The Well-Tempered Ear
Here’s music to mark Mother’s Day
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Sunday is Mother’s Day 2024.
The holiday celebrating mothers, grandmothers and women whose are like mothers to us is celebrated around the world in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Mothers have long provided inspiration to composers, performers and listeners.
The Ear’s mom loved to hear him practice and play Chopin’s Waltz in E minor and Rachmaninoff’s popular Prelude in C-sharp minor (played by the composer in the YouTube video at the bottom), which dropped out of fashion for many years but now seems back in favor, especially as an encore.
Mom was proud of her pianist son and once even let the telephone sit near the piano when I was playing the Rachmaninoff for someone who had called her long-distance and wanted to hear more of what was until then just background noise to her conversation.
Anyway, here is one of the best pieces I have seen for you to read and listen to as you celebrate Mother’s Day. Some of the music is sure to be very familiar, other music less so.
Here are 20 pieces, with brief introductions and translations, about mothers from the website Interlude in Hong Kong:
Here’s to you, Mom.
Do you have a piece to dedicate to your mom?
Did your mother have a favorite piece she liked to hear?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Meet and hear piano phenom Yunchan Lim
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By Jacob Stockinger
He is looks like a young, mop-topped Beatle, but he plays the piano with the lyricism of Arthur Rubinstein and the technical virtuosity of Vladimir Horowitz or Maurizio Pollini.
He is the South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim (seen below, during his winning performances at the last Van Cliburn Competition two years ago). If you haven’t yet heard of him or listened to him, you really should. Otherwise you are missing out of a phenomenal talent who is just 20 years old and offer sublimely beautiful interpretations.
Just listen to his superb and subtle performance of the “Aeolian Harp” etude, Op. 25, No. 1, by Chopin in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Recently, the British radio classical music radio station Classic FM offered a complete primer on Lim. It includes his personal and professional background and history as well as links to many of his special performances that have been acclaimed by his fellow musicians, the critics and the public.
Here is a link:
Do you know about Yunchan Lim?
Have you heard his playing?
What do you think of him?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Pianist Lang Lang gets a Hollywood star
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By Jacob Stockinger
He is not the first classical pianist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
But the controversial Chinese superstar Lang Lang (below) — once referred to as Bang Bang and compared to Liberace for his flamboyance and showmanship — is certainly the most popular.
As a performer, educator and philanthropist, he is also the first Asian pianist to be so honored, although The Ear is betting that his fellow Chinese and highly respected pianist Yuja Wang is not far behind him.
Lang Lang received the 2,778th star (below, in a photo by Jesse Grant of Getty Images) from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. He received it last week, on April 10.
His alma mater — the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where Lang Lang studied with Gary Graffman and graduated in 2002 — is deservedly proud of him, issuing the following press release with links:
And if you missed any or all of the 49 minutes-long fluffy ceremony, in the YouTube video at the bottom is a 5-minute clip of the event, during which Lang Lang played the piano on the street.
Do you have an opinion about Lang Lang?
What do you think is his best recording?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Muti to conduct an opera academy in China
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By Jacob Stockinger
Italian maestro Riccardo Muti (below) — the 83-year-old retired music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and longtime music director of the iconic La Scala Opera House in Milan— will take his workshops for young conductors and musicians to China for the first time this coming November and December.
Muti is a devoted advocate and practitioner of music education, and has led similar academies in: Ravenna and Milan, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; and Seoul, South Korea.
In a story published in Chinese media, Muti explains why he chose China this time. There he will work in the city of Suzhou with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra and with individual applicants from around the world.
“During the past decades, classical music has gained a large fan base in China, with new concert halls and new symphony orchestras appearing in the country,” Muti adds. “There are also many great Chinese musicians performing around the world — pianists, violinists, singers and conductors — who have become like bridges, bringing our countries closer to each other.”
The repertoire he has chosen to work on is the one-act Italian opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” (Rustic Chivalry) by Pietro Mascagni.
It seems a perfect choice to The Ear. It is shorter and easier to stage than most full-length operas. It uses the Roman Catholic Church and religion as well as other aspects of European and Italian society and culture. This includes the famous “Regina Coeli” or Easter Hymn (below):
The opera itself has beautiful parts for the vocal soloists, the chorus and the orchestral instrumentalists — as you can hear above and in the famously melodic Intermezzo (in the YouTube video at the bottom) that was used in the film “The Godfather.”
Here is a link to the full story from the China Daily newspaper:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202404/13/WS661a1d39a31082fc043c1c81.html
You might also recall an earlier blog post about the recent successes of Asian classical musicians:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Asian+musicians
When it comes to Western classical music in China, it seems that success keeps building on success.
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Klaus Mäkelä, 28, is the new music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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By Jacob Stockinger
It seems to The Ear that another young conducting superstar is in the making.
I’m talking about the 28-year-old Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä (below, in a photo by Marco Borggreve), who just yesterday was named the successor to 82-year-old Riccardo Muti as the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, starting in 2027.
Chances are good that the talented, photogenic and charismatic Mäkelä — ignore the umlauts and “ke” is pronounced kay — who has had a meteoric rise will eventually join the company of Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Nézet-Séguin as an heir to such celebrated conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan, then Claudio Abbado, Michael Tilson Thomas and Marin Alsop.
The Ear would love to post stories from the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Chicago Tribune. But they all hide their online stories behind a paywall.
Here is another story, from ABC-TV in Chicago and the Associated Press, that has all the essentials and some extra background:
In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can see his 2-minute video made specifically to introduce himself on the occasion of his selection to lead the CSO. He talks about what he likes about the world-famous orchestra and why he wanted to accept the permanent position after guest conducting the CSO
And here is an excerpt of Mäkelä conducting the Paris Orchestra in Carnegie aHall last month. His reading of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” — on an all-Stravinsky program with “The Rite of Spring — raised the neck hair on The Ear.
You can under how the young Finn has developed a reputation for both spontaneous energy and sonic clarity.
What do you think of Klaus Mäkelä becoming the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra?
Have you heard him conduct? What did you think?
Would you go to Chicago to hear him conduct?
Will he become a worthy successor to such Chicago luminaries as Muti, Daniel Barenboim, George Solti and Fritz Reiner?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Here are Gramophone’s 12 best recordings for March
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By Jacob Stockinger
Gramophone magazine, based in the UK, is probably the best and most influential periodical about classical music for the general public.
Every month, the editors pick a recording of the month with 11 others to make up a dozen great opportunities for listening. The reviews — which often favor British performers and composers — include links to excerpts on streaming services.
Would you like to hear the prolific super-virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin play his own compositions, including his Variations on a Theme of Paganini? See the YouTube video at the bottom for an astonishing display of pianism.
Or an obscure opera by Leos Janacek?
Or historic recordings of the violinist Joseph Szigeti?
Or the contemporary composer Nicola LeFanu?
Maybe a spring bouquet of songs about flowers?
Then check out this month’s choices for the Best Of.
And if these reviews interest you, check out the other stories and reviews at the bottom of the Gramophone webpage.
Here is a link:
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FREE birthday bash for Johann Sebastian Bach is this Saturday in Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear thinks of this week’s Bach Around the Clock — which runs March 6-10 — as a double celebration.
The primary one is to mark the 339th birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (below, March 20, 1685-July 28, 1750), whom many consider to be the Big Bang of Western classical music.
The second celebration is to honor the late Madison violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (below), who with help resurrected Bach Around the Clock in Madison after it had been dropped by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Talented, hard-working and congenial, Fischer — who died a year ago of cancer — was a fixture of the local music scene. She was a member of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and spent 20 years playing in the Madison Symphony Orchestra. An outstanding chamber musician, she also helped found and played in the Ancora String Quartet.
An avid proponent of early music using period instruments and historically informed performance practices, Fischer Hoyt helped found and play in the weekly free Just Bach concerts. She performed regularly with the Madison Bach Musicians and with an early music string group she helped found, Sonata à Quattro.
Here is a link to a complete schedule on the BATC website:
The Ear thinks Marika would be very pleased and proud of this year’s event.
It will feature Bach’s original choral and instrumental music in many genres and transcriptions. Soloists and groups of varying sizes will take part. And Bach’s music — so central to the repertoire and all levels of musicianship — will be performed by students (below are members of the Suzuki Strings), by amateurs and by professionals (in the YouTube video at the bottom) — making BATC a truly community-wide celebration of Bach.
The hours for the Birthday Bash concert, which used to run 12 hours, have been cut back to a reasonable and accessible 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent St., on Madison’s near west side. But a birthday cake will still be cut at the end.
And in case you want to duck in and out or catch certain performances or performers, here is a full program schedule for Saturday:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CIRby29h6wZjyngZgyMPpTrLNiMC_1OR/view
You can find links to all other events and programs — printed in blue — on the main website for the March 6-10 festival.
Performances by performers in their own homes and studios will air online as part of the Virtual Festival held of BATC’s YouTube channel, starting at midnight on this Sunday, March 10. Its runs without a time limit and can be accessed worldwide.
Here is a link to the YouTube channel, which also has past performances
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHBRPHSGd_fNECp-qrWsqlQ
Have you attended or heard other Bach Around the Clocks?
What do you think of the celebration?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Meet the 2024 winners of the Classic Piano International Competition in Dubai, UAE
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By Jacob Stockinger
Did you know that the fourth and final round of a major international piano competition was taking place in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates this past week?
The Ear didn’t — until now.
That when he saw the nine 2024 winners (below), chosen from 70 participants, named in a post on The Violin Channel website.
The third edition of Classic Piano International Competition — which started during the 2017-28 season — makes sense when you think about it.
Dubai has lots of oil money but not a lot of Western culture or prestige. But Piano World contains more than enough competitors and venues for the event — even after such top-ranked, career-boosting competitions as the Tchaikovsky in Russia, the Arthur Rubinstein in Israel, the Leeds in the UK, the Chopin in Poland and the Van Cliburn in the United States.
So why not a major piano event for the Middle East and the Arab world? (Readers: Do you know if any other music competitions take place in that area?)
Its format is unusual.
Pianists cannot apply directly. Instead, they have to participate in the early rounds that are held in countries around the world. Those who finish in the Top Five of a preliminary competition get invited to the final round in Dubai.
The competition’s preliminary rounds took place in the USA, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Kazakhstan, Poland, UK, Armenia, China, South Korea, Japan, Israel, and Spain.
Here is some general background:
And here are details including the jury members, the various prizes, and the restricted and required repertoire that the pianists must select from:
https://classicpiano.eu/competition
Russian and Asian pianists dominated this year, with veteran Andrey Gugnin of Russia (below and in the YouTube video at the bottom) taking home the first prize of 100,000 Euros ($108,300) plus 10 concert dates and a 50,000-Euro honorarium for performing with two different orchestras: the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. Gugnin, who protested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now lives in Croatia.
Here is a link to the story with the complete list of winners:
Like many major music competitions these days, Dubai’s was live-streamed. Its global media partners are medici.tv; euronews; and bachtrack. You can or will soon be able to find various artists and rounds of the competition on YouTube.
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Solving the beautiful mathematics of Bach
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By Jacob Stockinger
The music of Johann Sebastian Bach (below) doesn’t just sound mathematical.
It IS mathematical.
And although fugues sound the most overtly mathematical of all Bach’s works, you can find complex mathematical and informational patterns to varying degrees in the preludes (below) and overtures, sonatas and partitas, cantatas and oratorios, concertos, suites and toccatas . (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear pianist and Bach specialist Andras Schiff play the long, complex and sublime Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 869, No. 24 from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
Here is the link to the story about physicists who solved Bach’s math that was featured in Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/secret-mathematical-patterns-revealed-in-bachs-music
You can also hear plenty of Bach’s beautifully mathematical music live and online for FREE during the upcoming Bach Around the Clock (BATC) celebration of his birthday in Madison. It will take place March 6-10.
Here is a link to the schedule of performers and repertoire both in live performance and virtually online:
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