The Well-Tempered Ear
How did pianist Yuja Wang’s heart respond to playing Rachmaninoff?
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By Jacob Stockinger
You might recall that in January of 2023, superstar Chinese pianist Yuja Wang (below) played a marathon Rachmaninoff concert in New York City’s Carnegie Hall.
It lasted 2½ hours and featured all four Rachmaninoff piano concertos plus his Rhapsody in a Theme of Paganini. It received rave reviews as well as standing ovations and sold-out houses.
Wang — famous for her ease and assurance in playing technically challenging compositions — performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Deutsche Grammophon recorded the same program Wang did in Los Angeles — but over two consecutive weekends rather than all at once — with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel.
In the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear the sublime slow movement from the Piano Concerto No. 2 from the series of LA performances. If The Ear is not mistaken, in closeups of her hands on the keyboard you can see what looks like a heart monitor on her wrist.
Time and length wasn’t the only remarkable thing about the concert.
Always a fashion plate, Wang wore a different stand-out dress for each piece, as you can see from the photo below:
In addition, she wore a heart monitor — as did the conductor, several players and members of the audience — to track her heart rate while she was playing.
Which concerto do you think proved the most challenging — at least to her heart?
Perhaps the Rach 3, which has been called the “Mt. Everest of piano concertos” and was even made into the 1996 movie “Shine” with its super-virtuosic difficulties at the heart of the story about mental health.
The results are in a story from Classic FM radio station in the UK. Here is a link:
https://www.classicfm.com/artists/yuja-wang/heart-rate-rachmaninov-marathon
The heart rate is an interesting angle at a time when so many people — both audiences and performers — wear wellness monitors and keep track of their own heart rates.
The administrators and performers probably thought showing the heart rate in real time on a jumbo screen during the performance would be too distracting.
But The Ear recalls seeing a live performance years ago by Mikhail Baryshnikov, who wore a heart monitor during one of his dances done to a solo cello suite by Bach.
It proved irresistible as a new hi tech take on classical music.
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Classical music: The Oakwood Chamber Players will play music by Russian, British, Canadian and American composers this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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ALERT: If you attend the concert by the Cuarteto Casals tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Shannon Hall of the Wisconsin Union Theater, you night want to read local writer and amateur cellist Paul Baker’s interview with the Chicago-born violist who analyzes the interpretation of each piece on the program. Here is a link to Baker’s blog “Only Strings” where you can find the interview: https://onlystringswsum.wordpress.com/author/pbaker/
For more information about the group and the concert, go to yesterday’s post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/classical-music-this-friday-night-the-wisconsin-union-theater-presents-a-world-class-spanish-string-quartet-and-will-also-announce-the-special-programs-for-its-centennial-anniversary-next-season/
By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Oakwood Chamber Players (below) continue their season theme of Vignettes with compositions that depict concepts and stories.
The program includes dances from Panama, a string quartet from Russia and interpretation of the natural world woven into a composition by an American composer.
Performances will take place Saturday night, March 2, at 7 p.m. and Sunday afternoon, March 3, at 2 p.m. Both concerts will be held at the Oakwood Center for Arts and Education, 6209 Mineral Point Road, on Madison’s far west side not far from West Towne Mall.
Tickets can be purchased with cash or personal checks at the door: $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors, and $5 for students. Visit www.oakwoodchamberplayers.com or call (608) 230-4316 for more information.
Five Novelettes for string quartet by Russian composer Alexander Glazunov (below) showcase the composer’s imagination and romantic writing. From the opening elegance in the Spanish style to the spirited Hungarian character in the finale, each of the five contrasting movements is graceful and captivating.
Red Hills Black Birds was composed by American composer Libby Larsen (below) for clarinet, viola and piano after she viewed contrasting paintings of New Mexico by Georgia O’Keeffe. Many of O’Keeffe’s works embody a sense of perspective, color and horizon. Larsen’s music uses her impressions of O’Keeffe’s art as her compositional focus. She reimagines six paintings of the southwest and shapes her composition to concepts of breadth and timelessness.
Dash for flute, clarinet and piano by American composer Jennifer Higdon (below) is a riotous musical chase. The composer chose these three instruments specifically for their capability of velocity. The unrelenting pulse creates a breath-taking technical sprint for the players.
O Albion by British composer Thomas Adès (below) is excerpted from his string quartet Arcadiana. The music has an ethereal quality and mesmerizes with its slow beauty and simplicity. (You can hear “O Albion” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Trio for flute, clarinet and bassoon is an upbeat piece written by Canadian composer, bassoonist and jazz pianist Bill Douglas. His writing brings together both classical and jazz influences.
The concert concludes with Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still (below) for string quintet and flute. A noted 20th century African-American composer, Still based this piece on Panamanian folk tunes collected in the 1920s. He used the lushness of the songs and compelling rhythms with great success. He was a talented orchestrator and it is hard to resist the panache and charm of the four movements: Taborita, Mejorana, Punto and Cumbia y Conga.
Oakwood Chamber Players members are Marilyn Chohaney, flute; Nancy Mackenzie, clarinet; Amanda Szyczs, bassoon; and Maggie Townsend, cello. They will be joined by guest artists Elspeth Stalter-Clouse, violin; Ariel Garcia, viola; Brad Townsend, bass; and Satoko Hayami, piano.
This is the fourth of five concerts in the Oakwood Chamber Players’ 2018-2019 season series entitled Vignettes. Remaining concerts will take place on May 18 and 19.
The Oakwood Chamber Players are a group of Madison-area professional musicians who have rehearsed and performed at Oakwood Village for over 30 years. They have also played in other local groups, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Oakwood Chamber Players is a professional music ensemble proudly supported by Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries and the Oakwood Foundation.
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Classical music: A new opera takes listeners back to The Bad Old Days of anti-gay America – and reminds us of the bigotry today that camouflages itself as religious freedom
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CORRECTION: Yesterday’s post about the fourth annual Handel Aria Competition had a mistake about when it will be held. The correct time is next FRIDAY, July 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall. The Ear regrets the error. General admission is $10. Here is a link with more information:
By Jacob Stockinger
Issues pertaining to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people are much in the news these days.
Of course there were the shootings and mass murder at the Pulse gay bar in Orlando, Florida.
And there were the so-called “bathroom laws” enacted against transgender people and designed to protect “normal” people who ere never really threatened.
In contrast, the military announced that transgender people could serve under the usual conditions and regulations.
Then President Obama declared the Stonewall Inn (below) in Greenwich Village in New York City, a national historical landmark. In 1969 a police raid against the gay bar led to riots that, in turn, sparked the gay liberation movement to secure human rights and civil rights for homosexuals.
This week saw a U.S. District Judge in Mississippi ruling against so-called “religious freedom” laws that many states have enacted in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage a year ago.
Such laws were ruled to discriminate against LGBT people and to unconstitutionally favor certain religions or forms of religion.
A lot of the proponents of such laws seem to have a false nostalgia for the good old days.
Well, maybe they were good for some people. But they were terrible times for many others, including LGBTQ people.
Gregory Spears’ new opera, called “Fellow Travelers” (below is a crucial scene in a photo by Philip Goushong for the Cincinnati Opera) has an interesting take on that historical era with its “Lavender Scare” that parallels the Red Scare of McCathyism.
Here is a story that aired on NPR or National Public Radio:
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The 10th anniversary concert of the Middleton Community Orchestra hit all the right notes – including a surprise of high beauty
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By Jacob Stockinger
Last Wednesday night at the Middleton Performing Arts Center, the mostly amateur but critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Brian Ruppert) celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The MCO hit all the right notes. And there were many of them, both big and small.
But perhaps the biggest one was also the quietest one.
It came during the repetition section near the end of the heart-rending slow movement of the Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622, by Mozart.
The Ear knows the piece and considers it one of the most perfect compositions ever written. But suddenly he heard the familiar work in a fresh way and with a new appreciation, thanks to the talented guest soloist J.J. Koh, who is principal clarinet of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. (You can hear the slow movement in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The movement was going beautifully when suddenly, Koh (below) brought the dynamics down to almost a whisper. It felt prayer-like, so quiet was the sound. Yet it was completely audible. The tone was rich and the notes on pitch, even though Koh sounded as if he were barely breathing. It was a heart-stopping, breathtaking moment of high beauty.
It takes a virtuoso to play that softly and that solidly at the same time. And Koh was backed up with the same subtlety by the fine accompaniment provided by the scaled-down orchestra under conductor Steve Kurr.
The sublime result was nothing short of haunting, a musical moment that The Ear will remember and cherish as long as he lives.
And he wasn’t alone. A complete silence fell over the appreciative audience as Koh and the MCO were playing, and at intermission it was what everybody was talking about and wondering at. You just had to be there. It was the kind of musical experience that makes a live performance so engaging and unforgettable.
That moment of communion between soloist and ensemble by itself was enough to tell you how very much the MCO, which improves with each performance, has accomplished in its first decade.
There were other noteworthy moments too.
Of course tributes had to be paid.
So the evening started off with some brief background and introductory words from the co-founders and co-artistic directors Larry Bevic and Mindy Taranto (below).
Then Middleton Mayor Gurdip Brar (below) came on stage to read his official 10th anniversary proclamation and to urge people to applaud. He proved a jovial, good-natured cheerleader for the large audience of “good neighbors” that included many children.
When the music finally arrived, conductor Kurr (below) raised the curtain with his own original 14-minute episodic composition celebrating the “Good Neighbor City” of Middleton. It proved a fitting work for the occasion that evoked both the Midwestern harmonies of Aaron Copland and the brassy film scores of John Williams.
After intermission, the full 90-member MCO under Kurr returned and turned in a performance of Antonin Dvorak’s popular “New World” Symphony that did them all proud.
The tempo was energetic with a strong, constant pulse that didn’t falter. As usual, the string and wind sections proved outstanding – and still seem to get better each time.
But the real star this time was the brass, whose prominent part in the Dvorak symphony is hard to play. Playing consistently on pitch and expressively – they were clearly well-rehearsed — the brass boosted the whole performance and raised it to a new level. Which is exactly what the anniversary concert demanded and received.
The Ear wasn’t alone in being impressed.
A professional musician visiting from San Francisco said simply: ”They are much better than our community orchestra.”
Is there better homage to pay to a 10th anniversary concert and to make listeners look forward to hearing more? If you aren’t going to MCO’s affordable and appealing concerts, you are only cheating yourself.
For more information about the complete season, including programs, performers, guest soloists and how to join or support the MCO, go to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
If you went, what did you think of the opening anniversary concert?
Leave your opinions and good wishes in the comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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