The Well-Tempered Ear
Is piano-mania in China fading?
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By Jacob Stockinger
You have probably heard of piano superstars Lang Lang and Yuja Wang. Maybe even of prize-winners Yundi Li and Haochen Zhang, who both won the Van Cliburn competition while in their teens.
The Ear recently read where there are more piano students in China — the People’s Republic of China — than in Europe, North America and South America combined. In 2019, one music website estimated that “over 40 million Chinese kids are studying the piano today, with some sources going as high as 50 million.”
How did this piano phenomenon come about?
As Bloomberg news recently reported: “China’s love affair with the piano goes back several decades. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the instrument was condemned as a symbol of the bourgeoisie. But thanks to the economic reforms and the country’s opening up, the piano became an affordable luxury for a quickly expanding middle class.” (Is it a similar story in South Korea, which has produced many outstanding pianists and winners of international competitions?)
That sounds familiar — similar to what happened in Western culture as the middle class expanded and Hausmusik for amateur musicians took hold. It was a time when most middle-class households had a piano. But now that is fading in the West. Check out all the used pianos listed for sale on Craig’s List and other places.
For more detailed background about about the role of pianos and classical music in China, see this 2019 post by Ludwig-Van.com:
But now news reports say China’s economy is headed for hard times.
What does that mean for piano-mania in China?
Maybe the same thing that has happened in Europe and the United States?
Here is an updated story from another source that says the Chinese piano craze is playing itself out:
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1014703
Do you have an opinion about China and its love affair with pianos and Western music?
About the fate of pianos and piano lessons in the West?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Is this summer’s Token Creek Festival on or off? And if it is on, what form will it take? We will know the delayed decision by July 15
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By Jacob Stockinger
For 30 years, the Token Creek Festival (below), which takes place in a refurbished barn, has been a welcome and distinguished bridge from the summer concert season to the autumn season.
It usually takes place from late August through early September.
And by this time we usually know the theme, the performers and the ever-inventive programs that co-directors John and Rose Mary Harbison (below), along with managing director Sarah Schaffer, have put together. (Editor’s note: You can hear festival participants rehearsing the beautiful opening of the slow movement to the Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
But not this year.
Thanks to challenges and complications from the coronavirus and the public health crisis posed by COVID-19, a stop-or-go decision has been postponed until July 15.
Will there be one or more live events? Will the festival be virtual and online? Will guest artists and even the Harbisons risk traveling by plane? Will the mainly older public attend? There are many variables to take into account.
Here is an official announcement from the festival:
Dear Friends,
The middle of June is when we usually announce our concerts for the season, scheduled every year to begin in late August and run through Labor Day.
As we continue to endure the many shifts of the crises of health, politics and civil rights, we find ourselves struggling to understand all the contradictions.
In spite of it all, we have some hopes for a concert emblematic of the festival — perhaps a single event taking advantage of the small venue (below top and bottom), with the audience socially distanced or virtually engaged, or perhaps new dates later in the season — having a chance to recall what we have enjoyed together.
So we are delaying our announcement of what the Token Creek Festival might present, with a final decision by July 15. (Editor’s note: You can check at: http://tokencreekfestival.org.)
It is hard to give up something that has been evolving for 30 years and counting. It is a luxury and a lifeline for both the performers and the listeners, something that holds us fast in spite of the present challenges.
We are not yet advertising or taking ticket orders or building new facilities. But we, and the artists who are holding dates for us, are doing something else: We are practicing, imagining, thinking in real terms about presenting concerts again.
If for no other than those reasons, we beg the indulgence of our friends as we become perhaps the last to depart the season, or among the few to be able to propose some radical, slim, socially distanced, barn-size festival.
We hope you will stay tuned, as we are staying tuned.
And we’ll let you know what’s possible by mid-July.
With warm wishes,
John and Rose Mary and Sarah, TCF Directors
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Classical music: There was so much to like about the Grand Tour finale of the 2019 Madison Early Music Festival. But where were the high notes in Allegri’s legendary “Miserere”?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Fair is fair.
Before he talks about last Saturday night’s conclusion of the successful 2019 Madison Early Music Festival – which marked its 20th anniversary — The Ear has a confession to make: He generally prefers later Baroque music and he generally prefers instrumental music to vocal or choral music.
That said, he nonetheless had a memorable and very enjoyable time on the “Grand Tour” during the well-attended All-Festival concert. There was so much to like and to admire.
The concert used the conceit of a Grand Tour by a composite 17th-century traveler going to London, Venice, Rome, Naples, Paris and Dresden to take in the local sights and local music, and included lesser-known composers such as William Lawes and William Child as well as such famous figures as Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Gabrieli , Jean-Baptiste Lullyand Heinrich Schütz.
Like most journeys, this one – once again assembled in an ingenious scissors-and-paste job by early music specialist Grant Herreid (below) – had many entertaining and uplifting moments.
But it also had one big disappointment.
The Ear really looked forward to hearing a live performance of the famous “Miserere” by Gregorio Allegri (below) as a high point. But those haunting, ultra-high descant notes that give you goosebumps and that you never forget hearing just never materialized.
Maybe it had to do with the different ornamentation that the MEMF forces used. Maybe it was based on a different manuscript or score. Maybe there was no one capable of singing those spellbinding and unforgettable high notes.
Whatever the reason, The Ear’s hope for a live performance of the dramatic and iconic work were dashed and the famous, even classic, recorded versions – the 1980 recording by the Tallis Scholars is heard in the YouTube video at the bottom — remain for him the unsurpassed standard.
The evening also had its ironies. That same night on the NBC TV news The Ear saw a story about “overtourism” in Europe and China. Venice, for example, has now shrunk to only about 50,000 unhappy residents who put up with some 20 million tourists a year.
But centuries ago, travel was a rare and exotic luxury of the wealthy and well-educated, not an affordable indulgence or curiosity by ever-expanding middle classes. And this metaphorical trip proved an ideal vehicle to sample 16th- and 17th-century music in England, France, Germany and Italy.
Combining high culture and low, Herreid chose witty and detailed travelogue texts that gave the audience the rich flavor of various cultures at the time.
Details mattered to the four sharp-eyed travelers on which this tour was based. So as “our hero” wandered, we got to hear about the “libidinous ladies” of Naples and the musical talented courtesans of Venice as well as the richly attired archbishop of Paris attending a feast day service in the newly finished Notre-Dame cathedral.
Such descriptions were well delivered by unnamed narrators (below) from the chorus and proved a refreshingly earthy and entertaining counterpoint to the more serious spiritual and religious music of the era.
Another big satisfaction was the exceptional quality of the ensemble playing – exhibited even in large amounts of less interesting music — by the many singers and instrumentalists on the stage of Mills Hall, and, at one point, in the hall’s balcony.
Whether the players and singers were conducted by Herreid or by assistant conductor Jerry Hui — a UW-Madison graduate who is now a tenured professor at UW-Stout — the music sounded tight, authentic and expressive.
As for more superficial pleasures, it is great visual fun watching such early versions of modern string, wind and percussion instruments being played — trombone-like sackbuts, oboe-like shawms, flute-like recorders and lute-like theorbos. (Below are cello-like viols.)
The players, both faculty and students, were particularly convincing on their own in the sound painting done to depict battle scenes and political upheaval. And who will ever forget the surprise of loud foot-stomping by all the performers and conductor?
Herreid was absolutely spot-on to keep the program to about 80 minutes with no intermission. It helped the audience stay in the spirit of the Grand Tour and added cohesion to the program.
The Grand Tour, in short, proved outstanding in concept and excellent in execution.
But was The Ear alone in missing to those high notes?
Tags: #All-FestivalConcert, #ArgentineanComposer, #BaroqueEra, #BaroqueMusic, #BaroqueOrnamentation, #BaroqueRecorder, #BaroqueSingingStyle, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BlogReview, #ChineseTourism, #ChoralMusic, #ClassicalRecording, #ClaudioMonteverdi, #DresdenGermany, #EnsemblePlaying, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FacultyMember, #FeastDay, #GiovanniGabrieli, #GrandTour, #GrantHerreid, #GregorioAllegri, #HeinrichSchütz, #HighCulture, #HighPoint, #InstrumentalMusic, #Jean-BaptisteLully, #JerryHui, #LivePerformance, #LondonEngland, #LowCulture, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #Middle-Class, #MillsHall, #Musicfaculty, #MusicReview, #NaplesItaly, #NBCNews, #NotreDame, #NotreDamedeParis, #ParisFrance, #ReligiousMusic, #RomeItaly, #SaturdayNight, #Scissors-and-Paste, #Sharp-eyed, #SistineChapel, #SoundPainting, #TallisScholars, #TelevisionNews, #theorbomusic, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VeniceItaly, #VocalMusic, #WealthyPeople, #Well-Attended, #Well-Education, #WilliamLawes, #YouTubevideo, ago, All-Festival concert, anniversary, anonymous, archbishop, Arts, attire, audience, authentic, balcony, Baroque, Baroque music, battle, blog, capable, cathedral, Cello, centuries, century, China, choral music, chorus, classic, Classical music, Claudio Monteverdi, cohere, cohesion, Compact Disc, composer, composite, concept, Concert, conduct, conductor, confession, counterpoint, courtesan, culture, cultures, deliver, delivered, description, detail, detailed, disappointment, drama, dramatic, Dresden, Early music, earthy, England, enjoyable, ensemble, entertaining, era, Europe, evening, excellent, execution, exotic, expressive, Facebook, faculty, fair, famous, feast day, fine, finish, flavor, flute, foot, forces, forget, forward, France, fun, Germany, Giovanni Gabrieli, goosebumps, Grand Tour, Grant Herreid, Gregorio Allegri, haunting, Heinrich Schütz, high, high culture, high notes, high point, iconic, ideal, ingenious, instrumental, instrumental music, instrumentalists, interesting, intermission, ironies, irony, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jerry Hui, journey, ladies, lesser-known, libidinous, libido, like, link, live performance, local, London, loud, low, low culture, Lully, lute, luxury, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, manuscript, materialize, matter, Mead Witter School of Music, MEMF, memorable, metaphorical, million, Mills Hall, Miserere, moment, Music, music review, Naples, narrator, NBC, new, news, nightly, Notre Dame, Notre Dame de Paris, Oboe, Orchestra, ornamentation, outstanding, overtourism, Paris, percussion, performer, playing, pleasurer, political, post, posting, prefer, professor, program, rare, reader, recorder, recording, refreshing, religious, religious music, resident, review, rich, Rome, sackbut, sample, satisfaction, Saturday night, scene, score, serious, service, share, shawm, short, sights, singers, Singing, Sistine Chapel, Sound, sound painting, spellbinding, spirit, spiritual, stage, standard, stomp, string, successful, superficial, surprise, tag, talented, Tallis Scholars, Television, television news, tenure, texts, theorbo, tight, time, tourism, tourists, traveler, travelogue, trip, Trombone, TV, unforgettable, unhappy, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unknown, unnamed, unsurpassed, upheaval, uplifting, UW-Stout, Vatican, vehicle, Venice, version, Viol, Viola, Violin, vocal music, watch, wealth, wealthy, well-educated, William Lawes, Wind, Wisconsin, witty, year, YouTube
Classical music: Here is a true tale of a famous Mozart opera, sexual assault and Trump Tower
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By Jacob Stockinger
World-famous avant-garde stage director Peter Sellars (below, in a photo by Christian Carisius for the European Press Photo Agency) is known for his unorthodox recasting of operas and Bach cantatas.
But one of his productions, done almost 30 years ago, has proven especially prescient.
It involved the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which years ago he set in Trump Tower.
The plot centers on the medieval “droit du seigneur” that allowed a nobleman to be entitled by law to have sex with a servant on her wedding night before the husband did. (In the YouTube video at bottom is the famous and so breathtakingly beautiful Forgiveness scene, featured in the Oscar-winning film “Amadeus,” with the faithful Countess and the philandering Count that ends the masterpiece opera.)
In 1988 Sellars set the opera on the 52nd floor of the luxurious Trump Tower (below), as the equivalent of an aristocratic estate, of net-feudalistic excess and wealth.
With great insight and articulateness, Sellars recently discussed with The New York Times the inspired settings in light of the past history, campaign and recent election of President-elect Donald Trump.
The Ear found the interview both enlightening and entertaining, and he hopes you do too.
Here is a link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/arts/music/remember-when-figaro-was-set-in-trump-tower.html?_r=0
It makes you wonder: How will other forms of art deal with the new administration?
Could it be that we are in for more activist protest art, something of a return to the 1960s and such efforts as Barbara Garson’s 1967 “MacBird,” which recast Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth” as a theatrical satire of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, or LBJ, and First Lady Lady Bird Johnson as the Macbeths following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or JFK?
What do you think?
Can you think of other works that lend themselves to such an approach to contemporary affairs?
The Ear wants to hear.
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