The Well-Tempered Ear
Who was the better pianist? Maestro Cigarette or Maestro Cigar?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Look below.
You will see two rivals.
They are probably the two most famous and legendary pianists of the 20th century.
On the left is the young Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989).
On the right is the middle-aged Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982).
Horowitz is smoking a cigarette.
Rubinstein is smoking a cigar.
Each smoke seems to embody the smoker.
Horowitz played the piano in a distinctly modern way where speed, sharpness and virtuosity mattered — a quick burn became his signature.
Rubinstein had a more patient, full-bodied aristocratic or noble approach. An intense slow burn was more his speciality.
At least that is what The Ear sees and hears when looks at the historic photograph of two piano rivals who were really friends.
Do you agree?
Which one do you think was the better pianist?
The better musician?
Which one was better in which repertoire or pieces?
The Ear wants to hear.
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How popular is Western classical music in China?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has written before about how Western classical music continues to expand its hold on Asia, especially in China and South Korea but also in Japan and other countries.
The observation has usually been within the context of the amazing amount of music students, contestants and winners of international music competitions — especially in piano competitions but also in string, voice and chamber music competitions — and in the training that homes, conservatories and music schools in Asia are providing.
It is all the more admirable in a country where, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, playing or listening to Beethoven could land you in prison or get you executed.
Here is an older post:
Take a look at the picture below.
This is no rock concert drawing what looks like an audience big enough to fill a sports arena or stadium.
This is an open-air classical concert that is held as part of festival, now 12 years old, in Shanghai. This year the festival has featured the music Tchaikovsky and Puccini and will end on Sunday.
You have to make allowances for the same kind of boosterism that arts writing often exhibits in the U.S. But here is the full story with lots of details about programs and performers on the media website of China Daily:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202405/31/WS665977daa31082fc043ca429.html
The Ear suspects only the BBC Proms — billed as the biggest classical music event in the world and held every summer in Great Britain — can compete.
Can anyone name an American or European classical event that draws such a crowd?
Has anyone heard Western classical music performed in China by Chinese artists? What did you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Do you like chamber music? What piece introduced you to it? What is your favorite piece now?
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By Jacob Stockinger
May is National Chamber Music Month.
So before the month ends, I want to ask readers two questions:
WHAT PIECE FIRST INTRODUCED CHAMBER MUSIC TO YOU?
AND WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF CHAMBER MUSIC TODAY?
The countless choices range, for example, from violin and cello duets, piano trios (below is the famed Beaux Arts Trio) and string quartets and on and on up to quintets, sextets, septets, octets and nonets, and many more.
For The Ear, the answer is easy and chamber music did not turn out to be esoteric or rarified.
The first chamber music piece I ever heard was the Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 99 or D. 898, by Franz Schubert (below).
And to this day it remains my favorite piece of chamber music — as often happens with a work or a performance (think Arthur Rubinstein’s Chopin) that first opens up a whole new world to you.
I was 15 when I first heard the Schubert piano trio in a live performance when my piano teacher played it outdoors in summer.
I was totally transported. It was nothing short of magical.
From the first notes, I had never heard such small ensemble beauty. Like most piano students, I was far more acquainted with the solo and concerto repertoire.
But Schubert’s gorgeous melodies, three-way dialogue and soul-stirring harmonies opened up a new world for me. (See if you agree. You can hear the sublimely beautiful song-like slow movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Only after hearing that trio did I gradually discover the many other forms of chamber music from great composers and eventually my preference for strings. That trio propelled a life-long love of chamber music.
Chamber music has remained a major joy in my life, something I enjoy more than orchestral and operatic music.
It has an intimacy and elements of surprise that speak to me.
So which piece was your introduction to chamber music?
And which piece is your favorite piece of chamber music today?
What do you think in general of chamber music?
The Ear wants to hear.
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What are the best classical music festivals this summer?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Memorial Day 2024 will be celebrated his weekend.
In addition to remembering veterans, the holiday is the unofficial start of summer in the U.S. and brings picnics, barbecues, camping and travels.
It also brings music festivals of all kinds — pop, rock, jazz, folk, blues, ethnic and hip-hop.
So this weekend seems like a good time to pass along dozens of recommendations for major classical music festivals that you can attend in the U.S., the UK, Canada and Europe. Many of them are held outdoors — in tents, amphitheaters, sheds, bowls and shells at the summer residencies of major arts organizations such as symphony orchestras. (Below is the Tahoe Pavilion in Nevada.)
Curiously, I have not seen any classical music festivals listed for Asia, which has been experiencing a renaissance in performing and listening to Western classical music — especially in China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Anyway, here are links to the stories about summer festivals that were selected by critics for classical-music.com thanks to the BBCMusic Magazine.
Even if you can’t attend them it can be a lot of vicarious fun to check them out — much like reading cookbooks, recipes and travelogues.
It can be very informative to check out the genres (chamber music, orchestra and opera; old music and new), the programs, the composers and the performers as well as the venues — especially since the listings have many links that take you to more details and YouTube videos about those same items. (Below is a photo by Zach Mahone of the outdoor concert venue in Vail, Colorado)
In the United States and Canada:
https://www.classical-music.com/live-music/best-classical-music-festivals-in-usa-and-canada
In the UK including Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand:
https://www.classical-music.com/live-music/uks-best-classical-music-festivals
In Europe (see the YouTube trailer for the Edinburgh International Festival 2023 at the bottom):
https://www.classical-music.com/live-music/best-classical-music-festivals-europe-2024
And don’t forget the check out local festivals that don’t usually get included in national or international listings.
Do you have any festivals — local, regional, national and international — to recommend?
The Ear wants to hear.
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What classical piano music is played in Season 3 of ‘Bridgerton’?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The television series “Bridgerton” — which seems to have attracted the kind of loyal following that “Downton Abbey,”“Game of Thrones” and “The Crown” inspired — has been a huge hit.
The first part of Season 3 of the popular and steamy romance set in the Regency-era (1795-1837) about a powerful English family is now available on Netflix. (The second part will be available on June 13.) You can view the season trailer — which has almost 8 million views —in the YouTube video at the bottom.
As usual, the soundtrack uses string quartet covers of pop music. But during the opening of the new season, Francesca Bridgerton (below, played by Hannah Dodd) is revealed to be an accomplished pianist.
But what music does she like?
And what music does she play?
Here is a story — with related links — about those questions from ClassicFM, the British radio station:
Here is the official website, where you can also catch up on the first two seasons as well as episodes of the third season:
https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398
And here is the Wikipedia entry for background and a key to the many characters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgerton
Happy watching — and listening!
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Yunchan Lim’s Chopin etudes are the best ever
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By Jacob Stockinger
If you haven’t yet heard the new bestselling recording of Chopin’s etudes by pianist Yunchan Lim (below), what are you waiting for? It is a new treat each time you listen to it — as The Ear has many times.
When it comes to piano etudes, which is the higher Everest: Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes or Chopin’s two sets of Etudes.
To the Ear, etudes by Liszt (below) are flashier and revel more in sheer physical technique, while Chopin’s significantly shorter etudes — no less technically challenging or difficult — are deeper and revel more in music that serves specific techniques such as octaves, double-thirds, sixths, arpeggios and so forth.
To The Ear, Chopin (below) is clearly a superior creator of piano etudes, and is more ingenious at integrating music into the technical challenges.
I have listened to wonderful recordings of all the Chopin etudes by Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Claudio Arrau, Louis Lortie, Garrick Ohlsson, Murray Perahia, Jan Lisiecki and others.
I don’t think any pianist would even think about recording all the treacherous etudes without proving that they have mastered them. So, unsurprisingly, all the sets are good. Very good. And you might even find individual etudes that outdo Lim.
But as a complete set, Lim’s is better.
Simply put, to these ears, Lim’s set is the best ever.
That is no small achievement for the 20-year-old, mop-haired South Korean who in 2022 won the last Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at 18 and has since gone on to have a meteoric global career.
He has already been recorded live playing his prize-winning performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (found on YouTube) and of all of Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Etudes (on the Steinway label).
But the Chopin etudes are his first studio recordings for Decca, which has signed Lim as an exclusive artist.
And what a debut it is.
Lim is a natural. He makes whatever he plays sound as if that is exactly how it is supposed to be played. He reminds me of what Zubin Mehta once said: “If you want to hear how a piece should sound, listen to Rubinstein.”
Same goes for Lim.
Lim finds new things in the scores, but they never sound distorted or forced. Listen to the left-hand voices, selections of tempi, shading, volume control and tone. At all times Lim makes the technical challenges he has mastered serve the music.
In the YouTube video at the bottom, just listen to his sensitive reading, with transparency and sublimely subtle rubato, of the famous “Tristesse” Etude in E major, Op. 10, No. 3, in E major, which Chopin viewed as one his very best melodies.
Chopin would approve.
My only disappointment is minor. Advance publicity said the recording would be comprehensive and include the less virtuosic but very poetic “Three New Etudes” that were published posthumously — just like Arrau’s and Lortie’s recordings do. But no such luck. We fans will just have to wait for another disc.
The Ear sure hopes that Madison audiences soon get the chances to hear Yunchan Lim live in both recitals and concertos.
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What do you think of the ‘new’ Wisconsin Public Radio?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Is The Ear alone — the only listener who is apprehensive and even disapproving about the major changes coming to the “new” Wisconsin Public Radio?
Starting this coming Monday, May 20, WPR is about to be severely reinvented.
That is when there will really be two WPRs — an all-music channel and a separate all-news channel — and when schedules for programs and hosts will change drastically.
And, just as importantly, so will the locations the two new stations on the dial.
For more details about the new station maps and numbers as well as background to the Big Makeover, go to the newly redesigned and improved website and especially this page:
Switching stations several times each day to catch the programs that you like should be about as much fun as resetting your clocks and digital timers for going on and off Daylight Saving and after a power outage.
Only you will be doing it non-stop.
No more one-stop shopping from morning to night.
Might just be enough to make some people tune out.
Or maybe withhold donations, even with what seems an increasing reliance on matching gifts by “generous friends” of WPR.
Of course the promotions and YouTube video from WPR’s recently hired director Sarah Ashworth (below) say the changes will be “exciting” and come after two years of research and analysis. She says the changes will make it easier for listeners around the state to listen to WPR, but they sure sound inconvenient more than user-friendly.
Excuse my doubt.
I like the mix of news and classical music. Always have, alway will.
I like waking up to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” which is my comprehensive morning news briefing. It’s great to listen to while driving to work or resting in bed.
I love the transition to classical music at 9, when I need beauty and am ready to listen to some music. (Below is Stephanie Elkins in the studio where she masterfully hosted the now-defunct “Morning Classics.”)
And after six hours of music, I love hearing “All Things Considered,” one of the few broadcast news programs that take culture seriously in addition to politics, finance and world events. I also love catching Terry Gross’ interviews on “Fresh Air” and financial updates from “Marketplace.”
I have loved the news-music contrast and combination ever since I came to graduate school in Madison and first tuned in to WPR.
The station has always reinforced the astute observations made by the great American poet William Carlos Williams who said: ‘“Beauty” is related not to “loveliness” but to a state in which reality plays a part”’ and “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/though men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there.”
Beauty and news belong together — integrated, not segregated. (The all-music channel will still have hourly headlines.)
Hard to tell if the changes will take WPR, now over a century old, to greater success or put it on the path to slow suicide.
Other things might have helped increase listenership .
One that comes to mind is playing less second- and third-rate music that is thoroughly boring and forgettable, and then trying to pass it off as important. More of an emphasis on great music — you know, the kind that first made us all fall in love with classical music — and less of an emphasis on obscure musicology and identity programming might have helped.
Another is implementing faster solutions to mechanical problems — including missing online listings, frequent instances of dead air, and chopping off parts of news and music programs.
Anyway, we need to give the new changes a chance. So Monday I will tune in and see how it goes and hope for the best before passing final judgment. But I am not optimistic.
What do you think of the changes?
What would you like to see WPR do more of or less of?
Please leave a comment, however brief.
The Ear and surely the entire staff at WPR want to hear.
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Here’s music to mark Mother’s Day
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Sunday is Mother’s Day 2024.
The holiday celebrating mothers, grandmothers and women whose are like mothers to us is celebrated around the world in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Mothers have long provided inspiration to composers, performers and listeners.
The Ear’s mom loved to hear him practice and play Chopin’s Waltz in E minor and Rachmaninoff’s popular Prelude in C-sharp minor (played by the composer in the YouTube video at the bottom), which dropped out of fashion for many years but now seems back in favor, especially as an encore.
Mom was proud of her pianist son and once even let the telephone sit near the piano when I was playing the Rachmaninoff for someone who had called her long-distance and wanted to hear more of what was until then just background noise to her conversation.
Anyway, here is one of the best pieces I have seen for you to read and listen to as you celebrate Mother’s Day. Some of the music is sure to be very familiar, other music less so.
Here are 20 pieces, with brief introductions and translations, about mothers from the website Interlude in Hong Kong:
Here’s to you, Mom.
Do you have a piece to dedicate to your mom?
Did your mother have a favorite piece she liked to hear?
The Ear wants to hear.
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What made Beethoven sick and deaf?
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By Jacob Stockinger
What made Beethoven (below) deaf and sick his entire adult life?
Scientists think they have an answer, although their opinion is not unanimous.
Here is a news story from Classic FM about the latest research:
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/scientists-hair-analysis-deaf-mystery/
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Beethoven’s Ninth turns 200 today
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By Jacob Stockinger
Perhaps the only symphony more iconic than Beethoven’s Ninth is the Fifth Symphony by the same composer (below).
But today we celebrate the premiere of the pioneering Ninth Symphony that took place 200 years ago on May 7, 1824. Below is the original poster announcing the concert program with the premiere, which Beethoven conducted in his total deafness.
Here is a link to an anniversary story, with lots of historical background about the original performance, by the PBS affiliate WETA in Washington, D.C.:
https://weta.org/fm/classical-score/may-7-1824-200th-anniversary-premiere-beethovens-symphony-no-9
The 70-minute-long Ninth — also called the “Choral” Symphony — is a remarkable work in so many ways. It remains perhaps the most universal music ever written, meaningful to many different individuals and cultures.
Unlike most symphonies of the time, the opening does not immediately announce a theme. It seems to drift around until it finds a solid key and recognizable theme and rhythm. And then it takes off. It reminds The Ear of the depiction by Haydn, Beethoven’s teacher, in his oratorio “The Creation.”
The New York Times also has an essay by Daniel Barenboim about the meaning of Beethoven’s Ninth. No doubt that would be interesting and enlightening to read. But unfortunately the Times hides it behind a pay wall. Only subscribers get to see it right now.
Instead, here is a comprehensive look in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)
The famous choral setting of German poet Friedrich Schiller’s 1785 “Ode to Joy” of the last movement is also the official hymn of the European Union. This was the first use of a chorus in a symphony but would not be the last.
In Japan, the same “Ode to Joy” is sung en masse with a chorus up to 10,000 in stadiums every New Year’s Day and on other special occasions, as you can see in the YouTube video at the bottom, an event that took place after a horrendous earthquake and tsunami. The idealistic music embodies the journey from despair to hope, and to brotherhood and solidarity with all people and all nations.
Leonard Bernstein directed it in Berlin to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coming of German reunification.
As its theme, the nightly Huntley-Brinkley New Report on NBC used to use the percussive, pounding, rhythmically propulsive Scherzo movement — which is The Ear’s favorite movement.
The Ear also thinks that the soulful slow movement has strong suggestions of the lovely and well-known slow movement of Beethoven’s earlier “Pathétique” piano sonata. But it doesn’t seem to have been used as a theme or in a movie soundtrack. Does anyone know differently?
What does the Ninth Symphony mean to you?
What do you think of the Ninth and how do you rank it among other symphonies?
Do you have a favorite recording or performance?
What is your favorite movement of Beethoven’s Ninth?
What other uses of The Ninth do you know of?
The Ear wants to hear
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