The Well-Tempered Ear
What made Beethoven sick and deaf?
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By Jacob Stockinger
What made Beethoven (below) deaf and sick his entire adult life?
Scientists think they have an answer, although their opinion is not unanimous.
Here is a news story from Classic FM about the latest research:
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/scientists-hair-analysis-deaf-mystery/
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What classical music is good for studying, reading and writing?
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By Jacob Stockinger
It is about to be Finals Week here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in many other places.
Little wonder, then, that The Ear recently read a good story about the role of of music in studying.
It was written by a student journalist for The State Press at Arizona State University in Tempe. It covered more kinds of music than classical, but it had some good comments about the ability of music and its various components — melody, rhythm, tempo, text — to focus one’s attention or to distract from the necessary focus.
Here is a link to the story, which also includes 100 music selections from mixed genres:
It got me to wondering what classical music do you readers like for studying, reading and writing — if you like it at all for such serious and intense tasks.
The Ear tends to love listening to Baroque music — especially Vivaldi violin concertos and Bach harpsichord concertos such as the one in the YouTube video at the bottom — and to chamber music and solo piano music.
So, what music do you like to listen to when you are: studying? reading? writing?
Do you have a favorite style, or favorite composer, or favorite pieces?
The Ear wants to hear.
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A biopic about Vivaldi is in the works
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By Jacob Stockinger
The baroque master and violin virtuoso Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741, below) composed the most recorded piece of classical music of all time: “The Four Seasons.”
The work was composed around 1720 and published in 1723, but because Vivaldi died in poverty and his music fell into obscurity, it was not rediscovered and recorded until 1939. And scholars are still finding manuscripts and rediscovering works by the prolific composer who has some 500 concertos and 40 operas to his credit.
The Roman Catholic priest with flaming red hair who was admired by J.S. Bach and who taught at an orphanage for girls in Venice, Italy, has been the subject of numerous biographies, critical studies and even novels, including mystery novels.
But now — after a 20-year delay since the script was completed and submitted — Vivaldi is about to hit the Big Screen in a biopic.
Last year saw “Maestro” about Leonard Bernstein and his wife. And a movie about opera diva Maria Callas is in the works with Angelina Jolie in the title role.
It seems a trend that might perhaps help attendance as concert organizations still are struggling to recover from the Covid pandemic. One wonders if we will see more Vivaldi programmed in response to his increased visibility and publicity his music will get thanks to Hollywood.
For more background and details, here is a link to the story on Classic FM:
Which is your favorite of the four violin concertos that make up “The Four Seasons”?
And what about Vivaldi’s other pieces, including the glorious “Gloria”?
The Ear particularly likes Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins. It is in A minor, RV 523, and you can hear the first movement played by Simon Standage and Collegium 90 in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Do you recommend a particular work by Vivaldi?
What is your favorite piece — choral, operatic, instrumental — by The Red Priest?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s new CD and Friday night concert champion racial diversity
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By Jacob Stockinger
“Musical Landscapes in Color” is a five-year initiative by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra with its award-winning, composer-in-residence Dr. William Banfield (below), who has produced a body of work in the past 25 years that includes music, books, teaching and creative work that contributes to contemporary arts leadership.
The cultural undertaking aims to elevate the voices of an array of living, diverse composers of color throughout the United States. The project represents a significant step towards diversifying the classical music landscape through compositions and audiences, according to the WCO.
The first of several installments (below) — “Harmony in Black” — has just been released by Albany Records.
The album is available in a physical format and for digital streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube, where you can sample it at the bottom.
Performed and recorded live on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, it features excerpts from three compositions: one by four-time Grammy nominee Patrice Rushen entitled “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory”; and two by renowned composer Banfield entitled “Testimony of Tone, Tune, and Time” and “Symphony No. 8: Here I Stand.”
Their three compositions do not quote spiritual melodies directly, but do embody the spirit of those songs by drawing either on direct quotations of speeches or writings.
Multi-Grammy-nominated artist Patrice Rushen (below) is admired by many for her groundbreaking achievements including serving as Musical Director for the 46th, 47th and 48th Annual Grammy Awards.
CONTENTS:
Patrice Rushen: Movement 1: ”Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory”
Dr. William Banfield: (starting at 8:10): “Testimony of Tone, Tune and Time” — Symphony No. 8
Performers are: retired City of Madison, Dane County and State of Wisconsin Judge Paul Higginbotham (below) as the narrator; saxophonist Matthew Sintchak; and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra under conductor and music director Andrew Sewell.
For more background, including a release reception, go to a story in Madison 365:
A WORLD PREMIERE THIS FRIDAY NIGHT
The project continues with a concert that takes place this Friday night, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center features the WORLD PREMIERE of Banfield’s Symphony No. 14 “Revelation.”
Guest artists include the Madison Youth Choirs, the Festival Choir of Madison and the Edgewood College Chamber Singers. Soloists include soprano Angela Brown, tenor Ben Johnson and baritone William Volmar.
Opening the 90-minute concert is Symphony No. 1 in G major, Op. 4 (1901) by British composer Edwin York Bowen, whose music shows influences of Rachmaninov, Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
Tickets are still available and cost $34.50, $75 and $95. For more information and tickets, go to: https://wcoconcerts.org/
Have you heard Banfield’s music?
What do you think of it?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Online playlists return to Wisconsin Public Radio
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By Jacob Stockinger
Good news!
News that deserve a big shout-out!
Online playlists for classical music programming have returned to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).
The user-friendly move comes after more than a year of absent playlists and, fortuitously, as WPR is conducting a spring membership drive seeking financial support from the public.
There is one major drawback: You still can’t check on pieces and performances in real time — that is, on the same day or even the same moment as you are listening. Now you have to wait until the next day to see the posting.
That is an unfortunate change from the past. And one hopes it will be fixed soon. Maybe WPR will even let listeners know if and when real-time postings will return.
The current one-day delay seems especially odd, given that the pieces played overnight on WPR — from Minnesota Public Radio, I believe — are posted right as they begin to air.
But at least now we don’t have to wait weeks or months to find out information about something you have probably already forgotten about.
The new format seems less straightforward and less user-friendly than the old one, which put the information right in front of you when you went to the home website and clicked on playlists for News and Music Network.
But now you just go to the date bar and choose the day you are looking for. Once you find the piece, you will notice the name of the show on which it aired such as “Morning Classics” or “The Midday.” You also find the time with the composer, title and performer.
If you also click on “More,” you will see additional details such as the record label and catalogue number. Here a link to try it out:
Home
The return of the playlists is especially useful now that WPR is programming so many neglected composers and so much unfamiliar music — something the current pledge drive seems to be explaining and emphasizing.
So let’s offer hearty congratulations and sincere thanks to WPR and its engineers for the move.
What do you think of the return of WPR playlists?
Have you used the new playlists?
What do you think about their usefulness and online display?
Should WPR playlists be posted in real time?
The Ear wants to hear.
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YOU MUST HEAR THIS: No piece captures the mixed emotions of Memorial Day better than Charles Ives’ “Decoration Day”
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2022.
It is the annual holiday to remember those who died in military service to the country. (Below are flags placed each year at the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.)
If you want to honor survivors and current service members, that would be Veterans Day on Nov. 11.
All weekend long the radio has been playing music and the television has been showing war movies.
A lot of the music is familiar and repeated every year: Sousa marches and Morton Gould suites, elegies by Gustav Mahler, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein; requiems by Mozart and Fauré; a hymn by John Williams and other movie scores. This year has also seen the playlist include rediscovered works of homage by African-American composers such as William Grant Still.
But only this year did The Ear finally hear — thanks to Wisconsin Public Radio — the one piece that, to his mind, best captures Memorial Day with its blending of consonance and dissonance, its mix of major and major keys, of familiar or “found” music and original music.
It is called, simply, “Decoration Day” and it was composed in 1912 — but not published until 1989 — by the 20th-century iconoclastic and early modernist American composer Charles Ives (below, 1874-1954). It ended up as part of a work the composer called “A Symphony: New England Hollidays.”
See if you agree with The Ear.
Listen to the 8-minute performance by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Listen to the deep anguish and and sense of loss conveyed in the opening, when a solemn remembrance procession goes to a cemetery to plant flags and lay flowers and wreaths to “decorate” the graves of the fallen.
Listen carefully and you will hear a faint version of “Taps” and ringing church bells in the atmospheric music.
Then as so often happens in reality, life suddenly intrudes in the form of a celebration by a loud marching brass band as it leaves the cemetery for the celebratory marches, picnics and fireworks.
But at the end, the darkness briefly returns. The sense of loss lingers long after the actual death and long after the holiday has been celebrated.
There is no closure.
Just resignation.
Just living with loss.
Here is the background from Wikipedia about how the holiday started as Decoration Day after the Civil War and when it evolved into Memorial Day in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
And here is biographical background, with the actual sources and depictions of “Decoration Day” — just go down the page to compositions and click — about Charles Ives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives
Did you know and like Charles Ives’ music?
Does “Decoration Day” impress or move you?
What music most embodies Memorial Day for you?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Too bad the Wisconsin Union Theater didn’t book a great pianist for next season
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By Jacob Stockinger
“We are living in a Golden Age of pianists,” famed concert pianist, Juilliard teacher and frequent Madison performer Emanuel Ax (below) has said.
He should know. But you would never guess that from the recently announced next season at the Wisconsin Union Theater (below).
The WUT has not booked a solo pianist for the 2022-23 season.
Here is a link to the lineup for the next season:
https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/
Is The Ear the only one who has noticed and is disappointed?
Who else feels bad about it?
After all, this is the same presenting organization that brought to Madison such legendary pianists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Jan Paderewski, Percy Grainger, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Egon Petri, Robert Casadesus, William Kapell, Claudio Arrau, Alexander Brailowsky, Gary Graffman, Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Byron Janis, Misha Dichter, Peter Serkin, André Watts, Lili Kraus and Garrick Ohlsson
It is the same hall (below) in which The Ear has heard Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Angela Hewitt, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Valentina Lisitsa, Andras Schiff, Joyce Yang, Yefim Bronfman, Jeremy Denk, Ingrid Fliter, Richard Goode, Leon Fleisher, Simone Dinnerstein, Wu Han and so many other great and memorable names including, of course, Emanuel Ax.
What a history!
As you can see and as The Ear likes to say, the Wisconsin Union Theater is “The Carnegie Hall of Madison.” For over 100 years, it is where the great ones play.
One irony is that many of those former bookings of pianists took place when the University of Wisconsin School of Music had many more pianists on the faculty and provided a major alternative venue for piano recitals.
Another irony is that so many young people take piano lessons (below) and are apt to want to attend, probably with their parents, to hear a live professional concert piano recital. You would think the WUT would also see the advantages of having such community outreach links to the public and to music education, especially since the WUT has hosted Open Piano Day for the public. (See the YouTube video of a Channel 3000 story in February 2020 at the bottom.)
From what The Ear reads, there are lots of up-and-coming pianists, many affordable names of various winners of national and international competitions. They should be affordable as well as worthy of being introduced to the Madison public.
But that seems a mission now largely left to the Salon Piano Series.
Plus, so many of the new pianists are young Asians who have never appeared here, which should be another draw for the socially responsible and diversity-minded WUT.
But that is another story for another day.
What do you think of the WUT not presenting a solo pianist next season?
Maybe there will be a pianist booked for the 2023-24 season.
What pianists would you like see booked by the WUT student programming committee?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Ukraine’s most famous living composer is now a war refugee in Germany
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By Jacob Stockinger
He fights and defends his native country with beautiful sounds.
Ukraine’s most famous living composer has had to flee his war-torn country and — like some 3 million fellow Ukrainians in various other countries — is now living as a a war refugee in Germany.
He is Valentin Sylvestrov (below), 84, and has survived both World War II and the Nazi occupation as well as the Soviet rule experiencing democracy and freedom after the fall of the USSR and now the devastating Russian invasion five weeks ago.
The irony is that his music, which The Ear can’t recall ever hearing performed live in Madison — although Wisconsin Public Radio recently featured a beautiful choral work — seems calming and peaceful, even consoling.(Please correct me if I am mistaken.) Many people compare him to the style of Arvo Pärt, his Eastern European contemporary and colleague in Estonia.
Little wonder that his works have found a new popularity in worldwide concerts as the world hopes for the survival and victory of Ukraine — below is Ukraine’s flag — over Vladimir’s Putin’s army and war crimes.
His works have been particularly popular at fundraisers and memorials. They underscore the long history and importance of Ukraine’s tradition of making music, which has been recounted in the news features you find in the press, on TV, on radio and elsewhere in the media including live streams and recorded videos other media, especially the Internet.
As far as The Ear can tell, his most popular work in the concert hall these days is his hauntingly beautiful 1937 “Prayer for Ukraine.” You can hear it, in an orchestra version, in a YouTube video at the bottom.
As background here are two different interviews with the distressed and saddened Sylvestrov in exile.
The first interview, from The New York Times, is by a professor at Arizona State University who has published a book on postwar Eastern European composers and offers links to more works: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/arts/music/valentin-silvestrov-ukraine-war.html
The other interview is from the German media outlet Deutsche Welle, translated into English and featuring current photos: https://www.dw.com/en/ukrainian-composer-valentin-silvestrov-what-are-you-kremlin-devils-doing/a-61158308
The tragic occasion of the war in Ukraine could be the event that brings the soul-stirring music of Sylvestrov to a larger global public.
He certainly deserves it — along with some live performances here — and The Ear certainly plans on posting more of his music.
Have you heard the music of Valentin Sylvestrov?
Do you have favorite works from his piano music, chamber music, choral music and many symphonies?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Music con Brio starts an annual Black Composers project with a FREE virtual concert
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, 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
The Ear has received the following announcement from Carol Carlson, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Madison-based Music con Brio (below), who is a violinist and holds a doctorate in music from the UW-Madison:
Hello friends,
Happy summer! I hope you are able to enjoy some rest, relaxation and fun in the sun.
I am emailing you because Music con Brio embarked on an exciting new project this year, and I want to share it with you.
In an effort to diversify our repertoire and guest artists, we have launched our new “Music by Black Composers” project. Last winter, our staff chose four pieces of music by Black composers and made student-accessible arrangements of them.
We then taught these new pieces during our online lessons this spring. On May 8, we gathered together outside at the Goodman Community Center, with four phenomenal local Black guest artists, to professionally record all four pieces.
And now, in lieu of our regular Community Concert Series this year, we are thrilled to present our first-ever Virtual Community Concert!
Click on the link to YouTube video at the bottom to watch and hear the 12-minute performance. Once there, click on Show More to see the composers, pieces and performers.
We are incredibly proud of our students and staff for all their hard work making this so successful. I’m sure you will enjoy their performance!
Please do feel free to pass the video along to anyone else you think might be interested in watching it.
And if you feel so inclined, we would really appreciate a donation in support of this work, which we plan to do every year from now on. To support Music con Brio and our Black Composers project by making a secure, tax-deductible donation, go to: https://www.musicconbrio.org/donate/
Thank you so much for your support! We hope to see you at a live concert again sometime soon!
If you wish to know more about Music con Brio, go to: https://www.musicconbrio.org
Tags: #African-AmericanComposer, #BillWithers, #Blackcomposers, #BlackMusic, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CarolCarlson, #ChamberMusic, #CommunutyConcertSeries, #DaneArts, #EmersonElementarySchool, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FlorencePrice, #FranciscaGonzaga, #GoodmanCenter, #GoodmanCommunityCenter, #GuestArtist, #Hard Work, #HardWork, #HomeWebsite, #JacobStockinger, #LeanonMe, #LiveConcert, #LiveMusic, #MadisonArtsCommission, #MadisonWisconsin, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MusicconBrio, #MusicEducation, #NegroSpiritual, #NewMusic, #OnlineConcert, #OnlineLessons, #RecordedMusic, #SugarMapleMusicFestival, #SwingLow, #TheEar, #TheUW, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #VirtualCommunityConcert, #VirtualConcert, #VocalMusic, #WallaceWillis, #YouTubevideo, accessible, African American, annual, anyone, arrange, arrangement, artist, Arts, audience, Bach, Bill Withers, Black composers, black music, blog, Carol Carlson, Cello, Chamber music, children, choose, Classical music, click, co-founder, community, Community Concert Series, composer, Concert, Dane Arts, diversify, diversity, doctorate, donation, drums, effort, effprt, else, email, embark, Emerson Elementary School, enjoy, exciting, Facebook, Facebook post, Facebook posting, feel, first, first-ever, Florence Price, forward, founder, Francisca Gonzaga, free, friends, fun, gather, Goodman Center, Goodman Community Center, graduate student, guest artist, happy', hard, hear, home website, incredible, Jacob Stockinger, know, launch, Lean on Me, like, link, live concert, live music, local, Madison, Madison Arts Commission, Mead Witter School of Music, Music, Music con Brio, Music education, new, New Music, online, online lessons, Orchestra, orchestral music, pass, percussion, perfomer, performance, performer, phenomenal, Pianist, Piano, piece, plan, players, post, posting, pride, professional, project, proud, record, recorded music, relaxation, repertoire, rest, secure, series, share, spiritual, Spring, staff\, students, success, successful, Sugar Maple Music Festival, summer, sun, support, Sweet Chariot, SweetChariot, Swing Low, symphony, tag, taught, tax-deductible, teach, The Ear, theill, together, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW, video, Viola, Violin, violinist, virtual, Virtual Community Concert, vocal music, Wallace Willis, want, watch, Website, winter, Wisconsin, work, year, you, YouTube
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