The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Autumn arrives today. The Ear thinks Richard Strauss’ poignant orchestral song “September” is perfect for greeting Fall. What music would you choose?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Fall officially arrives today.
The autumnal equinox takes place at 2:50 a.m. CST.
If you listen to Wisconsin Public Radio, it’s a certainty that you will hear music appropriate to the season. WPR does these tie-ins very well and very reliably — even during a pledge drive.
At the top of the list will probably be the “Autumn” section of three violin concertos from the ever popular “The Four Seasons” by the Italian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi.
But there are lots of others, including late songs, piano sonatas and chamber music by Franz Schubert; slow movements from symphonies by Gustav Mahler; and many of the “autumnal” late works by Johannes Brahms, especially the short piano pieces and chamber music such as the Clarinet Trio, Clarinet Quintet and the two sonatas for clarinet or viola and piano.
Here is a link to a YouTube video with more than two hours of autumn music. You can check out the composers and the pieces, some of which might be new to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fddGrDV2gw
And if you want less music with some unusual choices, complete with individual performances, try this much shorter compilation:
http://www.classical-music.com/article/best-classical-music-inspired-autumn
Yet this time of year, when the days end earlier and the mornings dawn later, one work in particular gets to The Ear: It is “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss (below), one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century.
The second of the four songs is “September” and fits the bill very nicely.
In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear it sung by Renée Fleming, who will perform a recital next spring in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater. She is accompanied by the Houston Symphony Orchestra under conductor Christoph Eschenbach.
Here are the lyrics of the poem, in which summertime is the protagonist, by Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse:
The garden is in mourning
Cool rain seeps into the flowers.
Summertime shudders,
quietly awaiting his end.
Golden leaf after leaf falls
from the tall acacia tree.
Summer smiles, astonished and feeble,
at his dying dream of a garden.
For just a while he tarries
beside the roses, yearning for repose.
Slowly he closes
his weary eyes.
Is the Ear the only person who wishes that the Madison Symphony Orchestra and maestro John DeMain, who has a gift for finding great young voices, would perform Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” some autumn?
With the right vocal soloist it could make for a memorable season-opening concert.
What music do you identity with the fall season?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Madison Opera announces its 2017-18 season
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Opera has announced its 2017-18 season, which features a classic popular opera and two Madison Opera premieres.
The season opens in November with Carmen by Georges Bizet, followed by The Abduction from the Seraglio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in February, and then Florencia en el Amazonas by Mexican composer Daniel Catan (1949-2011) in April. The season concludes with the 17th annual Opera in the Park in July.
“I am delighted with this new season,” says Kathryn Smith (below, in a a photo by James Gill), Madison Opera’s general director. “Carmen was the piece that made me fall in love with opera in high school, so I always look forward to sharing it with our audience. The Abduction from the Seraglio has some of Mozart’s most virtuoso vocal writing, with an innate charm and comedy that is perfect for winter. Florencia en el Amazonas is quite simply ravishing, both in its music and its story. The season truly has something for everyone in it.”
The company’s 57th season begins in November with Georges Bizet’s Carmen in Overture Hall. One of the most popular operas in the world, Carmen was a flop when it premiered in Paris in 1875, but within a few years was widely acclaimed.
The story of a Spanish gypsy determined to live a life on her own terms, Bizet’s masterpiece blends passion, seduction, jealousy, dance, and even a little law-breaking, all set to one of the most famous scores ever composed.
Aleks Romano makes her Madison Opera debut in the title role; Cecilia Violetta López makes her debut as Micaëla. Sean Panikkar (Opera in the Park 2014) returns to Madison Opera as Don José, the soldier who falls in love with Carmen; Corey Crider (Sweeney Todd) returns as Escamillo, the toreador. E. Loren Meeker directs this traditional staging in her Madison Opera debut, with John DeMain conducting members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
February brings the Madison Opera PREMIERE of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, the composer’s first major operatic success, done in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center. Set in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, the opera starts with a Spanish nobleman arriving at a pasha’s palace to rescue his fiancée, who was captured during a shipwreck.
Together, they find that different cultures need not always clash, and romantic longings come in many forms. Comedy blends with the underpinnings of the Enlightenment in a masterpiece that is the perfect blend of humor and humanity.
Mozart’s brilliant score calls for virtuoso singing in every role. Caitlin Lynch (Don Giovanni) returns to sing Konstanze; the soprano has sung major Mozart roles at the Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera this season. Also returning are Matt Boehler (below, Fidelio, Don Giovanni) as Osmin and Eric Neuville (Little Women) as Pedrillo.
Making their debuts are Ashly Neumann as Blonde and David Walton as Belmonte. Alison Moritz makes her Madison Opera directorial debut; John DeMain conducts.
Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán (below top), who also turned the movie “Il Postino” into an opera, concludes the MainStage season in Overture Hall.
Inspired by the writings of the Colombian Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez (below bottom), Catán’s gorgeously lyrical opera was the first Spanish-language opera to be premiered in the U.S. and has been performed worldwide since its 1996 premiere. (You hear the accessibility of Catan’s music in the opening scene that is in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Set in the early 20th century, the story tells of Florencia Grimaldi, a famous opera singer, as she embarks anonymously on a voyage down the Amazon River, hoping to be reunited with her lover she left behind. On the boat with her are a young journalist; a couple feeling the strain of their long marriage; the boat’s captain; the captain’s nephew, who falls in love with the journalist; and a man who is a rather mystical presence.
Returning to Madison Opera in the title role is Elizabeth Caballero (below, Don Giovanni, La Traviata), who was acclaimed for this role at New York City Opera. Nmon Ford (Tosca) returns as the mysterious Riolobo; Rachel Sterrenberg (Charlie Parker’s Yardbird) sings Rosalba, the journalist; Adriana Zabala (The Tales of Hoffmann) sings Paula; Mackenzie Whitney (La Bohème) sings Arcadio, the captain’s nephew; and Levi Hernandez (The Magic Flute in 2006) sings Alvaro. Ashraf Sewailam makes his Madison Opera debut as the Capitán.
Kristine McIntyre (below, The Tales of Hoffmann, Dead Man Walking) returns to direct this unique-to-Madison production, which features members of Kanopy Dance and choreography by Lisa Thurrell. John DeMain conducts.
Subscriptions for the 2017-18 season will be available in late April at madisonopera.org and by phone at (608) 238-8085. Subscribers save up to 15% off single ticket prices.
Tags: Abduction From the Seraglio, Amazon, Arts, Bizet, Carmen, Catan, choral music, Classical music, Colombia, Daniel Catan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jacob Stockinger, John DeMain, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mexico, Mozart, Music, Nobel Prize, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Today, Sept. 22, 2014, is the first day of Fall. So The Ear plays two of Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs.” But what would you listen to to mark the coming of Autumn?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is the first day of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere. The Autumn Equinox arrives tonight at 9:29 p.m. CDT.
This year, the timing of the season and the music I recently listened to worked out just perfectly.
Last week, you see, The Ear went to see the film “The Trip to Italy” (below), a sequel with British funnymen Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. It was made by the award-winning director Michael Winterbottom, who also directed the first installment.
I loved the first one, “The Trip,” in 2010. But like so many sequels, this film suffers from self-indulgence. There was too little plot, a lot of impersonations that are not immediately recognizable or entertaining, and the film goes on for too long.
The movie has its enjoyable, entertaining and touching moments. to be sure. But the really outstanding characters in this film are the Italian landscape and Italian cuisine, captured in stunning cinematography.
But, oh, the music! That was the high note, so to speak, for The Ear.
A recurrent theme is from “Four Last Songs” by the Late Romantic Richard Strauss (below, in 1914). It is “Im Abendrot,” and it strikes the right notes, even for The Ear, who not a big voice fan, whether in choral music, opera or Lieder and art songs.
I was thinking of some appropriate music to play for the coming of the new season. There is always “Autumn” from “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi or the new “Four Seasons in Buenos Aires” by Astor Piazzolla.
Then there is the late piano music and chamber music of Johannes Brahms, so often and aptly described as “autumnal.” Of course, the symphonies and songs of Gustav Mahler qualify as do many of the songs of Franz Schubert. And there is more, much more.
But this year, perhaps because of personal circumstances and sheer coincidence, anyway I found the Strauss songs — which were composed in 1948, a year before Strauss died at 84 — perfectly appropriate and fitting in mood.
Here are two of them, found on YouTube video and sung by the incomparable soprano Jessye Norman with Kurt Masur conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on the Philips label.
The first is “In Abendrot” (At Sunset). The poem or text, written by Joseph von Eichendorff — which is translated on the YouTube site if you click on “Show More” – – does not deal with autumn per se, but with loss and death. So the mood is surely autumnal and, I find, deeply moving. And it is a common motif in the film:
And then there is “September” from the poem by Nobel Prize-winning German writer Hermann Hesse.
I hope you enjoy these two songs by Strauss and also find them fitting to the season, just as I hope we have sunny and warm, a long and colorful Fall.
And I would love to know what other music best expresses the new season for you.
Just leave your suggestions, with YouTube links if possible, in the COMMENTS section.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Antonio Vivaldi, Argentina, art songs, Arts, Autumn, Brahms, Buenos Aires, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, Compact Disc, equinox, Four Last Songs, Four Seasons, Franz Schubert, Hermann Hesse, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jessye Norman, Johannes Brahms, Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Kurt Masur, Late Romantic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, lieder, Madison, Mahler, Michael Winterbottom, Music, Nobel Prize, opera, Piano, Piazzolla, Richard Strauss, Rob Brydon, Romantic, September, songs, Steve Coogan, The Trip, The Trip to Italy, Vivaldi, vocal music, YouTube
Classical music: Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and composer Franz Liszt work well together. Both are haunting creators. Here is a chance to hear how as you read.
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By Jacob Stockinger
As longtime readers of this blog know, The Ear is a loyal fan of the Japanese writer and novelist Haruki Murakami (below).
I have had a longstanding bet with friends that the prolific Murakami will win the Nobel Prize “this” year. But so far, a decade or more later, I am still waiting — as, I suspect, he is since he has won other major prizes.
So The Ear says: Let’s get on it, members of the Nobel Prize committee in Oslo. What are you waiting for?
Longtime fans also know that I am NOT a big fan of Franz Liszt (below). He wrote some great music that I like a lot. But he also wrote a lot of second-rate music that I don’t like a lot. What is good, I find, is very good; and the rest too often strikes me as melodramatic pieces full of self-exhibitionistic pyrotechnical keyboard tricks and gimmicks.
But recently the contemporary Japanese novelist got me to appreciate one piece by the 19th-century Romantic Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso.
The work is called “Le mal du pays,” or, roughly translated, “Homesickness,” and comes from the first of three books, and the first year of three, of Liszt’s generally subdued “Years of Pilgrimage: Book I — Switzerland.”
Not surprisingly it is featured, referred to and analyzed repeatedly in Murakami’s new novel the “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (below, published by Knopf), in which the meanings of home and belonging are explored in many different ways. The piano music is a kind of thematic summary of the plot, the setting and the characters.
The Liszt work, which runs about six or so minutes, is a curious piece, less showy than many and full of the kind of strangeness, disjointedness and mysteriousness that Murakami treasures and so effectively conveys in his writings.
The piano piece perfectly matches the novel, its plot and characters and tones, in the music’s eerie chromaticism, in its insistent repetition, in its austerity and lack of sensuality, even in its identification with what is empty or missing and its plain old weirdness.
The haunting music embodies the book and may have been inspired it in part. Not for nothing is Murakami known as The Japanese Kafka, and the Liszt music is worthy of that equivalency.
The two works of art deserve each other, as I am increasingly finding out, and work well together.
I am now about fourth-fifths of the way through the novel, which has been No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list for hardback fiction for several weeks. It certainly has me enchanted and under its spell.
Murakami often refers to Western culture, classical and pop, and especially to classical music and jazz. (He once ran a jazz bar in Tokyo.)
In other works such as “Kafka on the Shore,” Murakami even seems something of a connoisseur of Western classical music who has compared works and various recordings of them, by Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and others. In fact, Murakami himself could be said to have spent his own years of pilgrimage journeying through Western culture as well as fiction writing.
This time Murakami, who has excellent taste and deep knowledge or familiarity, favors a performance by the late Russian pianist Lazar Berman (below).
Other fans of both Murakami and Liszt have set up a website where you can listen to a YouTube recording of Berman’s playing ‘Le mal du pays.” (You can also find quite a few other recordings of it, including one by Alfred Brendel (below), on YouTube, which is also featured in a secondary role in Murakami’s new novel.)
And I have also found a Hyperion recording by British pianist and MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant-winner Stephen Hough that I like a lot:
Here is a link to the Lazar Berman version, a second one that was set up by a Murakami fan:
Have fun listening and happy reading.
And please let us know what you think of the Liszt piece, Murakami’s newest novel and your favorite Murakami novel.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alfred Brendel, Années de pèlerinage, Arts, bestseller, books, Classical music, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, fiction, Franz Kafka, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, genius grant, Haruki Murakami, Homesickness, Hungrary, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Japanese, Kafka on the Shore, Lazar Berman, List of Romantic-era composers, Liszt, MacArthur Foundation, Mal du Pays, Murakami, Music, New York Times, Nobel Prize, novel, Oslo, Piano, Romantic, Schubert, Stephen Hough, Switzerland, Years of Pilgrimage, YouTube
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The Well-Tempered Ear 