The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: How did Baroque composer Telemann get overshadowed and why is he being rediscovered? Trevor Stephenson talks about his all-Telemann concerts this weekend
2 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
This weekend, the Madison Bach Musicians (MBM) will give two performances of a concert devoted exclusively to the music of Baroque composer Georg Philip Telemann (below).
The performances are: Saturday night, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, where MBM will be artists-in-residence this season; the second performance is on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 6, at 3:30 p.m. at the Holy Wisdom Monastery, 4200 County Road M, in Middleton.
Tickets are $35 in advance and are available at the Willy Street Coop East and West, and at Orange Tree Imports. Tickets at the door are $38 for the general public; $35 for seniors; and $10 for student rush tickets that go on sale 30 minutes before each lecture. The lectures take place 45 minutes before the performance, at 7:15 p.m. and 2:45 p.m, respectively.
Why focus on the music of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)?
Trevor Stephenson, the founder and director of the Madison Bach Musicians, talks about it in an email Q&A with The Ear:
Why does Telemann, who was so respected in his day, seem to get far less play, fewer performances and less mentioning today than his contemporaries Bach, Vivaldi and Handel?
Telemann was born in 1681 — three years after Vivaldi and four years before Bach and Handel. He was astonishingly prolific and it is estimated that he wrote more than Bach and Handel combined.
On top of this, he was very highly respected and was widely published and performed during his life. Remember, it was Telemann — not Bach — whom the Leipzig council wanted to hire for the music director position in 1723. But Telemann was enjoying his wonderful new post in Hamburg—a thriving port city — and was not about to go back to landlocked Leipzig where he had spent his student days.
At any rate, after the 18th century had passed and its music became somewhat marginalized, in the early 19th century it was Bach’s music, not Telemann’s, that suddenly re-emerged.
Bach’s tremendous emotional depth, contrapuntal mastery and ability to control large-scale forms in an almost heroic way spoke with greater urgency to the Romantic sensibility than did Telemann’s elegant craftsmanship. Indeed, 19th-century Bach scholars often mean-spiritedly used Telemann as a foil for Bach.
Telemann’s music nevertheless received a modicum of performances in the early 20th century, but in the 1980s and 1990s, as the Early Music movement really got rolling—and the level of period-instrument performance increased—it became apparent that Telemann’s music really was hot stuff!
Now his music is enjoying a wonderful and well-deserved revival.
What are the appealing and admirable qualities you see in Telemann’s music? Are there any drawbacks to his compositions?
Telemann had a wonderful sense of melodic invention — probably music’s analog to an artist’s ability to draw — and his tunes seem to flow out effortlessly. And although his output was opulent, he had an uncanny sense of form and how much weight – duration — any given musical scene could bear.
He also was a masterful musical polyglot, able to jump back and forth easily between Italian, French and German musical idioms; and like Bach, he was also adept at integrating them into a unified style—this integration of national styles was a frequently acknowledged goal of 18th-century composers.
Telemann’s limitations are apparent when he is juxtaposed with Handel, who could dramatically really take the roof off and who could also find the inner essence of the human voice, and Bach who, like Shakespeare, through a near alchemy of sound and meaning could consistently define and further what it means to be human.
How and why did you put this program together? What unifies it and what would you like the public to know about it?
Madison Bach Musicians’ concertmaster and assistant artistic director Kangwon Kim (below left with Emily Dupere) did the heavy lifting in putting together this wonderful program of Telemann’s chamber music. MBM will present three of Telemann’s programmatic or story works, one church cantata and three purely instrumental selections.
With narration and graphics, we’ll walk you through how he cleverly depicts scenes from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726, below), which had been in print only two years when Telemann wrote his topical Gulliver Suite in 1728. Telemann loved ludicrous irony, like the tiny Lilliputians dancing a heavy chaconne—which Telemann notates in a hilarious, confounding mass of 64th and 128th notes. And then there’s the Brobdingnagian giants doing their rendition of a light-footed gigue, rendered in loopy, cumbersome whole notes!
We’ll also present the marvelous Suite Burlesque based upon Cervantes’ Don Quixote (below): Quixote’s love for Dulcinea, his jousting with windmills, and how a crowd mocks Quixote’s faithful, world-weary servant Sancho Panza.
To top it off, guest artist mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski (below) will sing the droll and sweetly amusing cantata about the demise — brought about by the cat! — of a favorite and very artistic canary. Osowski will also sing the church cantata Weicht, ihr Sünden, bleibt dahinten (Yield, You Sins, and Stay Behind Me). Telemann wrote more than 1,000 church cantatas.
The concert includes non-programmatic works for string band: the dramatic and Corelli-esque Sonata à 6 in F minor for two violins, two violas, cello and continuo; and the sparkling Sinfonia Spirituosa (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom). I will also perform some fascinating Fantasy miniatures for solo harpsichord, and will give a pre-concert lecture at both events.
For more information about the program, the performers and tickets, go to: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tags: #18thCentury, #19thCentury, #20thCentury, #AntonioVivaldi, #ArcangeloCorelli, #AtriumAuditorium, #BaroqueComposer, #BaroqueContinuo, #BaroqueMusic, #BlogInterview, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CelloMusic, #ChamberMusic, #ChristianChurch, #ClaraOsowski, #ClassicalMusician, #ContrapuntalMusic, #DonQuixote, #EarlyMusicMovement, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FirstUnitarianSocietyofMadison, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #GuestArtist, #Gulliver'sTravels, #HamburgGermany, #HarpsichordMusic, #HeavyLifting, #HolyWisdomMonastery, #HotStuff, #HumanVoice, #InstrumentalMusic, #JohannSebastianBach, #JonathanSwift, #KangwonKim, #Large-scale, #LeipzigGermany, #MadisonBachMusicians, #Mezzo-sopranoSinger, #MigueldeCervantes, #MusicalStyle, #MusicDirector, #OrangeTreeImports, #PeriodInstrument, #PortCity, #Pre-concertLecture, #RomanticMusic, #SacredCantata, #SacredMusic, #SanchoPanza, #SaturdayNight, #SeniorCitizen, #StringMusic, #Sundayafternoon, #ViolaMusic, #ViolinMusic, #VocalMusic, #WholeNotes, #WilliamShakepseare, #WillyStreetCoop, #WillyStreetCoopEast, #WillyStreetCoopWest, 18th century, 19th century, 20th-century, ability, afternoon, alchemy, analog, analogue, Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, artist, artist-in-residence, Atrium Auditorium, Bach, band, Baroque, behind, blog, Burlesque, Cantata, cellist, Cello, chaconne, Chamber music, Christian, Christianity, church, Clara Osowski, Classical music, classicalmusic, composer, Concert, concertmaster, contemporary, continuo, contrapuntal, control, Corelli, council, counterpoint, craftsmanship, crowd, cumbersome, dance, dancing, days, depth, devoted, Don Quixote, draw, Dulcinea, Early music, elegant, email, emotional, enjoy, exclusive, Facebook, faithful, fantasy, fascinating, First Unitarian Society of Madison, form, forward, French, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, German, giant, giants, gigue, goal, guest artist, Gulliver's Travels, Hamburg, Handel, harpsichord, heavy lifting, heroic, hire, Holy Wisdom Monastery, hot stuff, human voice, idiom, instrumental, interview, invention, irony, Italian, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Swift, jousting, Kangwon Kim, landlocked, lecture, Leipzig, like, Lilliputian, link, loopy, Love, ludicrous, Madison Bach Musicians, marginalized, marvelous, mastery, me, mean-spirit, meaning, melodic, melody, mention, Mezzo-soprano, Middleton, Miguel de Cervantes, miniature, movement, Music, Music director, musical, musical style, national, night, notes, opulent, Orange Tree Imports, output, performance, performer, period-instrument, play, polyglot, port city, position, post, posting, programmatic, prolific, public, pure, Q&A, rediscover, respect, revival, Romantic, sacred cantata, sacred music, Sancho Panza, Saturday night, scene, scholar, senior, sense, sensibility, servant, Shakespeare, share, sins, solo, Sonata, Sound, story, string, Student, style, subscriber, Suite, Sunday, tag, tickets, tiny, tune, tunes, uncanny, unified, urgency, use, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, Vivaldi, vocal music, weight, well-deserved, whole, whole notes, Willy Street Coop, windmill, Wisconsin, wonderfu, world-weary, yield
Classical music: The UW Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra deliver outstanding performances of great music by Mozart and Brahms
2 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. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. Barker also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
The program for the first concert this season by the UW Choral Union (below), mercifully, had nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas, and just offered great music.
There were only two works, one by Brahms and the other by Mozart. Surefire!
Johannes Brahms composed three relatively short works for chorus, without soloists, and orchestra. Of these, I wish conductors would get busy with two of them in particular. The Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates) and Nänie are simply superb works by one of the greatest of all choral composers.
The third, the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op. 54, I would rate just a bit lower for musical content, but that is the one of the three that is more frequently performed, and that was the one we heard.
That said, there is much quite beautiful music in the piece, which sets a poem of Friedrich Hölderlin that moves from anxiety to desperation. Brahms (below) preceded the choral setting with a serene introduction that—to satisfy his aesthetics if not the poet’s—he repeats at the end to restore order.
Conductor Beverley Taylor (below) employed rather broad tempos, but this enabled her to bring out some of the melodic material with great beauty.
And, with a chorus of some 124 singers, she was able to give the music tremendous sonority, if a bit at the price of German diction. With the very good UW Symphony Orchestra in fine fettle, too, this was an excellent performance that should alert listeners to neglected treasures.
The main work was the unfinished “Great” Mass in C minor, K. 427, by Mozart (below). This is music inspired by the composer’s marriage and by the new (for him) artistic climate of Vienna. Even incomplete – it has a fragmentary “Credo” and is missing an “Agnus Dei”) — it still stands, with his also uncompleted Requiem, as a towering masterpiece of his sacred choral output.
Taylor displayed a fine feeling for both the overall and individual qualities of the work, projecting them with vigor and discipline.
There were four student soloists (below), with promising young voices.
But eventually the standout proved to be soprano Sarah Richardson (below). The operatic-style aria, “Et incarnatus est” from the “Credo” was apparently sung by Mozart’s wife in its preliminary performance, and is often heard as a separate solo number today. This was sung by Richardson (below) with skill and eloquence. (You can hear the aria in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
This chorus was really a bit oversized for a work like this, but Taylor made it the real star of the performance, in singing with both power and precision.
A truly rewarding concert!
Tags: aesthetic, Agnus Dei, American Record Guide, anxiety, aria, artistic, Arts, beautiful, Beverly Taylor, Cello, choral music, Christmas, Classical music, climate, composer, content, Credo, critic, desperation, diction, discipline, Early music, eloquence, emeritus, esthetic, feeling, fettle, fine, fragment, German, great, History, Holiday, incomplete, individual, introduction, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, lecture, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Marriage, mass, masterpiece, material, Medieval, melodic, melody, Mozart, Music, musical, Nanie, opera, operatic, Orchestra, order, output, photo, photograph, piece, poem, poet, power, precision, preformance, professor, quality, Requiem, restore, review, rewarding, sacred, Season, serene, setting, short, singer, skill, soloists, Song of Destiny, Song of the Fates, star, Student, superb, Tempo, towering, unfinished, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Choral Union, UW Symphony Orchestra, Vienna, vigor, Viola, Violin, vocal music, voice, wife, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, work, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: The Mosaic Chamber Players complete their cycle of Beethoven sonatas for strings with impressive beauty and sensitivity
Leave a Comment
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. Barker also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
In another distressingly overcrowded weekend, hard choices had to be made about which event to attend. I picked the performance by the Mosaic Chamber Players last Saturday night at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Landmark Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison.
For the past four years, this group has pursued a “complete” survey of Beethoven’s sonatas for strings and piano. Since he composed 10 for violin and piano plus five for cello and piano, it was easy to organize them into five concerts, each with two violin sonatas and one for cello. In addition, it was possible in many programs to draw on all three periods of Beethoven’s output.
This year’s concert was thus the fifth and the last in the series, climaxing a really impressive achievement for artistic director and guiding spirit Jess Salek and his colleagues.
As pianist in all three of the works presented, Salek (below) provided more than accompaniment, since the role of the piano was generally put on terms of equal partnership, sometimes even of relative superiority. He played bravely, justly showing palpable pride in the total achievement.
Laura Burns (below), who also plays with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the MSO’s Rhapsodie String Quartet, was the violinist in the early Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 12, No. 2.
This happens to be the first of these Beethoven sonatas that I came to know and love in my youth, via an old Jascha Heifetz recording, so it had particular reverberations for me. To its wit and sprightliness Burns brought an added warmth of sound and spirit.
The Cello Sonata No. 5 in D, Op. 102, No. 2, was the last one Beethoven composed for this medium, and one of two that dates from the composer’s late period. A great deal of very serious thinking went into it, with a slow movement particularly notable for its spiritual depth. Cellist Kyle Price (below) delivered it with genuine feeling and with great strength of tone.
Also Beethoven’s last work for its medium, the Violin Sonata No. 10 in G, Op. 96, comes from late in the composer’s so-called middle period. It is a work of almost kaleidoscopic variety, with frequent changes of mood and character.
Its core is another slow movement of amazingly personal eloquence and breath-taking beauty. And the theme-and-variations movement finale seems to have everything (almost) in it but the kitchen sink. (You can hear Wes Luke and Jess Salek performing another theme-and-variations movement from a different Beethoven violin sonata in the cycle, Op. 30, No. 1, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
It was clear that violinist Wes Luke (below), who is also the first violinist of the Ancora String Quartet, was having a whale of a good time playing it, relishing almost every note.
Luke’s printed program notes were particularly excellent, and included notice that the group’s spring concert will juxtapose piano trios of Beethoven and Brahms.
The Mosaic Chamber Players do not receive a great deal of publicity, but their concerts offer some of the most lovely and thought-provoking chamber music repertoire to be found, even in a town so full of wonderful music-making as ours.
Tags: accompaniment, achievement, American Record Guide, Arts, beauty, Beethoven, blog, brave, Cello, Chamber music, character, Classical music, composer, Concert, critic, cycle, Early music, eloquence, emeritus, equal, equality, feeling, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright, genuine, guide, History, impressive, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jascha Heifetz, Jess Salek, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, kaleidoscope, Kyle Price, late, Laura Burns, lecture, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Medieval, medium, mood, Mosaic Chamber Players, movement, Music, note, notes, old, Orchestra, output, overcrowded, partner, partnership, performance, period, Piano, Piano Trio, posting, pride, professor, program, Radio, recording, review, Rhapsodie Quartet, role, series, Sonata, Sound, spirit, spiritual, sprightly, Spring, strength, String quartet, strings, strong, Superior, survey, theme and variations, tone, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, variety, Violin, warm, warmth, weekend, Wes Luke, Wisconsin, wit, WORT-FM 89.9, Writer, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 