The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet will play several concerts of Beethoven and Randall Thompson over this coming weekend, including one at Olbrich Gardens on Friday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following information from the veteran Ancora String Quartet, which will play several performances of the same program over the coming weekend in several different cities.
Members of the Ancora String Quartet (below from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis), who also play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, are: violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
RECITAL PROGRAM:
String Quartet No. 2 in G Major by Randall Thompson
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven
CONCERT DATES:
Friday, Feb. 7, at noon
Interview with Wisconsin Public Radio host
Norman Gilliland on The Midday
WERN 88.7 FM
Friday, Feb.7, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Bolz Conservatory
3330 Atwood Ave., Madison
Tickets at the door: $5
Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.
Park (“Freethinkers”) Hall
307 Polk Street, Sauk City
Tickets: $15 general, $12 children and seniors
Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. (UPDATE: THIS CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN OUTBREAK OF ILLNESS AT CHAI POINT. IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED.)
Chai Point Retirement Community
1400 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee
Free and open to the public
PROGRAM NOTES:
The program opens with an unusual work, the String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, by American composer Randall Thompson (below). Better known for his choral music, Thompson wrote this quartet in 1967 to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Harvard Musical Association.
The quartet is joyous and optimistic in character, with thoughtful and creative part-writing. The first movement brims with youthful energy, contained in smoothly flowing triplets.
The simple, graceful folk melody that opens the second movement continually reinvents itself in a set of charming variations. The third movement’s heartfelt tune expresses a deep content, setting up the finale, whose explosive energy erupts in a good-natured, light-hearted romp.
Beethoven (below) wrote the second piece on our program, the String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, 141 years before the Thompson and many centuries beyond it in subtlety, sophistication, intellectual rigor and emotional depth.
With six movements and lasting 40 minutes, it is the composer’s longest piece of chamber music, and it stretches limits in other ways as well. The original work, completed in 1825, contained the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) but Beethoven replaced that in 1826 with the Finale Allegro, the last full-scale movement he completed before his death in 1827.
Op. 130 bristles with contrasts, and juxtapositions of extremes, on the micro-level to the macro-level, all contained in movements ranging from a short, gnarly Presto, to a graceful Poco Scherzo, to a lyrical, innocent Alla Danza Tedesco (In the Style of a German Dance), to the fabled Cavatina, which, Beethoven wrote, moved him to tears when he even thought about it. (You can hear the Cavatina in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In performing Op. 130, the Ancora String Quartet tackles its 14th of the 16 Beethoven string quartets. The ASQ plans to perform Op. 59, No. 3, and Op. 131, in the summer and fall, to complete the Beethoven cycle in this, the Beethoven Year when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth.
For more information, go to: facebook.com/ancoraquartet and www.ancoraquartet.com
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Classical music education: One of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras will embark on an international tour to Argentina that runs July 24 to Aug. 3. So WYSO says “Bon Voyage” with a FREE send-off preview concert on this coming Tuesday night, July 22, at 7 p.m. in Olbrich Gardens.
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By Jacob Stockinger
The young musicians of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) and its premier performing ensemble, the Youth Orchestra, are preparing for a fantastic opportunity this month when they will tour to Argentina.
Youth Orchestra members will have a chance to visit the three cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario and Mar del Plata. While in these cities they will visit some of the most beautiful places in South America and perform in world class venues.
The tour will be led by WYSO Music Director James Smith (below). He has served as conductor of the Youth Orchestra for 29 years and also serves as the Director of Orchestras for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where WYSO is housed.
The 67 WYSO musicians who will participate in the tour range in age from 14 t0 18 years old and hail from 19 different communities across southern Wisconsin. (You can hear a great sample of the Youth Orchestra under James Smith in the “Carmen” Suite by Georges Bizet in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The tour will run from July 24 to August 3. It will include performances at Facultad de Derecho, the famed Teatro Colon (below) in Buenos Aires, Escuela 23 Distrito Escolar, La Usina de Musica, and Teatro el Circulo.
Repertoire for the tour will include the Overture to “Candide” by Leonard Bernstein, “Billy the Kid” Suite by Aaron Copland; Liturgical Scenes by Dwane S. Milburn, the Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36, by Peter Tchaikovsky; and “Malambo” from “Estancia” Suite, Op. 8a by Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera (below).
The Youth Orchestra will be posting a live blog before and during their trip to keep friends, family, and supporters of WYSO up to date with how the tour is going.
The writers will mainly be students, but a handful of chaperones will also be offering their perspectives.
You can visit the blog, and bookmark it, at http://wysotour2014.blogspot.com.
FREE PREVIEW CONCERT ON TUESDAY
Prior to departing on their international tour, the Youth Orchestra members will give a bon voyage send-off concert at Olbrich Botanical Gardens this coming Tuesday night, July 22, at 7 p.m. The concert is FREE and outdoors (weather permitting; otherwise it will be held indoors), and is open to the public, with a $1 suggested admission donation to support the gardens.
The Ear thinks it would be great if local media – especially television – paid as much attention and gave as much coverage (even an audiovisual sample or clip with a voiceover) to these distinguished cultural ambassadors and exceptional products of music and arts education as they do to, say, student athletes.
Since 1966, WYSO has been providing excellence in musical opportunities for more than 5,000 young people in southern Wisconsin.
WYSO includes three full orchestras and a string orchestra, a chamber music program, a harp program, a percussion ensemble, and a brass choir program. The orchestras rehearse on Saturday mornings during the academic year, perform three to four public concerts per season, and tour regionally, nationally and internationally.
For more information, contact WYSO, Room 1625, Mosse Humanities Building, 455 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706. You can also call (608) 263-3320 or visit www.wyso.music.wisc.edu
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