DG also offers a “Best of” series that features movements and excerpts from their newer recordings by some of the best known artists – including pianists Lang Lang, Danill Trifonov, Yuja Wang, Vikingur Olafsson, Jan Lisiecki and Seong-Jin Cho; conductors Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Andris Nelsons; opera singers Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca.
Here is a link to DG’s homepage from where you can get to the various series: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC34DbNyD_0t8tnOc5V38Big
MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Closer to home, every Friday you can listen to weekly concerts by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra called “Musical Journeys.”
Performers include the MSO’s new music director Ken-David Masur as well as guest conductors like Jeffrey Kahane and the past conductor Edo de Waart.
You can hear the past five episodes, and join new ones. You can also hear past concerts by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (below) on Wisconsin Public Radio. Broadcast time is Sunday at 2 p.m.
Here is a link to Musical Journeys: https://www.mso.org/about/music/mso-musical-journeys-5/
VIOLINIST DANIEL HOPE AT HOME
British violinist Daniel Hope – who has performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra — has been streaming chamber music concerts from the living room of his home in Berlin.
A prolific concert artist and 25 recordings and four Grammy Award nominations to his credit, Hope (below) has many invited guests and offers a wide range of repertoire.
Here is a link with past episodes. You can also click in upcoming episodes: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/RC-019356/hope-home/
Are there other sites and streamed performances that you recommend?
Please leave the name and a link in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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