The Well-Tempered Ear
Starting TODAY, the First Unitarian Society of Madison offers three free, online mini-concerts at noon on Fridays to celebrate Women’s History Month
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post about three free, online mini-concerts to celebrate Women’s History Month through the Friday Noon Musicales at the First Unitarian Society of Madison.
The concerts start today:
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
• To celebrate Women’s History Month, the First Unitarian Society of Madison will present three Friday Noon Musicales during March.
• All three will be guest produced by Iva Ugrcic.
• Iva Ugrcic (below) is Founding Artistic Director of the Madison-based LunART Festival, which supports, inspires, promotes and celebrates women in the arts.
• Each program will feature highlights from past LunART Festival performances.
• Each program will be approximately 45 minutes long.
DATES AND PROGRAMS
Each video will become available at noon on the indicated date, and will remain available for viewing in perpetuity.
This Friday, March 12 — Works by living composers Jocelyn Hagen, Salina Fisher and Missy Mazzoli (below top), as well as Romantic-era composer Clara Schumann (below bottom, Getty Images). Specific titles are not named.
Performers include: Iva Ugrcic, flute; Matthew Onstad, trumpet; Tom Macaluso, trombone; Elena Ross and Todd Hammes, percussion; Kyle Johnson, Jason Kutz, Satoko Hayami and Yana Avedyan, piano; Beth Larson and Isabella Lippi, violin; Karl Lavine, cello (below); ARTemis Ensemble.
Friday, March 19 — Works by living composers Linda Kachelmeier, Elsa M’bala, Doina Rotaru (below top) and Eunike Tanzil, as well as Medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen (below bottom) and Romantic-era Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel. Specific works are not named. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear flutist Iva Ugrcic play Doina Rotaru’s haunting “Japanese Garden.”)
Performers include: Iva Ugrcic, flute; Jose Ignacio Santos Aquino, clarinet; Midori Samson, bassoon; Breta Saganski and Dave Alcorn, percussion; Satoko Hayami (below), Jason Kutz and Eunike Tanzil, piano; ARTemis Ensemble
Friday, March 26 — Alexandra Olsavsky, Edna Alejandra Longoria, Kate Soper and Jenni Brandon as well as post-Romantic era American composer Amy Beach (below bottom). Specific pieces are not named.
Performers include: ARTemis Ensemble; a string quartet with violinists Isabella Lippi and Laura Burns, violist Fabio Saggin, and cellist Mark Bridges (below); Jeff Takaki, bass; Vincent Fuh and Kyle Johnson, piano; Jennifer Lien, soprano; Iva Ugrcic, flute.
THREE OPTIONS FOR ATTENDING
• Website — https://www.fusmadison.org/musicales
• Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/fusmadison
• YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/fusmadison > “Playlists” > “Music at FUS”
ABOUT THE “FRIDAY NOON MUSICALES” RECITAL SERIES
• The Friday Noon Musicales at First Unitarian Society is a free noon-hour recital series offered as a gift to the community.
• Founded in 1971, 2020-2021 is the series’ 50th season.
• The series has featured some of the finest musicians in the Midwest, who flock to perform in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Landmark Auditorium.
• The music performed is mostly classical, but folk, jazz and musical theater styles are presented on occasion.
• During the pandemic, the Musicales have largely been on hiatus.
JUSTICE AND MUSIC INITIATIVE (JAM)
• The Justice And Music Initiative (JAM) at the First Unitarian Society of Madison represents a commitment to more socially equitable and earth-friendly music practices.
• This commitment includes music performed on our campus, both for worship and non-worship events.
• To help achieve our goal, we recognize and celebrate recognition days and months with our musical selections, such as Hispanic Heritage Month (9/15–10/15), LGBT History Month (October); Native American Indian Heritage Month (November), Black History Month (February), Women’s History Month (March), and African-American Music Appreciation Month (prev. Black Music Month; June).
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The third LunART Festival celebrates Black women in the arts with FREE streaming concerts and events this Saturday night, Oct. 10, and next Saturday night, Oct. 17
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
The LunART Festival is back for its third season, continuing its mission to support, inspire, promote and celebrate women in the arts, with a special presentation, “Human Family,” available via two FREE video livestreams on LunART’s website and Facebook page on Saturday, Oct. 10, and Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. CDT.
The events will be co-hosted by LunART founder and flutist Iva Ugrcic (below top), and by vocalist and art administrator Deja Mason (below bottom).
In response to the most recent and ongoing racial inequality and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, LunART will present the “Human Family” virtual festival featuring art created by Black women.
These FREE streamed events will feature a palette of emerging and established artists drawn from Madison’s rich arts scene, while also celebrating those who have paved the way for generations to come.
Radical inclusivity has been part of LunART’s mission from its conception. While women have historically been underrepresented in the arts, we cannot deny that there are segments of women that have been doubly marginalized, including women of color, women in the LGBTQIA+ community, older women and women with disabilities.
Part of creating a more just, inclusive world means recognizing that even within the space of underrepresentation, there remain disparities.
Works from the past include Florence Price’s “Five Folksongs of Counterpoint” for string quartet (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom), which is deeply rooted in the African-American spiritual tradition; Margaret Bonds’ Spiritual Suite for solo piano, written in a neo-Romantic classical style infused by jazz harmonies and rhythms; Afro-American Suite for flute, cello and piano by Undine Smith Moore, based on authentic spiritual songs used to express and record everyday life of slaves in America.
Florence Price (below), Margaret Bonds and Undine Smith Moore all fought against both racial and gender discrimination throughout their lives. To be a woman composing classical music in the mid-20th century was unusual; to be a Black woman composer was even more so. And yet, these women forged ahead, making history and paving the way for the women who would follow them.
Along with these pioneers of the past, LunART will also celebrate contemporary Black women who are making a big impact in the world of arts, culture, advocacy and activism, following the footsteps of their predecessors.
“Voodoo Dolls” for string quartet by Jessie Montgomery (below in a photo by Jiyang Chen) is influenced by West African drumming patterns that are interwoven with lyrical motifs in the improvisatory style.
“Fanmi Imen,” a work for flute and piano by Valerie Coleman (below) — LunART’s 2019 Composer-in-Residence) — is based on a powerful poem by Maya Angelou, “Human Family.” Angelou calls for peace and unity, while acknowledging differences due to ethnic and cultural background in her famous refrain: “we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
The chamber music will be performed by Madison’s finest musicians: Isabella Lippi, Karl Lavine, Peter Miliczky, Magdalena Sas, Marie Pauls, Satoko Hayami, Yana Avedyan and Iva Ugrcic.
Celebrating women’s creativity across many art forms has been a core component of LunART’s artistic mission from its inception, and this year is no exception. While music will create a sound painting, “Human Family” will also feature women who use words and movement to tell their story.
Enter a world of phenomenal talent with emerging singer-songwriters Danielle Crim and Akornefa Akyea performing their most recent original songs; magically moving poems and spoken-word pieces by Jamie Dawson and Shasparay Lighteard; and join dancer and choreographer Kimi Evelyn in self-exploration of what happens when the body and the soul are left in complete solitude through her powerful piece “Body, Sweet Home.”
To commemorate the Festival events, LunART has commissioned digital artwork (below) by local artist and activist Amira Caire, which is inspired by the “Human Family” concept. This stunning piece of art will be available for purchase in printed form on LunART’s website.
We are calling our community to eat local, drink local and support local. By supporting LunART, you are also supporting local nonprofits and small businesses.
This project would not be possible without the generosity of Madison’s creative media agency Microtone Media, The Piano Gal Shop from Sun Prairie, Dane Arts and a grant from the Madison Arts Commission at https://www.cityofmadison.com/dpced/planning/madison-arts-commission/1580/, with the additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
Events are free and available for anyone to watch online, and donations are welcomed. For more details about the artists, events, programs and links, and donation methods, please visit https://www.lunartfestival.org
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Classical music: This year’s LunART Festival in late June has been canceled and indefinitely postponed. Here are tastes of what is to come in new music commissions
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post from flutist Iva Ugrcic, the founder and executive director of the national award-winning LunART Festival (below), originally slated to take place in late June in various venues around Madison.
The event promotes and advocates for women in the arts including local artists and guest artists in music, poetry, dance, visual art and stand-up comedy. (You can see aerial choreography from last year’s festival in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Each year, the annual event also issues an international call for women composers to submit new works to be premiered during the festival.
“Like many others, we have been closely monitoring the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the world,” says Ugrcic (below), a doctoral graduate of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
“In order to protect the wellbeing of our guests, artists and team members, we have made the heartbreaking but necessary decision to postpone LunART Festival 2020 until further notice.” (Below is a past performance at the First Unitarian Society of Madison.)
“Once we establish a timeline to resume our celebration, you will be the first to know. In the meantime, our incredible third season is already being planned. It will feature works by over 40 women artists and composers from across the globe.
“These are exceptionally difficult times, but this too will pass, and we will all emerge from this more united than ever. Stay safe and healthy. We cannot wait to share the love and joy of the arts with you in person again. (Below is the festival in Promenade Hall of the Overture Center.)
“Warmest regards,
“The LunART Team” (Yana Avedyan, Leslie Damaso, Satoko Hayami, Allison Jerzak, Marie Pauls and Iva Ugrcic)
Ugrcic also provided additional information:
“I am still hoping that we would be able to hold the festival this summer. However, it is really hard to say right now.
“In the meantime, I have been in contact with all four of our Call for Scores winners: Alexis Bacon (USA, below top), Patricia Lopes (Brazil), Nicole Murphy (Australia) and Rosita Piritore (Italy, below bottom).
“We are finding ways to still promote their music and excite our audience about what they are going to hear and who they are going to meet when we get back together. So here are links to YouTube and some of the interviews we did with them:
- Patricia Lopes (below): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAaZfD0Licc
- Nicole Murphy (below): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoT4hg9hQSo
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Classical music: A busy week brings FREE concerts of violin, orchestra, percussion, band, cello and bassoon music to the UW-Madison
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ALERT: This afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall is your last chance to hear John DeMain lead the Madison Symphony Orchestra with guest soloists violinist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth in music by Brahms, Berlioz and Copland. Here is a positive review from Michael Muckian for Isthmus: https://isthmus.com/music/masterful-sounds-on-a-miserably-cold-night/
For more information about the program, soloists and tickets, go to: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/classical-music-this-weekend-the-madison-symphony-orchestra-celebrates-valentines-day-with-violinist-pinchas-zukerman-and-cellist-amanda-forsyth-in-the-romantic-double-concerto/
By Jacob Stockinger
The coming week at the UW-Madison will be busy with FREE concerts of violin, orchestral, percussion, band, cello and bassoon music.
Here is the lineup:
MONDAY
At 6:30 p.m. in the Collins Recital Hall at the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Ave., you can hear a FREE performance of the popular Violin Concerto by Beethoven.
It is a student performance of the entire Beethoven Violin Concerto with the orchestra. The conductor is doctoral candidate Ji Hyun Yim (below) who is studying with UW conducting professor Oriol Sans. It is a concert of friends who enjoy playing together. The violinist soloist is Rachel Reese.
Then at 7:30 p.m. in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the Chamber Percussion Ensemble (below) – formerly the Western Percussion Ensemble – will give a FREE concert of contemporary music.
The conductor is director and UW-Madison percussion professor Anthony DiSanza, who is also the principal percussionist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
The program is “A Forest from a Seed.” Featured is post-minimalist music by composers not named Steve Reich. No specific works or composers are named.
Says DiSanza (below, in a photo by Katherine Esposito): “From the seed of minimalism (1964-1972), a deep and exhilarating repertoire has blossomed. Join us as we explore 40 years of diverse and engaging post-minimalist percussion chamber music.”
The Chamber Percussion Ensemble, he adds, “is dedicated to the performance of significant and engaging works for the Western percussion ensemble tradition, emphasizing core repertoire and works by emerging composers.”
TUESDAY (not Wednesday, as originally and incorrectly posted)
At 7:30 in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the UW Concert Band (below) will give a FREE concert under director and conductor Corey Pompey. For the complete program, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-concert-band-3/
THURSDAY
At 7:30 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall, UW cello professor Parry Karp (below), who plays in the UW’s Pro Arte Quartet, will give a FREE recital.
Piano accompanists are Bill Lutes; Martha Fischer; Frances Karp, the mother of Parry Karp; and Thomas Kasdorf.
The program is:
Robert Schumann: “Five Pieces in Folk Style” for Piano and Cello, Op. 102 (You can hear the first of the five pieces in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Johannes Brahms: Sonata in F Minor for Piano and Clarinet, Op. 120 No. 1 (arranged for piano and cello by Parry Karp)
Robert Kahn (below): Three Pieces for Piano and Cello, Op. 25
Richard Strauss: Andante from “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” (The Bourgeois Gentleman), Op. 60
Ernest Bloch: “Schelomo” – a Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra
FRIDAY
At 8 p.m. in Collins Recital Hall, UW-Madison bassoon professor Marc Vallon (below) and friends – fellow faculty members and students — will perform a FREE concert of chamber music.
Joining Vallon, who plays in the acclaimed UW Wingra Wind Quintet, are: pianist Satoko Hayami; percussionist Todd Hammes; bassoonist Midori Samson; flutist Iva Ugrcic, clarinetist Alicia Lee; trumpeters Jean Laurenz and Gilson Luis Da Silva; trombonist Cole Bartels; and Travis Cooke.
Composers to be performed are: Robert Schumann; Alexander Ouzounoff; Sophia Gubaidulina (below); and Igor Stravinsky. No word about titles of specific works on the program.
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Classical music: Two Madison pianists perform four-hand American music Monday night at a concert for the Rural Musicians Forum at Taliesin in Spring Green
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By Jacob Stockinger
For the first time ever, the Rural Musicians Forum will present music for piano 4-hands, where two pianists play simultaneously on one piano.
On this coming Monday, July 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hillside Theater at architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, Madison-based pianists Satoko Hayami (below top) and Jason Kutz (below bottom) will showcase four-hand piano music by American composers, spanning from 1864 to 2019.
The concert by the two graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music will present a variety of composers and works created for this ensemble: pre-ragtime composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s virtuosic arrangement of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture; excerpts from Samuel Barber’s Souvenirs, a ballet suite (heard played tag-team style in the YouTube video below); a lush arrangement of themes from the Wizard of Oz by William Hirtz; and the riveting Gazebo Dances by John Corigliano, a four-movement work that, in his own words, suggests “the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts are given on summer evenings.”
Additionally, the audience will hear the world premiere arrangement of Music in 3/4 for Four by Kutz, excerpts from his solo piano suite, Music in 3/4.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
Taliesin’s Hillside Theater (below) is located at 6604 State Highway 23, about five miles south of Spring Green.
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Classical music: The Middleton Community Orchestra and UW duo-pianists showcase the remarkable music of Camille Saint-Saens and Mozart in the popular concert that closes its season
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
The mostly amateur Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Margaret Barker) closed its season Thursday night at the Middleton Performing Arts Center with a promising and well-received program.
The centerpiece featured two graduate student soloists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, pianists Thomas Kasdorf (below right) and Satoko Hayami (below left), who joined in Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat Major, K. 365, for two pianos and orchestra. The two soloists were alert and polished collaborators. (You can hear the energetic and catchy final movement, used in the Academy Award-winning film “Amadeus,” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Conductor Steve Kurr (below) set a bouncy pace but a rather fast and overpowering one, and with an orchestra — especially strings — quite overblown by the standards of Mozart’s day.
The MCO was blessed by the loan of a very special model of a Model B Steinway instrument, now owned and lovingly restored by Farley’s House of Pianos. This was paired against a Steinway of much later vintage, owned by the hall. But nowhere was there identification about which piano was which as they sat onstage, much less which pianist was playing which piano (and they switched between the two works utilizing them.) This was disappointing for it prevented making an informed comparison of the two instruments.
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921, below) is backhandedly treated as being on the margins of composer greatness. But his scope was remarkable, as witnessed by the two works that were the program’s bookends.
The opener was his humorous Suite, “Carnival of the Animals.” This set of 14 short pieces was written for one private performance, in chamber terms, one player per part. So the orchestra that was used — of 87 listed musicians, 60 of them were string players — became a crushing distortion. The two pianists were a bit formal, but ideally facile.
Saint-Saens made no provision for any kind of spoken text, certainly not in French. In the middle of the last century, the American poet of high-spirited doggerel, Ogden Nash, wrote wickedly funny verses with offbeat rhymes and puns to go with each movement.
It was these Nash verses that Wisconsin Public Radio host Norman Gilliland (below), who was only identified as the “narrator,” read with a good bit of tongue-in-cheek. Nowhere are these at all identified or credited in the bumbling program booklet. (Many in the audience might have just thought that they were written by Gilliland himself.)
In many of the suite’s movements, Saint-Saens quoted or alluded to hit tunes by earlier composers, for parodistic purposes. Unfortunately, there are no program notes in the booklet, so these tidbits would easily go unnoticed by many listeners.
Saint-Saens composed, among his numerous orchestral works, a total of five symphonies, only three of which are numbered. I had originally been given to expect No. 2, a charming work I love, as the program closer. All but the last of them are early works in a graceful post-Classical style.
But No. 3 was composed much later in his life, and in a more expansive style. This is a frequently performed spectacle, unconventional in plan and in scoring. It adds the two pianists and an organ — hence the nickname the “Organ Symphony.”
Unfortunately, the hall has no organ of its own, so the substitute was a rig of electronic organ with its own booming speakers and exaggerated pedal notes. Again totally unmentioned is that this contraption was played by MCO sound technician Alex Ford (below, with the portable electronic organ keyboard from Austria with its computer-screen stops).
This kind of organ could never be integrated into the full orchestral texture and served only to allow the orchestra to play this grandiose score. Such ambition was backed by really splendid and well-balanced orchestral playing.
As intended, the large local audience, with many children and families, was wildly enthusiastic.
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Classical music: Thursday night, the Middleton Community Orchestra closes its season with duo-pianists in music by Mozart and Saint-Saens, and the latter’s “Organ” Symphony. Wednesday is the last Just Bach concert of the season
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ALERT: This Wednesday, May 29, at 1 p.m. in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Avenue, is the last FREE Just Bach concert of the season. The one-hour early music program includes: the cantata “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” (Praise Ye God in All Lands), BWV 51; Duetto II in F Major, BWV 803; and the cantata “Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!” (Watch! Pray! Pray! Watch!), BWV 70. For more information, go online to the home website: https://justbach.org
By Jacob Stockinger
This Thursday night, May 30, the largely amateur but critically acclaimed Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Brian Rupert) will close its ninth season with a special family-friendly concert.
The concert, under the baton of conductor Steve Kurr (below), takes place at 7:30 p.m. in the Middleton Performing Arts Center that is attached to Middleton High School, 2100 Bristol Street.
Guest artists are University of Wisconsin-Madison students and duo-pianists Satoko Hayami (below top) and Thomas Kasdorf (below bottom). They will perform the witty and entertaining “Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saens and then the Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Wisconsin Public Radio host Norman Gilliland (below) will be the narrator in “The Carnival of the Animals.” (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the opening Introduction and Royal March of the Lion, with the late Sir Roger Moore — aka James Bond or 007 — as the narrator plus an all-star cast of musicians and some very cool animal videos in back-and-white.)
The concert concludes with the always impressive, ambitious and popular Symphony No. 3 — the famous “Organ” Symphony – by Saint-Saens (below, seated at the piano in 1900).
Adds MCO co-founder Mindy Taranto: “We are really excited to share a special concert with the community as we celebrate the end of MCO’s ninth season.
“It took a village to make this concert possible. Farley’s House of Pianos is donating the use of an 1890 Steinway to match the Steinway at the hall. WPR radio host Norman Gilliland is generously volunteering to narrate the ‘Carnival of the Animals’ and Full Compass is offering us a discount on the sound equipment we need to play the “Organ” Symphony. Our very own recording engineer, Alex Ford, is playing the organ.
“Please bring your kids and share this information to invite all students free of charge to hear this concert.”
Admission is $15 for adults; all students get in for free. Tickets are available at the Willy Street Coop West and at the door. The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and the auditorium opens at 7 p.m.
As usual, after the concert there will be a free meet-and-greet reception for musicians and the public.
For more information about this concert, and about how to join or support the Middleton Community Orchestra, call 608 212-8690 or go online to: http://middletoncommunityorchestra.org
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Classical music: The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, with guest singer Emily Birsan, closes its 27th annual summer chamber music season on the highest note
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. Performance photos are by Dick Ainsworth for the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
By John W. Barker
Last Saturday night, I was able to attend the second program on the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society’s third and final weekend this season.
The opening work was American Haiku, a duo for viola and cello, by the American Paul Wiancko. Obviously inspired by Japanese musical traditions, it is a longish piece, notably lacking in the brevity of its poetic model. It was diligently played by two of the budding young musicians the society has been fostering, violist Jeremy Kienbaum (below left) and cellist Trace Johnson (below right).
Further on in the first half came the Flute Concerto in D minor (H. 484:1), by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, dated to 1747, three years before papa Johann Sebastian died. It presents the composer as a transitional figure, anchored in the Late Baroque but tugging toward the Empfindsamkeit (sensitivity of feeling or expression) of the Early Classical period.
As the reduced orchestra, we had local violinists Leanne Kelso League and Suzanne Beia, with Kienbaum and Johnson, and, on the harpsichord continuo there was the deferential pianist Satoko Hayami.
The flute soloist (below) was, of course, BDDS co-founder and co-artistic director Stephanie Jutt, who played her role with obvious relish but with splendid precision, and (notably in the lively finale) real panache. The other players joined in with fine spirit.
For me, one of the two prime features of this program, however, was the participation of soprano Emily Birsan (below), a past product of the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music and now an international star. Every time she returns to Madison is welcome, and provides us with a progress report on herself and her career. Her voice has continued to fill out with strength and beauty.
Accompanied by pianist Jeffrey Sykes (below), she sang in the first half of the program a set of four songs, Op. 27 (once again, the number of the BDDS’s anniversary) by Richard Strauss. This set includes some particular gems by the composer, ending with the sublime Morgen! (In the Morning!). Birsan magically made each song a contrasting vignette of character and mood.
Birsan was back after the intermission, again with Sykes.
They performed Samuel Barber’s set of 10 Hermit Songs, using marginal manuscript scribblings by Medieval monks as texts. With the strong support of Sykes, Birsan was superlative in conveying the simple irony and naivety of these affectionately lyrical miniatures. This performance leaves a surely enduring memory.
The other high point, for me, was the Quintet in E-flat, Op. 44 for piano and strings by Robert Schumann. This is a fundamental work in the chamber music literature, a piece to wonder at.
I had forgotten how much rich prominence is given to the viola, within ensemble context, in the greatly varied second movement. Kienbaum projected it with eloquent strength, and the other players heard in the C.P.E. Bach work were utterly involved. (You can hear and see the prominent role of the viola in the opening movement of the quintet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
This is the kind of first-class chamber playing that we have come to expect from the BDDS, and why we cherish it so.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 