The Well-Tempered Ear
Middleton Community Orchestra performs the second of four FREE outdoor summer concerts at Firemen’s Park this Sunday at 11:30 a.m.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Firemen’s Park, the mostly amateur but critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (MCO) will give the second of its FREE four summer outdoors concerts.
Besides the fact that the day is Father’s Day holiday, weather predictions also call for a good chance of rain or even thunderstorms.
Updates on whether the concert will take place, be cancelled or postponed to a later date, can be found by checking the MCO’s website at 10 a.m.: https://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
Meanwhile, here are the programs, conductors and soloists for the remaining three concerts. All concerts take place in Firemen’s Park in Middleton close to Middleton High School:
CONCERT – SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (revised program)
Sergei Pavlov (below), conductor and professor at Edgewood College
George Walker – “Lyric for Strings”
Ralph Vaughan Williams – “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
Giacomo Puccini – Lauretta’s aria from “Gianni Schicchi”; Mimi’s aria in Act 3 and Musetta’s aria in Act 2 from “La Boheme” with soprano Yanzel Rivera (below).
Selections from the Pixar movie COCO (piano and strings)
CONCERT – SUNDAY, JULY 25, 11:30 – a.m.-1 p.m.
Chris Ramaekers (below), conductor and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky – “March Slav”
Carl Maria von Weber — Clarinet Concerto No. 2 with soloist and Madison Symphony Orchestra principal clarinetist JJ Koh (below)
Tchaikovsky — Symphony No. 2 “Little Russian”
CONCERT 4 – SUNDAY, AUG. 15, 11:30-1 p.m.
Sergei Pavlov, conductor
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist and UW-Madison graduate Thomas Kasdorf (below)
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The Madison Bach Musicians will open its new season with a virtual online concert of Haydn and Mozart this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement, about a promising contrast-and-compare concert, from the Madison Bach Musicians:
The Madison Bach Musicians (MBM) will start its 17th season this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, Oct. 3 and 4, with a virtual chamber music concert and livestream event featuring the irrepressibly joyous, witty and poised music of Classical-era masters Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).
The performances features period instruments and historically informed performance practices.
See details near the bottom about the schedules and how to buy tickets.
Performers are violinist Kangwon Kim and cellist James Waldo (on gut-strung period instruments), fortepianist Trevor Stephenson, and soprano soloist Morgan Balfour — winner of the 2019 Handel Aria Competition. (Below top is Kangwon Kim; below middle is James Waldo; and below bottom is Morgan Balfour.)
The broadcast will begin with a 30-minute pre-concert lecture by MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below, in a photo by Kent Sweitzer) illuminating the program’s repertoire, the lives of Haydn and Mozart, and the aesthetic aims of the period instruments.
While most of the pieces on the program are buoyant and full of celebration, the concert will begin with a pensive and melancholy work commensurate with our current pandemic times.
Mozart composed the Sonata in E minor for violin and fortepiano in 1778 at the age of 22 while on tour in Paris. His mother, who was with him on the tour, became suddenly ill and died unexpectedly. This sonata is the only piece of instrumental music Mozart ever composed in the key of E minor, and its blend of gravitas, sparseness and tenderness is heartbreakingly poignant.
Mozart’s Piano Trio in G major, composed in 1788, shows him at his sunniest and most affable, with one brilliant and catchy tune after another suspended effortlessly — at least in Mozart’s hands! ― within the balance of Classical form.
The program’s first half ends with five of Mozart’s songs. Mozart truly loved the soprano voice, and he lavished some of his greatest writing upon it. The set includes perhaps his best-known song, Das Veilchen (The Violet)―which is also, oddly enough, Mozart’s only setting of a text by the German poet Goethe.
The second half of the concert is devoted to the music of Mozart’s near contemporary, Joseph Haydn, who was just 24 years older than Mozart.
Though the two composers came from very different musical and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Haydn (below) was lower working class, rural, and musical but not professionally trained.
Mozart (below) was urban, solid middle class, musically trained, sophisticated, and ambitious.
Both managed to carve out successful careers in the fertile musical culture of Vienna and its environs. They certainly knew each other and even made music together on occasion, playing in string quartets — with Haydn on violin and Mozart on viola.
Haydn composed two sets of English Canzonettas (songs) during his visits to England during the early 1790s.
The Mermaid, with its flirtatious beckoning, stretches the confines of the parlor setting (where this music was most likely performed) and suggests a cabaret environment. Fidelity, on the other hand, stays within the parlor style, emphasizing how the bond of devotion can overcome physical separation. Haydn brilliantly interweaves stormy, naturalistic episodes with declarations of unbending loyalty.
The concert will close with Haydn’s mercurial Piano Trio No. 27 in C major. Also composed during his London visits in the 1790s, this trio is the first of a set of three dedicated to the London-based virtuoso pianist Therese Bartolozzi. The Presto finale―with its unbridled high spirits―is a supreme example of Classical Era cheeky, theatrically conceived wit. (You can hear the finale in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
SCHEDULE AND TICKETS
As a result of public health guidelines in response to Covid-19 that do not allow for an in-person audience, we will livestream our concert from Grace Episcopal Church, downtown on Capitol Square, on Saturday evening for at-home viewing. (Below are Trevor Stephenson and Kangwon Kim rehearsing in masks at Stephenson’s home.)
The event will begin with a pre-concert talk by Trevor Stephenson at 7:30 p.m., and after the 8 p.m. concert, the musicians will remain on stage to answer questions submitted by our audience.
On Sunday, starting at 3 p.m. we will rebroadcast the Saturday evening recording and follow that with a live question-and-answer session with our musicians from their homes.
After purchasing tickets for $15 per household, you will be sent a link to access the performance. The recorded lecture and video will be available for up to 72 hours after they take place.
To purchase tickets, go to: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/oct-3-4-haydn-mozart/ or to: https://madison-bach-musicians.square.site/product/haydn-mozart-oct-3-4-livestream/54?cs=true
For information about the Madison Bach Musicians’ full season, go to: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/season-overview/
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Classical music: The Madison Bach Musicians celebrate 15 years with three performances this weekend of “Arias and Sonatas” by Bach and Handel
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By Jacob Stockinger
Two towering geniuses of the Baroque era – Johann Sebastian Bach (below top) and George Frideric Handel (below bottom) — were born in the same year, 1685, and just a little over 100 miles from each other.
Yet the two masters never met!
To mark their 15th anniversary, the Madison Bach Musicians will open their new season with three performances of a program “Arias and Sonatas” by the two great composers.
The program will include selections from Handel’s Violin Sonata in F major, Nine German Arias, Lascia chi’o ping (heard sung by Joyce DiDonato in the YouTube video at the bottom), Tornami a vagheggiar; and Bach’s Laudamus te (B minor Mass), Öffne dich (Cantata 61), Ich bin vergnügt in meinem Leiden (Cantata 58), and Prelude and Fugue in C major (Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II).
Advance-sale discount tickets are $30 general admission and are available at Orange Tree Imports, and Willy Street Co-op (East and West).
Online advance tickets at www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are $33 for general admission, $30 for seniors (65+) with student rush tickets costing $10 at the door.
Here are the performance times and places.
Each performance offers a FREE pre-concert lecture by MBM founder, music director and keyboardist Trevor Stephenson (below), who will also appear at NOON TODAY (Wednesday, Oct. 3) with host Norman Gilliland on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Midday.”
This Friday, Oct. 5, with a 7:15 p.m. lecture and 8 p.m. performance at the Grace Episcopal Church (below top and bottom) at 116 W. Washington Ave., in Madison on the downtown Capitol Square.
This Saturday, Oct. 6, with a 7:15 p.m. lecture and 8 p.m. performance at Immanuel Lutheran Church (below top and bottom) at 1021 Spaight Street in Madison.
This Sunday afternoon, Oct. 7, with a 2:15 p.m. lecture and 3 p.m. performance followed by an outdoor wine reception at historic Park Hall at 307 Polk Street in Sauk City. The Park Hall venue has limited seating, so it is recommended to buy tickets in advance either online or at Willy St. Co-Op (East or West), or at Orange Tree Imports.
The major guest artist is soprano Chelsea Shephard (below). Praised by Opera News for her “beautiful, lyric instrument” and “flawless legato,” she won the 2014 Handel Aria Competition in Madison. She returns to perform with the Madison Bach Musicians after appearing in MBM’s production last season of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas.”
Other performers include the Madison Bach Musicians concertmaster Kangwon Kim (below) on baroque violin.
Also, James Waldo (below) will perform on baroque cello. Known for his “nuanced, richly ambered” interpretations of Bach (LucidCulture in New York City), Waldo has lived and breathed period performance his whole life, having been raised in the home of two musicians who specialized in recorder, traverso and Renaissance choral music.
After graduate studies at Mannes College of Music and nine years living and working in New York City, he returned to Madison last fall to begin his DMA studies at UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music with Professor Uri Vardi. He recently participated in an all-Bach program for Midsummer’s Music in Door County, and is the regular principal cellist of Cecilia Chorus, performing twice a year in Carnegie Hall.
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Classical music: The fifth annual Schubertiade is this Sunday afternoon at the UW-Madison and will chronicle Franz Schubert’s short but prolific career year by year
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CORRECTION: The concert by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra this Friday night in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center starts at 7:30 p.m. — NOT at 7 as was incorrectly stated in an early version of yesterday’s posting and on Wisconsin Public Radio.
By Jacob Stockinger
On this Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., the fifth annual Schubertiade — celebrating the music of Franz Schubert (1797-1828, below) will take place in Mills Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
The informal and congenial mix of songs and chamber music in a relaxed on-stage setting and with fine performers is always an informative delight. And this year promises to be a special one. (Performance photos are from previous Schubertiades.)
Tickets are $15 for the general public, and $5 for students. Students, faculty and staff at the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music get in for free.
A reception at the nearby University Club will follow the performance.
For more information about the event and about obtaining tickets, go to:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/schubertiade-with-martha-fischer-bill-lutes/
Pianist and singer Bill Lutes (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot), who plans the event with his pianist-wife and UW-Madison professor Martha Fischer, explained the program and the reasoning behind it:
“This year’s Schubertiade is a program that could never have actually occurred during the composer’s lifetime. It is in fact a year-by-year sampling of Schubert’s music, spanning the full range of his all-too-brief career.
“As with our previous programs, we still focus on those genres which were most associated with the original Schubertiades (below, in a painting) – those informal social gatherings in the homes of Schubert’s friends and patrons, often with Schubert himself presiding at the piano, where performances of the composer’s lieder, piano music, especially piano duets, and vocal chamber music intermingled with poetry readings, dancing, games and general carousing.
“Our hope on this occasion is to present the development of Schubert’s unique art in much the same way we might view a special museum exhibition that displays the lifetime achievements of a great visual artist.
“Thus we will follow Schubert from his earliest work, heavily influenced by Haydn and Mozart, and his studies with Antonio Salieri, to the amazing “breakthrough” settings of Goethe’s poems in 1814 and 1815, and on to the rich procession of songs and chamber music from his final decade. (Below is a pencil drawing by Leopold Kupelwieser of Schubert at 14.)
As always we have chosen a number of Schubert’s best-known and loved favorites, along side of lesser-known, but equally beautiful gems.
We are also particularly delighted to work with a large number of School of Music students and faculty, as well as our featured guest, mezzo-soprano Rachel Wood (below), who teaches at the UW-Whitewater.
(D. numbers refer to the chronological catalogue of Schubert’s work by Otto Erich Deutsch, first published in 1951, and revised in 1978.)
SCHUBERTIADE 2018 – Schubert Year by Year: Lieder, Chamber Music and Piano Duets by Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
PERFORMERS
Rachel Wood (RW)
Katie Anderson (KA), Matthew Chastain (MC), James Doing (JD), Wesley Dunnagan (WD), Talia Engstrom (TE), Mimmi Fulmer (MFulmer), Benjamin Liupiaogo (BL), Claire Powling (CP), Cheryl Rowe (CR), Paul Rowe (PF), singers
The Hunt Quartet, Chang-En Lu, Vincius Sant Ana, Blakeley Menghini, Kyle Price (HQ)
Parry Karp, cello (PK)
Bill Lutes (BL) and Martha Fischer (MF), pianists (below)
PROGRAM
1811 Fantasie in G minor, D. 9 (MF, BL)
1812 Klaglied, D. 23 (Lament )– Johann Friedrich Rochlitz (MF, BL)
Die Advokaten, D. 37 (The Lawyers, comic trio) after Anton Fischer) (PR,BL, WD, MF)
1813 Verklärung, D. 59 Transfiguration – Alexander Pope (RW, BL)
1814 Adelaide, D. 95 – Friedrich von Matthisson (WD, MF)
Der Geistertanz, D. 116 The Ghost Dance – Matthisson (MC, BL)
Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 118 Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel – Goethe (CP, MF)
1815 Wanderers Nachtlied I, D. 224 Wanderer’s Nightsong – Goethe (MF, BL)
Erlkönig, D. 328 The Erl-king – Goethe (TE, MC, WD, CP, MF, BL)
1816 Sonata for violin and piano in D Major, D. 384 (PK, below, BL)
Allegro, Andante, Allegro vivace
1817 Der Tod und das Mädchen, D. 531 Death and the Maiden – Matthias Claudius (RW, MF)
Erlafsee, D. 586 Lake Erlaff – Johann Mayrhofer (CR, BL)
Der Strom, D. 565 The River – anon. (PR, MF)
1818 Deutscher with 2 Trios in G (MF, BL)
Singübungen, D. 619 Singing Exercises (CP, TE, BL)
Intermission
1819 Die Gebüsche, D. 646 The Thicket – Friedrich von Schlegel (RW, BL)
1820 String Quartet #12 in C Minor “Quartetsatz” (HQ)
1821 Geheimes, D. 719 A Secret – Goethe (TE, MF)
1822 Des Tages Weihe, D. 763 Consecration of the Day (KA, MF, WD, MC,BL)
1823 Drang in die Ferne, D. 770 The Urge to Roam – K.G. von Leitner (MC,BL)
from Die Schöne Müllerin, Mein, D. 795 Mine – W. Müller (WD, MF)
1824 Grand March No. 6 in E major, D. 819 (MF, BL)
1825 Im Abendrot, D. 799 Sunset Glow – Karl Lappe (RW, MF)
An mein Herz, D. 860 To my Heart- Ernst Schulze (BenL, MF)
1826 Am Fenster, D. 878 At the Window – J. G. Seidl (MFulmer, below, BL)
1827 from Winterreise Frühlingstraum, D. 911 Dream of Spring – Muller(RW,MF)
1828 Die Sterne, D. 939 The Stars – Leitner (KA, BL)
from Schwanengesang (Swansong), D. 957
Ständchen (JD, MF) –Serenade – Ludwig Rellstab
Die Taubenpost (PR, MF) – The Pigeon Post – J.G. Seidl
An die Musik, D. 547 To Music (below) – Franz von Schober
Everyone is invited to sing along. You can find the words in your texts and translations.
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Classical music: The Madison Opera stages Bizet’s “Carmen” this Friday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Opera will perform Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” this Friday night, Nov. 3, at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon, Nov. 5, at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall at the Overture Center, 201 State Street. (Below is the set from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City that is being used for the production.)
Tickets are $18-$130. (See below for details.)
With some of the most famous music in opera, Bizet’s passionate work is a vivid story of love, jealousy and betrayal.
Set in 19th-century Seville, Spain, the opera follows a gypsy determined to live life on her own terms – whatever her fate may be.
On a break from her shift at the cigarette factory, Carmen tosses a flower at a corporal named Don José, who ignores her advances. Only after Carmen is arrested and placed in José’s custody does he begin to fall for her, breaking the law and abandoning his hometown sweetheart.
What follows is a torrid love affair of passion, agonizing rage, and fanatical desire that will change their lives forever.
“Carmen is the reason I run an opera company,” says Kathryn Smith, Madison Opera’s general director (below, in a photo by James Gill). “I fell in love with opera as a teenager in the children’s chorus of a ‘Carmen’ production, as its incredible score and intense story hooked me immediately – not to mention the sheer excitement of having principal artists, chorus, children’s chorus, dancers, and orchestra all come together to create this astonishing world. I am so delighted to produce ‘Carmen’ in Madison, with this spectacular cast and production team.”
At the premiere of “Carmen” in Paris on March 3, 1875, audiences were shocked at its characters’ apparent lack of morality and virtue, and critics derided Bizet’s music. (You can hear the ever-popular Toreador Song in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Three months after the opera’s premiere, Bizet died of heart disease. He was only 36 years old and would never know that his “flop” of an opera would become a global sensation over the next two centuries.
“Carmen was the first opera I saw as a young teenager,” remembers Madison Opera’s artistic director John DeMain (below, in a photo by Prasad). “It should be everyone’s first opera. It is the perfect blend of musical theater and grand opera, with thrilling choruses, great tunes from start to finish, and a compelling story of ill-fated love. And then there is Carmen herself, one of the most alluring characters of all time. I love conducting this great opera, which is so gorgeously orchestrated.”
Madison Opera’s cast features both returning artists and debuts. Making her debut in the title role is Aleks Romano (below), a rising young singer whom Opera News recently praised for her “attractively smoky mezzo-soprano.”
Acclaimed tenor Sean Panikkar (below) makes his role debut as Don José. He debuted with Madison Opera at Opera in the Park 2014, but this is his first mainstage appearance with the company.
Also returning to Madison Opera are Cecilia Violetta López (below top) as José’s hometown sweetheart Micaëla and Corey Crider (below bottom) as the toreador Escamillo. López debuted at this past summer’s Opera in the Park; Crider sang the title role in “Sweeney Todd” with Madison Opera in 2015.
Thomas Forde (below), who most recently sang Luther/Crespel in Madison Opera’s “The Tales of Hoffman,” returns to play José’s commanding officer, Zuniga.
Studio artists Anna Polum and Megan Le Romero play Carmen’s friends Frasquita and Mercedes. Studio Artist Benjamin Liupaogo and Wisconsin native Erik Earl Larson play the smugglers, Remendado and Dancaïre. Rounding out the cast is Charles Eaton in his debut as Morales. (Many have ties to the opera program at the UW-Madison.)
Directing this traditional staging is E. Loren Meeker (below) in her first production for Madison Opera. Meeker has directed at opera companies around the United States, including Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival and Wolf Trap Opera.
“A piece like Carmen captures our imagination and begs to be re-told over the centuries because the characters speak to the deepest and most honest parts of human nature,” says Meeker. “Today we grapple with love, lust, jealousy, morality, honor, and freedom just as much as people did when this opera premiered in 1875.
“At Madison Opera we have a brilliant cast who is willing to unravel the mystery of these characters with me scene by scene – making each choice onstage new, fresh, and true to the characters and arch of the story.
“Bringing this vivid world to life set to some of the most rich and well known music in the operatic canon, plus the fun of working with dancers, a fight director, the Madison Youth Choir, and a large adult chorus challenges me and inspires me all at the same time. The energy created in the performance, the brilliant music sung by such amazing artists, makes this classic opera worth seeing again and again and again.”
Carmen is a truly grand opera and features the Madison Opera Chorus, led by chorusmaster Anthony Cao (below); members of the Madison Youth Choirs; the Madison Symphony Orchestra; and dancers from Tania Tandias Flamenco and Spanish Dance.
For more information about the cast, go to:
http://www.madisonopera.org/performances-2017-2018/carmen/cast/
For informative and entertaining Q&As with the cast members, go to the Madison Opera’s Blogspot:
http://madisonopera.blogspot.com
For tickets, call the Overture Center box office at (608) 258-4141 or go to:
http://www.overture.org/events/madison-opera
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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet excels in music by Haydn, Dvorak and especially Ravel as it impressively opens its new season in two acoustically different venues
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
The Ancora String Quartet offered a nicely balanced program last Saturday night to open its new season at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
The program began with Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4, known as the “Sunrise” quartet. A work of the composer’s maturity, published in 1799, it shows him straining the boundaries of Austrian Classicism and pushing close to the proto-Romanticism of his student, Beethoven.
Each work in the program was preceded by a spoken introduction, given by a member of the ensemble, and for the Haydn quartet violist Marika Fischer Hoyt did the honors.
Then came three (Nos. 2, 5 and 10) of the 12 arrangements for quartet that Antonin Dvorak made from his song cycle, Cypresses. The spoken introduction in this case was given by first violinist Wes Luke (below), who not only spoke but also sensibly read aloud — in English translation — the words of each song. Dvorak’s deeply personal lyric expression came through the more meaningfully for that.
Finally came the Quartet in F Major by Maurice Ravel. For this, cellist Benjamin Whitcomb (below) gave a cogent spoken introduction. Ravel’s work matches Debussy’s string quartet — to be played later this season — as a chamber music contribution to so-called French “Impressionism.” But it also is one of the last great demonstrations of how initially stated themes can be quoted or re-introduced in new characters and colors throughout all the movements.
This program had special value for me because it was one I was able to hear twice on two successive evenings. I particularly profited from a double hearing of the Ravel, which allowed me to listen how the various themes popped out here and there in ever-varied differences. (You can hear the String Quartet by Ravel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The performances each time were beautifully precise and atmospheric, but the particular points of contrast involved instead a factor too often forgotten in evaluating a concert: the acoustic divergences of different performing sites.
The previous Friday evening, I heard the program in the Grand Hall of the Capitol Lakes Retirement Center. Its acoustics are tight and bright, bringing great clarity and immediacy to the playing.
By comparison, the sound at St. Andrew’s is bigger, richer and more reverberant, although differing in relation to how far up front or way back you sit—another variable to consider.
I spoke with the players about this, and it is clear that they must, and do, take account of such acoustic differences as they move from one performing site to another. Careful concert-goers, too, should always consider these differences as they listen.
A final thought: The Ancora String Quartet, which also includes Robin Ryan as second violin, has always played with splendid expertise and stylistic sense. But it seems clear to me by now that the settling in of Wes Luke as the new first violinist has brought added vigor and assertiveness to the group’s playing, making it an even more important ensemble than ever before in Madison’s musical life.
The concert will be repeated tonight in Janesville at 7:30 p.m. in the Kilmark Theatre of the UW-Rock County at 2909 Kellogg Avenue. The performance is FREE and OPEN to the public.
For more information about the Ancora String Quartet and its new season, go to the website: http://ancoraquartet.com
Tags: acoustics, American Record Guide, Ancora String Quartet, Arts, Austria, Beethoven, blog, bright, Capitol Lakes, Capitol Square, Cello, Chamber music, character, church, clarity, Classical music, Classicism, color, composer, critic, cypress, cypresses, Debussy, Dvorak, Early music, English, ensemble, Episcopal, expertise, expression, factor, festival, forgotten, France, French Impressionism, Friday, Haydn, History, host, introduction, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Janesville, John W. Barker, lecture, life, Ludwig van Beethoven, lyric, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, maturity, Medieval, morning, movement, Music, night, performance space, photo, poem, professor, quote, Radio, Ravel, read, relation, Retirement, reverberant, review, rich, Romanticism, Saturday, song, spoken, St. Andrew, String quartet, Student, style, Sunday, sunrise, Sunrise Quartet, theater, theatre, theme, tight, translation, tree, trees, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW-Rock County, venue, Viola, Violin, words, work, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: UW Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra resurrect Paul Hindemith’s long-neglected 20th-century secular Requiem with fine singing and committed playing
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photographs below.
By John W. Barker
It is unusual that, within the space of a few days, we have parallel performances of two very untraditional Requiems, ones setting vernacular texts rather than liturgical Latin ones.
The UW Choral Union and UW Symphony(below) performed Paul Hindemith’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d: A Requiem For those we love” last weekend. And the Madison Symphony Chorus and Orchestra will give us Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) this coming weekend, May 5-7.
(NOTE: Here is a link with more information about the three MSO performances this coming weekend:
It is hard to resist the temptation to compare them.
They were, of course, composed about a century apart, in the contexts of very different stylistic eras. They reflect very different aesthetics: High Romantic warmth for Brahms, conservative modernism for Hindemith.
The different texts chosen also determine crucial differences. Brahms selected Luther’s German translations of passages from Scripture, as a broad collage of human consolation and solace, whereas the German-born Hindemith, a naturalized American citizen who fled from Hitler’s Nazism, in a patriotic commemoration of the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, chose the long poem of grieving that Walt Whitman (below) wrote over the death of President Abraham Lincoln.
The relatively concise Scriptural texts allowed Brahms to develop rich melodic and contrapuntal elaborations. Hindemith’s determination to set Whitman’s complete poem, of 208 verses in altogether irregular free verse, committed him to keep things in constantly moving continuity, with little chance for pausing and elaborating.
To be sure, Hindemith (below) was never a distinguished lyricist, for all his skills, so his writing is endless declamation by the soloists, backed by strongly cast choral statements. (You can hear famed baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the chorus sing the opening of the Hindemith requiem in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
There are many lovely and powerful moments, but they pass by quickly and leave little of memorable expressiveness. There is much clever music here, but in sum total it is more dutiful than beautiful.
The performance in Mills Hall — I heard the one Sunday night — showed a stage packed with musicians. There were two soloists, a chorus of exactly 100 singers, and an orchestra (the UW Symphony) of 67 players, 46 of them on strings. UW choral director and conductor Beverly Taylor (below) drew from all of them deeply committed musical results.
Of the two soloists, soprano Jennifer D’Agostino (below left) sang with beauty and expression, but it was baritone James Held (below right) who stole the show, with a ringing voice, superb diction, and a genuine eloquence.
The huge chorus was quite magnificent, well unified, fully serious in its enunciation, and capable of some truly musical sound — and Hindemith, though nowhere near Brahms as a choral composer, gave them some serious challenges. The orchestra sounded a bit rough at the very beginning, but settled into participating strongly in the performance.
Whatever reservations one may have about Hindemith’s score, this Whitman Requiem, one of his last important works and premiered in 1946, is a significant piece. It is far less frequently heard than that by Brahms, and so it is very good that UW choral director Beverly Taylor has brought it to our attention.
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Classical music: It’s easy but wrong to underestimate Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.” It is literally fantastic but NOT light. It will be performed by Madison Opera on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Part 2 of 2.
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, to be held from 12:15 to 1 p.m. in the historic Landmark Auditorium of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Meeting House of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will feature music for baroque and modern flute and strings with Iva Ugrcic, Thalia Combs, Biffa Kwok, Joshua Dierigner, Mikko Rankin Utevsky, Andrew Briggs and Satoko Hayami. They will play music by Georg Philipp Telemann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, Salvatore Sciarrino and Andre Jolivet.
By Jacob Stockinger
As The Ear posted yesterday, the Madison Opera will present Jacques Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann” this weekend.
The production will be performed twice in Overture Hall of the Overture Center: on Friday at 8 p.m.; and on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. It will be sung in French with projected English translations
Tickets are $18-$129. Student and group discounts are available. Tickets can be purchased at the Overture Box Office, 201 State St., Madison, and by calling (608) 258-4141 or visiting www.madisonopera.org
For more information, here is a link to yesterday’s post with a plot synopsis and information about the cast:
Today, The Ear asked the same questions to the two main figures in the production: Artistic and music director John DeMain and guest stage director Kristine McIntyre.
Here are their answers:
JOHN DeMAIN (below)
“Tales of Hoffmann” has the reputation of being a “lighter” opera. How justified and accurate is that opinion in your view, and what do you think explains it?
Hoffmann is Offenbach’s grand opus. I’ve never thought of this work as a light opera. To me, light opera has spoken dialogue and the music is distinctly lighter in nature, like operetta.
Where the confusion lies here is, for me, no different than with George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Both composers use popular resources, at times, to tell the story.
Hoffmann is a serious themed piece. Two people are literally murdered, and the mechanical doll is also destroyed. Hoffmann’s soul is condemned to hell, as his pursuit of love is rebuffed at every term. The devil is present throughout as well.
What Hoffmann is, however, is highly theatrical. Magic is present, as well as the supernatural. It is at times ghoulish and macabre, but always entertaining. The Olympia scene with party guests and a mechanical doll — at bottom in a YouTube video — is the lightest scene in nature, as Hoffmann is being duped at a social gathering.
Move into Antonia, and from the beginning the music is serious and profound with two thrilling trios. Giulietta, which has always been the sketchiest act, because of missing music and an incomplete libretto, nevertheless is thrillingly operatic in scope.
Hoffmann is very much like Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata in design, particularly in the progression of Hoffmann’s loves, as embodied in the sopranos who sings all four roles. Olympia is coloratura, just like Violetta in the first act singing “Sempre libera.” Antonia is lyric, corresponding to Violetta in the second act, and Giulietta is the most dramatic, just as in the third act of the Verdi.
The beautiful final ensemble at the end of the Epilogue is also not the stuff of light opera. Offenbach, as a composer, is true to his musical style, but achieves the greatest depth of his writing in this wonderful grand opera.
What would you like the public to know about the opera and about the musical aspects of the Madison Opera production including the singers, the orchestra and the score?
The orchestra highlights the drama at every given turn, literally changing tempos on a dime. Leitmotifs are used throughout the piece.
The music is wonderfully melodic, with the entire cast having beautiful arias, duets and trios. It has long been a favorite opera of mine because it so accurately portrays the story in vivid and unmistakable musical terms.
KRISTINE MCINTYRE (below)
Jacques Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” has the reputation of being a “lighter” opera? How justified and accurate is that opinion in your view, and what do you think explains it?
Well, “lighter” compared to what? Than Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking or Leos Janacek’s Jenufa, certainly. But it’s not a comedy either, and certainly any of the classic operatic comedies, such as Gioacchino Rossini‘s The Barber of Seville, feels perfectly frothy in comparison.
I think this is an easy opera to underestimate because the piece is so theatrical in its storytelling. But Offenbach (below) is actually exploring some very dark themes, as was E.T.A. Hoffmann before him.
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tales are fantastical and highly imaginative, but they are also vivid and insightful examinations of human psychology. He exposes our darkest fears and how that darkness intrudes into our everyday lives and our attempts to find love and happiness. I think E.T.A. Hoffmann is particularly insightful at revealing the fragility of his male protagonists and their insecurities where women and love are concerned.
The Olympia act, for instance, is really about a young man’s fear that he has been deceived, that he’s been made a fool of — that he can’t trust the girl he loves and doesn’t know what’s real or what’s not.
The story on which it is based, “The Sandman,” is even more horrifying than Offenbach’s setting: the young man simply can’t get over having fallen in love with the automaton, believes his very human fiancée is actually a machine, tries to kill her and eventually commits suicide by throwing himself from a balcony.
So one should not confuse creativity in storytelling with a lack of seriousness. There is a great tradition, stretching back to the early 19th century, of writers of fantastical literature and science fiction asking some of the hardest questions about human nature and providing some of the most compelling insights.
That tradition now extends to film and we’ve spent some time in rehearsal talking about how movies like Blade Runner and Ex Machina explore some of the same issues.
Offenbach is a man of the theater and gives us music that is just as compelling and theatrical as the tales themselves. This music is fun to stage and listen to, but while Offenbach is entertaining us with his delightful French melodies, his main character, Hoffmann, has his heart broken three times, causes the death of his fiancée, becomes an alcoholic, murders a rival and loses his soul. So the opera definitely has its tragic side.
And we shouldn’t forget that Offenbach balances the fantasy of the tales with the framework of the Prologue and Epilogue and the completely recognizable, human story of Hoffmann’s doomed relationship with his girlfriend Stella. They’ve had a fight and he’s terrified of losing her. In the tales, he is actually telling us Stella’s story over and over again as he tries to make sense of what has happened.
The opera could easily end in tragedy and despair, but instead Offenbach offers us a glass of champagne and a balm for the human condition. (Below is the Roaring 20s set.)
What would you like the public to know about the opera and about the theatrical aspects of the Madison Opera production including acting, costumes, sets, etc.?
Almost everyone in our cast is doing their roles for the first time, so we’re having a great time in rehearsal exploring every moment of the piece.
This will be a very high-energy, inventive and creative telling of the opera. The production is updated to the 1920s, which is great fun – beautiful costumes and lots of wonderful inspiration from art and cinema of the period.
For instance, we’ve been looking at the paintings of Otto Dix, which capture the élan and decadence of the 1920s, and classic horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu to find the darker side of things for the Antonia act. It’s a very rich period visually and offers us a great deal of style as well as the chance to make something that feels very alive and fresh.
I think it will be very entertaining and also very moving.
Tags: Andre Jolivet, Arts, automaton, Barber of Seville, Baroque, Blade Runner, C.P.E. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, choral music, Classical music, coloratura, Dead Man Walking, epilogue, Ex Machina, film, First Unitarian Society of Madison, flute, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Gershwin, Gershwin, Gioachino Rossini, Jacob Stockinger, Jake Heggie, Janacek, Jenufa, John DeMain, La Traviata, lyric, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, magic, mechanical, Music, Offenbach, opera, Operetta, Orchestra, Otto Dix, Overture Center, Porgy and Bess, prologue, Rossini, Salvatore Sciarinno, Tales of Hoffmann, Telemann, The Barber of Seville, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, vocal music, YouTube
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