The Well-Tempered Ear

Here are the Top 10 online concerts to stream in March, according to critics for the New York Times

March 2, 2021
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ALERT: The online live-streamed concert by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet — scheduled for this Friday night, March 5 — in the all-Beethoven cycle of string quartets has been canceled and postponed until next year. The Friday, April 9 installment of the Beethoven cycle will be held as Installment 7 instead of 8.  

By Jacob Stockinger

Classical music critics of The New York Times have once again picked their Top 10 online concerts for the month of March.

The Ear has found such lists helpful for watching and hearing, but also informative to read, if you don’t actually “attend” the concert.

If you have read these lists before, you will see that this one is typical.

It offers lots of links with background about the works and performers; concert times (Eastern); and how long the online version is accessible.

Many of the performers will not be familiar to you but others – such as pianist Mitsuko Uchida (below, in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for the Times), who will perform an all-Schubert recital, will be very familiar.

But the critics once again emphasize new music and even several world premieres – including one by Richard Danielpour — and a path-breaking but only recently recorded live performance of the 1920 opera “Die Tote Stadt” (The Dead City) by long-neglected composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (below), who is best known for his Hollywood movie scores but who also wrote compelling classical concert hall music. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear soprano Renée Fleming sing “Marietta’s Song.’)

But some works that are more familiar by more standard composers – including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Ravel and Copland – are also included.

The Times critics have also successfully tried to shine a spotlight on Black composers and Black performers, such as the clarinetist and music educator Anthony McGill (below top), who will perform a clarinet quintet by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (below) and music in the setting of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

No purists, the critics also suggest famous oboe and clarinet works in transcriptions for the saxophone by composer-saxophonist Steven Banks (below).

Also featured is a mixed media performance of words and music coordinated by the award-winning Nigerian-American novelist, essayist and photographer Teju Cole (below), whose writings and photos are irresistible to The Ear.

Here is a link to the story in the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/arts/music/classical-music-streaming-concerts.html

Are there other online concerts in March – local, regional, national or international – that you recommend in addition to the events listed in the Times?

The Ear wants to hear.

 


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Classical music: Con Vivo will perform a “Winter Warmth” chamber music concert this Sunday afternoon. Plus, a FREE viola da gamba concert is Friday at noon

January 31, 2019
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features the viola da gamba duo ViolMedium in “Façades and Duplicities,” a multi-dimensional exploration of the rich harmonic, timbral and dramatic potentials offered by violas da gamba.

The viol is the medium through which gambists Eric Miller of Madison and Phillip Serna of Chicago bridge contemporary and historically informed performance. They use experimental and innovative programming as exemplified in masterworks by Carl Friedrich Abel, Bela Bartok, Gottfried Finger, Marin Marais, Christoph Schaffrath and others.

The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m. Food and beverages are allowed.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Madison-based chamber music group Con Vivo (below) will perform a “Winter Warmth” program of chamber music this coming Sunday afternoon, Feb. 3.

 

The concert will include the Finale from Symphony No. 6 for organ by Charles Marie Widor; the Quartet for oboe and strings by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and the Piano Quintet for piano, clarinet and strings, Op. 42, by Czech composer Zdenek Fibich.

The concert takes place this Sunday afternoon, Feb. 3, at 2:30 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave. across from Camp Randall Stadium.

Tickets can be purchased at the door. Admission is $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and students.

Audience members are invited to join the musicians after the concert for a free reception to discuss the concert.

New to this concert is that Con Vivo will perform in two different spaces. The first half of the concert will be in the sanctuary, and the second half in the chapel at the First Congregational Church. This will provide the audience with different experiences for hearing the chamber music.

In remarking about the concert, Con Vivo’s artistic director Robert Taylor said, “We continue our 17th season with music evocative of warm winter thoughts during these cold, dark winter days that we often have.

“The wonderful lush strains of Charles Marie Widor’s organ music are contrasted by the bright cheerful music of Mozart in his oboe quartet. (You can hear the opening movement of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom.) The afternoon is capped off by the rarely played Piano Quintet by Fibich (below). What better way to spend a cold winter afternoon?”

Con Vivo is a professional chamber music ensemble comprised of Madison area musicians assembled from the ranks of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and various other performing groups familiar to Madison audiences.


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