The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Madison Summer Choir celebrates its 10th anniversary with one of the best concerts of the year
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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 Madison Summer Choir (below) celebrated its 10th anniversary on Wednesday night at the First Congregational United Church of Christ.
Each year’s program has had a theme, and for this one it was “Old Wine in New Bottles”— though it might as well have been the other way ‘round.
The idea, though, was that the selections showed their composers looking back to the techniques and tastes of earlier generations while writing new music. Conductor Ben Luedcke (below) introduced each work to explain how such approaches worked out.
The first half of the program was devoted to four works, dating from three different centuries.
Two were by contemporary composers. A setting in English of the Psalm text “By the Waters of Babylon” by Sarah Riskind (below top) was followed by Amor de mi Ami, a tribute to his wife, in Spanish, by Randall Stroope (below bottom).
Each work had instrumental additions — in the first, piano with cello, in the second, just piano) which personally I found unnecessary. Riskind’s choral writing is attractively full and quite idiomatic, while Stroope achieves a natural lyricism. I would be interested to hear just the choral parts alone for each work. (Editor’s Note: You can hear the work by Randall Stroope in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
These two items were framed by music of earlier epochs. The Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song) by Johannes Brahms showed his ability to create his own version of both pre- and post-Baroque polyphony. And Mozart’s Psalm setting Laudate pueri, from one of his Vespers collections (K. 339), showed his assimilation of Baroque counterpoint.
Bruce Bengtson played the part Brahms included for organ (or piano), and he also played the organ reduction of the orchestral part for the Mozart.
It was partly the acoustics, but also a weakness in diction that made the words in those four pieces all but indistinguishable, in whatever language was being sung—my one serious criticism of the performances.
The second part of the program was devoted to the first of the numbered Mass settings by Anton Bruckner. In some ways, such large-scale sacred works were studies for his majestic symphonies yet to come.
In this Mass No. 1 in D minor, Bruckner saw himself in the line of earlier Austrian church music, but anyone expecting bald imitations of Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven would be disappointed.
In his dense and highly chromatic writing — something like a step beyond Schubert — Bruckner created some very fascinating music. It reached really exciting power in the Credo, and the words “dona nobis pacem” at the conclusion had a deeply moving sense of serenity.
The choir, of 68 mixed voices, was joined for the Bruckner by four soloists — Chelsie Propst, Jessica Lee Timman, Peter Gruett, Christian Bester (below on the left) — who sang their parts handsomely, and by an orchestra of 30 players, who provided strong and sturdy support.
Luedcke deserves particular praise for giving a chance to hear the Bruckner Mass, which was thought to be its Madison premiere. It climaxed a really enterprising event, one that I think will stand as among the Best Concerts of the Year.
Tags: #AmericanRecordGuide, #AntonBruckner, #BaroqueEra, #BaroqueMusic, #BenLuedcke, #BlogPosting, #BruceBengtson, #CelloMusic, #ChelsiePropst, #ChristianBester, #ChristianChurch, #ChurchMusic, #ContemporaryComposer, #EnglishLanguage, #FirstCongregationalUnitedChurchofChrist, #FranzJosephHaydn, #FranzSchubert, #IsthmusNewspaper, #JessicaLeeTimman, #JohannesBrahms, #JohnW.Barker, #LivingComposer, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MadisonSummerChoir, #MedievalHistory, #MusicalPerformance, #NewMusic, #OrchestralAccompaniment, #PeterGruett, #RandallStroope, #SacredMusic, #SarahRiskind, #SpanishLanguage, #SpiritualMusic, #TheBible, #UniversityofWisconsin, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #WORT-FM89.9, #YouTubevideo, American Record Guide, amor, anniversary, Anton Bruckner, Arts, attractive, Austria, Austrian, Babylon, Baroque, Beethoven, Ben Luedcke, best, Bible, bottle, Bruce Bengtson, Cello, Chelsie Propst, choral music, Christian Bester, Classical music, classicalmusic, composer, conclusion, conductor, counterpoint, Credo, critic, Early music, epoch, event, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Franz Schubert, Haydn, History, idea, idiomatic, introduce, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jessica Lee Timman, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, language, lecture, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, lyricism, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Summer Choir, mass, Medieval, natural, new, old, orchestral, organ, organist, part, performance, Peter Gruett, Piano, player, polyphony, posting, praise, professor, program, psalm, Psalms, Randall Stroope, review, sacred music, Sarah Riskind, serenity, singer, soloist, song, Spanish, spiritual, taste, technique, text, theme, tribute, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vesper, Viola, Violin, vocal music, wife, Wine, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, writing, year, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Summer Choir performs a program of music that expresses suffering, oppression and resistance this Wednesday night at UW-Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Summer Choir (below) will present its ninth annual concert, “Art: The Timeless Resistance – The Voice of the Oppressed,” on this coming Wednesday night, June 28, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall of the UW-Madison’s Mosse Humanities Building, 455 N. Park St.
The suggested ticket donation is $15.
The concert brings together a variety of works that have served as an outlet for suffering peoples, works that gave them a voice where they otherwise had none.
The concert will begin with Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, a traditional Spiritual arranged by Jay Althouse.
This is followed by Miriam’s Song of Triumph, composed by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) very near the end of his short life to a German text (Mirjams Siegesgesang) by Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer. The text and music describe the Exodus and the celebration of Miriam and the Israelites after fleeing Egypt. (You can hear the work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The first half ends with two shorter works again in English, There Will be Rest, a setting of a poem by Sara Teasdale by Frank Ticheli (below top), of the University of Southern California, and How Can I Keep from Singing? by Baptist minister and American literature professor Robert Lowry (1826-1899, below bottom), as arranged in 2010 by Taylor Davis.
The choir will be accompanied by oboist Malia Huntsman and concertmaster Elspeth Stalter-Clouse.
The second half of the program is devoted to the Mass in C (1807) by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), and will be performed with full orchestra.
The choir was founded by UW-Madison graduate and artistic director Ben Luedcke (below) – who now teaches at Monmouth College — after the UW Summer Choir was eliminated due to budget constraints.
The Madison Summer Choir is an auditioned choir of 60 to 70 voices that performs a cappella works, piano-accompanied works and choral-orchestral works in a short season at the beginning of summer.
This student and community singing opportunity and tradition continue thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our singers and our audience to fund our complete existence in six weeks.
Go to madisonsummerchoir.org to learn more.
Tags: a cappella, American, Art, Arts, Austria, Baptist, Beethoven, budget, choral music, Classical music, community, concertmaster, donation, Exodus, Frank Ticheli, Franz Schubert, Grillparzer, group, hymn, Israel, Israelite, Jacob Stockinger, literature, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Summer Choir, mass, minister, Miriam, Monmouth College, Music, Oboe, oppression, Orchestra, Piano, poet, Poetry, preacher, professor, resistance, Robert Lowry, Sara Teasdale, Singing, song, spiritual, Student, suffer, suffering, summer, symphony, ticket, time, triumph, United States, University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, voice, YouTube
Classical music: Madison Summer Choir addresses current events with outstanding performances of great choral music
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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 for 12 years hosted an early music show every other Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
For eight years, the Madison Summer Choir (below) has been giving an annual concert. This year’s, on Saturday night, under founder and conductor Ben Luedcke, was built around the theme “This is My Song! – Music in the Struggle for Peace and Justice.”
And, indeed, Luedcke (below) introduced most of the selections with pointed remarks, addressing issues faced today, and the need for making ours a better world.
The first part of the program began with the “big tune” from Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia, set to English words. This was sung a cappella, while the four short items that followed had piano accompaniment.
Two of those pieces—by composers Stephen Chatman and Sven Lekberg—carried poems by Walt Whitman, while another, by Joan Szymko, set a text by Wendell Berry. But the gem of the set was a short partsong, An die Heimat (To my Homeland), by that truly great choral master, Johannes Brahms.
After the intermission, the chorus of 66 voices was joined by an orchestra (below) of 32, for the musical plateau.
Felix Mendelssohn is one of the handful of supreme choral composers (think of his oratorio Elijah!). As a warmer-upper, we were given his brief setting of Martin Luther’s translation of the Latin Dona nobis pacem as Verleih uns Frieden (Grant us Peace). (You can hear Mendelssohn’s beautiful “Verleih uns Frieden” in a YouTube video at the bottom)
But the true main event was a rousing performance of Mendelssohn’s unfairly neglected cantata, Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night). This sets a ballad by Goethe portraying a band of Druids arranging to celebrate a holy solstice rite in the face of newly triumphant Christian intolerance. By making an unholy racket, they drive away their persecutors and launch the myth of St. Walburga’s Night (Walpurgisnacht, on April 30) as an occasion of Satanic rumpus (think Goethe’s and Gounod’s Faust).
The work calls for three solo singers (below), this time contralto Jessica Timman Schwefel, tenor Dan O’Dea, and baritone Ben Li (of whom the tenor was the most impressive). This score is one of striking dramatic effect and musical force, but it is too brief to find a place in most concert repertoire.
Singers and players threw themselves into it with wonderful gusto under propulsive direction. We must thank Luedcke for giving us a rare chance to enjoy it.
The final piece was a movement from a choral symphony by Srul Irving Glick: making a truly splendid choral sound that, however, quite obliterated the uplifting words.
Overall, the program showed that Luedcke had nurtured, in a short time, a choir of nicely balanced and blended voices. With the best of their material, they made a wonderfully glowing sound.
One more example, then, of the quite stunning riches of Madison’s summer musical life!
Tags: a cappella, American Record Guide, Arts, baritone, Ben Luedcke, choral music, Christian, Classical music, contralto, Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Druid, Elijah, Finlandia, Goethe, History, homeland, intolerance, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Joan Szymko, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, justice, Latin, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Summer Choir, Martin Luther, Medieval, Mendelssohn, Mezzo-soprano, Music, oratorio, Orchestra, partsong, peace, Piano, poem, Poetry, Satan, singer, Singing, songs, Srul Irving Glick, Stephen Chatman, Sven Lekberg, symphony, tenor, translation, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, voice, Walpurgis Night, Walt Whitman, Wendell Berry, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. So here are guides to this summer’s local, national and even international festivals of classical music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Get out your datebooks.
Madison now has great classical music year-round, including in the summer, which long ago ceased being an artistic desert.
LOCAL
This summer’s offerings include:
The 25th anniversary season, filled with new music but also tried-and-true treasured masterpieces, of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society that runs June 10-26:
http://www.bachdancinganddynamite.org
The 17th annual Madison Early Music Festival, which runs from July 10-16 and will focus on William Shakespeare in honor of the 400th anniversary of his death:
https://artsinstitute.wisc.edu/memf/
The annual Madison Savoyards’ production of Gilbert & Sullivan will stage “The Gondoliers” for six performances July 29-Aug. 7:
The second season of the Willy Street Chamber Players (below):
http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org
The 27th annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, which runs Aug. 27-Sept 4 and this year features music celebrating water and the natural world. Programs include music by Johann Sebastian Bach, English Renaissance music of John Dowland, William Byrd and Henry Purcell and a Wisconsin premiere by composer and co-director John Harbison plus Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” and his equally famous masterpiece, the “Trout” Piano Quintet:
Plus there are a lot of smaller groups including the Madison Summer Choir and the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, both of which have received critical acclaim. And there is the Green Lake Festival. Some I might also include the six Concerts on the Square by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, which this year features a hefty dose of classical fare.
NATIONAL
But if you don’t stay around town and hit the road instead, there is a lot that might interest you in the way of summer music festivals around the country. There are festivals of chamber music, orchestral music and opera.
And The Ear has always wanted to attend the Bard Music Festival (below), which emphasizes the cultural context of the music, and the Mostly Mozart Festival. One of these years! (You can hear from co-artistic director and Bard College president Leon Botstein how the unique Bard Music Festival is run in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a roundup by The New York Times, which put all kinds of genres together. Just scroll down until you hit the Classical Festivals section that was compiled and annotated by the Times’ trustworthy critic Vivien Schweitzer:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/arts/summer-festivals.html?_r=0
Here is a fairly comprehensive national guide from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Classical_music_festivals_in_the_United_States
Here is a guide from two years ago, done by NPR or National Public Radio, that includes the Madison Early Music Festival and divides up the selection by regions of the country:
And for good measure, for those taking international vacations here is a guide to international music festivals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_festivals
Happy hunting and choosing. Then happy and safe traveling. And finally Happy Listening.
The Ear hopes you have a classic “classical” summer.
Tags: Arts, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Bard College, Baroque, Byrd, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, concerto, critic, Dowland, Early music, Europe, festival, Franz Schubert, Gilbert and Sullivan, international, Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Harbison, local, London, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Summer Choir, Mostly Mozart, Music, national, National Public Radio, natural world, nature, New York Times, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Purcell, song, summer, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, travel, Trout Quintet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, Viola, Violin, vocal music, water, William Shakespeare, Willy Street Chamber Players, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Madison Summer Choir auditions are on Monday and Tuesday nights, May 16 and 17, when rehearsals also start. Performance is on Saturday, June 25. Plus, a FREE concert of flute music is this Friday at noon
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, held from 12:15 to 1 p.m. in the historic Landmark Auditorium of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features the Madison Flute Club Chamber Ensemble. It will perform music by Phyllis Louke, George Gershwin, Daniel Harrison, Julius Fucik and Ken Kreuser.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Summer Choir (below) has announced this summer’s auditions, rehearsals, program and concert.
The Madison Summer Choir, which was founded by and is directed by UW-Madison alumnus Ben Luedcke and which usually has about 80 voices, meets for six weeks in May and June to prepare major choral and choral-orchestral works.
This year, the featured works on the “This Is My Song: Music in the Struggle for Peace and Justice” program, will be “Die erste Walpurgisnacht” (The First Walpurgis Night) and “Verleih uns Frieden” (Grant Us Peace, a beautiful work you can hear in the YouTube video at bottom) by Felix Mendelssohn; “Finlandia,” by Jean Sibelius, and other works by Johannes Brahms ad Sven Lekberg.
Complete information about dates, music, and concert tickets can be found on the website: www.madisonsummerchoir.org
Auditions will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, May 16 and 17, when the first rehearsals begin. Auditions will take place in UW-Madison Humanities Building, Room 1351, 455 N Park St, Madison WI 53706.
Weekly rehearsals – WHICH START ON THE MAY 16 TIME — will be held weekly on the same days and times.
Returning summer choir members and members of auditioned ensembles in the area do NOT need to audition. Those who need to audition should contact the conductor. The contact email is: madisonsummerchoir@gmail.com
The concert will be in Mills Hall on Saturday, June 25, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Tags: Arts, choral music, Classical music, Daniel Harrison, Felix Mendelssohn, Finlandia, First Unitarian Society of Madison, flute, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Gershwin, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Johannes Brahms, Julius Fucik, justice, Ken Kreuser, Madison, Madison Flute Club, Madison Summer Choir, Orchestra, peace, Phyllis Louke, symphony, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Summer Choir will perform works by late German and English Romantic composers, including Brahms, Parry and Vaughan Williams, on this coming Saturday night.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Our friends at the Madison Summer Choir write:
The Madison Summer Choir (below) is an auditioned choir of more than 70 voices performing a cappella, piano-accompanied and choral-orchestral works.
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music eliminated UW Summer Choir from its budget after 2008, Ben Luedcke (below) “picked up the baton” to ensure that this student and community singing opportunity and tradition were not lost.
Now in its seventh summer, Luedcke continues to conduct the group, open to college students and community members, for just 14 rehearsals over six weeks, culminating in a full concert.
Existing just for this short season, the choir is supported by the singers, friends and businesses in the community, and the audience, as well as the UW-Madison School of Music rehearsal and concert facilities.
For this summer, the concert program features “The Searching Soul: German and Late-English Romanticism.” (Below is the famous Romantic painting used on the poster for the Madison Summer Choir this year.)
The concert will be presented on this coming Saturday evening, June 27 at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall of the Mosse Humanities Building on the UW-Madison campus at 455 North Park Street.
Tickets are $15 for the public; $10 for students. They can be purchased in advance (for delivery or will-call) from any choir member, or bought at the door.
The concert will open with two works by Johannes Brahms (below), “Nächtens” (At Night) and “Sehnsucht” (Longing).
Those are followed by three movements by Sir Hubert Parry (below) in “Songs of Farewell (1916–1918)”: “My Soul There Is a Country,” “I Know My Soul Hath Power” and “Never Weather Beaten Sail.”
The second half features two choral works with orchestra. The Madison Summer Choir is the only ensemble performing full-scale choral and orchestral works in the summer in Madison.
“Psalm 42” (1837-38) by Felix Mendelssohn is a cantata consisting of seven movements which include full choir, soprano solo, women’s choir, and a quintet of soprano solo with men’s chorus. Soprano soloist will be Chelsie Propst (below), who has performed with the choir twice before.
The concert will conclude with “Toward the Unknown Region” (1907) by Ralph Vaughan Williams (below top), a setting of the text by Walt Whitman (below bottom). You can hear a massive performance of the work at the BBC Proms in a YouTube video at the bottom.
Information on past concerts by the Madison Summer Choir and photos of the choir are on the website: www.madisonsummerchoir.org
Tags: Arts, Brahms, British Romanticism, choral music, Classical music, English music, Felix Mendelssohn, German music, German Romanticism, Hubert Parry, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Madison, Madison Summer Choir, Music, Orchestra, Piano, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Romanticism, singer, soprano, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, Walt Whitman, YouTube
Classical music: The new early music, a cappella vocal group Voces Aestatis (Voices of Summer) makes an impressive debut with many Renaissance composers and works. Plus, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival opens to acclaim.
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ALERT: Perhaps you didn’t make it to the opening of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival last Saturday night or Sunday afternoon (below is a photo of the renovated barn concert hall). The festival runs through this coming Sunday afternoon and is celebrating both its 25th anniversary and the 300th anniversary of the birth of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach. Here is a link to a review written for the Classically Speaking blog of Madison Magazine by Greg Hettmansberger, along with two preview stories from this blog:
By Jacob Stockinger
Last Friday was one of those nights, one of those increasingly frequent “train wrecks,” as The Wise Critic likes to call them, when two or more worthy classical musical events conflict and compete.
The Ear could not be in two places at once.
The two concerts were given by the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO), which was reviewed yesterday by John W. Barker.
At another venue, at exactly the same time, the new early music vocal group Voces Aestatis made its Madison debut.
To give you an idea of that performance, The Ear welcomes another new reviewer -– Ann Boyer, a retired medical research librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a longtime member of the UW-Madison Choral Union.
Here is her review debut for The Well-Tempered Ear:
By Ann Boyer
The new Renaissance Choral group Voces Aestatis (Latin for Summer Voices) — all 13 of them, including director Ben Luedcke — delighted the 200 or so listeners who filled St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, on Regent Street, last Friday night. (Below is a photo of the choral group, minus Jerry Hui, the composer, singer and teacher who did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and now teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.)
They had rehearsed four times, we learned, but had been instructed to come prepared. They were professionals, and it showed.
Songs were arranged in thematic pairs or threes, the sacred songs reflecting such themes as the imperfection of humankind, the birth of Jesus (emphasizing Mary’s role), and the death of Jesus.
Composers included Michael Praetorius, De Victoria and Giovanni di Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons and Heinrich Schütz. A particularly beautiful song was one by Antonio Lotti (below)
The second half of the program consisted of secular songs: the famous “Mille Regretz” (A Thousand Regrets) by Josquin des Prez (below and at bottom in a YouTube video performance by the famed Jordi Savall), sung sweetly and gently; the strange, expressionistic harmonies of Gesualdo and a work by Claudio Monteverdi with surprisingly erotic lyrics. A final pair of somber songs by Weelkes and Wilbye ended the program on a dark note, relieved by the encore: the chipper ”El Grillo” (The Grasshopper).
The group demonstrated fluidity of line, diction which varied from very clear to less so, good phrasing in particular songs, and good vocal blending. Towards the beginning the women’s voices seemed to dominate, but this corrected itself as the program continued.
The energy of director Ben Luedcke (below) – another UW-Madison graduate who was the music director of Lake Edge Lutheran Church and the founder-director of the Madison Summer Choir and who is completing a master’s degree at the University of Iowa — carried us all along.
We hope that the group will reassemble next summer.
Tags: American Record Guide, Ann Boyer, Antonio Lotti, Arts, Ben Luedcke, C.P.E. Bach, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, choral music, Classical music, Claudio Monteverdi, Early music, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Friday, Greg Hettmansberger, Heinrich Schütz, Jacob Stockinger, John W. Barker, Jordi Savall, Lutheranism, Madison, Madison Magazine, Madison Summer Choir, Michael Praetorius, Mille Regretz, Monteverdi, Music, Orlando di Lasso, Orlando Gibbons, Regent Street, Reniassance, Singing, song, summer, Thomas Tallis, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, University of Iowa, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Stout, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Wiscosnin, UW Choral Union, vocal music, Voces Aestatis, YouTube
Classical music: Even summer now has its classical music “train wrecks” and scheduling conflicts. Just look at this Saturday night with simultaneous performances by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and the Madison Summer Choir.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s bad enough when you have to choose between two or more very appealing concerts taking place at the same time during the regular fall, winter and spring season.
But the now the summer concert season has grown so rich that more and more of such scheduling conflicts – of “train wrecks,” as a good friend of The Ear and of classical music likes to call them – keep happening.
Last Friday night, I had to choose between the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, among other events on the Summer Solstice and during the Make Music Madison festival. Both were, by all accounts, very rewarding events.
What, one wonders, will the future bring?
For the moment, however, my focus is on the present — on another such conflict that will happen this coming Saturday night, June 29. That’s when I and others will have to choose between two events very worthy events that are both attractive.
For one, there is the opening of the third and final weekend of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in the Overture Center‘s Playhouse (below).
The intriguing and quite original program includes Dick Kattenburg’s Quartet for flute, violin, cello and piano; Erich Wolfgang Korngold‘s unusually scored Suite for Piano, Left Hand, Two Violins and Cello; and Ludwig van Beethoven‘s famed “Archduke” Piano Trio.
The performers, who have proven reliable and inspired in past years, include cellist Jean–Michel Fonteneau (below top) and violinist Axel Strauss (below bottom), who, with BDDS co-founder and co-director pianist Jeffrey Sykes, make up the San Francisco Trio.
And for the Korngold suite, Madison Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Naha Greenholtz (below) will make her BDDS debut — and not her last appearance, The Ear suspects.
(On Friday night at the Stoughton Opera House and on Sunday at the Hillside Theater (below) at the Frank Lloyd Wright historic compound Taliesin in Spring Green, the trio will Aaron Copland’s Violin Sonata transcribed for flute; a Mozart piano concert (No. 22 in E-flat, K. 482) in a chamber arrangement; and a very intriguing piano trio arrangement of Johannes Brahms String Sextet in G Major, Op. 36. For information about all the BDDS concerts visit: http://www.bachdancinganddynamite.org
Competing with that event, and right at the other end of State Street, is the single performance of “The Power of Music” by the Madison Summer Choir (below) under the very active and capable Madison choral conductor Ben Luedcke. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
The unusual and appealing program includes the “Saint Cecilia” Mass by French composer Charles Gounod as well as music by Virgil Thomson, Johannes Brahms, Josef Rheinberger and Thomas Tomkins.
Tickets are $8 for general admission, $5 for students. For more information, visit: http://madisonsummerchoir.org
Why, The Ear asks, can’t there be more cooperation among performers and presenters to prevent that kind of conflict, which benefits no one?
Such solutions do happen.
It used to be, for example, that for quite a few years a concert-goer had to choose on a mid-July Saturday night between attending the All-Festival Concert (below top) of the Madison Early Music Festival and going to the very popular outdoors and FREE “Opera in the Park” (below bottom) put on by the Madison Opera and members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
But the two groups seem to have worked out a solution that should satisfy all fans of vocal music and singing.
This summer, for example, the MEMF’s final concert “Stuttgart 1616,” featuring music by Michael Praetorius and others, will take place on Friday night, July 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall; while Opera in the Park will be on Saturday night, July 13, at 8 p.m. in Garner Park. The two events might be close and crowded, but attending both is quite do-able.
So, I ask, why couldn’t the Madison Summer Choir perform on, say, Sunday night, since the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society has had its summer schedule pretty well set for many years. Maybe the hall was already booked; maybe it was just a mistake or an oversight.
True, one could drive to Spring Green to catch up with the BDDS on Sunday (when BDDS will perform its Friday program at 2:30 p.m. and its Sunday program at 6:30 p.m.) after attending the Madison Summer Choir concert. But that seems a bit extreme and hectic to ask of people.
Anyway, The Ear hopes – and suspects that many listeners share that hope – that such mutually exclusive choices can be eliminated or at least minimized next summer and in the future.
In the meantime I will readily admit that such conflicts between worthy concerts may be the price we have to pay for having such a vibrant and active classical music scene in Madison. But it is unfortunate nonetheless.
I hope both events draw good audiences and prove artistically successfully. I expect they will.
Yet however satisfied you feel about whatever one you go to, I suspect you will also feel a sense a loss of the one you didn’t and couldn’t attend.
And that is too bad.
What are you thoughts about this?
How do you resolve such conflicts for yourself, and think performers and presenters should?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Axel Strauss, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Opera, Madison Summer Choir, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Opera in the Park, Orchestra, Overture Center, San Francisco Trio, Stoughton Opera House, Taliesin, University of Wisconsin–Madison
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The Well-Tempered Ear 