The Well-Tempered Ear
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra cancels its first Masterworks concert and launches an online virtual Winter Chamber Series in January
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By Jacob Stockinger
With the surge in the coronavirus pandemic, the dominos are starting to fall again — this time for the spring series of live, in-person concerts that had been planned.
Friday night brought important news from the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below, in photo by Mike Gorski).
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) has canceled its first Masterworks concert, with guest cellist Amit Peled, in late January. In its place the WCO is launching its first-ever digital Winter Chamber Series.
The virtual, online series of digital concerts will feature the ensemble’s 34 players in smaller groups of four to eight, That will be safer for both players and audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Four home-viewable virtual online concerts are planned: Jan. 22, Feb. 26, March 26, and April 16. Programs are not available except for the first concert.
Also included are a pre-concert talk with WCO music director and maestro Andrew Sewell (below top, in a photo by Alex Cruz) and Wisconsin Public Radio host Norman Gilliland (below bottom), and post-concert reflections with musicians of the WCO.
The ticket price for each concert, which will run 60-75 minutes, is $30 per household. A ticket entitles you to one viewing of the concert between Friday, Jan. 22, and Monday, Jan. 25. The concert will start streaming at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
Patrons who have already purchased season subscription tickets can apply that to the full series of four concerts.
Tickets are available online at the Overture Center box office. See below.
The program for the first Winter Chamber Concert on Jan. 22 is:
Four Canzonas by the Baroque Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli (below):
“Tzigane” (a term for music by Hungarian gypsies or Romani) for Wind Quintet by the contemporary American composer Valerie Coleman (below):
The first movement of the famed String Quintet in C major, D. 956, by the Austrian Romantic composer Franz Schubert (below):
Four Octets by the 20th-century American composer and jazz musician Alec Wilder (below), which you can sample in the YouTube video at the bottom.
To see more background about the composers, more details about the concert and purchase tickets, go to: https://www.overture.org/events/wco-chamber-series
You can also check out the series as it progressively gets announced on the WCO home website: https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/winter-chamber-series
The concert series sounds like a terrific substitution for the regular concerts that cannot yet take place.
But The Ear wonders if the price per concert is a bit steep, given that comparable concerts by UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music , the Wllly Street Chamber Players and Just Bach are free – although they do ask for donations — and that the Madison Opera charged $50 for its entire fall digital series while the Wisconsin Union Theater charges between $10 and $20 per virtual concert.
The Ear likes the eclectic programming, but also thinks it is kind of teasing and unsatisfying to offer just the first movement of such an organic masterpiece and profoundly beautiful work as the Schubert Cello Quintet. Doing one movement of a chamber music work somehow seems very different from doing one movement of a symphony.
It would also be nice to see the programs for all the concerts plus a series discount as an incentive.
What do you think about the WCO’s Winter Chamber Series?
What do you think about the price and the programming?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Former UW pianist Catherine Kautsky will talk, play music and sign copies of her book “Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Epoque” this Thursday night at the Mystery to Me bookstore in Madison
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By Jacob Stockinger
Some of you may recall the pianist Catherine Kautsky (below). She came from the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wis., to the UW-Madison where she performed many memorable concerts.
Then, after about five years, she returned to Lawrence as the head of the piano department.
Kautsky always showed an affinity for French music — she has recorded both books of Debussy‘s Preludes for piano — and now she has transformed her francophilia into a book: “Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Epoque” ($38, below).
Kautsky will be in Madison this Thursday night from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Mystery to Me bookstore, 1863 Monroe Street, next to Neuhauser Pharmacy and across from Trader Joe’s.
A terrific explainer, Kautsky will talk about her book and sign copies. A keyboard will also be available for Kautsky to play some of the music she talks and writes about. (You can hear Kautsky playing and discussing the great last Sonata in B-Flat Major, D. 960, by Franz Schubert in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a description of the book with biographical information:
“Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Époque takes readers on a tour of Paris through detailed descriptions of the city’s diversions and the music Debussy wrote reflecting them.
“Catherine Kautsky explores how key works reveal not only the most appealing aspects of Paris, but also the more disquieting attitudes of the time. In contrast to the childlike innocence of fairy tales, minstrel shows had racist overtones, colonization entailed domination, and the brooding nationalism of the era was rife with hostility.
“Debussy (below) left no avenue unexplored, and his piano works present a sweeping overview of the passions, vices, and obsessions of the era’s Parisians.
“When played today, Debussy’s music breathes the story of one the world’s most fascinating cities. Kautsky reveals little known elements of Parisian life during the Belle Époque and weaves the music, the man, the city, and the era into an indissoluble whole.
“Her portrait will delight anyone who has ever been entranced by Debussy’s music or the city (below) that inspired it.”
Catherine Kautsky is chair of keyboard at Lawrence University and has been lauded by the New York Times as “a pianist who can play Mozart and Schubert as though their sentiments and habits of speech coincided exactly with hers…” She has concertized widely, performing in major halls in New York, Chicago, Washington, and Boston, soloing with the St. Louis Symphony and other orchestras and appearing frequently on public radio.
Here is a link with more information, including praise from pianist Richard Goode who will perform in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4.
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