The Well-Tempered Ear
Today is Veterans Day. Here is some appropriate music by Beethoven to mark it. Can you guess which piece? What composer or music would you choose?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today – Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020 – is Veterans Day.
It started out as Armistice Day in 1918 when the end of World War I was declared to take place on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
It is a day to mark the service of all veterans – not just those who died in the line of duty, as is celebrated on Memorial Day.
You can find a lot of choice of classical music to play for Veterans Day. Here is one link to a compilation that features patriotic songs and marches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJepYzH1VUY
But The Ear settled on Beethoven (below, in an 1815 portrait by Joseph Willebrord Maehler).
Can you guess which piece?
It is not the memorable funeral marches on the Piano Sonata in A-Flat, Op. 26, or the Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.”
It is also not the “Sacred Hymn of Thanksgiving” in the String Quartet, Op. 132.
And it is not “Wellington’s Victory” or the “Egmont” Overture or the Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” with its triumphant fast movements.
Instead it is the second movement of the Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92. (You can hear it see it represented graphically in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
That is the very well known Allegretto movement with its repetitious and almost hypnotizing, soaring theme. It seems like a funeral march, full of introspection, poignancy and sadness, that is a bit brisker and more lyrical than usual.
It is so popular, in fact, that it has been used as a soundtrack in many movies, including “The King’s Speech” and has inspired works based on it including the “Fantasia on an Ostinato” by the contemporary American composer John Corigliano.
If it seems an unexpected choice, you just need to know more about its history.
It was composed 1811-1812, and Beethoven correctly considered it one of his finest works. So did Richard Wagner who famously described as the “apotheosis of the dance” for the infectious rhythms throughout the symphony.
At its premiere in Vienna, in his introductory remarks Beethoven said: “We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us.”
Beethoven (below, in 1815 as depicted in a paining the Joseph Willibrord Maehler) premiered the symphony at a charity concert in 1813 to help raise money for the Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had been wounded at the Battle of Hanau while fighting against France during the Napoleonic Wars.
It was so popular with the first performance that the audience demanded and received an immediate encore performance of the second movement.
Here is a Wikipedia link to the history of the symphony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Beethoven)
To this day, the Seventh Symphony, so charged with energy, remains for many people, conductors and orchestral players their favorite Beethoven symphony.
It is ironic that Leonard Bernstein (below, in a photo by Paul de Hueck) performed the Seventh Symphony at the last concert he ever conducted – at the Tanglewood Festival in August 1990. He took the second movement at a slower-than-usual tempo and many have criticized Bernstein, who was in terrible health, and have suggested that he was using it as a funeral march or homage for himself.
They may be right. But in retrospect the choice of Bernstein – who died two months later — finds a certain justification in the original motive for the entire symphony and especially the second movement.
Listen for yourself.
Then tell us what you think.
Does this movement justify it being played on Veterans Day?
What music would you choose to mark the day?
What do you think of the Symphony No. 7 in general and the second movement in particular?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The UW-Madison School of Music will NOT have a complete brochure for the new season. Use the website and sign up for an email newsletter. The 40th Karp Family Labor Day Concert is Sept. 3
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By Jacob Stockinger
Summer is almost over and the new concert season is about to begin in just a couple weeks.
Just about all the groups in the Madison area, large and small, have announced their upcoming seasons.
But it you are wondering why the brochure for the hundreds of events that will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music hasn’t arrived yet, here is the answer.
There isn’t one this year.
For many years the UW-Madison’s SOM — as the School of Music is often abbreviated – has issued a handsome season brochure (below) with names and dates, if not always complete programs.
In the past couple of years, the brochure has been particularly informative with background about performers and events at the school as well as about students and alumni.
But due to a variety of factors, there will be no season brochure although there will be a special brochure for the opening weekend on the new Hamel Music Center (below), which is Oct. 25-27.
A variety of reasons has caused the lack of a brochure, says Publicist and Concert Manager Katherine Esposito. But the familiar full-season brochure will return for the 2020-21 season.
It the meantime, Esposito recommends that you go to the Concert and Events calendar, which has been updated and made more user-friendly, on the website for the school of music. It also features information about faculty and staff as well as news about the school. Here is a link:
https://www.music.wisc.edu/events/
On the right hand side is a menu that allows you to view the calendar as a running list or by the month, week or day with maps or photos.
On the left hand side is another menu that allows you to search by musical category (performers and ensemble) as well as concert date, time, venue and admission cost, if any.
Esposito always recommends that you subscribe to the email newsletters. You can see past ones and sign up to receive future ones if you go to this part of the home website: https://www.music.wisc.edu/recent-newsletters/
As usual, the season at the UW-Madison will open with 40th FREE Karp Family Labor Day Concert, which now takes place the day after the holiday, on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall.
Over four decades, the Karps (below are the brothers pianist Christopher Karp with cellist Parry Karp, who will team up again this year) have never repeated a piece on the the Labor Day concerts.
The program this year includes the sublime Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, K. 493, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (you can hear the first movement with a visual schematic in the YouTube video at the bottom); the late Sonata No. 10 for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 96, by Ludwig van Beethoven, which has been transcribed by Parry Karp for cello and piano; and lesser known works by Robert Schumann and Antonin Dvorak.
For more about the program and the performers, who include guest violinist Suzanne Beia of the Pro Arte Quartet, the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/40th-karp-family-concert/
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Did Beethoven and his Fifth Symphony foster racism, exclusion and elitism in the concert hall? The Ear thinks that is PC nonsense. What do you think?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Controversy has struck big among classical music critics and fans — just in time for the Beethoven Year that will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth this December. Plans call for celebrations by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, and others.
At question is what seems yet another fallout and dust-up from the Black Lives Matter movement and the current struggle to foster social justice and racial equality.
In some ways, it all seems inevitable.
Now the history-denying advocates of cancel culture are suggesting that Beethoven (below) and his music – especially the popular Fifth Symphony (you can hear the famous opening in the YouTube schematic video at the bottom) – fostered white privilege and the rise of racism, sexism and homophobia in the concert hall.
That seems like quite an accusation for a single composer and a single piece of music that was premiered in 1808.
The assertion is food for thought. But not much.
In the end The Ear finds it a stretch and a totally bogus argument. He thinks that Beethoven attracted far more performers and audiences than he repelled. Others, including famed critic Norman Lebrecht in his blog Slipped Disc and a critic for the right-wing newspaper The New York Post, agree:
https://slippedisc.com/2020/09/beethovens-5th-is-a-symbol-of-exclusion-and-elitism/
https://nypost.com/2020/09/17/canceling-beethoven-is-the-latest-woke-madness-for-the-classical-music-world/
The Ear also thinks it is political correctness run amok, even for someone who, like himself, advocates strongly for diversity of composers, performers and audiences – but always with quality in mind — in the concert hall.
Just because Beethoven was such a great creative artist is hardly cause to blame him for the inability of other artists to succeed and for non-white audiences taking to classical music. Other forces — social, economic and political — explain that much better.
Yes, Beethoven is a towering and intimidating figure. And yes, his works often dominate programming. But both musicians and audiences return to him again and again because of the originality, power and first-rate quality of his many works.
Beethoven himself was deaf. That would certainly seem to qualify him as inclusive and a member of an important category of diversity.
No matter. The writers are happy to blame Ludwig and his work for exclusion and elitism. They argue that people of color, women and LGBTQ people have all felt alienated from classical music because of Beethoven’s legacy.
Of course, there is elitism in the arts. People may be equal, but creative talent is not.
And clearly, Beethoven was a towering and intimidating figure – more for the quality of his music than for the simple fact that it exists. Such exclusion and elitism have to do with other factors than the composition of the Fifth Symphony.
If The Ear recalls correctly, when he died Beethoven was given the largest state funeral up to that time for a non-royal, non-politician or non-military person.
And how do you explain that Beethoven’s music, so representative of Western culture, appeals deeply to and attracts so many Asians and Asian-Americans, and became both banned and symbolically central to those opposed to Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China?
But these days being provocative can become its own reward.
You can read the analysis and decide about its merits for yourself, then let us know what you think in the Comment section.
Here is a link to the opinion piece in Vox Magazine, a free online journal: https://www.vox.com/switched-on-pop/21437085/beethoven-5th-symphony-elitist-classism-switched-on-pop
What do you think about the idea that Beethoven played a large and seminal role in fostering an elitist and exclusive culture in classical music?
Did you ever feel alienated from classical music because of Beethoven or know others who have?
What is your favorite Beethoven composition?
The Ear wants to hear.
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