The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Weekends are a good time to explore music and listen to it. So today The Ear starts a “2020” series for the new year.
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s a new year and the first weekend of the new year. And The Ear wanted to find some kind of organizing principle to explore recorded music in the coming weeks and months.
Turns out the year 2020 – with its symmetry of numerals and suggestions of excellent vision — held a certain appeal.
So he checked out musical works that were either Op. 20 or No. 20. They could even occur together, like, say, a Prelude that is Op. 20, No. 20.
What he found was more than he expected: Dozens of composers and works that qualify as interesting and of suitable quality.
Some are well known, but many are rarely performed live or are neglected in recordings.
They come from all periods and styles, from early music to contemporary music.
And they come in all kinds of genres from vocal and choral music to chamber music, solo instrumental music and symphonic music.
Some works are short, some are medium and some are long.
For the longer ones, which are often divided up into smaller movements or other sections, it seems better to post the whole piece and let the reader decide how long they want to listen at a time rather than to post one part at a time and limit or force the reader.
Anyway, here is the first installment.
It is a wonderful solo piano piece that is too often overlooked, even though it is by a great composer who wrote it in his prime when he was writing many of his other more popular piano works.
It is the Humoresque, Op. 20, by the German Romantic composer Robert Schumann (below). It lasts about 29 minutes but is divided into other sections.
And the performance, often praised as outstanding or even definitive, is by the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu (below, young and old, the latter by Roberto Serra), the 1966 first prize-winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition who recently retired because of ill health.
Here is a link to a detailed biography of the distinguished and somewhat reclusive and enigmatic 74-year-old pianist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Lupu
Here is YouTube video of Radu Lupu playing the Schumann Humoresque in a live recording from 1983:
Let The Ear know what you think of this piece and this idea for a 2020 series.
A long playlist for future 2020 postings – including works by Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and others — has already been compiled.
But if you have a favorite or suggested “2020” piece, leave word in the comment section.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: The prize-winning critic Alex Ross grieves to Brahms. What composer and piece would you choose to mourn the tragedies of the past week?
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By Jacob Stockinger
This past week feels like a week that deserves mass grieving.
Of course, there was the life-changing, historic landmark of surpassing, in only a few months, more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
There were the spikes in new COVID-19 cases and deaths following the opening up from lockdowns and the mass gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, such as the party at the Lake of the Ozarks (below) in Missouri.
Then there was the tragic, racist death — an alleged murder — of George Floyd by the police and the ensuing rioting, violence and additional death in Minneapolis as well as the seven shootings among protesters in Louisville.
And depending of your political point of view, there were the incidents of White House threats against social media, especially Twitter, for simply telling the truth or at least directing viewers to it.
So what can one say about these sad events and sad times with music?
Well, not too long ago Alex Ross (below), the prize-winning and internationally respected music critic for The New Yorker magazine, wrote an engaging and moving essay about why he finds Brahms to be the perfect composer for grieving and mourning.
He mentions other composers as possibilities, including Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
But Ross still finds Brahms more suited for several reasons. He even cites a favorite performance of a Brahms short, late Intermezzo by the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu. (You can hear that performance in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a link: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/grieving-with-brahms
What composers – and what pieces or performances – do you find best for grieving? For marking loss?
Read the essay, listen to the music.
Then let us know in the comment section what music – perhaps Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings? – that you would want to listen to during sad occasions.
The Ear wants to hear.
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