The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: This Sunday afternoon at the Chazen Museum of Art, you can attend or live stream a FREE sampler of the upcoming Bach Around the Clock festival
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
It’s March – time for Bach!
Every March, the 12-hour FREE Bach Around The Clock (BATC) festival (below top, the Suzuki Strings of Madison) takes place in Madison on a Saturday near the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below bottom) on March 31, 1685.
This year BATC is on Saturday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street.
And every year the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen concert series invites BATC to send a representative sampling of musicians to perform at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art on the first Sunday in March, giving the public a taste of the offerings from the festival.
This year the Chazen program on this Sunday – tomorrow, March 1 – features: the Madison Youth Viol Consort in four chorales; pianist Tim Adrianson (below top) playing the English Suite No. 6 in D Minor (you can hear Murray Perahia play the opening Prelude in the YouTube video at the bottom); violist Dierdre Buckley and pianist Ann Aschbacher playing the Gamba Sonata No. 1 in G Major; and BATC’s Ensemble-in-Residence, Sonata à Quattro (below bottom in a photo by Barry Lewis, attached), performing Cantata 209, Non sa che sia dolore (He knows not what sorrow is).
Doors at the Chazen Museum of Art’s Elvehjem Building open at noon, and the concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.
Admission is free and open to the public, and the event will be live audio-streamed on the Chazen website.
Here is a link to the page on the Chazen website, with more information and the streaming portal:
For more information about Bach Around the Clock, including the full and complete schedule of amateur and professional performances, go to: https://bachclock.com or facebook.com/batcmadison
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Classical music: What we learn when we learn music. To prepare for two events next Saturday featuring students and amateurs, here is an insightful and informative PBS video
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By Jacob Stockinger
One week from today, two big events will take place.
One is the new and improved Bach Around the Clock 5 celebration. The FREE and PUBLIC event takes place at St. Andrew’s Episcopalian Church, 1833 Regent Street, and runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
It features all kinds of music by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by not only professionals, but also by students and amateurs of many ages, from young children to adults. The idea is to mark his 333rd birthday.
For more information about BATC 5, which will be covered in more detail next week, go to this website, which also features a complete schedule of performers and repertoire.
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com/concert-schedule/
The other big event is the day-long series of Winterfest Concerts by the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). It starts at 11:30 a.m. and runs through the evening. It features hundreds of students from dozens of middle schools and high schools in the larger area.
Here is a link to the information about the series of concerts, which will also be treated more at length this coming week:
https://www.wysomusic.org/events/concerts-recitals/
In both cases, the larger importance of music education will be in the spotlight.
That’s all the more reason to spend three minutes listening to this week’s “Brief But Spectacular” segment from the PBS Newshour in which an accomplished musician discuss the benefits of music education beyond having a career as a musician.
It may also whet your appetite to take in one or both of the events next Saturday.
Here is a link to the YouTube video of that impressive segment:
Tags: #BachAroundtheClock, #EpiscopalChurch, #HighSchool, #JohannSebastianBach, #MiddleSchool, #MusicEducation, #PBSNewshour, #WisconsinYouthSymphonyOrchestras, adult, amateur, Arts, Bach, Baroque, big, birthday, Brief But Spectacular, career, Cello, Chamber music, children, choral music, church, Classical music, composer, concerto, concerts, Early music, Episcopalian, event, free, high school, idea, information, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, link, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Middle school, minute, Music, NewHour, opera, Orchestra, PBS, PBS Newshour, performer, performers, Piano, program, public, repertoire, schedule, series, Sonata, spotlight, St. Andrew, St.Andrew'sEpiscopalianChurch, Student, symphony, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, video, Viola, Violin, vocal music, web page, Website, week, Wisconsin, young, Youth, YouTube
Classical music: This Sunday brings a preview of Bach Around the Clock 5. Plus, a FREE song recital is on Friday at noon.
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CORRECTION: The two performances by the Madison Symphony Orchestra the were listed earlier in this post took place last Sunday, and are NOT scheduled for this coming Sunday. The Ear apologizes and regrets the error.
ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Musicale at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, features mezzo-soprano Consuelo Sañudo (below) and pianist Jeff Gibbens performing music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy, Andre Caplet and Maurice Ravel. The concert runs from 12:15 to 1 p.m.
By Jacob Stockinger
On this Sunday, March 4, you can hear a sample of the Bach Around the Clock marathon that will take place a week from Saturday, on March 10, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. in St. Andrew’s Episcopalian Church, 1833 Regent St.
The preview of the event that celebrates the 333nd birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below) will be this month’s Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen concert. It starts at 12:30 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.
NOTE: It will also be live-streamed from the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art via the following website:
The program features the popular Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major (with flutist Dawn Lawler, below top, as soloist) and the familiar Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 in D minor (with Mark Brampton Smith, below bottom, as soloist). (You can hear the opening of the Harpsichord Concerto in the YouTube video below.)
There will also be selections by Bach from the books for the Suzuki method.
Information about the program and performers is on the website above.
For more information about the complete Bach Around the Clock, as well as the Chazen preview, including the full schedule of works and performers with times and information about live-streaming, go to:
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com
Tags: #BachAroundtheClock, #BrandenburgConcerto, #CarolBarnett, #ChazenMuseumofArt, #ClaudeDebussy, #EpiscopalChurch, #FolkMusic, #GuitarMusic, #HarpsichordConcerto, #JohannSebastianBach, #KeyboardConcerto, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestraChrous, #MauriceRavel, #OvertureCenter, #RootsMusic, #SuzukiMethod, #TheWorldBeloved, #TinPanAlley, #UnitarianSociety, #UniversityofWisconsin-Madison, afternoon, American, Andre Caplet, Art, Arts, Bach, Bach Around the Clock, banjo, Baroque, bass, Beethoven, beloved, birthday, bluegrass, Book, Brandenburg Concerto, Chamber music, choral music, church, Classical music, composer, concerto, Debussy, Early music, eclectic, Episcopal, fiddle, First Unitarian Society of Madison, flute, Folk music, free, Gloria, guitar, harpsichord, hymn, information, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Keyboard, live, livestream, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, mandolin, marathon, mass, Mezzo-soprano, Museum, Music, musicale, Orchestra, performers, Piano, preview, program, schedule, singer, Singing, soloist, song, spiritual, St. Andrew, streaming, Sunday, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, Suzuki, symphony, The World Beloved, time, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Website, Wisconsin, works, world, YouTube
Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs rarely heard instrumental and vocal music this Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below, in a photo by John W. Barker) invites you to a concert of Baroque chamber music on this Saturday night, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m.
The concert is in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below), 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.
Members of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble include: Nathan Gigilierano – baroque violin; Brett Lipshutz – traverse flute; Sigrun Paust – recorder; Charlie Rasmussen – baroque cello; Consuelo Sañudo – mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger – traverso, harpsichord; Anton TenWolde – baroque cello; and Max Yount – harpsichord.
Tickets will be sold at the door only: $20 for the public, $10 for students.
For more information: Call (608) 238 5126; email info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or visit www.wisconsinbaroque.org
A reception will be held after the concert at 2422 Kendall Ave., second floor.
The program is:
Johann Friedrich Fasch – Trio Sonata for flute, violin and continuo
George Frideric Handel – Sonata for recorder and basso continuo, Op. 1, No. 7
John Dowland – “I Saw My Lady Weep”
Barbara Strozzi (below) – “Vane le mie speranze” (Are My Hopes in Vain?)
Pierre Guédron – Cessés mortels de soupirer” (Weep No More, Mortals)
Jean-Baptiste Barrière – Sonata for violoncello and basso continuo, Book 3, No. 4
INTERMISSION
Johann Joachim Quantz – Trio Sonata for recorder and flute in C major (in the YouTube video at bottom)
Tommasso Giordani – Duo for Two Violoncellos, Op. 18, No. 3
Nicola Matteis – Selections from “Ayres for the Violin,” Books 1 and 2
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair – “La Bergere” (The Shepherdess), Cantata for solo voice, flute and violin.
Tags: #ChamberMusic, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #WisconsinBaroqueEnsemble, announcement, Arts, Barbara Strozzi, Baroque, basso continuo, British, Cantata, Cello, Chamber music, church, Classical music, composer, Concert, continuo, duo, Early music, English, Episcopal, flute, French, George Frideric Handel, Handel, harpsichord, hope, Italian, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Baptiste Barrière, Johann Friedrich Fasch, John Dowland, lady, Madison, Mezzo-soprano, Michel Pignolet de Monteclair, mortals, Music, Nicola Matteis, Pierre Guedron, program, Quartz, reception, recorder, sheperdess, side, singer, solo, Sonata, song, St. Andrew, Student, ticket, Tommasso Giordani, traverso, trio sonata, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vain, Viola, Violin, vocal music, voice, weep, west, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, YouTube
Classical music: Bach Around the Clock 2018 is looking for participating performers to sign up
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s time to get practicing!
The Ear has received the following announcement to post for those who are interested in participating and performing in Bach Around the Clock 2018.
Dear friends,
I invite you to Bach Around The Clock, the annual FREE community festival celebrating the music and birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.
It will take place this year on Saturday, March 10, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side. There is free on-street parking in the surrounding neighborhood.
Players and singers; soloists and ensembles; beginners, amateurs and professionals — all are welcome to come share your musical gifts with the Madison community, and to enjoy the performances that will go on all day. Audience members can come and go, and stay as long or as short as they like. (At bottom is a YouTube video from a previous Bach Around the Clock with arrangements of a Two-Part Invention.)
Those who are unable to attend in person can view the event via live stream.
There will be an upright piano and a grand piano available.
This year there will also be a small back-up for concertos.
Performers and audience members can relax between numbers in the newly remodeled Parish Hall, directly below the Sanctuary, where refreshments, comfortable seating and free wi-fi will be available throughout the event, with birthday cake served at the end.
For more information, please visit our website at: bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com
To sign up for a performance time, visit our Contact/Sign Up page at bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com/contact/
Thank you and hope to see you there,
Marika Fischer Hoyt, Artistic Director Bach Around The Clock
Tel : 608-233-2646; batcmadison@gmail.com; www.facebook.com/batcmadison; bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com
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Classical music: Bach Around the Clock 2018 will be March 10. Here is a year-end update with impressive news and important changes
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By Jacob Stockinger
Violist Marika Fischer Hoyt, who last March successfully revived Bach Around the Clock after Wisconsin Public Radio dropped it five years ago, has sent the following year-end update that is full of impressive news, including this year’s date and a smart change of hours to 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. instead of noon to midnight:
“Bach Around The Clock,” the annual community celebration of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), exceeded all expectations in 2017.
“Approximately 80 performers were seen by almost 600 audience members. The performers ranged from beginning students (below top is a photo of the Suzuki Strings of Madison) to adult amateurs (below bottom is amateur pianist Tim Adrianson) to seasoned professionals including the Wisconsin Chamber Choir and the Madison Bach Musicians.
“The audience ran from around 300 persons at the church to 267 live-stream viewers, some from as far away as London, England.
“BATC gratefully acknowledges the valuable support received from Early Music America (EMA). In registering as a Partner of Early Music Month (an EMA initiative), BATC joined nearly 270 individual and organization Partners across the country whose events during the month of March were showcased on EMA’s website and social media.
“The enthusiastic Madison community response to BATC 2017 furnished strong supporting materials for an application for EMA’s coveted Outreach Grant. BATC, one of five organizations to win the award, received $500 and national recognition.
“As artistic director, I flew to Boston in June to attend the award ceremony, presided over by EMA Executive Director Ann Felter (below). The award will help cover the cost of the sound engineers who record and live-stream the 2018 event.
“While in Boston Marika was able to consult extensively with harpsichordist and internationally recognized Bach scholar Raymond Erickson (below), who kindly offered insights and perspective on how to build a successful Bach festival.
“BATC 2018 — to mark Bach’s 333rd birthday — is scheduled for Saturday, March 10, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., again at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below), 1833 Regent Street. Local luminaries will again take shifts as onstage emcees.
“The program will open once again with individuals and ensembles from the St. Andrew’s congregation, and continue with musicians from the Madison community and far beyond.
“In 2017, BATC attracted performers (below) from Milwaukee, Dubuque, Oshkosh and Chicago. For 2018 we’ve already been contacted by a pianist from North Carolina who wants to come perform The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II. It’s safe to say that the festival’s impact has expanded!
“New this year is the Ensemble-In-Residence, Sonata à Quattro, which will perform as a featured ensemble, and also play a supporting role for singers wanting to perform an aria, or solo instrumentalists wanting to play a concerto. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear the gorgeous slow movement of the Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor.)
Led by violinist Kangwon Kim (below), the core ensemble includes strings and harpsichord, and will add obbligato instruments as necessary. Sonata à Quattro will also offer a Fringe Concert during the Madison Early Music Festival at the UW-Madison in July.
“Partner organizations this year will include EMA, as well as the UW Chazen Museum of Art, where BATC ensembles will perform a preview concert on March 4, on the “Sunday Afternoon Live” series. Radio interviews on WORT-FM 89.9 and Wisconsin Public Radio are also in the works. Details will be announced in the coming weeks.
“St. Andrew’s will again make their beautifully remodeled Parish Hall available as a place for performers and audience members to enjoy refreshments, fellowship, restrooms, comfortable couches, and free wi-fi. Many thanks are due to the church staff and congregation, for providing BATC with a home.
“BATC is also in the process of establishing its status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which should help secure donations and funding. Completion of this process is expected in the next week or so, and will be announced on the BATC website and Facebook page.
“In addition, a board of directors is also being assembled, which should help ensure the survival on BATC by sharing the workload and responsibilities.”
Here is a link to the website, which has other links and information:
https://bacharoundtheclock.wordpress.com
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Classical music: After 20 years, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble still delivers performances to relish of Baroque vocal and instrumental music
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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 photographs.
By John W. Barker
On Nov. 26, 1997, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble gave its first public performance.
On Sunday afternoon, exactly 20 years later to the very date, the group (below) presented a concert at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in honor of this distinguished anniversary.
This ensemble is the longest-lasting, still-continuing group in Madison devoted to early music. Despite the arrival three years later of the Madison Early Music Festival, the WBE gave the very first start to building an audience here for this literature. (You can hear a typical concert in the lengthy YouTube video at the bottom.)
Working under Sunday afternoon time pressures, the group offered a particularly rich and diversified program, employing a total of seven performers: one singer, mezzo-soprano Consuelo Sañudo, with instrumentalists Brett Lipschutz (traverso flute), Monica Steger (recorder, traverse flute, harpsichord), Sigrun Paust (recorder), Eric Miller (viola da gamba), Max Yount (harpsichord), and founder Anton TenWolde (cello).
There were nine items on the program.
Sañudo (below) had in some ways the amplest solo role, singing five pieces: a cantata aria by Luigi Rossi; a long cantata by Michel Pignolet de Monteclair; a late villancico by Francisco de Santiago; and two particularly lovely songs by Jacopo Peri.
All these she sang with her usual devotion to textual as well as musical subtleties—making it a little sad that the provision of printed texts could not have been managed.
One solo sonata by Benedetto Marcello was for recorder and continuo, while one double sonata (below), a particularly delightful one by Georg Philipp Telemann for two recorders, and another one by the obscure Jacob Friedrich Kleinknecht rounded out these ingredients.
Along with continuo assignments, Eric Miller (below) played an extensive viol da gamba suite by Marin Marais.
Active in his own varying assignments, Lipschutz (below) bubbled with skill and charm in a set of variations for flute on a Scots folk melody, taken from a published collection credited to a mysterious Alexander Munro.
The program pattern was generally familiar, with each of the performers having a say in the choice of selections, notably their particular solos. In this sense, the group acts as a collective, as TenWolde likes to say, rather than an operation exclusively shaped by him.
As it has been defined and employed over two decades now, this organizational format has given so much for both performers and audiences to relish.
But, to be sure, there is more to come. So we will check back in another 20 years.
Tags: afternoon, Alexander Munro, American Record Guide, anniversary, aria, Arts, audience, Baroque, basso continuo, Benedetto Marcello, blog, Cantata, Cello, Chamber music, charm, choice, church, Classical music, collective, composer, continuo, decade, diversified, diversity, Early music, emeritus, Episcopal, flute, folk, foudner, Francisco de Santiago, gamba, Georg Philipp Telemann, gest, harpsichord, History, host, ingredients, Isthmus, Jacob Friedrich Kleinknecht, Jacob Stockinger, Jacopo Peri, John W. Barker, lecture, Luigi Rossi, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, Marin Marais, Medieval, melody, Mezzo-soprano, Michel Pignolet de Monteclair, Music, mysterious, organization, performance, photo, photograph, piece, posting, printed, professor, program, Radio, recorder, repertoire, retired, review, rich, sample, Scotland, Scots, selection, skill, solo, soloist, Sonata, song, St. Andrew, Suite, Sunday, text, theme and variations, traverso, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, variations, video, viol da gamba, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, WORT-FM 89.9, Writer, year, YouTube
Classical music: The Mosaic Chamber Players and the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble open their new seasons this Saturday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s another busy week at the start of the new concert season, and two more groups are giving opening concerts this Saturday night:
MOSAIC CHAMBER PLAYERS
On this Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., in the historic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Landmark Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, the Mosaic Chamber Players will open their new season.
The Madison-based group will perform an all-Beethoven program and complete its cycle of all the string sonatas. The program is the Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2; the Violin Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96 (performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter in the YouTube video below); and the Cello Sonata No. 5 in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2.
The performers are Laura Burns (below top) and Wes Luke (below second), violins; Kyle Price, cello (below third); and Jess Salek, piano (below bottom).
Tickets are $15 for the public; $10 for seniors; and $5 for students. Check or cash only.
Adds artistic director Jess Salek: “We have been opening our seasons with the Beethoven string sonatas for five years now, so this really exciting for us!”
WISCONSIN BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below) will give a concert of varied baroque vocal and instrumental chamber music on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street.
Members of the WBE are Mimmi Fulmer, soprano; Nathan Giglierano, baroque violin; Brett Lipshutz, traverse flute; Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Monica Steger, traverse flute and harpsichord; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello; and Max Yount, harpsichord.
Tickets at the door only are $20, $10 for students.
For more information, got to www.wisconsinbaroque.org
A reception will be held after the concert at 2422 Kendall Ave, second floor
The program features:
Johann Philipp Kernberger – Sonata in C major for traverso and basso continuo
D’India – “Piangono al pianger mio” (I Shed Tears, As The Wild Animals Do)
Cipriano de Rore – “Ancor che col partire” (Although When I Part From You), arranged for viola da gamba by Riccardo Rognini
Francesca Caccini – “Io Veggio i Campi Verdeggiar Fecondi” (I See the Fertile Fields Turn Green); “Dov’io Credea de Mie Speranze” (Where I Thought My Hopes Were Real)
Georg Philipp Telemann (below) – Trio Sonata for alto recorder, violin and basso continuo TWV 42:d10 (heard in the YouTube video below)
INTERMISSION
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair – duet for two traversi without bass
Francesco Mancini – Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for recorder and basso continuo
Georg Friedrich Handel – “Süsse Stille” (Sweet Silence)
Jean-Philippe Rameau (below) – La Pantomime (The Pantomime), from Pièces de clavecin, 4th concert; “Les Surprises de l’Amour” (Love’s Surprises), selected movement from Act II, transcribed by Ludwig Christian Hesse
Tags: alto, animal, Arts, Baroque, Baroque music, Beethoven, Cello, Chamber music, church, Cipriano de Rore, Classical music, continuo, D'India, duet, Episcopal, field, First Unitarian Society of Madison, flute, Francesca Caccini, Francesco Mancini, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Frideric Handel, harpsichord, hope, Jacob Stockinger, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Kernberger, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michel Pignolet de Monteclair, Mosaic Chamber Players, Music, night, Piano, Rameau, recorder, Season, silence, Sonata, soprano, St. Andrew, strings, surprise, sweet, tear, Telemann, traberso, transcription, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, viola da gamba, Violin, vocal music, wild, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, YouTube
Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet excels in music by Haydn, Dvorak and especially Ravel as it impressively opens its new season in two acoustically different venues
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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 Ancora String Quartet offered a nicely balanced program last Saturday night to open its new season at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
The program began with Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4, known as the “Sunrise” quartet. A work of the composer’s maturity, published in 1799, it shows him straining the boundaries of Austrian Classicism and pushing close to the proto-Romanticism of his student, Beethoven.
Each work in the program was preceded by a spoken introduction, given by a member of the ensemble, and for the Haydn quartet violist Marika Fischer Hoyt did the honors.
Then came three (Nos. 2, 5 and 10) of the 12 arrangements for quartet that Antonin Dvorak made from his song cycle, Cypresses. The spoken introduction in this case was given by first violinist Wes Luke (below), who not only spoke but also sensibly read aloud — in English translation — the words of each song. Dvorak’s deeply personal lyric expression came through the more meaningfully for that.
Finally came the Quartet in F Major by Maurice Ravel. For this, cellist Benjamin Whitcomb (below) gave a cogent spoken introduction. Ravel’s work matches Debussy’s string quartet — to be played later this season — as a chamber music contribution to so-called French “Impressionism.” But it also is one of the last great demonstrations of how initially stated themes can be quoted or re-introduced in new characters and colors throughout all the movements.
This program had special value for me because it was one I was able to hear twice on two successive evenings. I particularly profited from a double hearing of the Ravel, which allowed me to listen how the various themes popped out here and there in ever-varied differences. (You can hear the String Quartet by Ravel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The performances each time were beautifully precise and atmospheric, but the particular points of contrast involved instead a factor too often forgotten in evaluating a concert: the acoustic divergences of different performing sites.
The previous Friday evening, I heard the program in the Grand Hall of the Capitol Lakes Retirement Center. Its acoustics are tight and bright, bringing great clarity and immediacy to the playing.
By comparison, the sound at St. Andrew’s is bigger, richer and more reverberant, although differing in relation to how far up front or way back you sit—another variable to consider.
I spoke with the players about this, and it is clear that they must, and do, take account of such acoustic differences as they move from one performing site to another. Careful concert-goers, too, should always consider these differences as they listen.
A final thought: The Ancora String Quartet, which also includes Robin Ryan as second violin, has always played with splendid expertise and stylistic sense. But it seems clear to me by now that the settling in of Wes Luke as the new first violinist has brought added vigor and assertiveness to the group’s playing, making it an even more important ensemble than ever before in Madison’s musical life.
The concert will be repeated tonight in Janesville at 7:30 p.m. in the Kilmark Theatre of the UW-Rock County at 2909 Kellogg Avenue. The performance is FREE and OPEN to the public.
For more information about the Ancora String Quartet and its new season, go to the website: http://ancoraquartet.com
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Classical music: For reviving and securing Bach Around the Clock, The Ear names Marika Fischer Hoyt as “Musician of the Year” for 2017
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By Jacob Stockinger
Regular readers of this blog know how much The Ear likes to recognize community-based initiatives, amateur participation, and events that are affordable or free to the public and so help build and widen the audience for classical music.
On all those counts, the Musician of the Year for 2017 goes to Marika Fischer Hoyt (below) who revived Bach Around the Clock and has given it a seemingly secure future.
In Madison, Bach Around the Clock was originally sponsored and put on for several years by Wisconsin Public Radio’s music director Cheryl Dring. But when Dring left for another job five years ago, WPR ended the event, which got its national start in New Orleans and is now celebrated in many other cities to mark the March birthday of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
Yet it is not as if Fischer Hoyt didn’t already have enough on her plate.
She is a very accomplished and very busy violist.
As a modern violist, she plays with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and is a founding member of the Ancora String Quartet (below), with which she still plays after 17 seasons. She is also a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
As a specialist on the baroque viola, she is a member (below far left) of the Madison Bach Musicians who also plays for the Handel Aria Competition and the Madison Early Music Festival.
In addition, she is a private teacher who finds time to attend early music festivals around the country.
To get an idea of what she has done to put Bach Around the Clock (BATC) on a stable footing here, read the update posting from a couple of days ago:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/classical-music-bach-around-the-clock-2018-is-set-for-march-10-here-is-a-year-end-update-with-more-impressive-news/
Not only did Fischer Hoyt obtain the participation of some 80 performers — students and teachers, amateurs and professionals, individuals and groups– she also got cooperation, facilities, performers and help from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.
She obtained donations of money and even food to stage the event.
She herself played in the event that drew hundreds of listeners.
She lined up local sound engineers who recorded the entire event, which was then broadcast in parts by Rich Samuels (below) on WORT-FM 89.9 and streamed live as far away as London.
She served as an emcee who also conducted brief interviews about the music with the many performers (below right, with flutist Casey Oelkers)
Recognizing she can’t keep doing so much by herself, the energetic Fischer Hoyt has turned BATC into a more formal and self-sustaining organization with a board of directors.
She has sought advice from experts about Bach and Bach festivals.
She applied for and won one of five national grants from Early Music America in Boston.
She has consulted legal help to make BATC a nonprofit charitable organization, which should help guarantee a steady stream of funding.
And artistically, she has added a back-up mini-orchestra to accompany singers and instrumentalists.
The event this year is on Saturday, March 10, a little early for Bach’s 333rd birthday (March 31, 1685) but a smart decision to avoid spring break in the schools and at the UW, and to help recruit the many performers who are also important, if secondary, Musicians of the Year.
But the center of the event, the force holds it all together, is Marika Fischer Hoyt and all the hard work, done over a long time, that she has invested in making Bach Around the Clock a permanent part of Madison’s classical music schedule and cultural scene.
If you didn’t go last year, try it this year. It is wonderful, inspiring and enjoyable.
Please join The Ear in congratulating Marika Fischer Hoyt for making Bach Around the Clock the success it now is and giving it the future it now has. Leave your comments about her and BATC in the COMMENT section.
To celebrate, here is a YouTube video of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 by Johann Sebastian Bach:
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