The Well-Tempered Ear
Too bad the Wisconsin Union Theater didn’t book a great pianist for next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
“We are living in a Golden Age of pianists,” famed concert pianist, Juilliard teacher and frequent Madison performer Emanuel Ax (below) has said.
He should know. But you would never guess that from the recently announced next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below).
The WUT has not booked a solo pianist for the 2022-23 season.
Here is a link to the lineup for the next season:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/
Is The Ear the only one who has noticed and is disappointed?
Who else feels bad about it?
After all, this is the same presenting organization that brought to Madison such legendary pianists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Percy Grainger, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Egon Petri, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, Claudio Arrau, Alexander Brailowsky, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Byron Janis, Misha Dichter, Peter Serkin, André Watts, Lili Kraus and Garrick Ohlsson
It is the same hall (below) in which The Ear has heard Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Valentina Lisitsa, Andras Schiff, Joyce Yang, Yefim Bronfman, Jeremy Denk, Ingrid Fliter, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Simone Dinnerstein, Wu Han and so many other great and memorable names including, of course, Emanuel Ax.
What a history!
As you can see and as The Ear likes to say, the Wisconsin Union Theater is “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.” For over 100 years, it is where the great ones play.
One irony is that many of those former bookings of pianists took place when the University of Wisconsin School of Music had many more pianists on the faculty and provided a major alternative venue for piano recitals.
Another irony is that so many young people take piano lessons (below) and are apt to want to attend, probably with their parents, to hear a live professional concert piano recital. You would think the WUT would also see the advantages of having such community outreach links to the public and to music education, especially since the WUT has hosted Open Piano Day for the public. (See the YouTube video of a Channel 3000 story in February 2020 at the bottom.)
From what The Ear reads, there are lots of up-and-coming pianists, many affordable names of various winners of national and international competitions. They should be affordable as well as worthy of being introduced to the Madison public.
But that seems a mission now largely left to the Salon Piano Series.
Plus, so many of the new pianists are young Asians who have never appeared here, which should be another draw for the socially responsible and diversity-minded WUT.
But that is another story for another day.
What do you think of the WUT not presenting a solo pianist next season?
Maybe there will be a pianist booked for the 2023-24 season.
What pianists would you like see booked by the WUT student programming committee?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet performs a FREE online virtual concert this Wednesday night. Plus, local music critic Greg Hettmansberger has died
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NEWS ALERT: Local music critic and blogger Greg Hettmansberger (below) was killed in a car accident on Dec. 2, near Wichita, Kansas. Hettmansberger, 65, was driving when he hit a deer and then another car hit him. His wife survived but remains hospitalized in Wichita in critical condition. Here is a link to a news account: https://www.kake.com/story/42993718/man-dies-in-crash-caused-by-deer-in-pratt-county
By Jacob Stockinger
This Wednesday night, Dec. 9, the UW-Madison’s Wingra Wind Quintet (below, in 2017) will perform a FREE virtual online concert from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Here is a direct link to the pre-recorded video premiere on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/e1NhVZJW2cA
Due to the pandemic, the Wingra Wind Quintet has been unable to perform chamber music in a traditional way since March 2020. (You can hear the quintet play “On, Wisconsin” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In response, the quintet put together a program that allowed each member to record parts separately and have those parts edited together.
Current faculty members (below) are: Conor Nelson, flute; Lindsay Flowers, oboe; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Marc Vallon, bassoon; and Devin Cobleigh-Morrison, horn
The engineer/producer is Kris Saebo.
The program is:
The first piece “Allegro scherzando” from Three Pieces by Walter Piston (below, 1894-1976)
The Chaconne from the First Suite in E-flat for Military Band by Gustav Holst (below, 1874-1934)
“Retracing” by Elliott Carter (below, 1908-2012)
Selections from “Mikrokosmos” by Bela Bartok (below, 1881-1945)
“A 6 letter letter” by Elliott Carter
Intermezzo from the First Suite in E-flat for Military Band by Gustav Holst
“Esprit rude/esprit doux” by Elliott Carter
Since its formation in 1965, the Wingra Wind Quintet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music has established a tradition of artistic and teaching excellence.
The ensemble has been featured in performance at national conferences such as MENC (Miami), MTNA (Kansas City), and the International Double Reed Society (Minneapolis).
The quintet also presented an invitational concert on the prestigious Dame Myra Hess series at the Chicago Public Library, broadcast live on radio station WFMT.
In addition to its extensive home state touring, the quintet has been invited to perform at numerous college campuses, including the universities of Alaska-Fairbanks, Northwestern, Chicago, Nebraska, Western Michigan, Florida State, Cornell, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Paris Conservatoire, where quintet members offered master classes.
The Wingra Wind Quintet has recorded for Golden Crest, Spectrum, and the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music recording series and is featured on an educational video entitled Developing Woodwind Ensembles.
Always on the lookout for new music of merit, the Wingra has premiered new works of Hilmar Luckhardt, Vern Reynolds, Alec Wilder, Edith Boroff, James Christensen and David Ott. The group recently gave the Midwest regional premiere of William Bolcom’s “Five Fold Five,” a sextet for woodwind quintet and piano, with UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor (below).
New York Times critic Peter Davis, in reviewing the ensemble’s Carnegie Hall appearance, stated “The performances were consistently sophisticated, sensitive and thoroughly vital.”
The Wingra Wind Quintet is one of three faculty chamber ensembles in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
Deeply committed to the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, the group travels widely to offer its concerts and educational services to students and the public in all corners of the state. (Editor’s note: For more about the Wisconsin Idea, which seems more relevant today than ever, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Idea.)
Portions of this recording were made at the Hamel Music Center, a venue of the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Classical music: The Madison Bach Musicians will perform its ninth annual Baroque Holiday Concert this coming Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
On this coming Saturday night, Dec. 7, the Madison Bach Musicians will present its ninth annual Baroque Holiday Concert (below, in 2014, in a photo by Kent Sweitzer).
The concert, using period instruments and historically informed performance practices, is again at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave., near Camp Randall Stadium. A pre-concert lecture by MBM founder and director Trevor Stephenson is at 7:15 p.m. followed by the concert at 8 p.m.
Advance-sale tickets are $35 at Orange Tree Imports and the Willy St. Co-op (East and West). Online advance-sale tickets are available at https://madisonbachmusicians.org. Tickets at the door at $38 for general admission and $35 for seniors. Student Rush tickets are $10 at the door and go on sale 30 minutes before the lecture.
The program features masterworks by Bach, Handel, Purcell and Torelli which, in their appealing Baroque way, explore the fusion of celebration, reflection and ultimate renewal often felt as the year’s end approaches.
MBM welcomes baroque trumpet virtuoso Kathryn Adduci (below), who will show how wonderfully vintage brass resounds in the magnificent Old World acoustics of the church.
Other performers are: Ariadne Lih, soprano (below); Lindsey Meekhof, alto; Ryan Townsend Strand, tenor; Michael Hawes, bass; Christine Hauptly Annin and Nathan Giglierano, violins; Micah Behr, viola; James Waldo, cello; and Trevor Stephenson, harpsichord.
Here are a couple of fun facts, provided by Stephenson, about each piece on the program.
Sound the Trumpet, by Henry Purcell (1659−1695, below)
1. This piece was composed in 1694, the year before Purcell died at the age of just 36. It is part of a birthday ode — Come Ye Sons of Art, Away! — for Queen Mary II of England, wife of King James II.
2. There is no trumpet in it at all, but the two voices implore the trumpet to play and they emulate trumpet-style writing with long, swelling notes mixed in with brilliant decorative flourishes.
Trumpet Concert in D major by Giuseppe Torelli (1658−1709, below)
1. Torelli was one of the most prolific trumpet composers of all time.
2. The baroque trumpet has no valves and is designed to play in one tonality at a time. Favorite baroque keys were D major and C major.
Comfort Ye and Every Valley from Messiah, by George Frideric Handel (1685−1759, below)
1. After the instrumental Overture to Messiah, this Recitative and Aria are the work’s first sung pieces.
2. Handel was 56 years old when he composed Messiah in 1741 in London; the work was premiered, however, in Dublin in 1742, much to the chagrin of Handel’s librettist Charles Jennens.
Cantata BWV 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Exult in God in Every Land), by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685−1750, below)
1. Composed around 1730, this is one of the very few Bach cantatas requiring only one singer.
2. In Bach’s Leipzig church, where the work was probably first heard, the soloist would have been either a male falsettist (or castrato) or an exceptionally skilled boy soprano.
Contrapunctus XIX and Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (Before Thy throne I stand), from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, by J.S. Bach
1. According to Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel (CPE), this fugue is the last piece his father wrote — though scholars hotly contest this claim.
2. In measure 195, Bach’s own name appears suddenly as a musical motive: B (B-flat in the German scale) – A – C – H (B natural) and the fugue has no ending but simply trails off in measure 239.
Grosser Herr, o starker König (Great Lord, O Powerful King) from Christmas Oratorio,BWV 248, by J.S. Bach
1. It features dance-like melodic figures in dialogue between trumpet and solo bass voice. (Heard in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
2. Text celebrates the birth of the savior, which makes the powers of the Earth irrelevant.
Cantata BWV 196, Der Herr denket an uns (The Lord thinks of us),by J.S. Bach
1. With its textual focus on blessings (from Psalm 115), the work is likely a wedding cantata.
2. Written probably when Bach was only 22 years old, the work is absolutely perfect in its structure and easy concision; its high-energy but quiet final cadence has a curiously modern, neo-Classical charm that might have made Stravinsky smile.
Chorale: Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe (What joy for me that I have Jesus),from Cantata, BWV 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life), by J.S. Bach
1. The famous opening figure in the strings is really just Bach’s ingenious obligato lead-in to a chorale tune that parishioners in his church would have instantly recognized.
2. This work has enjoyed tremendous popularity as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” since it was arranged for one and then two pianos in 1926 and 1934 respectively by English pianist Myra Hess. It has since been arranged for myriad combinations of instruments and voices.
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Classical music: Sunday brings the winners’ concert of the UW Concerto and Composition Competition plus a harpsichord recital
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By Jacob Stockinger
Two more noteworthy concerts will take place this coming Sunday, March 10.
UW-MADISON CONCERTO AND COMPOSITION COMPETITION
On Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, the annual winners’ concert of the UW-Madison Concerto and Composition Competition will take place.
The concert features the UW Symphony Orchestra (below top) under conductor Chad Hutchinson (below bottom) with four instrumentalists, one singer and one composer. All are current students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
Admission is $12, but free to students, children, music majors, faculty and staff.
Well-know works on the program include: Adalia Hernandez Abrego and Jiawan Zhang playing the Concerto for Two Pianos in D minor by Francis Poulenc; Richard Silvers playing the first two movements of the Violin Concerto in A minor by Antonin Dvorak; soprano Cayla Rosché singing the first and third songs of the “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss; and Chia-Yu Hsu playing the Concertino for Bassoon and Orchestra by Marcel Bitsch. In addition, there will be the world premiere of “Fanfare for Orchestra” by student composer Anne McAninch.
To learn more about the concert, and to see photos and videos of the performers who discuss themselves and the works they will play, see the YouTube video below and go to:
HARPSICHORD RECITAL
Earlier on Sunday afternoon is a concert that should appeal to early music fans: At 3 p.m. the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, will present the fifth Annual Mark Rosa Harpsichord Recital.
The performance features harpsichordist Jason J. Moy (below), with special guests bass violist Katherine Shuldiner and baroque violinist Kangwon Lee Kim.
The all-French baroque program is called “The Angel, The Devil and The Sun King: Music and Rivalry in the Court of Louis XIV” and features works by Marin Marais, Antoine Forqueray, Jacques Duphly and Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Tickets will be available at the door: $20 for general admission, $12 for seniors, students and veterans.
Moy is director of the Baroque Ensemble and a harpsichord instructor at the DePaul University School of Music. He has performed across the United States, Canada and Europe, including every Boston Early Music Festival since 2013.
One of Chicago’s most sought-after early keyboard specialists, Moy was recently named artistic director of Ars Musica Chicago. He also plays as part of the Dame Myra Hess International Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center. Madisonians may be familiar with his playing from his appearances with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
You can hear him discuss playing the harpsichord and talk about its modern history in the YouTube video below. For more information, go to: www.jjmoy.com
Kangwon Lee Kim (below) is a versatile violinist on both baroque and modern violins. She is familiar to Madisonians as the concertmaster and assistant artistic director of Madison Bach Musicians. She has also given recitals throughout the U.S. and in Korea, Canada, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Norway and the Czech Republic.
Katherine Shuldiner (below) graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory in viola da gamba. She performs regularly with other early music specialists, and ensembles such as the Bach and Beethoven Experience, VOX3 Collective and the Newberry Consort. She has taught at the Whitewater and Madison Early Music Festivals. www.kateshuldiner.com
Tags: #AdaliaHernandezAbrego, #AnneMcAninch, #AntoineForqueray, #AntoninDvorak, #ArsMusicaChicago, #ArtisticDirector, #BaroqueEnsemble, #BaroqueMusic, #BassoonConcerto, #BassoonMusic, #BassViol, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BostonEarlyMusicFestival, #BostonMassachusetts, #CaylaRosché, #ChadHutchinson, #ChicagoCulturalCenter, #ChicagoIllinois, #ConcertoCompetition, #CzechRepublic, #DePaulUniversity, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FirstUnitarianSocietyofMadison, #FourLastSongs, #FrancisPoulenc, #FrenchMusic, #HarpsichordMusic, #JacquesDuphly, #Jason Moy, #JasonMoy, #Jean-PhilippeRameau, #JiawanZhang, #JohannSebastianBach, #KangwonKim, #KatherineShuldiner, #LouisXIV, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonBachMusicians, #MadisonEarlyMusicFestival, #MarcelBitsch, #MarinMarais, #MarkRosa, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #ModernHistory, #MusicMajor, #MyraHess, #NewberryConsort, #OberlinConservatory, #PianoConcerto, #PuertoRico, #RichardSilvers, #RichardStrauss, #SchoolofMusic, #Sundayafternoon, #SunKing, #TheAngel, #TheDevil, #UnitedStates, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UniversityofWisconsin-Whitewater, #UWSymphonyOrchestra, #VioladaGamba, #ViolinConcerto, #WhitewaterEarlyMusicFestival, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, #WorldPremiere, #YouTubevideo, Adalia Hernandez Abrego, admission, adult, afternoon, angel, Anne McAninch, annual, Antoine Forqueray, Antonín Dvořák, Ars Musica Chicago, Artistic director, Arts, audience, Bach, Baroque, Baroque Ensemble, bass viol, Bassoon, Beethoven, blog, Boston, Boston Early Music Festival, Canada, Cayla Rosché, Chad Hutchinson, Chamber music, Chia-Yu Hsu, Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, children, Classical music, composer, Composition, Concert, concertino, concertmaster, concerto, conductor, court, current, Czech Republic, DePaul University, Devil, discuss, Early music, Europe, Facebook, faculty, fanfafe, First Unitarian Society of Madison, forward, Four Last Songs, Francis Poulenc, French, harpsichord, History, instrumentalist, Jacob Stockinger, Jacques Duphly, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jiawan Zhang, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kangwon Kim, Katherine Shuldiner, Keyboard, Korea, like, lnk, Louis XIV, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Early Music Festival, Madisonian, major, Marcel BItsch, Marin Marais, Mark Rosa, Mead Witter School of Music, modern, Music, music major, Myra Hess, Newberry Consort, Norway, noteworthy, Oberlin Conservatory, Orchestra, performer, photo, Piano, playing, post, posting, Puerto Rico, Richard Silvers, Richard Strauss, rivalry, School of Music, share, sing, singer, song, soprano, specialist, staff\, Student, students, Sun King, Sunday, Switzerland, symphony, tag, talk, teach, two-piano, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Symphony Orchestra, UW-Madison, Veteran, veterans, video, viola da gamba, Violin, WaterwaterWisconsin, well-known, Whitewater Early Music Festival, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, word, work, world premiere, YouTube, Zhang
Classical music: Who are the best pianists of all time? And which ones do you think were left off the list by Classic FM?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The British radio station and website Classic FM recently published its list of the 25 greatest pianists of all time.
Plus, the website also included samples of the playing where possible.
It is an impressive list, if pretty predictable — and heavily weighted towards modern or contemporary pianists. You might expect that a list of “all-time greats” would have more historical figures — and more women as well as more non-Western Europeans and non-Americans, especially Asians these days.
Here is a link:
http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/best-pianists-ever/
So The Ear started what turned out to be a long list of others who should at least be considered and maybe even included.
Here, then, is the question for this weekend: What do you think of the list? Which pianists do not belong on the list? And which are your favorite pianists who are not included in the compilation?
Leave your candidate or candidates in the COMMENT section with a link to a YouTube link of a favorite performance, wherever possible.
Happy listening!
Tags: Alfred Brendel, America, American, Argerich, Arrau, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Artur Rubinstein, Ashkenazy, asian, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Chamber music, Clara Schumann, Classic FM, Classical music, Claudio Arrau, concerto, contemporary, Daniel Barenboim, England, Europe, European, Franz Schubert, Glenn Gould, great, Great Britain, histiry', historical, Horowitz, Jacob Stockinger, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John Ogdon, Lang Lang, Leif Ove Andsnes, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Maria Joao Pires, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, modern, Mozart, Murray Perahia, Music, Myra Hess, Orchestra, Pianist, Piano, Radio, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Rachmaninov, Sexism, sexist, Sonata, Stephen Hough, Sviatoslav Richter, time, UK, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Western Europe, Western European, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, women, YouTube
Classical music: The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music will open its new season Saturday night with a FREE recital of Latin American and German music by flutist Stephanie Jutt.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear likes that a new season at the University of Wisconsin School of Music will officially open in an intimate rather than grand manner with a chamber music concert.
At 8 p.m. in Morphy Recital Hall on this Saturday, Sept. 6, flutist Stephanie Jutt (below) will perform Latin American music plus a classic masterpiece sonata by Johannes Brahms. The concert is FREE and OPEN to the public.
Jutt, who is a longtime professor the UW-Madison School of Music, is also the principal flute of the Madison Symphony Orchestra as well as a co-founder and co-artistic director of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, which performs each summer in June. She also performs in the Wingra Woodwind Quintet (below, in a photo by Michael Anderson) at the UW-Madison.
On this program, Jutt and Venezuelan pianist Elena Abend will offer audiences a look at some of the beautiful and spicy music written by Latin American composers, including Argentinean composers Carlos Guastavino (below top), Astor Piazzolla (below middle) and Angel Lasala (below bottom).
Jutt recently traveled to Argentina to research this repertoire, and will be recording it with Elena Abend later this year in New York City.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, pianist Elena Abend (below) has performed with all the major orchestras of her country. Receiving her Bachelor and Master degrees from the Juilliard School, she has performed at venues such as the Purcell Room in London’s Royal Festival Hall, Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as the Wigmore Hall in London, Toulouse Conservatoire, Theatre Luxembourg, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., Chicago Cultural Center and the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee.
More performances include Ravinia and Marlboro Music Festivals, live broadcasts on Philadelphia’s WFLN, The Dame Myra Hess Concert Series on Chicago’s WFMT and Wisconsin Public Radio at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. She has recorded for the Avie label and numerous recording and editing projects for Hal Leonard’s G. Schirmer Instrumental Library and Schirmer Performance Editions.
Elena Abend currently serves on the Piano and Chamber Music Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Program:
Milonga en Re (at bottom in a YouTube video) Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Tanguano Astor Piazzolla (1912-1992)
Introduccion y Allegro Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
With ELENA ABEND, PIANO
Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) as arranged for flute by Stephanie Jutt
With UW Piano Professor CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR (below)
INTERMISSION
Poema del Pastor Coya Angel Lasala (1914-2000)
Con la Chola y el Changuito Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
Fuga e Misterio Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Tags: Angel Lasala, Argentina, Arts, Avery Fisher, Avery Fisher Hall, Avie Records, Ástor Piazzolla, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Brahms, Carlos Guastavino, Carnegie Hall, Chamber music, Chazen Museum of Art, Chicago, Christopher Taylor, D.C., ELENA ABEND, flute, France, G. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, Juilliard School, Juilliard School of Music, LIncoln Center, London, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Marlboro Festival, Music, Myra Hess, New York City, Orchestra, Paris, Piano, Ravinia, Royal Festival Hall, Sonata, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Venezuela, Washington, Weil Hall, Weill Hall, WFMT, Wigmore Hall, winds, Wingra Woodwind Quintet, wisconsin public radio, YouTube
Classical music: YOU MUST HEAR THIS – Chicago pianist Jorge Federico Osorio plays a piano transcription of J.S. Bach by Walter Rummel, whose transcriptions deserve a much wider hearing.
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By Jacob Stockinger
There is no point being a purist about transcriptions, especially in the Baroque era and Romantic eras.
All the great Baroque composers — Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel and especially Johann Sebastian Bach (below) to name a few — borrowed from themselves and from other composers, and always felt free to rearrange the original for a different instrument or a special occasion.
Like many piano fans, I know and have heard or even played a lot of Bach transcriptions for the modern piano, from Ferrucio Busoni’s wonderful version of chorale preludes to Alexander Siloti’s and Egon Petri’s version to Wilhelm Kempff and of course the famous version of “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” by Dame Myra Hess (below).
But I had never heard of transcriptions of Walter Rummel -– even though the Hyperion label offer a series of Bach piano transcriptions with more than 10 volumes, including a 2-CD set of Walter Rummel’s transcriptions of movements from Bach’s cantatas.
Rummel (below, in 1944) lived from 1887 to 1953 and studied with the virtuosic performer and arranger Leopold Godowsky. Though of German background, he spent most of his career in France and was acclaimed for his playing especially of Debussy, and for his arrangements and transcriptions.
Anyway, I like what I heard and was quite taken with it, and hope you will be too. As with so many of these transcriptions, I suspect it sounds a lot easier to play than it really is.
Anyway, here it is, played by the Chicago pianist Jorge Federico Osorio (below) in a live performance captured by and posted in a YouTube video.
I cannot find a recording of this particular work – although Osorio has recorded three volumes of Mexican music, including the Piano Concerto by Carlos Chavez, for the outstanding non-profit Cedille Records in Chicago — by Osorio on CD. But the acclaimed pianist Jonathan Plowright has recorded it for the Hyperion series.
What is your favorite piano transcription of Bach? And who plays it?
The Ear wants to hear.
In the mean time, here is the lovely and calmingly thoughtful performance by Jorge Federico Osorio. Tell me if it doesn’t want to make you hear more:
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: Today is World Piano Day. Why do you love the piano? Do you have a favorite piano piece? A favorite pianist? Something to say about taking piano lessons? Want to thank your piano teacher? The Ear wants to hear
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Today – Saturday, March 28, 2020 – is World Piano Day.
The international celebration is fitting because today happens to be Day 88 of the year – a timely parallel to the fact that most pianos have 88 keys.
Here is a link to the official website with a list of international events and other links to playlists of piano music on SoundCloud and Spotify: https://www.pianoday.org
Here is a link to the virtual live streaming piano festival — starting at 3 p.m. Central European Time (CET), which is 6 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time or at 9 a.m. CDT) — by the record label Deutsche Grammophon: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-news/deutsche-grammophon-world-piano-day-livestream/
A lot of us took piano lessons.
So today seems like a good occasion to say something about the role of the piano in your life.
Why do you love the piano? The sound? The physical act of playing? The vast repertoire?
Maybe you want to mention a specific piano piece that made a difference in your life, as the Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39, by Chopin did for The Ear. (You can hear Arthur Rubinstein play it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Maybe you have a favorite piano piece or piano composer you like to listen to?
Maybe you wished you had stopped lessons earlier or continued them longer?
Would you like to say thank you to your piano teacher?
Maybe you have memories – good or bad — of a recital you gave?
Who is your favorite pianist from the past – maybe Van Cliburn or Vladimir Horowitz (below), Sviatoslav Richter or Dame Myra Hess?
Which pianist today would you recommend to others? Daniil Trifonov or Haochen Zhang, Simone Dinnerstein (below) or Maria Joao Pires?
Those suggestions hardly exhaust the possibilities. So be creative and leave a Comment with a YouTube link, if possible.
The Ear wants to hear.
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