The Well-Tempered Ear
Madison’s Sonata à Quattro performs TONIGHT online for the prestigious Boston Early Music Festival
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following note from the local early music group, Sonata à Quattro (SAQ):
We have a very exciting announcement to share.
Tonight we will be one of the featured ensembles at the 2021 Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Concerts!
The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is recognized as a national and international leader in the field of early music, and SAQ is thrilled to make its first appearance at this event.
Concert presented during the Boston Early Music Festival’s 2021 Fringe Concerts. Learn more at https://bemf.org/2021-festival/fringe-concerts/
The online premiere of the SAQ concert video will be TONIGHT — Thursday, June 17 — at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, and the musicians will be available to chat during and after the recorded performance.
Please join us at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSfzu6Q6DcU
The 50-minute concert, titled “Musical Meditation and Merriment,” features (below, from left) violinists Christine Hauptly Annin and Leanne League; cellist Charlie Rasmussen; and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt.
This period-instrument quartet will perform the following program: Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:G5 by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767); Duo II in D Minor, Op. 19, No. 2, for Violin and Viola by Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812); Duetto III in G Major, Op. 1, No. 3, for Violin and Cello by Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808, below); and Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. “The Lark” by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).
The concert was live-streamed and recorded at the United Methodist Church in Whitefish Bay, Wis., on April 13, 2021.
From the austere fugal opening of the Telemann to the jaunty Finale of Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet — heard played by the Jerusalem Quartet in the YouTube video at the bottom — this program offers a reflection on the unimaginable year we’ve just experienced, as well as the stirrings of hope, as we awake to a spring and summer of new beginnings.
The slow movements, with their gorgeous string sonorities, range from still, inner contemplation to poignant pleas, while the fast movements outdo one another in wit, verve and sheer joie de vivre.
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Classical music: Here is the corrected program for the Oakwood Chamber Players, who open the new year with music by Mozart and Stravinsky plus new music by living composers this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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CORRECTION: By mistake, The Ear earlier posted the wrong program for the Oakwood Chamber Players this weekend. Here is the correct information. The Ear apologizes for the error and any inconvenience.
By Jacob Stockinger
The first concerts for the new year by the Oakwood Chamber Players (below) will be take place this Saturday night, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m., and Sunday afternoon, Jan. 12, at 2 p.m., at the Oakwood Village University Woods Center for Arts and Education at 6209 Mineral Point Road in Madison, on Madison far west side near West Towne Mall.
The program begins with a witty opener, “L’Heure de Berger” by French composer Jean Francaix (below) for woodwind quintet and piano. The piece’s three movements cleverly depict the quirky personalities of patrons observed at a Parisian restaurant.
“Y Deryn Pur” for oboe, violin, viola and cello — by the award-winning British composer Cecilia McDonald (below) is based on an expressive Welsh folk tune, “The Gentle Dove.”
Written early in his career, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s “Pastorale” is a soothing song without words for a mixed quintet of winds and strings. It is a delicate piece originally written for voice and piano, then re-orchestrated for the sustained sonorities of a chamber ensemble.
“Silver Dagger” is a plaintive tale told through a traditional Appalachian folk song and re-envisioned emotionally and dramatically for violin, cello and piano by American composer Stacy Garrop (below).
The “Suite Belle Epoque in Sud-America” was written for the Berlin Woodwind Quintet by Brazilian composer and conductor Julio Medaglia (below). It bursts with vitality and expressive melodies while celebrating a variety of South American musical styles. (You can hear his suite in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The perennial simplicity, beauty and warmth of Mozart are showcased in his “Adagio in F,” performed by bassoon and string trio.
The program concludes with “Ralph’s Old Records” by Kenji Bunch (below) – a fresh and humorous composition for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano that takes listeners through a series of brief movements inspired by an old family record collection.
Tickets are available at the door and are priced at $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, and $5 for students, or at www.oakwoodchamberplayers.com
The Oakwood Chamber Players are a professional music ensemble supported by Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries and the Oakwood Foundation
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Classical music: The Middleton Community Orchestra and conductor Kyle Knox brightened a soggy spring with early Beethoven and Elgar. On Tuesday night, an organ and cello concert takes place in Overture Hall.
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ALERT: On this Tuesday night, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Overture Hall, organist Greg Zelek and guest cellist Thomas Mesa will close out the season of Concert Organ performances sponsored by the Madison Symphony Orchestra. The program includes music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy and Charles-Marie Widor. For tickets ($20) and more information about the program with detailed biographies of the performers, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/thoms-mesa-greg-zelek/
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 veteran and 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.
By John W. Barker
The early spring concert on last Wednesday night by the Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Brian Ruppert) at the Middleton Performing Arts Center that is attached to Middleton High School was comparatively short – it had no intermission — and was devoted to only two composers.
The first was Edward Elgar (below, in 1910), whose early orchestral works included a good deal of music drawn from his youthful sketchbooks. Notable in that category were two suites, given the joint title of The Wand of Youth.
From the eight sections of the First Suite (1907), six were played, and from the six sections comprising the Second Suite (1908), four were given. All these movements are colorful and evocative little miniatures, reflecting early imagination, often touching, but many quite boisterous.
The other composer was Ludwig van Beethoven (below), as represented by his Symphony No. 2. This shows the young composer moving quite distinctly beyond the stylistic world of Haydn and Mozart into the rambunctious new symphonic idiom he would go on to create. (You can hear Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic play the opening of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The guest conductor this time, Kyle Knox – the recent University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate who is the music director of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras and the associate conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra — chose to give the music a “big orchestra” approach.
For both the suites and the symphony, the lighter and cleaner textures of a chamber orchestra would seem best. But with an orchestra totaling some 91 players, Knox chose to go for volume and sonority.
His tempos, especially in the Beethoven were notably fast. As the largely amateur orchestra followed loyally, there was some raw playing at times.
Still, the MCO asserted strong character, which made a very happy impression on the audience and brightened an evening of soggy weather.
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Classical music: The Middleton Community Orchestra and solo trumpeter Jessica Jensen score big with an unusual program
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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. He also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
The concert by the largely amateur Middleton Community Orchestra (below, in a photo by Margaret Barker) on Wednesday night presented a novel program at the Middleton Performing Arts Center.
In the relatively brief first part, it presented two unusual items.
The first was by Nebojsa “Neb” Macura (b. 1982, below right with conductor Steve Kurr), a local musician of Serbian background, who has been particularly identified with Russian folk music and ensembles. But he also plays viola in the MCO, which gave him this opportunity in the spotlight.
His piece, Polar Night, is quite brief, but in this version for full orchestra (with piano), it is grounded with secure melodic flow, and it unfolds into a tonal picture full of beautiful colors. My only reservation was that I wanted more of it — either more music in this piece or other sections around it.
Macura is obviously talented, and he has a confident sense of orchestral writing. I really look forward to hearing more of him. Indeed, the MCO might well serve as exactly the laboratory in which he can develop new creations.
The second item was only a bit longer, a Trumpet Concerto by Russian composer Aleksandra Pakhmutova (b. 1929, below). Her long career has involved her in jazz, and also in extensive scoring for films. But she has a feeling for Russian traditional song, and that could be heard in this concerto.
It is cast in only a single movement, but it proceeds episodically. There is certainly much flashy writing for the solo instrument, and local trumpeter Jessica Jensen (below) brought off her role dashingly.
The longer second part of the concert was devoted to the Symphony No. 3, the “Rhenish,” by Robert Schumann. This splendid work was inspired by observation of life along the Rhine River.
It is unusual in being written in five movements, not the conventional four. (Oddly, their individual markings were not printed in the program, but conductor Steve Kurr (below) gave a clever spoken introduction that outlined the score for the audience.)
This is a very extroverted work, calling for a lot of orchestral sonority. I suspect that a little more rehearsal time would have helped the avoidance of some blemishes: rapid passages, especially in the first movement, were roughly articulated, and there were some tiny gaffes all along.
But the players were devoted in responding to maestro Kurr’s rather propulsive tempos. This score gives a lot to do particularly to the horn section, which played with ardent splendor.
As always, then, the MCO earned further laurels for presenting this very adventurous program.
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Classical music: The inventive and unpredictable Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society wraps up its 26th season with an impressive display of virtuosic vocal and piano music as well as hip-hop dancing
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By Jacob Stockinger
This review is by guest contributor Kyle Johnson, who also took the performance photos. As a pianist since elementary school, Kyle Johnson has devoted most of his life to music. Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, he is now a doctoral candidate in piano performance at the UW-Madison, where he studies with Christopher Taylor and specializes in modern and contemporary music. He participates in many festivals and events around the U.S. and Europe. Recently, he co-founded the Madison-based ensemble Sound Out Loud, an interactive contemporary music ensemble. For more information, visit: www.kyledjohnson.weebly.com
By Kyle Johnson
The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society’s 26th season is in the books.
This weekend’s Friday performance at the Overture Center’s Playhouse Theater was repeated in Spring Green on Sunday afternoon and was entitled “Cs the Day,” which continued the series’ Alphabet Soup theme. It was a full-bodied program that left the audience in full anticipation for what the BDDS will bring next summer.
Bass-baritone Timothy Jones (below) — whom the Madison Symphony Orchestra featured last month in its performance of Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem — has a wonderfully rich, dynamic voice.
In the collection of songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) and Roger Quilter (1877-1953) — all of which were aptly named “Carpe Diem” songs in the program booklet — Jones showcased the sensitivity of his higher notes and the power of his mid-low register, all the while showing a bit of charm and theatricality. I felt at times that the rich sonorities from the piano covered up Jones’ diction, so texts of the English poems came in handy.
A surprise performance came after the art songs. The night’s entire cast of musicians — Stephanie Jutt on flute, Soh-Hyun Park Altino and Hye-Jin Kim on violins, Ara Gregorian on viola, Madeleine Kabat on cello, and Jeffrey Sykes and Randall Hodgkinson on piano — began playing an arrangement of music from Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville.
They were quickly joined by Blake Washington (below, in a file photo), a hip-hop dancer who studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He performed a rendition – in movement – while the ensemble played. Judging from the audience’s approval, it’s safe to assume that similar collaborations would be welcome in the future.
One annual program event is a chamber music arrangement of a complete piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).
This year, Jeffrey Sykes was keen on presenting the Piano Concerto in D Major, K. 537 (1788), called ”Coronation.” Sykes (below) labeled the work a “miracle piece” in brief remarks before the musicians listed above, minus Hodgkinson, began.
As a pianist, I sympathize with anyone who takes on such a Mozart work, since the smallest of mistakes – uneven passage work, unclear ornamentation or misplayed notes – are magnified. Nonetheless, it’s a treat to hear such an expansive work in an up-close, intimate setting like the Playhouse Theater at the Overture Center.
Judging by the audience’s reaction alone, Carl Czerny’s Grand Sonata Brillante in C minor for piano four-hands, Op. 10 (1822), proved the highlight of the program.
Not only does the work live up to its “grand” and “brilliant” title, but Sykes’ and Hodgkinson’s dexterity and acrobatics throughout were displayed – literally – for all to see.
A camera was suspended over the keyboard, and that eagle’s-eye view (below) was projected onto the large, white backdrops at the rear of the stage. Czerny’s four-hand sonata was the perfect piece to utilize this multimedia aspect, as well as show off two virtuosic pianists. (You can see and hear the first movement of the work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Last on the program was Cool Fire (2001) by American composer Paul Moravec (b. 1957). All of the performers on stage — the same cast from the Rossini on the first half of the program minus Sykes — were completely committed to the demanding and energetic score.
There were moments of athleticism in everyone’s part, and several times, the hands of Hodgkinson (below) — and his body — had to jump the length of the keyboard in an instant. His playing, in general, has always been vigorous and brawny – similar to Madison’s own Christopher Taylor. Fittingly, the two pianists studied with the same teacher, Russell Sherman.
This season of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society was exceptionally consistent. Every concert featured interesting music, skilled musicians and engaging surprises.
In the first week, attendees were treated to sandwiches served by the Earl of Sandwich and the Queen of Sheba. In Week Two, Madison’s City-Wide Spelling Bee Champion proved his expertise in musical lingo. Lastly, Week Three provided dance moves of fellow Wisconsinite Blake Washington.
It was nice to encounter many works I had never heard. In future years, I hope the BDDS’s repertoire list can be widened more to be inclusive of non-Western and female composers. Through continued diversity of programming, the BDDS should not only retain its most loyal of patrons, it might also broaden its audience base even further.
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Classical music: University Opera’s “Turn of the Screw” is a completely satisfying production of a complex modern masterpiece by Benjamin Britten
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Opera Guy filed this review, with photos by Michael R. Anderson, for The Ear:
By Larry Wells
I attended the opening performance of Benjamin Britten’s 1954 chamber opera “The Turn of the Screw” that was presented by University Opera and directed by David Ronis.
It was a completely satisfying theatrical experience of a complexly organized musical work.
The libretto is based on Henry James’ serial novella of the same name. Whereas the James work is an ambiguous, psychological tale, Britten’s opera is an eerie ghost story laden with suggestions of psychosexual mischief.
Musically the opera is based on a 12-tone theme with each of its scenes preceded by a variation of the theme. There are further structural complexities in this highly organized work, but the music is very accessible and was admirably performed by 13 musicians ably led by conductor Kyle Knox. Particular praise goes to the percussionist Garrett Mendlow.
The beautiful, minimalistic set and stunning lighting enhanced the creepiness of the tale.
As for the singing, the cast tackled the complex vocal lines with aplomb, and there were several exceptional performances.
Particular praise goes to Anna Polum for her outstanding portrayal of the ghostly Miss Jessell. She sang beautifully and acted convincingly. (Below, from left, are Katie Anderson as the Governess and Anna Polum as Miss Jessell.)
Dress Rehearsal for “Turn of the Screw”
Likewise Emily Vandenberg as Flora was realistic in the role of a young girl. I have seen performances of this opera that were brought down by unconvincing portrayals of this difficult child role, but Vandenberg acted naturally and sang beautifully.
The other child role, Miles, was capably performed by Simon Johnson, a middle school student. Cayla Rosché adeptly performed Mrs. Grose, the enigmatic housekeeper. (Below are Amitabha Shatdal as Miles, Cayla Rosché as Mrs. Grose and Elisheva Pront as Flora.)
Dress Rehearsal for “Turn of the Screw”
The two major roles are The Governess and the spectral Peter Quint. Erin Bryan was convincing as the increasingly confused and hysteric governess, and she played off Rosché’s Mrs. Grose to great effect. At one point I was thinking that these were two extremely flighty women. (Below, from left, are Cayla Rosché as Mrs. Grose; Elisheva Pront as Flora; Katie Anderson as the Governess; and Amitabha Shatdal as Miles.)
Dress Rehearsal for “Turn of the Screw”
Alec Brown (below) as Quint had the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of singers like Peter Pears who made Quint an evil, threatening, nasty fellow. Brown’s Quint came off as slightly laid back, and his perfectly fine tenor voice was just not a Britten voice in the style of Pears, Philip Langridge or Ian Bostridge.
Dress Rehearsal for “Turn of the Screw”
I had a couple of minor problems with the evening. First, I did not understand why the doors to Music Hall didn’t open until 7:20 for a 7:30 performance, which then actually started at 7:45. And, I was disappointed that the piano, which is a major contributor to the music’s sonority, was swapped for an electronic keyboard.
Yet I left feeling once again that Britten was a true musical genius of the 20th century and that I was eager to go to the 3 p.m. performance this afternoon to experience it all over again.
“The Turn of the Screw” will also be performed one last time on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
For more information about the opera, including how to buy tickets — admission is $25 with $20 for seniors and $10 for students, go to:
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