Ninth Symphony | The Well-Tempered Ear

Going live! Here are some links to newly announced summer concerts and 2021-22 seasons

June 15, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

Get out your datebooks.

Now that the pandemic is fast abating, at least locally, music groups and music presenters in the Madison area have been announcing a return to live music and their new seasons and summer events in a relentless way.

The Ear had been out of commission since mid-May until this week. But in any case, The Ear was overwhelmed and just couldn’t keep up with a separate post for each one.

Still, he thought it might be helpful to be able to check the dates, performers, programs, tickets and other information in one place.

Remember that the Madison Early Music Festival is no more. It has been absorbed into the regular music curriculum at the UW.

Please know that many groups – including, but not limited to, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music (below is the UW Symphony Orchestra — masked, socially distanced and virtually streamed — during the pandemic), University Opera, Edgewood College, Just Bach, Grace Presents, the Salon Piano Series, the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Bach Around the Clock, the Festival Choir of Madison, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir and the Madison Bach Musicians – have not yet released details of their new seasons.

But most of their websites say that an announcement of their new season is coming soon.

There are also some trends you may notice.

Many of the groups are raising prices and persistently seek donations as well as subscribers, no doubt to help make up for the loss of revenue during the pandemic.

The Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra have reduced the number of concerts or start later.

Some have simply rescheduled events, like the Wisconsin Union Theater closing its season with soprano Renée Fleming. And the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new season is largely the same one they were planning to have to celebrate the Beethoven Year in 2020-21.

The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, the Middleton Community Orchestra and the Willy Street Chamber Players all have pop-up concerts and scheduled outdoor concerts in parks. Some have also scheduled individual mini-concerts or personal sessions.

If you look at programs, you will see an emphasis on Black composers and performers by almost all groups. (The Madison Symphony Orchestra has scheduled “Lyric for Strings” by George Walker, below. You can hear it performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

What is most disappointing is that no group seems to have announced a special concert or event to pay homage to the public ordeal, health care workers and victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ear keeps thinking a performance of a suitable requiem (by perhaps Mozart, Faure, Brahms, Verdi or Britten) or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would have been an appropriate way to start the in-person season and, at the same time, acknowledge the more than 7,000 deaths in Wisconsin and almost 600,000 deaths in the U.S. and almost 4 million worldwide as of now. Maybe even Barber’s overplayed Adagio for Strings would suffice.

Finally, very few groups seem to be offering online virtual concert attendance as a possibility for those listeners who found that they actually enjoyed at least some the music in their own homes and at their own times.

IN ANY CASE, HERE IS WHAT HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE OR IS STILL ON TAP. CHECK IT OUT!

Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in free live and for-pay recorded concerts: https://bachdancing.org

Middleton Community Orchestra’s summer concerts at Fireman’s Park (below) in Middleton: https://middletoncommunityorchestra.org

Madison Bach Musicians summer workshops (below): https://madisonbachmusicians.org/2021-summer-chamber-music-workshop/

Concerts on the Square with limited paid admission at Breese Stevens Field (below): https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/concerts-on-the-square

Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers): https://madisonsymphony.org/concerts-events/madison-symphony-orchestra-concerts/

Madison Opera and Opera in the Park (below): https://www.madisonopera.org/oitp21/; and https://www.madisonopera.org/21-22/

Wisconsin Union Theater: https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/concert-series/

Willy Street Chamber Players (below) at Orton Park: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org/2021-summer-concert-series.html

If you know of more entries or have observations to make about these, please leave word and, when possible, a link in the comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: What composer or piece of music would you like to hear once the coronavirus is contained and concert halls open again?

August 15, 2020
3 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

The news can be confusing and even contradictory about some specifics, but the general direction of reports and statistics about the coronavirus pandemic and deaths from COVID-19 is clear.

It is going to be a long haul until we safely get to go hear live music in large crowds again, just as The Ear talked about earlier this week. (Below is a photo of conductor John DeMain and the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Overture Hall.)

Here is a link to that post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/classical-music-its-clear-to-the-ear-it-will-be-at-least-another-full-year-before-music-lovers-in-the-u-s-can-safely-attend-live-concerts-what-do-you-think/

When performers finally get to play, and the concert halls finally get to open, and audiences finally get to listen in person, here is what The Ear wants to know:

What composer would you like hear?

Maybe Beethoven (below) because so much of the Beethoven Year – marking the composer’s 250th birthday this coming December – has been canceled or postponed?

Maybe Johann Sebastian Bach (below) because he just seems so basic, varied and universal?

And what specific piece of music would you like to hear?

Perhaps Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony “Choral” with its “Ode to Joy”? Or maybe the “Eroica” Symphony? Or one of the string quartets?

Perhaps the “St. Mathew Passion” or the Mass in B Minor? Maybe one or more of the cantatas?

Should the music pay homage to the suffering, loss and death – perhaps with Mozart’s “Requiem”? Or Brahms’ “A German Requiem”? Or Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony?

Or should the music be upbeat and joyous, like Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” (below in the YouTube video)? Or some glittering and whirling waltzes by the Strauss family?

Is there an opera that seems especially relevant?

Would you prefer instrumental, choral or vocal music?

And what period, era or style would you prefer?

It will be great to be reacquainted with old and familiar friends. But it would also seem an ideal time to commission and perform new music.

Leave your suggestions in the Comment section with, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance to help us decide.

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Madison Symphony Orchestra announces its 2020-21 season to mark The Beethoven Year. Plus, this Sunday afternoon, the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra also celebrates The Beethoven Year

February 21, 2020
1 Comment

ALERT: The Madison Symphony Orchestra has just announced its 2020-21 season, which is heavy on works from Beethoven’s mid-career “Heroic” period to mark the Beethoven Year celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer (below).

Other composers to be featured include Haydn, Mozart, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Sibelius, Honegger, Grofé, Kabalevsky and the African-American composer George Walker.

Familiar soloists include pianists Olga Kern and Garrick Ohlsson; violinists James Ehnes and Gil Shaham. Also soloing are retired UW-Madison professor and MSO principal oboe Marc Fink and MSO concertmaster Naha Greenholtz.

The traditional Christmas Concert is in early December.

The “Beyond the Score” program in late January, with actors from American Players Theater in Spring Green, focuses on Stravinsky’s revolutionary “The Rite of Spring.” And the MSO Chorus will perform in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 “Choral” and “Missa Solemnis.”

All concerts will be conducted by John DeMain.

Here is a link to details about the season and how to subscribe: https://madisonsymphony.org/concerts-events/2020-2021-symphony-season-concerts/

Let The Ear know what you think of the new MSO season in the Comment section.

By Jacob Stockinger

This Sunday afternoon, Feb. 23, the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra of Edgewood College presents a special winter concert.

The performance is at 2:30 p.m. in McKinley Performing Arts Center of Edgewood High School, 2219 Monroe Street, on Madison’s near west side.

The conductor is Blake Walter (below, in a photo by John Maniaci) and the guest soloist is violinist David Huntsman.

The concert celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Chamber Orchestra will perform the Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36, by Beethoven, who seems influenced in this work by Mozart and especially his teacher Haydn but who moved beyond them in this symphony. (You can hear the innovative Scherzo movement, which replaced the traditional minuet, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Also on the program are Handel’s Overture to the opera “Semele” and the virtuosic Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saens, which features soloist David Huntsman (below).

Tickets are $5 for general admission, and admission is free with an Edgewood High School or Edgewood College ID.

Posted in Classical music
Tags: #African-AmericanComposer, #AmericanPlayersTheatre, #AntoninDvorak, #ArthurHonegger, #BaroqueComposer, #BaroqueOpera, #BeethovenYear, #BeyondTheScore, #BlakeWalter, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CamilleSaint-Saens, #ChoralMusic, #ChoralSymphony, #DavidHuntsman, #DmitryKabalevsky, #EdgewoodChamberOrchestra, #EdgewoodCollege, #EdgewoodHighSchool, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FerdeGrofe, #FranzJosephHaydn, #GarrickOhlsson, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgeWalker, #GilShaham, #HandelOpera, #IgorStravinsky, #IntroductionandRondoCapriccioso, #JacobStockinger, #JamesEhnes, #JeanSibelius, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonSymphonyChorus, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MarcFink, #MauriceRavel, #McKinleyPerformingArtsCenter, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MissaSolemnis, #NahaGreenholtz, #NinthSymphony, #OboeConcerto, #OdetoJoy, #OlgaKern, #OperaMusic, #OperaOverture, #OrchestralMusic, #OvertureCenter, #OvertureHall, #PeterIlyichTchaikovsky, #SergeiRachmaninoff, #SergeiRachmaninov, #SpringGreen, #TheEar, #TheRiteofSpring, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VocalMusic, #WestSide, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, actors, admission, African American, American Players Theatre, anniversary, Antonín Dvořák, Arthur Honegger, Arts, audience, Baroque, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, Beyond the Score, birth, Blake Walter, blog, Camille Saint-Saëns, Cello, choral music, Choral Symphony, Christmas, Classical music, comment, composer, Concert, concertmaster, concerto, conductor, David Huntsman, Dmirty Kabalevsky, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Dvorak, Early music, Edgewood Chamber Orchestra, Edgewood College, Edgewood College Chamber Orchestra, Edgewood High School, Facebook, Ferde Grofe, forward, Franz Joseph Haydn, free, Garrick Ohlsson, George Frideric Handel, George Walker, Gil Shaham, Grofe, Gruff, Handel, Handel opera, Haydn, heavy, heroic, Honegger, ID, Igor Stravinsky, innovation, innovative, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Kabalevsky, like, link, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Chorus, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Marc Fink, mark, Maurice Ravel, McKinley Performing Arts Center, Mead Witter School of Music, mid-career, minuet, Missa Solemnis, movement, Mozart, MSO, Music, Naha Greenholtz, new season, Ninth Symphony, Oboe, Ode to Joy, Olga Kern, opera, Orchestra, orchestral music, Overture, Overture Center, Overture Hall, performer, period, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pianist, Piano, Piano concerto, pincipal, post, posting, public, Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninov, Ravel, replace, revolution, revolutionary, rondo, Saint-Saens, Scherzo, Season, section, Semele, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Rachmaninov, share, Sibelius, soloist, special, Spring Green, Stravinsky, symphony, tag, Tchaikovsky, The Ear, The Rite of Spring, tickets, traditional, United States, University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Violin concerto, violinist, virtuosic, virtuoso, vocal music, west side, winter, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, works, YouTube

Classical music: This Saturday night, UW pianist Christopher Taylor will perform the virtuosic Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9

January 28, 2020
1 Comment

ALERT: The first concert by the Verona Area Community Orchestra is set for this Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. in the Verona Area High School’s Performing Arts Center at 300 Richard St. in Verona. A reception, with a sheet cake, will follow the concert. Admission is FREE.

Thirty-five amateur string orchestra musicians will play selections from: Johann Sebastian Bach (Brandenburg Concerto No. 3), Aaron Copland (“Rodeo”), Sir Edward Elgar (“Serenade for Strings”), Eric Whitacre (“October”), Louis Prima (“Sing Sing with a Swing”), and Peter Warlock (“Capriol” Suite).

By Jacob Stockinger

This coming Saturday, Feb. 1, will see what promises to be one of the most interesting and impressive events of The Beethoven Year in Madison.

At 8 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, in the new Hamel Music Center at 740 University Avenue, the UW-Madison’s virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor (below) will perform the solo piano transcriptions made by Franz Liszt of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9.

When he was just 12, the young Liszt — often considered the greatest pianist who ever lived — performed for and met Beethoven, who gave the boy his blessing.

For the rest of his life, Liszt (below top) promoted Beethoven’s piano sonatas and symphonies through the keyboard. Liszt also studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with Beethoven (below bottom).

These performances mark Taylor’s completion of the ambitious and monumental cycle of Liszt’s Beethoven symphony transcriptions.

The Ninth or “Choral” Symphony – with the famous “Ode to Joy” finale – will also have five singers to perform the solo and choral parts. They are: Mead Witter School of Music faculty members Mimmi Fulmer and Paul Rowe (below top); and graduate students Sarah Brailey (below bottom), Thore Dosdall and Benjamin Liupaogo.

(You can hear the famous Scherzo movement played by Cyprien Katsaris and see the note-filled score for it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Tickets are $20, except for music school faculty and students who will be admitted free on the night of the performance if space allows.

For more information about the tickets, parking, the performers and the program, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/christopher-taylor-and-friends-beethoven-symphony-extravaganza/

To just purchase tickets, go to the Campus Arts Ticketing box office in the Memorial Union, call (608) 265-ARTS (2787) or go to: https://artsticketing.wisc.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=79084672-5D75-4981-B0A3-B135EDB97FF1

For more information about the extraordinary keyboard transcriptions, go to the Wikipedia entry and be sure to read the section on History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven_Symphonies_(Liszt)

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Artificial Intelligence will complete Beethoven’s 10th Symphony

December 20, 2019
1 Comment

By Jacob Stockinger

The timing of the announcement and project couldn’t be more perfect as we are now about the enter The Beethoven Year.

2020 will see the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven (below).

And word is that hi tech in the form of AI will come to rescue of art through a powerful computer program.

That is, artificial intelligence will be used to complete the drafts and sketches of an unfinished 10th symphony by Beethoven. (Below is Beethoven’s manuscript for the opening of the iconic Fifth Symphony.)

It will not be the first time. You can hear a well researched if less rigorous and less technological version of Beethoven’s 10th, assembled by Barry Cooper, in the YouTube video at the bottom.

Whether we end up with a piece of music that can be performed or that we want to hear remains to be seen. After all, how many times do you hear — or want to hear — live performances of completed versions of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony or Mahler’s unfinished 10th?

So Beethoven’s 10th may end up being more a curiosity than a work of art.

But at least we may get an idea of where Beethoven was headed after his unconventional and revolutionary Ninth Symphony that influenced so many later composers.

You can learn more about it by going to the homepage of Classical FM, an important British radio station. Here is a link:

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/news/computer-completes-unfinished-tenth-symphony/

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The Beethoven Year in Madison will include complete cycles of string quartets and piano trios as well as many other early, middle and late pieces. Here is a partial preview

September 21, 2019
6 Comments

IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE 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

As you may have already heard, 2020 is a Beethoven Year. It will mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. (He lived from mid-December of 1770 to March 26, 1827. Dec. 17 is sometimes given as his birthday but it is really the date of his baptism. No one knows for sure the actual date of his birth.)

Beethoven, who this year overtook Mozart as the most popular composer in a British radio poll, clearly speaks to people — as you can see at the bottom in the YouTube video of a flash mob performance of the “Ode to Joy.” It has had more than 16 million views.

Locally, not all Beethoven events have been announced yet. But some that promise to be memorable are already taking shape. Many programs include early, middle and late works. And you can be sure that, although nothing formal has been announced yet, there will be special programs on Wisconsin Public Television and especially Wisconsin Public Radio.

Here is a partial round-up:

The UW’s famed Pro Arte String Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), for example, will perform a FREE and complete cycle of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets in six concerts. It will start later this fall.

This is not the first time that the Pro Arte has done a Beethoven cycle. But it is especially fitting since that is the same Beethoven cycle that the Pro Arte was performing in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater in May of 1940 when World War II broke out and the quartet was stranded on tour in the U.S. after its homeland of Belgium was invaded and occupied by the Nazis.

That is when the ensemble was invited to become musical artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and accepted – thereby establishing the first such association in the world that became a model for many other string quartets.

The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society with the San Francisco Trio (below) plans on performing a cycle of piano trios next summer. No specific dates or programs have been announced yet.

The 20th anniversary of the Ancora String Quartet (below, in a photo by Barry Lewis) will coincide with the Beethoven Year. That is when the Ancorans will complete the cycle of 16 string quartets that they have been gradually programming over the years. Three quartets remain to be performed: Op. 59, No. 2 “Rasumovsky”, Op. 130 and Op. 131.

Adds violist Marika Fischer Hoyt: “We’ll perform Op. 130 in February (with the original final movement, NOT the “Grosse Fuge”), and we plan to do the remaining two quartets in the summer and fall of 2020.”

Here are some other Beethoven dates to keep in mind:

On Nov. 2 in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater, and as part of the WUT’s centennial celebration of its Concert Series, pianist Emanuel Ax (below, in a photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco), who since 1974 has played many solo recitals, chamber music recitals and piano concertos in Madison, will play Beethoven’s first three solo piano sonatas, Op. 2.

On Dec. 6 at the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Piano Trio will perform the famous “Archduke” Trio, Op. 97. Also on the program are works by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.

On Feb. 1, UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor, who has performed all 32 piano sonatas in Madison, will continue his cycle of Beethoven symphonies as transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt. He will perform Symphony No. 1 and the famed Symphony No. 9, the ground-breaking “Choral” Symphony with its “Ode to Joy.” No chorus will be involved, but there will be four solo singers. Taylor said he will then complete the cycle with Symphony No. 2 at some future time.

The Mosaic Chamber Players (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) will perform two all-Beethoven programs: on Feb. 21, a FREE program offers two sonatas for violin and piano (Op. 12, No. 3 and Op. 30, No. 2, and one sonata for cello and piano (Op. 5, No. 1); on June 13, a ticketed program features three piano trios (Op. 1, No. 1; Op. 70, No. 2; and Op. 121a “Kakadu” Variations).

On May 8, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below top, in a photo by Mike Gorski), under conductor Andrew Sewell (below bottom, in a photo by Alex Cruz), will perform the popular Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” – a pioneering piece of program music — to commemorate the Beethoven Year.

There is one very conspicuous absence.

You will notice that there is nothing by Beethoven programmed for the new season of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers).

But The Ear hears rumors that music director John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) is planning something special for the following season that might involve both symphonies and concertos, both original Beethoven works and perhaps “reimagined” ones.

(For example, pianist Jonathan Biss, who has just completed recording the piano sonata cycle and who performed with the MSO several years ago, has commissioned and will premiere five piano concertos related to or inspired by Beethoven’s five piano concertos.) Sorry, but as of now only rumors and not details are available for the MSO. Stay tuned!

The Ear would like to hear complete cycles of the violin sonatas and cello sonatas performed, and a couple of the piano concertos as well as the early symphonies and the famed Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy” finale. He fondly remembers when DeMain and the MSO performed Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9 on the same program. Talk about bookending a career!

What Beethoven would you like to hear live?

What are your most favorite or least favorite Beethoven works?

Do you know of other Beethoven programs during the Beethoven Year? If so, please leave word in the Comment section.

And, of course, there is the inevitable question: Can you have too much Beethoven?

Posted in Classical music
Tags: #All-Beethoven, #AncoraStringQuartet, #AndrewSewell, #ArchdukeTrio, #Artists-in-Residence, #BachDancingandDynamiteSociety, #BeethovenYear, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CelloSonata, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralSymphony, #ConcertSeries, #EmanuelAx, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FelixMendelssohn, #FranzLiszt, #GreatBritain, #GrosseFuge, #JohnDeMain, #JohnW.Barker, #JonathanBiss, #KakaduVariations, #KalichsteinLaredoRobinsonPianoTrio, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MarikaFischerHoyt, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MosaicChamberPlayers, #Nazi-occupied, #NinthSymphony, #OdetoJoy, #PianoConcerto, #PianoSonata, #PianoTrio, #ProArteQuartet, #ProgramMusic, #RasumovskyQuartet, #RazumovskyQuartet, #RobertSchumann, #SanFrancisco, #SanFranciscoTrio, #SchoolofMusic, #ShannonHall, #SoloPiano, #StringQuartet, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #ViolinSonata, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, #WisconsinPublic Radio, #WisconsinPublicTelevision, #WisconsinUnionTheater, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #WorldWarII, #YouTubevideo, absence, actual, Ancora String Quartet, Andrew Sewell, anniversary, announce, Archduke Trio, Arts, association, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, baptism, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, Belgium, birth, Blegium, blog, bookend, British, career, celebration, cellist, Cello, Cello Sonata, centennial, Chamber music, choral music, Choral Symphony, chorus, Classical music, classicalmusic, commemorate, comment, composer, concert series, conductor, conspicuous, cycle, date, day, death, December, details, early, Emanuel Ax, England, event, Facebook, fall, favorite, Felix Mendelssohn, final, Flash mob, Flashmob, Franz Liszt, free, Great Britain, Grosse Fuge, groundbreaking, homeland, invade, invasion, Johann Sebastian Bach, John DeMain, John W. Barker, Jonathan Biss, Kakadu Variations, Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, know, late, like, link, Liszt, local, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Marika Fischer Hoyt, Mead Witter School of Music, memorable, Mendelssohn, middle, million, mob, model, Mosaic Chamber Players, movement, MSO, Music, musical, Nazi, Ninth Symphony, occupied, occupy, Ode to Joy, Orchestra, original, Overture Center, partial, Pastoral Symphony, PastoralSymphony, People, performance, performer, Pianist, Piano, Piano concerto, Piano sonata, Piano Trio, pioneer, pioneering, poll, popular, post, posting, Pro Arte Quartet, program, program music, Radio, Rasumovsky, Razumovsky, reader, recital, reimagined, remember, Robert Schumann, round-up, rumor, San Francisco, San Francisco Trio, School of Music, Schumann, Shannon Hall, share, singers, solo, Sonata, speaks, stranded, String quartet, subscriber, summer, symphony, tag, Television, tour, transcription, TV, UK, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, variations, view, Viola, Violin, Violin Sonata, violinist, violist, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, works, world, World War II, WPR, WPT, year, YouTube, YouTube video

Classical music: Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. The murdered civil rights leader has become a character in opera, oratorios and musicals as well as popular songs

January 15, 2018
3 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

Today is the holiday to celebrate the 89th birthday of Martin Luther King (below), the American civil rights pioneer who was born on this day in 1929, won the Nobel Peace Prize and was assassinated in 1968, when he was 39.

For more biographical information, here is the Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

There will be many celebrations, including the 38th annual one at noon in the State Capitol of Wisconsin in Madison, which will be broadcast live and recorded by Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) and Wisconsin Public Television (WPT).

Music is always an important art of honoring King. There will be spirituals and gospel choirs.

But King himself has become a musical, and dramatic, figure.

Maybe you knew that.

The Ear didn’t.

So here are some links to sample from YouTube, which has many of King’s speeches and much of the music done to honor King over the years.

MLK is a character is the opera by Philip Glass called “Appomattox,” which deals with civil rights from The Civil War onwards and was commissioned and performed by the Washington National Opera.

Here is part of it in rehearsal:

And in performance:

And here is the one-hour video called “I Have a Dream”:

Do you know of any other musical works in which Martin Luther King Jr. actually figures and plays a role?

What piece of classical music would you choose to honor King?- Perhaps the poignant aria “Give Me Freedom” from Handel’s opera “Rinaldo” (performed in the YouTube video at the bottom) or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy” finale about universal brotherhood.

Let us know in the COMMENT section.

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
Tags: America, American, Appomattox, Arts, assassination, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, biographical, biography, birth, birthday, brotherhood, Capitol, celebration, Choir, choral music, civil rights, Classical music, drama, dream, figure, finale, Franz Schubert, freedom, George Frideric Handel, gospel, gospel choir, Handel, Holiday, honor, I Have a Dream, information, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Martin Luther King Jr, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Mozart, Music, musical, Ninth Symphony, nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, Ode to Joy, opera, Orchestra, peace, performance, Philip Glass, Piano, pioneer, prize, rehearsal, Rinaldo, role, Sonata, speech, speeches, spiritual, spirituals, state, symphony, the Civil War, United States, universal, universe, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, vocal music, Washington National Opera, Wikipedia, wisconsin public radio, Wisconsin Public Television, WPR, WPT, YouTube

Classical music: Next week, the Ancora String Quartet closes its 16th season with three concerts that contrast the German Romanticism of Beethoven and the French Impressionism of Saint-Saëns. This Saturday night, the Festival Choir of Madison sings about astrology and signs of the Zodiac

May 5, 2017
1 Comment

ALERT: On this Saturday night, May 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison 900 University Bay Drive, the Festival Choir of Madison will perform a spring program of choral music linked to signs of the Zodiac and astrology, Sorry, no word on the specific program. Tickets are $15, $12 for seniors and $6 for students. For more information go to: http://festivalchoirmadison.org/concerts/a-musical-zodiac

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear received the following note to post from the Ancorans, who are among his favorite musicians:

You are invited to join the Ancora String Quartet (ASQ), below in a photo by Barry Lewis) for the closing concert program of our 16th season.

The performance takes place next Saturday night, May 13, at 7:30 p.m., at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below), 1833 regent Street. A champagne reception will follow.

French Impressionism and German Romanticism – Vive la difference! Whether you prefer Bordeaux or Riesling wine, you’ll enjoy our spring program.

On the program are the Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 153, by Camille Saint-Saëns (below top) and the Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127, by Ludwig van Beethoven (below bottom).

Saint-Saëns’ second quartet reveals the lyricism and witty invention that earned him the nickname “the French Mendelssohn.” (You can hear the quartet’s beautiful slow movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

We follow this up with the first of Beethoven’s late quartets, written shortly after he finished his Ninth Symphony. From its wistfully dreamy first movement to the ethereally mysterious coda in the last, Beethoven charts a new course.

Tickets will be available at the door, and are for general seating. Ticket prices are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students, and $6 for children under 12.

Other performances of this program will take place earlier.:

The first is on Monday, May 8, at 3 p.m. at the Stoughton Opera House (below) in Stoughton. Admission is a free-will donation.

The other performance is on Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the MacDowell Music Club in Janesville. The concert is FREE and open to the public.

Members of the quartet (below, from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis) are Wes Luke and Robin Ryan, violins; Marika Fischer Hoyt, viola; and Benjamin Whitcomb, cello. They represent professional experience playing with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Madison Bach Musicians and many other groups plus teaching privately and in the University of Wisconsin System.

For more information, including individual biographies and concert schedules, go to:

http://ancoraquartet.com

Posted in Classical music
Tags: Ancora Quartet, Ancora String Quartet, Arts, astrology, beautiful, beauty, Beethoven, biography, Bordeaux, Camille Saint-Saëns, Cello, Chamber music, champagne, Classical music, club, cod, Concert, dream, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, ethereal, Festival Choir of Madison, French, French Impressionism, Friday, German Romanticism, Impressionism, invention, Jacob Stockinger, Janesville, late quartet, Ludwig van Beethoven, lyricism, MacDowell, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn, Monday, movement, Music, music club, Musician, mysterious, mystery, nickname, night, Ninth Symphony, opera, opus, Opus number, program, reception, Riesling, Romanticism, Saint-Saës, Saint-Saens, Saturday, schedule, Season, slow, Slow movement, Spring, St. Andrew's, Stoughton, Stoughton Opera House, String quartet, symphony, United States, University of Wisconsin System, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, Viola, Violin, Wine, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wit, YouTube, Zodiac

Classical music: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day concert, with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and new concert attire, will air Sunday on Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television

December 31, 2016
4 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

Here is the latest on a popular tradition to kick off the New Year:

The Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day concert, From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2017,” conducted for the first time by Gustavo Dudamel, will air on Great Performances on PBS stations across the country on Sunday, January 1.

It will air at 10 a.m.-noon on Wisconsin Public Radio, and at 6:30-8 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television. (At noon, WPR will broadcast another celebratory work for the New Year: the Madison Symphony Orchestra under John DeMain performing the Ninth Symphony “Choral,” with its “Ode to Joy” finale, by Ludwig van Beethoven,)

For more than 75 years, the Vienna Philharmonic has ushered in the New Year with the light and lively, quintessentially Austrian music of Johann Strauss, his family, and their contemporaries, performed at the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein.

Since 1987, the concert has featured a different conductor each year, and this year Mr. Dudamel, 35, will be the youngest-ever to lead the popular and festive New Year’s concert.

The Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert is broadcast in over 90 countries and will have an estimated 50 million television viewers, making it the largest worldwide event in classical music.

Among traditional waltzes, polkas and other works, Mr. Dudamel will conduct Strauss’s famous “Blue Danube” Waltz on the occasion of the work’s 150th anniversary, and pieces by Otto Nicolai, founder of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Host Julie Andrews (below) will also take the viewer to picturesque Viennese landmarks, including Otto Nicolai’s study in the Haus der Musik, and will join Mr. Dudamel in visiting the student musicians of Superar, the El Sistema organization for Central Europe. Mr. Dudamel was famously a product of the El Sistema program in his native Venezuela, and this broadcast will offer a special look at these talented musicians of tomorrow.

While the Vienna Philharmonic, which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year, honors tradition and history with the New Year’s concert, it also looks to the future with the debut of its new concert attire designed exclusively for the orchestra by Dame Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler.

Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, Andreas Großbauer, recognizes the importance of linking the past and present and uniting practicality with modern elegance. “In the age of video streaming and HD broadcasts, it is increasingly important how an orchestra appears onstage. In Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler, we have found a design duo which suits the high standards of the Vienna Philharmonic brand.”

The new philharmonic suit features an updated design to the traditional garments worn by the orchestra. Customarily, men of the Philharmonic have performed in the Stresemann, a semi-formal suit with striped formal trousers, grey waistcoat and necktie for daytime concerts and a formal tailcoat, striped formal trousers, and white waistcoat and bow tie for evening performances, while the women have chosen their own formal black concert attire.

Vivienne Westwood and her design partner and husband, Andreas Kronthaler, who are known for their nonconformist yet historically inspired fashion, have redesigned and modernized the traditional day and evening suits with contemporary functionally in mind. The designers have also created a first-ever Philharmonic ladies suit for both day and evening concerts.

The new suits are tailored in the traditional cut of Savile Row Bespoke and feature a modern black cutaway jacket, worn in lieu of the tailcoat, paired with the traditional striped trousers and waistcoat.

For day concerts, the men will wear a silver-grey waistcoat and tie embroidered with the Vienna Philharmonic logo, and for evening concerts, a white waistcoat and bow tie inspired by a classic white-tie suit. The ladies suit features a black collarless coat and slim-cut trousers. For day concerts, the suit is paired with a silver-grey top that complements the men’s day suits, and for evening, a black silk top.

Here is a summary and the playlist:

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Vienna Singverein Concert Choir

Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor

Julie Andrews, Host

FRANZ VON SUPPE Queen of Spades, Overture (Pique Dame)

C.M. ZIEHRER Right This Way, Waltz – Ballet

OTTO NICOLAI Moon Chorus

OTTO NICOLAI The Merry Wives of Windsor

JOHANN STRAUSS Pepita Polka

JOHANN STRAUSS The Extravagant, Waltz

JOHANN STRAUSS, SR Indian Galop

JOSEF STRAUSS The Nasswald Forest Maiden, Ländler

JOHANN STRAUSS Let’s Dance, Quick Polka – Ballet

JOHANN STRAUSS A Thousand and One Nights, Waltz

JOHANN STRAUSS Tick Tock Quick Polka

EDUARD STRAUSS With Pleasure! Quick Polka

JOHANN STRAUSS On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Waltz

JOHANN STRAUSS, SR Radetzky March

Classical music: The UW Choral Union delivers an eclectic non-seasonal program of music by Beethoven, Brahms and Bernstein with power and lyricism

December 12, 2016
3 Comments

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

Eschewing any seasonal or holiday connections, the UW-Madison Choral Union (below) gave its December concert last Friday night with a program of three “B’s”.

Well, two of the B’s are familiar ones. But in place of Bach, we got Leonard Bernstein, taking first place in reverse chronological order — his Chichester Psalms, dating from 1965.

This three-movement work probably represents Bernstein’s most important choral score. It sets texts in the original Hebrew, the middle movement calling for a boy treble to represent the young David in the rendering of Psalm 131 — a function here filled bravely by young Simon Johnson (below, front left) of the Madison Youth Choirs.

The platoon of percussionists in the first two movements confirms the composer’s flashy “modernism.” To be sure, there are some characteristic melodic twists that proclaim the composer familiar to us, and the swaying melodic tune of the third movement is really lovely.

But Bernstein (below) did not know what to do with it besides repeating it obsessively. Bernstein simply was not a savvy master of choral writing, and I firmly believe that this work—a trivial cross between Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Bernstein’s own Broadway musical West Side Story—would not merit much attention were it not for Bernstein’s name on it.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: You can decide on the work’s merits for yourself by listening to the live performance, conducted by the composer himself, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Just how inadequate Bernstein’s choral sense was emerged clearly with the next work, the short ode for chorus and orchestra by Johannes Brahms, Nänie, Op. 82.

The title adapts a Greek word for a lament, and Friedrich Schiller’s German text evokes the death of beauty in the death of Achilles. Brahms was among the supreme choral masters, and this particular example is one of several of his “minor” choral works that we hear too rarely.

The second half of the program was devoted to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Mass in C major, Op. 86. No, not the monumental Missa solemnis of the composer’s last years when (as with the Ninth Symphony’s finale) he had transcended the realities of choral writing. This earlier Mass setting, dating from 1807, was in the direct line of Mass settings for the Esterházy family composed by the aged Haydn.

But to Haydn’s incorporation of symphonic structure into Mass composition, Beethoven (below) brought his own strongly progressive personality, and a remarkable quality of melodic and thematic invention. This is a lovely work, and choirs who fling themselves doggedly against the Missa solemnis ought sometimes to revel in this beautiful work instead.

The forces arrayed included a solo quartet (below, in the front from left) are bass John Loud, tenor Jiabao Zhang and sopranos Jessica Kasinski and Anna Polum.

The UW Chamber Orchestra proved able. But the star was, of course, the Choral Union chorus itself. Its diction worked from indistinguishable Hebrew through respectable German to really lucid Latin. Above all, it made mighty, full-blooded sound that bolstered Beethoven’s lyricism with powerful projection.

Once again, conductor Beverly Taylor (below) has gone beyond stale conventions to bring us valued exposure to music outside the conventional boundaries.

Posted in Classical music
Tags: Achilles, American Record Guide, Arts, Bach, bass, beauty, Beethoven, boy soprano, Broadway, Chichester Psalms, Choir, choral music, Classical music, composer, conductor, critic, David, death, Early music, emeritus, Esterhazy, Franz Joseph Haydn, German, Greek, Hebrew, History, Holiday, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, lament, Latin, lecture, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, lyricism, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Youth Choirs, mass, Medieval, melody, Missa Solemnis, modernism, Music, musical, Nanie, Ninth Symphony, ode, Orchestra, percussion, performance, photos, poem, professor, psalm, review, Schiller, Season, seasonal, soloists, soprano, Stravinsky, structure, symphony, tenor, theme, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Chamber Orchestra, UW Choral Union, video, vocal music, West Side Story, Wisconsin, WORT-FM 89.9

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