The Well-Tempered Ear
Here are the Top 10 online concerts to stream in March, according to critics for the New York Times
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ALERT: The online live-streamed concert by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet — scheduled for this Friday night, March 5 — in the all-Beethoven cycle of string quartets has been canceled and postponed until next year. The Friday, April 9 installment of the Beethoven cycle will be held as Installment 7 instead of 8.
By Jacob Stockinger
Classical music critics of The New York Times have once again picked their Top 10 online concerts for the month of March.
The Ear has found such lists helpful for watching and hearing, but also informative to read, if you don’t actually “attend” the concert.
If you have read these lists before, you will see that this one is typical.
It offers lots of links with background about the works and performers; concert times (Eastern); and how long the online version is accessible.
Many of the performers will not be familiar to you but others – such as pianist Mitsuko Uchida (below, in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for the Times), who will perform an all-Schubert recital, will be very familiar.
But the critics once again emphasize new music and even several world premieres – including one by Richard Danielpour — and a path-breaking but only recently recorded live performance of the 1920 opera “Die Tote Stadt” (The Dead City) by long-neglected composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (below), who is best known for his Hollywood movie scores but who also wrote compelling classical concert hall music. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear soprano Renée Fleming sing “Marietta’s Song.’)
But some works that are more familiar by more standard composers – including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Ravel and Copland – are also included.
The Times critics have also successfully tried to shine a spotlight on Black composers and Black performers, such as the clarinetist and music educator Anthony McGill (below top), who will perform a clarinet quintet by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (below) and music in the setting of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
No purists, the critics also suggest famous oboe and clarinet works in transcriptions for the saxophone by composer-saxophonist Steven Banks (below).
Also featured is a mixed media performance of words and music coordinated by the award-winning Nigerian-American novelist, essayist and photographer Teju Cole (below), whose writings and photos are irresistible to The Ear.
Here is a link to the story in the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/arts/music/classical-music-streaming-concerts.html
Are there other online concerts in March – local, regional, national or international – that you recommend in addition to the events listed in the Times?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #AaronCopland, #AdolphusHailstork, #AmyBeach, #AnthonyMcGill, #AppalachianSpring, #AsianComposer, #BerlinGermany, #BlackComposer, #BlackCulture, #BlackMusic, #Blackperformer, #BlackTraditions, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BluesMusic, #CarolineShaw, #ChamberMusic, #ClaraSchumann, #ClarinetConcerto, #ClarinetQuintet, #ClevelandOrchestra, #ConcertHall, #ConcertTime, #CoronavirusPandemic, #COVID-19, #DavidFung, #DavidHydePierce, #DeutscheOper, #ErichWolfgangKorngold, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FemaleComposer, #FlorencePrice, #FranzSchubert, #GreatBritain, #GreatMigration, #HenryGorecki, #HildgardvonBingen, #JacobStockinger, #JenniferKoh, #JohnDowland, #KurtWeill, #LiveMusic, #LondonEngland, #LouisianaPhilharmonicOrchestra, #LouisvilleOrchestra, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MargaretBonds, #MauriceRavel, #MeadWitterSchoolofMusic, #MetropolitanMuseumofArt, #MitsukoUchida, #MixedMedia, #MusicCritic, #NegroSpiritual, #NewMusic, #NewYorkPhilharmonic, #NewYorkTimes, #OboeQuartet, #OnlineConcert, #OperaMusic, #OperaPhiladelphia, #OrchestralMusic, #OrchestraofSt.Luke's, #PhiladelphiaPennsylvania, #PhilipGuston, #PianoConcerto, #PianoSonata, #PolishComposer, #PrincipalClarinet, #ProArteQuartet, #RecordedMusic, #RenéeFleming, #RiccardoChailly, #RichardDanielpour, #RobertSchumann, #SamuelColeridge-Taylor, #SarahCahill, #SopranoSinger, #StevenBanks, #StringQuartet, #TejuCole, #The CoronationofPoppea, #TheBlues, #TheDeadCity, #TheEar, #TheUW, #Top10, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, #UnsukChin, #ViolinConcerto, #VirtualConcert, #VocalMusic, #WigmoreHall, #WilliamBolcom, #WorldPremiere, #YouTubeChannel, #YouTubevideo, Aaron Copland, Actor, Adolphus Hailstork, Africa, Americana, Amy Beach, Anthony McGill, Appalachian Spring, Art, Arts, Asi, asian, Asian composer, audience, award, background, bakcground, beach, Beethoven, Berlin, black composer, Black culture, black music, Black performer, Black traditions, blog, blues, Bolcom, bovel, cancel, Caroline Shaw, cellist, Cello, Chamber music, Clara Schumann, clarinet, clarinet concerto, Clarinet Quintet, clarinetist, Classical music, Cleveland, Cleveland Orchestra, Cole, composer, Concert, concert hall, concert time, concerto, conductor, Copland, coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, critic, cycle, Danielpour, David Fung, David Hyde Pierce, Deutsche Oper, Deutsche Opera, Early music, England, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, essay, essayist, event, Facebook, Facebook page, familiar, female, Florence Price, forward, Franz Schubert, Fung, Germany, Gorecki, Great Britain, Great Migration, Hailstork, hear, helful, Henryk Gorecki, Hildegard von Bingen, impromptu, international, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, jazzy, Jennifer Koh, John Dowland, Kaija Saariaho, Koh, Korngold, Kurt Weill, like, link, list, live music, local, London, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, march, Margaret Bonds, Maurice Ravel, McGill, Mead Witter School of Music, media, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mitsuko Uchida, mixed media, Mozart, Museum, Music, music critic, national, neglect, Negro spirituals, New Music, New York Philharmonic, New York Times, Nigeria, Nigerian, novelist, Oboe, Oboe Quartet, oboist, online, opera, Opera Philadelphia, Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, orchestral music, other, pandemic, PAQ, Pennsylvania, performer, Philip Guston, photographer, Pianist, Piano, Piano concerto, Piano sonata, players, Polish composer, post, posting, postpone, price, Principal Clarinet, Pro Arte Quartet, purist, quintet, Ravel, read, recital, recommendation, recorded music, regional, Renée Fleming, Riccardo Chailly, Richard Danielpour, Robert Schumann, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sarah Cahill, Saxophone, Schubert, Schumann, setting, share, Shaw, Shine, Singing, soloist, Sonata, song, soprano, spirituals, spotlight, Spring, Steven Banks, stream, String quartet, symphony, tag, Teju Cole, The blues, The Dead City, The Ear, time, Top 10, transcription, typical, Uchida, UK, United Kingdom, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Unsuk Chin, UW, UW-Madison, value, version accessible, Viola, Violin, Violin concerto, violinist, violist, virtual, vocal music, watch, Weill, Wigmore Hall, WILLIAM BOLCOM, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, women, works, world premiere, Writer, writing, YouTube, YouTube video
Classical music: Gramophone magazine names its Best of 2014 Classical Recordings. Here it is, along with several other major compilations.
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By Jacob Stockinger
This post wraps up the holiday gift-giving season for this year.
Over the past month or so, I have offered several major roundups of the Best of 2014 classical music recordings.
The posts have included a Top 10 list from NPR or National Public Radio:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/12/11/370067981/best-classical-albums-of-2014
A list from the critics at The New York Times:
A list — really, two lists — from the prize-winning critic Alex Ross (below), who writes for The New Yorker Magazine:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/ten-notable-performances-recordings-2014
A link from critic Jeremy Eichler at the Boston Globe:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/12/13/the-best-albums/6q7Tin4lPvj5RmqfCCSTFP/story.html
And a list of the classical nominations for the 57th annual Grammy Awards:
Now, as the year ends, here comes the annual compilation by the venerable Gramophone magazine out of Great Britain. Top honors go to Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for their cycle of orchestral works, symphonies and overtures and more, by Johannes Brahms on the Decca label.
But there is a lot more to look at and listen to, and, predictably, a lot of choices with ties to United Kingdom.
Anyway, if you still need to give a gift or maybe to redeem a gift card or spend cash you received, here is the story along with the direct link to the FREE digital magazine issue (below):
http://www.exacteditions.com/read/gramophone/recordings-of-the-year-2014-41178
Tags: Alan Gilbert (conductor), Alex Ross, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Boston Globe, cash, Chamber music, Christmas, Classical music, Compact Disc, Decca, Early music, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Puccini, gift card, gifts, Grammy Award, Gramophone, Great Britain, Holiday, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison Opera, magazine, Mozart, Music, New York City, New York Times, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Overture, Piano, Riccardo Chailly, The New York Times, The New Yorker, United Kingdom, Violin, vocal music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Classical music: Here are the 2014 winners of the BBC Music Magazine awards for classic music recordings.
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By Jacob Stockinger
In another week or two, the live concert season will start winding down until mid-June when the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society (below top) will start its three weeks of concerts. Then in mid-July will come the Madison Early Music Festival (below bottom).
Here are links to those two events:
http://www.bachdancinganddynamite.org/schedule.php
But one of the compensating pleasures of the upcoming spring “intermission” is that you can catch up of some recent or new recordings that you might have overlooked or not had time to listen to during the regular concert season.
At least, you will do that if you are like The Ear.
So, in that spirit, here is a list of the 2014 winners of the BBC Music Magazine for classical recordings, which this year also include the Classical Music App of the Year.
I have sampled some of the recordings, and so far I have to agree: Some bias toward British musicians, music and labels notwithstanding, these are fine, outstanding recordings. You will find some familiar names among the honorees: Daniel Barenboim, Alisa Weilerstein (who has performed at the Wisconsin Union Theater and in the Overture Center with the Madison Symphony Orchestra), Sir Edward Elgar, Riccardo Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Johannes Brahms (you can hear some of his symphonies in a YouTube video at the bottom), Ludwig van Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Johann Sebastian Bach, Elliott Carter, Richard Wagner, Jonas Kaufmann, Giacomo Puccini and Felix Mendelssohn.
But there is always room for more suggestions. So I encourage all readers to send in any relatively new recordings that they consider discovered good enough to be shared. Just leave the information in the COMMENT section.
Meanwhile, here is a link to the BBC winners:
http://www.classical-music.com/news/bbc-music-magazine-awards-2014-winners-announced
Tags: Alisa Weilerstein, Arts, Arts and Entertainment, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, BBC, BBC Music Magazine, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Concert, concerto, Daniel Barenboim, Early music, Edward Elgar, Elliott Carter, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Puccini, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Jonas Kaufmann, June, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Music, opera, Overture Center, Piano, Riccardo Chailly, Richard Wagner, Wisconsin Union Theater, YouTube
Classical music: Is this the minority report of a dissenter? The Ear offers some thoughts and after-thoughts from recent concerts by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Pro Arte String Quartet, the Middleton Community Orchestra and pianist Christopher Taylor. Plus, here are links to rave reviews of this afternoon’s final all-Beethoven concert by pianist Yefim Bronfman and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
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ALERT: Today at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall of the Overture Center is the final performance of the all-Beethoven concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra under John DeMain. It features pianist Yefim Bronfman (below) in TWO piano concertos (Nos. 2 and 5 “The Emperor”) plus the Symphony No. 1 and “The Creatures of Prometheus” Overture. Here are links to two rave reviews of the concert by Madison Magazine critic and blogger Greg Hettmansberger and by Isthmus critic John W. Barker, who also guest blogs for The Ear. It sure sounds like a NOT-TO-BE-MISSED concert. See you there!
http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=42237
By Jacob Stockinger
It has been a very busy time musically in Madison, with a lot of previews to post, which often supplant reviews since The Ear thinks previews are more useful than reviews to most listeners and performers. And this coming week and weekend are even worse. So much music, and so little space!
But here are some “outdated” capsule reviews, impressions really, with accompanying afterthoughts that come to The Ear as he listened and later thought about what he had heard:
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND TRUMPETER TINE THING HELSETH
It seemed a curious, even odd theme for a Valentine’s Day program. But BRASS – not romantic love — marked the Valentine’s Day weekend performances by the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below), although ending with the “Rosenkavalier” suite by Richard Strauss did indeed prove an inspired choice to combine brass and love. Plus by all accounts, the concert sold very well. It sure got standing ovations. In short, it may have seemed odd, but it worked.
The “Doctor Atomic” Symphony by the contemporary American composer John Adams (below), who put the instrumental work together from his own opera score, was powerful, and also fit the brass bill, with great solos by MSO trumpeter John Aley, and was impressive to hear –- though also hardly romantic.
Given conductor John DeMain (below) and his stupendous taste and talent for choosing great singers who are also affordable, I kept thinking: How I would like to have heard some great singers perform familiar and unknown love arias from operas by Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Saint-Saens, even Wagner. Now those would be symphony tickets to throw in with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses. But The Ear has been informed that such concerts often do not sell well and might also be seen as competing with the local opera company.
All that said, I thought that the guest soloist, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth (below), proved an inspired, if unexpected, choice. She showed an uncanny power for playing softly. Brass instruments are not easy to control with little breath and with soft tone. But she did both beautifully in two concertos by Franz Joseph Haydn and Alexander Arutiunian. She clearly has the lung power to blow down the Walls of Jericho. But what impressed and seduced me was her quietness, which nonetheless possessed rich tone and unwavering pitch. That is a rare talent, and one to be cherished — and brought back to Madison!
Maestro Andrew Sewell (below) has a never-failing knack of finding terrific music that has been overlooked but is actually very good, if not revolutionary or pioneering.
Sure, at his last concert I too, like the rest of the audience, loved what he did with the Jupiter Symphony of Mozart –- not too hectic, clear voicing, propulsive energy even with all the repeats. And the talented and congenial soloist Joshua Roman proved an irresistible highlight in Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major.
But the real surprise of the night was the 20th-century Concerto Grosso by Vittorio Giannini (below), who taught composition at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music and then established the North Carolina School of the Arts. What a discovery! I want to hear more by this guy.
And Sewell will soon unwrap another surprise this week –- and I expect, as usual, that it will be modern music that is accessible and tuneful, not R&D Music (that’s short research and development) that sounds like jet noise or broken plumbing. Could that help explain why he gets full houses?
Sewell and the WCO will probably do so again THIS COMING FRIDAY NIGHT at 8 p.m. in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center. That is when he and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra combine the famous famously listenable and lovely Violin Concerto (with guest soloist Karina Canellakis) by Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony (Symphony No. 101 of his 104 symphonies) with “Elements” by American composer Michael McLean (below, and with a sample of “Elements” in a YouTube video at the bottom). Sounds like another MUST-HEAR concert to The Ear.
PRO ARTE QUARTET
Well, the headlines and chit-chat went rightfully to the world premiere of Belgian composer Benoit Mernier’s commissioned String Quartet No. 3, which sounded fiendishly difficult and seemed based largely on technical stuff like trills, tremolos and glissandos instead of themes and infectious rhythms. And the Pro Arte Quartet, artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music since 1940 and celebration its centennial, played it with impressive aplomb and apparent ease.
“Do you like the music?” someone asked me right after the performance.
I think the better question is: “Does the music like me?”
Think about it: What is the composer’s responsibility to you the listener, and what is your responsibility to the composer (Mernier, below), especially if he seems to ignore you?
I also loved the rarely heard and beautifully performed viola quintet by Anton Bruckner and particularly the contrasts between Sally Chisholm’s viola and Samuel Rhodes’ viola (the two are below side-by-side). If you liked the combination –- and what is not to like with the darker hued voice of the viola –- be sure to try the viola quintets by Mozart and Brahms, which I would also like to hear the Pro Arte do more of.
But for old-fashioned me, the star of the evening was the Haydn Quartet, Op. 20, No. 4. It just cleaned out your ears and was proof again that, at its best, the genre is indeed still as it was described by Haydn himself when pretty much invented in the 18th century: A conversation of equals. And did the Pro Arte ever play it with accuracy, clarity and texture. It sparkled like a diamond. The string quartet may have evolved, changed or morphed over the centuries, but it has simply not gotten any better than Haydn.
So: Is there any chance that we night get of a multi-year Haydn cycle by the Pro Arte, which decades ago in another avatar or configuration of players started to record the complete Haydn quartets in the famous Abbey Road studio in London for RCA. They have done Beethoven and Shostakovich cycles. What about Papa Haydn? And if not a complete cycle of the 68 or so quartets, how about a fairly comprehensive survey or at least a very large sampler of Haydn’s early, middle and late styles?
PIANIST CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR
What more can you say about the award-winning, audience-approved star talent pianist Christopher Taylor (below) who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music and concertizes around the world, and his stunning solo recital this year?
I loved the “War” Sonata No. 6 by Sergei Prokofiev, a great piece that he performed greatly with both riveting energy and heartbreaking lyricism. I also loved the encore — Scott Joplin’s “Pineapple Rag” –- as a contrast and change of pace.
But I have to be honest: I have heard enough of the Liszt piano transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies. Trust the genuine original! Accept no substitutes!
The next day I listened to a recording of the same work by a real orchestra — the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig under conductor Riccardo Chailly. What a difference when the “Eroica” is played with real brass countering, with jarring dissonance, real strings; when it is real tympani drumbeats rather than bass tremolos on the piano. Ludwig (below) simply had more of IT – whatever musical genius is — than Franz.
The real “Eroica” Symphony doesn’t — and shouldn’t — sound so much like a Hungarian Rhapsody or a Transcendental Etude. In their day, these transcriptions served a purpose and they stretched the resources of the piano, or at least, of pianists. Now, they strike The Ear as precious, more of a sideshow of amazing and ingenious pianism and not much little else aside from some strokes of minor genius here and there by the Paganini of the Piano.
From one of those transcriptions I learned something and I enjoyed it. But now that makes three down (symphonies numbers 3, 4 and 5) for Taylor. I, for one, sure hope we don’t have the other six to go. How much more I would have preferred to hear this supremely talented pianist and gifted musician in some serious and original piano repertoire –- maybe a late Schubert sonata, or a Bach partita, or a Chopin ballade, or a Schumann cycle. I want to hear Christopher Taylor in something that puts depth over display, substance over style.
Am I alone in that wish?
MIDDLETON COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA
Guest reviewer John W. Barker covered this recent concert of the mostly amateur Middleton Community Orchestra (below), which featured music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, thoughtfully and thoroughly for this blog.
All I would add is a lesson that every teacher knows: Students with lesser abilities rise to meet high expectations. That is why symphony orchestras and chamber orchestras should book the best soloists they can get and afford: The Ear is convinced that the level of playing and performing usually rises to match the soloist and fosters cohesion.
With the MCO, it was two lifelong friends and award-winning, UW-Madison trained string players -– violinist Eleanor Bartsch and violist Daniel Kim (below) who soloed and who seemed in complete synch, down to the timing of their trills, during Mozart’s sublime Sinfonia Concertante.
Their playing was superb, and the amateur orchestra rose to meet them and give them the beautiful support they deserved. And with Mozart there is no place to hide, so flaws or mistakes are quickly revealed.
Well, now it is on to another busy week of concerts.
Where, I wonder, will the music lead The Ear this time?
Tags: Alexander Arutiunian, amateur, Anton Bruckner, arias, Arts, Beethoven, Belgium, Benoit Mernier, brass, Cello, Cello Concerto, Chamber music, chamber orchestra, Claudio Monteverdi, community orchestra, concerto, conductor, Creatures of Prometheus, Doctor Atomic, Eroica Symphony, Felix Mendelssohn, Finlandia, Friday, Gewandhaus, Giacomo Puccini, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Johannes Brahms, John Adams, John DeMain, Joseph Haydn, Joshua Roman, Juilliard School, Leipzig, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music, Michael McLean, Mozart, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, North Carolina School of the Arts, Orchestra, Overture, Overture Center, Piano, Piano concerto, Pro Arte Quartet, Puccini, Riccardo Chailly, Richard Strauss, Rossini, Saint-Saens, Samuel Rhodes, Scott Joplin, Sergei Prokofiev, singer, String quartet, string quintet, symphony, Tine Thing Helseth, transcription, Trumpet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, Valentine's Day, Verdi, Viola, viola quintet, Violin, Violin concerto, Vittorio Giannini, vocal music, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Yefim Bronfman, YouTube
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