The Well-Tempered Ear
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:
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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Remember Marika with Bach Around the Clock 2023. The FREE five-day, in-person and online birthday celebration begins today
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NOTE: You can see and hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Final Forte concert with four youth concerto finalists at 7 tonight on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio. For complete information, including other airings, go to these websites: https://madisonsymphony.org/education-community/education-programs/young-artist-competitions/the-final-forte/ and https://pbswisconsin.org/the-final-forte/
By Jacob Stockinger
The seventh annual Madison-based Bach Around the Clock festival — a celebration of the March 31 birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1756, below) —- will start today and run through Sunday both in-person and online.
All events and streaming are free and open to the public.
As usual, it will feature professional and amateur performers of all ages and levels of proficiency in all kinds of repertoire and arrangements, including Bach on the Marimba.
It begins today, Wednesday, March 8, at noon with a Bach motet sung in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Ave.
The live portion, which will also be live-streamed, will end on Saturday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with continuous performances at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street on the near west side.
Then on this Sunday, March 12, the virtual online festival will premier.
For more details — including a full schedule with times, venues, pieces, performers and other links — go to:
The Ear thinks of the entire festival as a life celebration and memorial not just for Bach but also for his avid local advocate, violist Marika Fisher Hoyt (below).
Hoyt — who was also a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Bach Musicians, the Ancora String Quartet, Just Bach and Sonata à Quattro — died Feb. 21 from cancer. She was one of the kindest and most caring persons, one of the hard-working and most energetic, talented musicians, that The Ear has ever known and worked with.
After Wisconsin Public Radio abandoned BATC in 2013, Fischer Hoyt rescued it in 2017, raised money and support, and expanded its offerings and performers as well as took it into a virtual online format as well as remaining an in-person event.
You can find many tributes online. You can also plug in her name on this blog’s search engine to get some idea of her overwhelming and inspiring contributions to the area’s cultural life. In 2017, The Ear named her Musician of the Year:
Classical music: For reviving and securing Bach Around the Clock, The Ear names Marika Fischer Hoyt as “Musician of the Year” for 2017
But the best tribute of all will be to listen to Bach’s extraordinarily inventive and beautiful music — her abiding passion and the gift she never stopped wanting to give to others — with Marika in mind.
You can also find videos from past BATC’s. But she once told me that the piece she loved most is the St. John Passion. So a YouTube video of the final chorus from that oratorio is posted at the bottom.
Have you attended or heard BATC before?
What did you especially like and would you recommend the event to others?
Did you know Marika Fischer Hoyt?
What would you like other people to know about Marika?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Is it pretentious for the NFL to use Roman numerals for the Super Bowl?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today — Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023 — is Super Bowl LVII.
Or as we say in ordinary English — “57.”
(It airs at 5:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Fox.)
The Ear thinks it is pretentious for the NFL to use Roman numerals, which are esoteric and incomprehensible to many members of the public.
Does anyone else think so?
Using the Roman numerals in sports also seems unpractical.
Imagine the NBA using the same antiquated number system to record LeBron James’ new record for a lifetime basketball score — 33,388 points. According to Google, it would be XXXIIICCCLXXXVIII.
How convenient! And silly, no?
It seems the same kind of pretentious authenticity The Ear hears too often in Classical music where authentic foreign pronunciations often seem a sort of status symbol that says “Look at what I know and you don’t, but should.”
Not exactly the kind of effort at reaching out that classical music needs to draw bigger and younger audiences.
It’s like when non-Hungarian, American speakers say “Budapesht” when in English it is simply Budapest. And this often comes from the same people don’t usually say München for Munich, or Roma for Rome, or Paree for Paris.
Can American speakers just speak plain American English for the sake of clarity and simplicity?
And can the NFL just use either English numbers or, like the Olympics, the year to show which competition it is?
Anyway, despite such preciousness and pretentiousness, we can enjoy today’s 57th or 2023 Super Bowl championship game in Phoenix between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Here’s another easier equivalency: a beautiful long pass and a beautiful javelin throw.
Which why The Eater is offering the classical music piece “Javelin” in the YouTube video at the bottom, played by Yoel Levi conducting the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.
Written on commission for the Atlanta Olympics by the Wisconsin-born composer Michael Torke, it soars with a grace and an energy that is made all the more understandable and moving for its lack of words and numbers.
Whatever quarterback does it, winner or loser, here’s to the thrower of the most beautiful pass today.
What do you think of the music? And of the comparison between passing a football and throwing a javelin?
And what do you think about using Roman numerals is sports and foreign pronunciations in classical music
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #Beautifulmusic, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #MunichGermany, #ParisFrance, #RomeItaly, #YouTubevideo, American, Arizona, Arts, athlete, athletic, Atlanta, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, audience, basketball, beautiful, big, blog, Budapest, championship, clarity, Classical music, clear, commission, Competition, composer, conductor, energy, English, esoteric, Facebook, football, game, Georgia, Glendale, grace, Hungarian, Hungary, incomprehensible, Jacob Stockinger, Javelin, Kansas City Chiefs, language, LeBron James, lifetime, loser, Michael Torke, moving, Munich, Music, National Basketball Association, National Football League, NBA, NFL, numbers, Olympics, Orchestra, ordinary, Paris, pass, Philadelphia Eagles, Phoenix, Plain, precious, pretentious, public, quarterback, record, Roman numerals, Rome, score, share, simple, simplicity, Sports, Super Bowl, symphony, tag, The Ear, throw, understand, video, winner, Wisconsin, words, Yoel Levi, young, YouTube
Is a lot of ‘woke’ music inferior to the music it replaces?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Is a widespread attempt to explore historically ignored music and overlooked, marginalized composers interfering with the public hearing greater, more important and more beautiful music?
It is a problematic but timely question or issue, especially during an era of political correctness and in our current culture wars.
To be sure, you can hear some memorable music that has unjustifiably been excluded from the so-called canon. The discovery of Florence Price (below) is a prime example. The same can be said for Clara Schumann.
It does seem that a lot of the newly rediscovered pieces and composers — Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Asian, women, LGBT — deserve an initial hearing, if only out of curiosity and to correct the historical record.
But after being heard for the first time, many of them seem second- or third-rate. They deserve to be shelved for another few decades in favor of restoring greater music and greater composers to the active performing repertory.
To The Ear, for example, the symphonies by Michael Haydn always sound inferior to those of his famous older brother Joseph. And it doesn’t matter what critics and audiences of the day said, history its often — if not always — the better judge. The symphonies and violin concertos of the impressive and influential Joseph de Boulogne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges, below) are simply not as artistically interesting or engaging as those by his contemporary Mozart.
Anyway, whatever you think, The Ear came across an essay on the internet by George Leef that was published in The National Review — the iconic conservative political magazine founded by William Buckley. It contains background about current nationwide programming guidelines and organizations that you might not know.
It is an interesting point of view. It often goes over the top and clearly overstates the case against “woke” repertory by accusing those who support it of being “enemies of classical music” rather than sincere and well-intentioned progressive advocates of artistic justice.
But it deserves a serious reading and a serious answer to the provocative question of balancing the great and the less great. Here is a link:
Read it for yourself and make up your own mind.
Then please tell The Ear and other readers what you think in the Comment section.
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.
Tags: #ArizonaStateUniversity, #ArvoPärt, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralMusic, #ClassicalMusician, #DeutscheWelle, #EasternEurope, #EasternEuropean, #EuropeanRefugee, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #JacobStockinger, #LivePerformance, #LiveStreaming, #LivingComposer, #MadisonSymhonyOrchestra, #PianoMusic, #PrayerforUkraine, #SovietUnion, #SymphonicMusic, #TheEar, #TheMedia, #ThePublic, #UkrainianComposer, #UnionofSovietSocialistRepublics, #UniversityofArizona, #ValentinSilvestrov, #VladimirPutin, #WarRefugee, #WisconsinPublicRadio, #WorldWarII, #YouTubevideo, academic, Arizona, Arizona State University, Army, arrangement, Arts, Arvo Part, audience, background, beautiful, blog, Blog post, Book, Cello, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, classicalmusic, colleague, Communism, Communist, compare, composer, Concert, concerto, contemporary, correct, country, deserve, Deutsche Welle, devastating, different, distress, Eastern Europe, English, Estonia, event, exile, experience, Facebook, Facebook posting, fall, famous, Fellow, feratures, fight, flee, forward, fundraiser, German, Germany, global, hear, History, hope, Internet, interviews, invasion, Jacob Stockinger, link, live, live performance, live streaming, live-stream, Living composer, lving, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, media, memorial, million, mistake, Music, native, Nazi, new, news, occasion, occupation, Orchestra, other, photos, Piano, plan, posting, postwar, pray, prayer, Prayer for Ukraine, press, professor, public, publish, Putin, Radio, reader, recounted, refugee, rule, Russian, sad, soul, soul-stirring, Sound, Soviet, Soviet Union, Stalion, subscriber, survive, symphony, The Ear, tradition, Tragic, transcription, TV, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Ukrainian composer, underscore, United States, University of Arizona, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USSR, Valentin Silvestrov, version, victory, video, Vladimir Putin, vocal music, war, war refugee, war-torn, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, work, World War II, WPR, write, WWII, YouTube
Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) will build a new $25 million home on East Washington Avenue
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following major announcement to post:
The Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) has announced plans to construct a new $25 million-building in the 1100 block of East Washington Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin.
The new home will occupy three lots and will replace the historic Avenue Bar (below)
The new music center will continue WYSO’s vision to expand instrumental music education and performance opportunities for young people of diverse backgrounds and inspire excellence and a lifelong connection to music.
More than 500 young musicians from communities throughout southern Wisconsin currently participate in WYSO’s programs.
This 500 percent growth in student numbers since the organization’s founding is driving the need for facilities large enough to support both the organization’s programs and its mission of providing transformational musical experiences and opportunities.
For more information about WYSO, go to its home website: https://wysomusic.org
The purchase of the property and the kick-off of WYSO’s capital campaign have been made possible by two lead gifts totaling $18 million from Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi, who have long been supporters of the organization.
The planned 40,000 sq. ft- building will provide state-of-the-art rehearsal spaces sized for full orchestras; a room designed for percussion including a world-class array of percussion instruments; rehearsal rooms perfect for ensembles and chamber music; a piano laboratory; and small teaching studios for private lessons.
The building will also hold all of WYSO’s current orchestra and Music Makers programs, administrative offices, a music library— and provide opportunity to grow.
But the building will NOT contain public performance spaces. WYSO will continue to rent and use venues that already exist.
Since the fall of 2020, the organization – which used to be located in the UW-Madison School of Music — has been without a home base and has pieced out its program in different facilities throughout the Madison area. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the WYSO Youth Orchestra give a virtual and socially distanced performance last year of the finale of Rossini’s Overture to “William Tell.”)
This new building will allow all of WYSO’s programs to thrive under a single roof and provide the space, location, resources and connections necessary for WYSO to become a key collaborator in a growing youth arts community.
WYSO’s new home will be around the corner from the newly constructed Madison Youth Arts (My Arts), creating a vibrant youth arts synergy on the near east side. (An architect’s renderings of the exterior and interior theater are below.)
Located on a major transit corridor for easy access with adequate parking, the building will be in proximity to area performing arts venues, with space for WYSO’s programs and community events.
Says WYSO’s Executive Director Bridget Fraser: “Thanks to the incredible generosity of Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi, musicians of all ages will have state-of-the-art rehearsal facilities to call home. It’s a dream come true!”
WYSO has partnered with Urban Assets, city planners with experience in real estate development; Strang, an integrated architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm with a history of designing for the civic and cultural sectors; Talaske Sound, experts in architectural acoustics; and J.H. Findorff & Son, a local construction firm passionate about youth education and the arts.
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Live music continues its comeback from the pandemic. Today is Make Music Madison with free concerts citywide of many kinds of music. Here are guides with details
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By Jacob Stockinger
Live music continues to make its comeback from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The past week saw live outdoor concerts by Con Vivo, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and the Middleton Community Orchestra.
Today – Monday, June 21 –is Make Music Madison 2021.
It is part of an annual worldwide phenomenon that started in France in 1982. It has since spread globally and is now celebrated in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Yet in the U.S., Wisconsin is one of only five states that celebrate Make Music Day statewide. The other states are Connecticut, Hawaii, New Mexico and Vermont. In there U.S., more than 100 cities will take part in presenting free outdoor concerts. Globally, the audience will be in the millions.
The day is intended to be a way to celebrate the annual Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Technically, the solstice occurred in Wisconsin last night, on Father’s Day, at 10:32 p.m. CDT.
But The Ear is a forgiving kind. This will be the first full day of summer, so the spirit of the celebration lives on despite the calendar.
You can see – the composer Igor Stravinsky advised listening with your eyes open – and hear 38 different kinds of music. The choices include blues, bluegrass, Celtic, roots music, gospel, rock, jazz, classical, folk, African music, Asian music, world music, children’s music (see the YouTube video at the bottom) and much more. It will be performed by students and teachers, amateurs and professionals, individuals and groups.
Here is a link to a press release about the overall event: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/make-music-day-2021-announces-updated-schedule-of-events-301304107.html
And here is a link to the global home website — with more background information and a live-stream video of a gong tribute to the who died of COVID — about the festival: https://www.makemusicday.org
The local events will take place from 5 a.m. to midnight. All are open to the public without admission, and safety protocols will be observed.
Here is a guide to local events that allow you to search particulars of the celebration by area of the city, genre of music, performers, venues and times. If you are a classical fan, in The Ear’s experience you might want to pay special attention to Metcalfe’s market in the Hilldale mall.
Here is a link to the home webpage of Make Music Madison: https://www.makemusicmadison.org
Here is a link to the event calendar with maps and schedules as well as alternative plans in case of rain and various menus for searching: https://www.makemusicmadison.org/listings/
Happy listening!
In the Comment section, please leave your observations and suggestions or advice about the quality and success of the festival and the specific events you attended.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Going live! Here are some links to newly announced summer concerts and 2021-22 seasons
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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
Get out your datebooks.
Now that the pandemic is fast abating, at least locally, music groups and music presenters in the Madison area have been announcing a return to live music and their new seasons and summer events in a relentless way.
The Ear had been out of commission since mid-May until this week. But in any case, The Ear was overwhelmed and just couldn’t keep up with a separate post for each one.
Still, he thought it might be helpful to be able to check the dates, performers, programs, tickets and other information in one place.
Remember that the Madison Early Music Festival is no more. It has been absorbed into the regular music curriculum at the UW.
Please know that many groups – including, but not limited to, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music (below is the UW Symphony Orchestra — masked, socially distanced and virtually streamed — during the pandemic), University Opera, Edgewood College, Just Bach, Grace Presents, the Salon Piano Series, the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Bach Around the Clock, the Festival Choir of Madison, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir and the Madison Bach Musicians – have not yet released details of their new seasons.
But most of their websites say that an announcement of their new season is coming soon.
There are also some trends you may notice.
Many of the groups are raising prices and persistently seek donations as well as subscribers, no doubt to help make up for the loss of revenue during the pandemic.
The Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra have reduced the number of concerts or start later.
Some have simply rescheduled events, like the Wisconsin Union Theater closing its season with soprano Renée Fleming. And the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new season is largely the same one they were planning to have to celebrate the Beethoven Year in 2020-21.
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, the Middleton Community Orchestra and the Willy Street Chamber Players all have pop-up concerts and scheduled outdoor concerts in parks. Some have also scheduled individual mini-concerts or personal sessions.
If you look at programs, you will see an emphasis on Black composers and performers by almost all groups. (The Madison Symphony Orchestra has scheduled “Lyric for Strings” by George Walker, below. You can hear it performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
What is most disappointing is that no group seems to have announced a special concert or event to pay homage to the public ordeal, health care workers and victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Ear keeps thinking a performance of a suitable requiem (by perhaps Mozart, Faure, Brahms, Verdi or Britten) or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would have been an appropriate way to start the in-person season and, at the same time, acknowledge the more than 7,000 deaths in Wisconsin and almost 600,000 deaths in the U.S. and almost 4 million worldwide as of now. Maybe even Barber’s overplayed Adagio for Strings would suffice.
Finally, very few groups seem to be offering online virtual concert attendance as a possibility for those listeners who found that they actually enjoyed at least some the music in their own homes and at their own times.
IN ANY CASE, HERE IS WHAT HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE OR IS STILL ON TAP. CHECK IT OUT!
Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in free live and for-pay recorded concerts: https://bachdancing.org
Middleton Community Orchestra’s summer concerts at Fireman’s Park (below) in Middleton: https://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
Madison Bach Musicians summer workshops (below): https://madisonbachmusicians.org/2021-summer-chamber-music-workshop/
Concerts on the Square with limited paid admission at Breese Stevens Field (below): https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/concerts-on-the-square
Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers): https://madisonsymphony.org/concerts-events/madison-symphony-orchestra-concerts/
Madison Opera and Opera in the Park (below): https://www.madisonopera.org/oitp21/; and https://www.madisonopera.org/21-22/
Wisconsin Union Theater: https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/concert-series/
Willy Street Chamber Players (below) at Orton Park: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org/2021-summer-concert-series.html
If you know of more entries or have observations to make about these, please leave word and, when possible, a link in the comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Does Wisconsin Public Radio play too much harp music?
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PLEASE NOTE: Due to a technical glitch, the following commentary was posted briefly yesterday and then withdrawn. That also disabled the commentary function temporarily. Once the glitch is solved, The Ear will post it again. That means some of you will get it twice. I apologize for any inconvenience. And to the fans who have kindly greeted my return, heartfelt thanks. I will be posting more details about the use and frequency of this blog in the near future.
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
Can’t help it.
The harp always reminds The Ear of a giant egg slicer.
Still, The Ear loves the sound of the harp — in the right works.
That usually means when it is blended into orchestral works (Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Mahler come to mind) and chamber music works (Debussy and Ravel come to mind).
But when it comes to solo harp and harp concertos, no thanks. Barring some Baroque music and Classical works — Handel’s concerti grossi and Mozart’s “Brunch” Concerto for Flute and Harp — he’ll pass for the most part.
So much harp music, both original and arranged, just sounds second-rate or worse. Can anyone name a masterpiece for the solo harp written by a great composer? And I don’t mean Louis Spohr who composed for his harpist wife.
The solo harp repertoire is very small, hence the need for so many transcriptions.
That’s a problem.
The harp tends to make music for other instruments sound so .. so … so pleasant! Even when the original is dramatic, it’s all pluck pluck, twang twang, zing zing. Just listen to the YouTube video at the bottom of J.S. Bach’s mighty Toccata and Fugue in D minor for Organ played on the harp.
So, The Ear asks, why has Wisconsin Public Radio started playing so much harp music on almost every show? (Below is WPR host, accomplished harpist and harp evangelist Ruthanne Bessman, who often includes harp music in her Saturday Morning program “Classics by Request.”)
Is it because the public really loves hearing the harp so much?
Is it because the radio show hosts do?
Do listener surveys indicate a preference for the harp?
Does the covid pandemic play a role in seeking bland but soothing music?
What do you think?
Do you like or even crave harp music?
Do you think WPR is programming too much harp music these days?
Too little?
Or the right amount?
Leave a comment, please.
The Ear wants to hear.
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