The Well-Tempered Ear
Pianist Jeremy Denk combines first-rate playing with innovative programs. He performs a virtual online recital this Friday night for the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
Jeremy Denk (below) is not only one of the top pianists on the concert stage today. He is also one of the most interesting and thoughtful pianists when it comes to original, innovative and eclectic programming.
Denk will display his talents again when he performs his third solo recital in Madison this Friday night, Dec. 11, for the Wisconsin Union Theater.
The concert of music by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Missy Mazzoli is at 7:30 p.m. and will be preceded by a public Q&A at 7 p.m. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, both the discussion and the concert will be virtual and online.
Access to the online posting is $20 for the general public, $17 for Wisconsin Union members, and $10 for students.
Denk’s performance, which is part of the Theater’s 101st Annual Concert Series, will include “Papillons” (Butterflies), Op. 2, by Robert Schumann; Three Romances, Op. 21, by Clara Schumann; “Bolts of Loving Thunder” by the contemporary American composer Missy Mazzoli (below); and Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 119, by Johannes Brahms. (You can hear Denk play the lyrically introspective first intermezzo of Brahms’ late Op. 119 in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
To purchase tickets to Denk’s performance, visit https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/jeremy-denk/
Ticket buyers will receive an email from the box office approximately 2 hours before the event begins that will contain their link to view the performance. Anyone who purchases a ticket within 2 hours of the event’s start time will receive their email within 15 minutes of purchase.
To The Ear, Denk’s well-planned and fascinating program seems like a probing contrast-and-compare, narrative exploration of the musical styles and close personal relationships – a kind of love triangle — between Robert and Clara Schumann (below top); between Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, whom Robert Schumann championed; and between Brahms and Clara Schumann, who also championed Brahms (below bottom) but rejected him as a lover and suitor after the premature death of her husband Robert.
One of America’s foremost pianists, Denk is a winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and the Avery Fisher Prize, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the United States, Denk has performed with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra and frequently performs at Carnegie Hall. Internationally, he has toured with the world-famous Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and performed at Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.
Denk’s talents include writing about music. Some of his stories about music have been featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review as well as in The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Guardian. Many of those writings form the basis for a forthcoming book.
His passion for composing both music and writing compositions is evident in his music-based blog “Think Denk” — “to think” in German is “denizen” — which dates back to 2005.
“Jeremy Denk is one of the greatest pianists of our generation,” says WUT director Elizabeth Snodgrass. “While many pianists specialize in a particular period or composer, Jeremy is a musical omnivore whose wide-ranging interests span centuries and styles, and he is exceptional at playing all of them. As The New York Times said, he is ‘a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs.’”
Proof of that can be found in the program “c. 1300-c. 2000” he toured with and recorded last year for Nonesuch, which features a sampling tour of 700 years of keyboard compositions.
Said a critic for the Boston Globe: “Denk has “an unerring sense of the music’s dramatic structure and a great actor’s intuition for timing.”
This performance was made possible by the David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Endowment Fund.
Learn more about Jeremy Denk at: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website
For more information and a video clip of Denk playing different Brahms, go to: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/jeremy-denk/
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Classical music: Acclaimed local soprano Sarah Brailey explains why performing artists and presenters need help during the COVID-19 pandemic
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By Jacob Stockinger
Sarah Brailey (below) is worried.
And with good reason.
Chances are good that you have seen the local soprano or heard her sing.
She is the artistic director of the Handel Aria Competition, which she herself won in 2015. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Brailey sing the aria “Will the Sun Forget to Streak” from Handel’s oratorio “Solomon,” with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra under conductor Julian Wachner, in the St. Paul Chapel in New York City.)
Brailey is a co-founder of and participant in the monthly free Just Bach concerts here. In addition, while pursuing graduate studies at the UW-Madison, she is a concert artist with a budding international career. For more about her, including a rave review from The New York Times and sample videos, go to: https://sarahbrailey.com
But right now the Wisconsin native is especially concerned about the lasting impact that the Coronavirus pandemic will have on her own career as well as on the careers of others like her and on the well-being of arts presenters.
Brailey (below, in photo by Miranda Loud) sent The Ear the following essay:
By Sarah Brailey
This is a scary time for everyone, but particularly for anyone who works as an independent contractor.
I am a freelance classical soprano based in Madison. I maintain a very active performing career, traveling all over the globe, and I am also a doctoral student at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music.
When COVID-19 hit the United States, presenting organizations on the east and west coasts started canceling concerts to comply with social distancing recommendations.
I initially thought I was lucky to be living in the middle of the country where our lesser population density might save us. Plus, I am a Teaching Assistant at the UW right now, so I will still be getting my stipend — although teaching virtual voice lessons will be its own special challenge!
But many of my colleagues are not so lucky and are facing bankruptcy. If the government doesn’t include independent contractors in its relief packages, a lot of people are going to be insolvent.
And I myself am not immune. As the seriousness of the situation became clear, all my concerts in the next two months soon disappeared one by one.
While not being able to perform is emotionally devastating, these cancellations are also financially devastating.
There exists a clause in every standard performance contract called “force majeure” (superior force), which is idiomatically referred to as, “an act of God.” This clause excuses a party from not honoring its contractual obligations that becomes impossible or impracticable, due to an event or effect that the parties could not have anticipated or controlled.
This can come in handy for a presenter if there is, say, a blizzard that necessitates the cancellation of a concert. (This happened to me a few seasons ago with the Boston Symphony.) If the presenter will not make any money on ticket sales, they are not then further injured by having to pay the musicians for the canceled concert. (Below, Brailey sings Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” with the Colorado Symphony.)
The ramifications of this pandemic are unprecedented. Every freelance musician I know is suddenly out of work. The current conventions put all of the upfront financial burden on the artists. We are paid in one lump sum at the end of a project. We do not get a fee for the countless hours of preparation.
We often book travel and lodging on our own dime, and are not reimbursed until the end of the gig. We pay for our own health insurance, and we cannot file for unemployment because our work is paid via IRS Form 1099 and not W2s. The abrupt work stoppage caused by this pandemic means insolvency – or even bankruptcy — for many artists. (Below, Brailey sings Handel’s “Messiah” at the famed Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York City.)
Many institutions — and, unfortunately, many of the bigger players like The Metropolitan Opera — are invoking force majeure without much regard for how their artists are struggling.
My colleague, tenor Zach Finkelstein, is covering this in great detail on his blog The Middle Class Artist, as is Alex Ross, the prize-winning music critic for The New Yorker. Read his piece on force majeure here.
However, there are also thankfully some good stories to tell. The Bach Society of Minnesota reimbursed all my travel expenses and is paying 75 percent of my fee, as is the Lyra Baroque Orchestra.
I am helping Zach keep track of the organizations that are helping their artists in this time of need. (Read about them here. Madison Opera is on the list.)
The arts are not just cultural enrichment; they are an essential part of our economy. In 2017, the industry contributed $877.8 billion, or 4.5 percent, to U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed over 5 million workers. We cannot afford to let this industry disappear. I fear that many individual artists and arts organizations will not recover from this. (Below, Brailey sings Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Magnificat” at the Bucknell Bach Festival.)
While we wait out this storm, I implore you to donate to a Madison arts organization. Here is a short list of recommendations along with some national relief funds for artists.
Local Arts Organizations
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Classical music: Happy Birthday to Lenny at 100! Here are some ways to celebrate today’s Bernstein centennial
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By Jacob Stockinger
One hundred years ago today, the versatile and world-celebrated American musician Leonard Bernstein (below) was born.
For most of his adult life, starting with his meteoric rise after his nationally broadcast debut with the New York Philharmonic, Lenny remained an international star that has continued to shine brightly long after his death at 72 in 1990.
When his father Sam was asked why he wouldn’t pay for young Lenny’s piano lessons and why he resisted the idea of a career in music for his son, he said simply: “I didn’t know he would grow up to be Leonard Bernstein.”
Lenny! The name itself is shorthand for a phenomenon, for musical greatness as a conductor, composer (below, in 1955), pianist, educator, popularizer, advocate, humanitarian and proselytizer, and so much more.
Here is a link to the Wikipedia biography where you can check out the astonishing extent of Lenny’s career and his many firsts, from being the first major American-born and American-trained conductor — he studied at Harvard University and the Curtis Institute of Music — to his revival of Gustav Mahler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein
You should also view the engaging YouTube video at the bottom.
So eager have the media been to mark the centennial of Leonard Bernstein, one might well ask: “Have you had enough Lenny yet?”
New recordings and compilations of recordings have been issued and reissued.
Numerous books have been published.
Many new photos of the dramatic, expressive and photogenic Lenny (below, by Paul de Hueck) have emerged.
TV stations have discussed him and Turner Classic Movies rebroadcast several of his “Young People’s Concerts.”
For weeks, radio stations have been drowning us with his various performances, especially his performances of his own Overture to “Candide.”
Still, today is the actual Leonard Bernstein centennial and the culmination of the build-up and hype, and if you haven’t paid attention before today, chances are you wind find Encounters with Lenny unavoidable this weekend.
Yet if you pay attention, you are sure to learn new things about Lenny who seems an inexhaustible supply of insights and interesting information, a man of productive contradictions.
With that in mind, The Ear has just a few suggestions for this weekend, with other tributes coming during the season from the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the University of Wisconsin’s Mead Witter School of Music and other music groups and individuals.
You can start by listening to the radio.
For most of the daytime today Wisconsin Public Radio with pay homage to Lenny. It will start at 10 a.m. with Classics by Request when listeners will ask to hear favorite pieces and offer personal thoughts and memories. After that a couple of more hours of Bernstein’s music will be broadcast on WPR.
Then on Sunday at 2 p.m., WPR host Norman Gilliland (below top) will interview Madison Symphony Orchestra conductor John DeMain (below bottom, by Prasad) about working with Lenny.
Here, thanks to National Public Radio (NPR), is the best short overview that The Ear has heard so far:
Want to know more about Lenny the Man as well as Lenny the Musician?
Try this review from The New Yorker by David Denby of daughter Jamie Bernstein’s book (below) that has juicy anecdotes and new information about growing up with her famous father.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/leonard-bernstein-through-his-daughters-eyes
And here, from Time magazine, is the little known story of how Lenny the Humanitarian conducted an orchestra of Holocaust survivors (below):
http://time.com/5376731/leonard-bernstein-holocaust-survivors-concert/
What is your favorite tribute to Bernstein so far? Leave a link in the COMMENT section if you can.
What is you favorite composition by Bernstein?
What is your favorite performance by Bernstein?
What would you like to say or tell others about Leonard Bernstein?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The New Yorker critic Alex Ross profiles and praises violinist Augustin Hadelich, who performs Dvorak with the Madison Symphony Orchestra this weekend
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By Jacob Stockinger
The timing could not be more perfect.
Alex Ross, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning writer who writes for The New Yorker and is considered by many to be the best classical music critic today, recently went to Detroit to report about the dramatic the rebirth of the Detroit Symphony.
He ended up devoting half the story to a great profile of the Italian-German violinist Augustin Hadelich (below), who was there as a guest soloist to play the rarely programmed Violin Concerto by the British composer Benjamin Britten.
Now it just so happens that the Grammy Award-winning Hadelich returns to Madison for the third time this weekend to perform another rarely heard violin concerto – the Violin Concerto by Antonin Dvorak – with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under MSO music director and conductor John DeMain (below in a photo by Peter Rodgers).
The “String Fever” program includes the rarely performed Sinfonia da Requiem by Benjamin Britten and the “Spring” Symphony by Robert Schumann, which is surprisingly the MSO’s first performance of this well-known work.
Performances are in Overture Hall of the Overture Center, 201 State St., on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10-$90.
For more information about the artists and the program as well as how to obtain tickets, go to:
https://www.madisonsymphony.org/hadelich
For program notes by MSO trombonist and UW-Whitewater professor Michael Allsen, go to:
http://www.allsenmusic.com/NOTES/1718/7.Apr18.html
And as usual there will be a Prelude Discussion – this time by John DeMain — one hour before each performance.
In addition, the MSO encourages audiences to arrive early because of security check-ins at the Overture Center.
But let’s go back to the profile by Alex Ross (below) of Augustin Hadelich.
In it you will read that:
Hadelich is focusing more on unusual repertoire by Britten, Henry Dutilleux, Gygorgy Ligeti and Thomas Adès than on the well-known violin concertos by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Bartok.
(An impressive virtuoso, whom Ross praises for both technical brilliance and musicality, Hadelich can be heard performing the famously difficult and familiar Caprice No. 24 by Paganini in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Hadelich has high praise for regional symphony orchestras that gave his career a boost, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, which he mentions by name along with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also points out how underappreciated many such regional orchestras are.
Hadelich is a methodical performing artist. The interview has fascinating background about how he works, including taking notes about each performance, and how he prepares for performances, including what kind of food he eats and when he eats it.
And there is more about Hadlelich’s compelling personal story as a recovered burn victim, about his outstanding playing, and about the life of an up-and-coming concert artist on the road.
The Ear found it fascinating on its own and excellent preparation for hearing Hadelich live. He hopes you do too. Here is a link:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/09/augustin-hadelichs-bold-violin-explorations
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Classical music: Remembering Rudolf Serkin
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By Jacob Stockinger
Among 20th-century pianists, Rudolf Serkin (below, in a photo by Yousuf Karsh) was a giant.
The Ear heard him live only twice.
Once was in New York City when Serkin played the “Emperor” Piano Concerto by Beethoven with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
The second time was years later in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater, when he played an all-Beethoven program of sonatas during the Beethoven bicentennial.
Then there were his many recordings, no less wondrous and captivating. They set standards hard to equal, let alone surpass.
The Ear especially loved his Beethoven concertos and sonatas, but also his Mozart and Schubert, his Schumann and Brahms. One of The Ear’s favorite recordings was Serkin playing both the Piano Concerto and the Piano Quintet by Robert Schumann. (You can hear the opening of the Piano Quintet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Serkin was a complete musician who excelled in solo music, chamber music and concertos.
Recently, The Ear saw the finest essay he has ever read about Serkin — who often seems overlooked or forgotten these days when the spotlight usually falls on his contemporaries Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz — in The New Yorker magazine.
Richard Brady, who usually writes about movies, captures the special magic that was Serkin’s.
In addition, the story offer 12 carefully chosen samples of Serkin’s playing, taken from solo recordings, concertos and chamber music, from older standard composers and classic works to more modern composers and works.
Here is a link:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/my-favorite-classical-music-release-of-2017
Did you ever hear Rudolf Serkin live?
What did you think?
Do you have a favorite work, live or recorded, played by Rudolf Serkin?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Why do we love Chopin? Ask pianist Jeremy Denk
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By Jacob Stockinger
I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like playing or hearing the music of Chopin (below).
Can you?
But just why the 19th-century Romantic composer has such universal appeal is hard to explain.
One of the best explanations The Ear has read came recently from pianist Jeremy Denk, whose essay on “Chopin as a cat” appeared in The New York Times.
Denk, who has performed two outstanding solo recitals in Madison, is clearly an important musical thinker as well as a great performer. You can also see that at once if you read his excellent blog “Think Denk.”
The Ear suspects the current essay grew out of some remarks that Denk gave during a lecture on Chopin’s pedaling at the UW-Madison, and will be incorporated into the book he is working on that includes his previous acclaimed essays in The New Yorker magazine.
Denk (below), who has lately been performing an intriguing survey concert that covers 600 years of music, thinks that Chopin’s uniqueness resides in how he consolidated and fused both conservative values and radical, even modern, innovations.
To the Ear, it is the best modern analysis of Chopin that he has read since the major treatment that the acclaimed pianist-musicologist Charles Rosen wrote about the Polish “poet of the piano” in his terrific book “The Romantic Generation.”
Moreover, the online web version of Denk’s essay is much more substantial and satisfying than the newspaper print edition. It has not only audio-visual performances of important Chopin works by major artists such as Arthur Rubinstein and Krystian Zimerman, it also suggests, analyzes and praises some “old-fashioned” historical recordings of Chopin by Ignaz Friedman, Alfred Cortot and Josef Hoffmann.
Now if only Jeremy Denk would record an album of Chopin himself!
Here is a link to the Chopin essay:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/arts/music/jeremy-denk-chopin.html
Enjoy!
Please listen to the wonderful clips that Denk suggests.
Then tell us what pieces are your favorite Chopin works, big or small, and what performers are your favorite Chopin interpreters.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alfred Cortot, analysis, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Bach, Ballade, barcarolle, Baroque, Beethoven, big, blog, cat, Chamber music, Charles Rosen, Chopin, Classical music, Compact Disc, composer, conservative, consolidate, essay, explanation, feline, Franz Schubert, fuse, harmony, hear, historic, Ignaz Friedman, important, innovation, interpreter, Jacob Stockinger, Jeremy Denk, Johannes Brahms, Josef Hofmann, Krystian Zimerman, lecture, Love, magazine, major, Martha Argerich, melody, modern, Music, musicologist, New York Times, Newspaper, online, pedal, pedaling, Piano, play, poet, Polish, Prelude, print, radical, read, record, recording, Romantic, small, SoundCloud, survey, The New York Times, The New Yorker, think, Think Denk, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, values, web, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: New Orleans seeks to once again become an American opera capital with an emphasis on diversity
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By Jacob Stockinger
When you think of opera in America, chances are good that you think of New York City with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera; the Lyric Opera of Chicago; the Houston Grand Opera; the Santa Fe Opera; and countless other opera companies in many major cities.
And when you think of New Orleans, you understandably think of jazz.
But the truth is that for a long time, New Orleans was an American capital for opera, more important than many of the other cities mentioned above.
Consider the fact that the first opera performed in the United States was performed in New Orleans in 1796. And that at one point, New Orleans was home to five opera companies.
Plus, the opera that was performed there in the past brought racial, cultural and gender diversity to an art form that often lacked it and was largely Euro-centric. (You can hear the company sing “We’re Goin’ Around” from ragtime great Scott Joplin‘s opera “Treemonisha” in the YouTube video at the bottom,)
Now some singers and others (below) have formed an organization – OperaCreole — with the aim of correcting racism and restoring New Orleans’ reputation for opera, especially that of the many African-American and Creole opera composers who were native to New Orleans.
A fine story, with an illuminating interview, recently appeared on NPR (National Public Radio).
Here is a link:
Another excellent story, with more focus on repertoire and history, appeared in The New Yorker magazine:
And here is a link to OperaCreole’s own website with more information about the company and its productions:
Tags: African American, America, Arts, Baroque, Chicago, choral music, cities, city, Classical music, composer, Creole, cultural, diversity, ethnic, gender, History, Houston, Houston Grand Opera, interview, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Met, Metropolitan Opera, Music, New Orleans, New York City, New York City Opera, New Yorker magazine, NPR, opera, Opera Creole, OperaCreole, race, racial, racism, Radio, rag, Ragtime, repertoire, Santa Fe, Santa Fe Opera, Scott Joplin, The New Yorker, Treemonisha, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, vocal music, Website, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Meet the Chinese phenom pianist Yuja Wang in a New Yorker profile that has more details than you have ever seen before
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By Jacob Stockinger
Whether you focus on her virtuosic playing or her sensational and controversial use of sexy fashion in performances, the young Chinese-born and American-trained pianist Yuja Wang is a phenomenon that has both audiences and critics talking in superlatives.
True, she is no newcomer to the concert stage and has been in the mass media for years.
Yet the best profile that The Ear has yet seen was written by acclaimed journalist Janet Malcolm and appeared this month in The New Yorker magazine.
It is pegged to Yuja Wang’s recent performance at Carnegie Hall of the famously difficult “Hammerklavier” Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 106, by Ludwig van Beethoven. (You can see and hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a link to the profile, which is chock full of personal and professional details:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/yuja-wang-and-the-art-of-performance
Tags: America, Arts, Beethoven, Carnegie Hall, China, Chinese, Classical music, fashion, Hammerklavier, Jacob Stockinger, Janet Malcolm, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Music, New Yorker, New Yorker magazine, Orchestra, Piano, sex, sexy, The New Yorker, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, YouTube, Yuja Wang
Classical music: Here is music to mark today’s 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
A lot of classical music – requiems, symphonies, chamber music, solo works – could be used to commemorate the event. You can leave your own suggestions in the COMMENT section.
But The Ear wants to post something specific to the anniversary – something well known and something relatively unknown.
First the well known work:
Here is a slide show with the music “On the Transmigration of Souls,” by the American composer John Adams (below), who was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to compose a work related to 9/11.
The composition mixes sounds from actual events with music, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.
When the Madison Symphony Orchestra performed it many seasons ago, it proved a deeply moving experience.
Here it is:
The events inspired other works too, including two by Kevin Puts (below), who was in Madison this summer for the premiere of a new song cycle and performances of his other instrumental works by the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society.
The Ear sure wishes there was a YouTube performance of the 16-minute work “Falling Dream.”
Here is a description by the composer:
“The piece was written in the months immediately after 9/11. Its composition was initially inspired by news footage I saw in which a couple leaped from one of the burning towers (below) holding hands.
“For months I was incapable of getting the image out of my head. It was so poetic in both its horror and beauty that I almost couldn’t justify a musical reaction to it.
“However I eventually found a way to illustrate the experience in extreme slow motion by creating a counterpoint of two slowly descending melodies, heard first at the beginning of the work. Episodes fade in and out of this slow descent like memories, but the illusion I wanted to create is that the falling never really ceases.
“The last section of the piece is, by contrast, a slowly building ascent that has no programmatic relevance but whose majestic quality functions as a message of hope.”
And here is a performance of Kevin Puts’ Symphony No. 2, which The Ear first heard on Wisconsin Public Radio. It too was informed by the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Here is what Puts, who was educated at Yale and the Eastman School of Music and who now teaches at the Peabody Institute of Music at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says about it:
“In the September 24, 2001 issue of The New Yorker writer Jonathan Franzen wrote, “In the space of two hours we left behind a happy era of Game Boy economics and trophy houses and entered a world of fear and vengeance.”
“My second symphony, while by no means a memorial, makes reference to this sudden paradigmatic shift. During the first eight minutes of the work, a slow orchestral build describes the unsuspecting climate pre 9/11, a naïve world aptly described by my mother as a metaphorical island.
“After a brief passage for solo violin, an upheaval of sorts effectively obliterates this opening sentiment and initiates another gradual crescendo which makes use of the same material as the opening, cast this time in darker and more ambiguous harmonic colors.
“Once the entire orchestra reaches the climax of the work, the solo violin returns in a more extended passage than before and subdues the turbulent orchestra. This leads to a reflective epilogue in which a clock-like pulse creates a mood of expectancy and uncertainty, interlaced with hope.”
Tags: 9/11, anniversary, Arts, Bach, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Baltimore, Chamber music, choral music, Classical music, Compact Disc, Eastman School of Music, economics, Game Boy, instrument, instrumental, Jacob Stockinger, John Adams, Johns Hopkins University, Jonathan Franzen, Kevin Puts, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Music, New York City, New York Philharmonic, On the Transmigration of Souls, Orchestra, Peabody, Pulitzer Prize, Requiem, Sept. 11, solo, symphony, terror, terrorisr, The New Yorker, Twin Towers, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, vocal music, wisconsin public radio, Yale, YouTube
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Classical music: With live concerts cancelled, what will you do for music? The Ear has some suggestions but wants to hear your ideas
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ALERT 1: It’s official. The Madison Symphony Orchestra has cancelled its performances of Dvorak’s Requiem on April 3, 4 and 5. Sometime this week, according to the MSO website, the administration will inform ticket holders about what they can do.
ALERT 2: The Mosaic Chamber Players have cancelled their performance of Beethoven Piano Trios on March 21 at the First Unitarian Society of Madison.
By Jacob Stockinger
Now that live concerts and performances have been cancelled for the near future – thanks to the threat of the pandemic of the coronavirus and COVID-19 — music-lovers are faced with a problem:
What will we – especially those of us who are isolated at home for long periods of time — do to continue to listen to music?
Perhaps you have a large CD collection you can turn to. Or perhaps you subscribe to a streaming service such as Apple Music, SoundCloud, Amazon Music or another one.
Don’t forget local sources such as Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT-FM 89.9, both of which generously broadcast classical music, from the Renaissance to contemporary music, and often feature local performers.
Here is a link to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR): https://www.wpr.org
Here is a link to WORT 88.9 FM: https://www.wortfm.org
There are also many other choices.
Happily, there is YouTube with its mammoth collection of free musical performances and videos. You can surf YouTube for new music and classic music, contemporary performers and historic performers, excerpts and complete works.
Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com
Those who are students or amateurs might use the time to sing – like those marvelous, uplifting Italians making music from their balconies during the crisis – or practice and play an instrument at home.
But other organizations – solo performers, chamber music ensembles, symphony orchestras, opera houses – are also trying to meet the challenge by providing FREE public access to their archives.
And it’s a good time for that.
Music can bring us together in this crisis.
Music can help us relax, and fight against the current panic and anxiety.
It’s also a good time to have a music project. Maybe you want to explore all the many symphonies or string quartets of Haydn, or perhaps the 550 keyboard sonatas by Scarlatti, or perhaps the many, many songs of Franz Schubert.
Here are some suggestions offered as possible guidance:
Here is what critics for The New York Times, including senior critic Anthony Tommasini (below) who likes Van Cliburn playing a Rachmaninoff concerto, will do: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/arts/music/coronavirus-classical-music.html
If you are an opera lover, you might want to know that, starting today, the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City will be streaming for FREE a different opera every day or night.
The productions are video recordings of operas that have been broadcast over past years in the “Live in HD” program. The titles are listed by the week and here is a link:
https://operawire.com/metropolitan-opera-to-offer-up-nightly-met-opera-streams/
If you like orchestral music, it is hard to beat the Berlin Philharmonic – considered by many critics to be the best symphony orchestra in the world — which is also opening up its archives for FREE.
Here is a background story with a link: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/coronavirus-concerts-the-music-world-contends-with-the-pandemic
Here is another link, from Norman Lebrecht’s blog “Slipped Disc,” to the Berlin Philharmonic along with some other suggestions, including the Vienna State Opera: https://slippedisc.com/2020/03/your-guide-to-the-new-world-of-free-streaming/
And if you like chamber music, you can’t beat the FREE performances being offered by the acclaimed Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, some of whom recently performed in Madison at the Wisconsin Union Theater and with the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra: https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/watch-and-listen/
But what about you?
What will you listen to?
Where will you go to find classical music to listen to?
Do you have certain projects, perhaps even one to recommend?
How will you cope with the absence of live concerts?
The Ear wants to hear.
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