The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: What music is helping you get through the Coronavirus by staying home? Help create a Pandemic Playlist
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By Jacob Stockinger
Starting today, Wisconsin joins other states and countries in proclaiming a stay-at-home emergency condition to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
That means non-essential businesses and schools are closed; restaurants can only deliver food and do pick-up; and residents must stay at home except for essential services and travel such as buying food, seeing a doctor and getting medicine.
For a couple of weeks, many of us have already been spending almost all our time hunkering down at home.
And the Internet and other mass media are full of helpful hints about how to handle the loneliness, fear and anxiety that can come with self-isolation and self-quarantining.
For many, music proves a reliable coping strategy.
Since there are no live concerts to preview or review, now seems like a good time for The Ear to ask readers: What music helps you deal with the isolation of staying at home?
Is listening to music a part of your daily schedule, structure or routine?
Maybe you are using the time to discover new music or neglected composers, works and performers.
Maybe you are using the time to revisit old favorites by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
Maybe you prefer darker and deeper, more introverted works such as symphonies by Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovich?
Maybe you prefer the stories and drama of operas by Verdi and Puccini, oratorios by Handel and songs by Schubert?
Maybe, like The Ear, you find the music of Baroque Italian composers, such as the violin concertos by Vivaldi and Corelli, to be a great, upbeat way to start the day with energy and a good mood.
One more modern but neo-classical work that The Ear likes to turn to — a work that is rarely heard or performed live – is the beautiful “Eclogue” for piano and strings by the 20th-century British composer Gerald Finzi (below).
Finzi wrote it as a slow movement to a piano concerto, but then never finished the concerto. The “Eclogue” — a short pastoral poem — was never performed in his lifetime. So it continues to stand alone.
But like so much English pastoral music, the poignant Eclogue feels like sonic balm, some restorative comfort that can transport you to a calmer and quieter place, put you in a mood that you find soothing rather than agitated.
Hear it for yourself and decide by listening to it in the YouTube video at the bottom, then let The Ear know what you think.
Perhaps you have many other pieces to suggest for the same purpose.
But the series of reader suggestions is meant to be ongoing.
The idea is to build a collective “Pandemic Playlist.”
So right now and for this time, please post just ONE suggestion – with a YouTube link, if possible — in the Comment section with perhaps what you like about it and why it works for you during this time of physical, psychological and emotional distress from COVID-19.
What do you think of the idea of creating a Pandemic Playlist?
The Ear hopes that you like his choice, and that he and other readers like yours.
Be well and stay well.
Let’s get through this together.
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Classical music: Happy Bastille Day! But instead of militarism, let’s celebrate the holiday with revolutionary French music by a revolutionary French composer. What French music would you choose?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is July 14, known in the U.S. as Bastille Day.
That is the day in 1789 when the infamous Bastille Prison in Paris was stormed by the masses and political prisoners were freed – marking the beginning of the French Revolution.
The tradition is to play “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem that grew out of the revolution. Usually there is a military side to the arrangement of the anthem and the performance of it.
After all, it was a Bastille Day parade that even inspired President Trump to stage his egotistical “Salute to America” – satirically dubbed “Tanksgiving” — on the Fourth of July this year in Washington, D.C..
But The Ear has had quite enough of militarism and of the lying draft dodger who became commander-in-chief using patriotism to camouflage his un-American actions and ideas.
With no disrespect to those who served or are serving in the armed forces, there are many ways besides the military to be patriotic and even revolutionary.
So this year The Ear is choosing something subtle and less martial to mark the day.
It is a performance of “Feux d’artifice” (Fireworks), a prelude for solo piano by Claude Debussy (below), who described himself – in an age where German and Italian music ruled – simply as a “French musician.” But make no mistake: Debussy, who was rejected for admission to the Paris Conservatory, was indeed a revolutionary figure in music history for his innovations in harmony and form.
(Perhaps this past season, you heard Marc-André Hamelin give an astoundingly virtuosic performance of “Fireworks” as an encore after his Sunday afternoon concerto performances with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.)
Listen carefully and at the very end you will hear a subtle reference to the Marseillaise that adds the right touch to the pyrotechnical celebration of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
Added to that, the fiery performance in the YouTube video at the bottom is by Robert Casadesus, a deservedly famous French pianist.
Finally, The Ear thinks you can celebrate Bastille Day with any number of French composers and French works, many of which remain neglected and underperformed. (The Ear is particularly partial to the music of Gabriel Faure, below, who taught Maurice Ravel.)
Who is your favorite French composer?
What is your favorite French piece of classical music?
Leave a comment with, if possible, a YouTube link.
Happy Bastille Day!!
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Classical music: YOU MUST HEAR THIS: Three piano pieces by the forgotten American composer William Mason that are worth rediscovering
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By Jacob Stockinger
As often happens, The Ear was listening to Wisconsin Public Radio and yesterday afternoon he made a discovery during The Midday program with Norman Gilliland.
It was piano piece called “Amourette” by the American 19th-century composer William Mason (below). Unfortunately, you won’t find that piece on YouTube. But here, in the YouTube video at the bottom, are three other fine works, probably from the same Naxos CD, that are also noteworthy discoveries of a forgotten, if minor, composer who had a knack for pleasing and melodic salon music.
Here are a brief biography and an introduction from YouTube and Wikipedia:
William Mason (below, 1829-1908) was an American pianist, composer and teacher. He was from a musical family, son of the famous and prolific hymn composer Lowell Mason, and brother of Henry Mason, co-founder of Mason and Hamlin pianos.
William studied in Europe and was the first American student of Franz Liszt. In his music, you can hear reflected some of the major piano composers of the 19th century.
Here is a link to his entry in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mason_(composer)
Although these William Mason pieces are largely forgotten now, his work is wonderfully melodic and certainly deserves to be heard more often.
These three pieces are from the Naxos CD “William Mason” (No. 8.559142) The CD contains 14 other Mason compositions – including his best known “Silver Spring.” (The CD is part of the American Classics Collection.)
For those tired of hearing the same classical music on the radio or the concert hall – the Naxos collection provides a wide spectrum of superb but rarely heard music.
The pianist on this album is Kenneth Boulton. On the third piece, “Badinage,” which is for piano four-hands, Kenneth Boulton is joined by his wife and pianist JoAnne Barry.
Track Listings: 0:00 “Improvisation”; 4:30 “Lullaby”; 7:35 “Badinage”
Do you like Mason’s music?
Let us know what you think.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The veteran Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble opens its new season this Saturday night with a program of rarely heard works and composers
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement from one of the pioneering groups in Madison for playing Baroque music with period instruments and historically informed performance practices:
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) invites you to a concert of baroque chamber music.
The concert is this coming Saturday night, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street on Madison’s near west side.
Tickets at the door only: $20 general admission and $10 students
Members of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble are: UW-Madison professor Mimmi Fulmer, soprano; Nathan Giglierano, baroque violin; Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Charlie Rasmussen, baroque cello and viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverso, harpsichord and recorder; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello and viola da gamba; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
The program includes:
- Giovanni Bononcini/Johann Jakob Greber – “Fuori di sua capanna” (Outside in Front of Her Hut) – Cantata for mezzo-soprano, alto recorder and basso continuo
- August Kuehnel – Sonate ò Partite for viola da gamba, Aria Solo “Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut” (Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Greatest Good)
- Claudio Monteverdi – Madrigals, Book 3
O Rossignol (O Nightingale)
Rimanti in Pace (Remain in Peace)
Ond’ei di Morte (Whereupon Death Marked on His Face)
- John Playford – Divisions for the violin, “Paul’s Steeple”
- Georg Philipp Telemann – Trio sonata for violin, recorder and basso continuo TWV 42:a4
INTERMISSION
- Francesco Alborea – Sonata in G Major for cello and basso continuo
- Joseph de Bodin Boismortier – Motet for the Holy Virgin, Op. 23
- Giuseppe Tommaso Giovanni Giordani – Duo No. 1 for Two Cellos, Op. 18 (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)
- Boismortier – Ballet de Village No. 4, Op. 52
For more information: 608 238-5126, email: info@wisconsinbaroque.org or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
A post-concert reception will be held on the second floor at 2422 Kendall Avenue.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 