The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: World-famous Japanese violist Nobuko Imai will teach and perform two FREE concerts with students and the Pro Arte Quartet during her UW residency today and Thursday

October 30, 2019
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By Jacob Stockinger

Think of it as Viola Week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music — a chance to celebrate the gorgeous, mellow sound of a frequently but unjustly maligned instrument (below) the range of which falls between the higher violin and the lower cello.

The world-famous Japanese violist Nobuko Imai (below) is returning to the UW-Madison campus this week for a two-day residency where she will give master classes and perform.

Imai will be joined by two other distinguished guest violists, both Taiwanese: Wei-Ting Kuo (below top, in a photo by Todd Rosenberg) now of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and formerly the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; and En-Chi Cheng (below bottom), a prize-winning, concertizing student of Imai now studying at the Juilliard School.

For detailed biographies of all three violists  go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/nobuko-imai-with-wei-ting-kuo-and-the-uw-madison-viola-studio/

The violists will give two FREE concerts in the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Avenue.

At 7 p.m. TONIGHT, Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Collins Recital Hall, Nobai and the two other guest artists will perform with viola students at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. No program has been given for them. Nobuko will also perform a chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach with UW-Madison collaborative pianist Martha Fischer (below).

Then at NOON tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 31, in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall, the UW’s Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) will perform the melodious “American” Viola Quintet by Antonin Dvorak with Imai. (You can hear the second movement of the Dvorak quintet in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

In addition to a viola arrangement of the “Song of the Birds” by Pablo Casals, Imai will perform the Adagio movement from Beethoven’s Trio in C Major for Two Oboes and English Horn, Op. 87, with Wei-Ting Kuo and Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm (below, second from right). 


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Classical music: The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble performs a concert of music by Handel, Strozzi, Sammartini and rarely heard other composers this Friday night at 7:30

November 21, 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble (below bottom) will perform a concert of baroque chamber music on this coming Friday night, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below top), 1833 Regent Street, on Madison’s near west side.

Tickets are at the door ONLY: $20 for adults, $10 for students.

Members of the ensemble are: Eric Miller, viola da gamba; Sigrun Paust, recorder; Chelsie Propst, soprano; Charlie Rasmussen, baroque cello and viola da gamba; Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Monica Steger, traverso, harpsichord and recorder; Anton TenWolde, baroque cello; and Max Yount, harpsichord.

The program is:

Giulio Ruvo – Sonata for cello and basso continuo in A minor (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom played by cellist Charlie Rasmussen and harpsichordist Max Yount of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble)

Andreas Lidl – Trio for flute, viola and cello

George Frideric Handel – Cantata “Dite, mie piante” (Say, My Plants)

Unico Wilhelm Count Van Wassenaer – Sonata No. 1 for recorder and basso continuo

INTERMISSION

Barbara Strozzi (below): “L’amante segreto” (The Secret Lover) from Opus II (1651)

Giuseppe Tommaso Giovanni Giordani – Duo No. 2 for two cellos, Op.18

Giuseppe Sammartini – Trio Sonata No.  5 for two flutes and basso continuo (1727)

Handel – “Tanti Strali” (Many Rays) HWV 197

Michel Corrette – Concert “Le Phénix”

For more information: (608) 238-5126, email: info@wisconsinbaroque.org, or got to: www.wisconsinbaroque.org


Classical music: Sonata à Quattro celebrates early music and the importance of the viola in concerts this Friday night and Sunday afternoon

November 1, 2018
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By Jacob Stockinger

As far as The Ear can tell, Marika Fischer Hoyt has two big professional passions: early music, especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach; and the viola, which she plays, teaches and champions in the Madison Bach Musicians, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Bach Around the Clock (which she revitalized and directs) and now Sonata à Quattro (which she founded last summer, when it made its impressive debut as an adjunct event to the Madison Early Music Festival).

Those two passions will come together in Madison this Friday night, Nov. 2, and in Milwaukee this Sunday afternoon, Nov. 4,  in concerts by the new Baroque chamber music ensemble Sonata à Quattro (below) with the theme “Underdog No More – The Viola Uprising.”

Here are the two dates and venues:

Friday, Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight Street, in Madison; tickets are $15 and available at the door, and also online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3660161

Sunday, Nov. 4, at 4 p.m. at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2220 North Terrace Avenue, in Milwaukee; tickets are $20 for general admission, $10 for students at the door, and online at www.violauprising.brownpapertickets.com

Fisher Hoyt (below) has this to say this about the theme of “The Viola as Underdog”:

“A caterpillar turning into a butterfly – that was the violin in the 17th century. In the early 1600’s the violin evolved almost overnight from dance band serf into the rock star of the musical family.

But the viola’s larger size, heavier weight, more slowly responding strings and darker timbre kept it in the shadows, consigned to rounding out harmonies under the violin’s pyrotechnics. (Indeed, vestiges of this status remain to the present day, in the form of the omnipresent viola joke).

Composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven played the viola (below is Marika Fischer Hoyt’s baroque viola made in Germany in the 1770’s) themselves, and gave it challenging melodic and soloistic opportunities in their works. But these were the exception rather than the rule; the viola’s main role in the 17th century was that of filler in an ensemble.

But if agile violins and cellos serve as the arms and legs of a musical texture, the viola’s rich dark voice gives expression to the heart and soul. This added dimension is enhanced when, as happened frequently in France, Germany and Italy, two or more viola lines are included.

Our program presents works from 1602-1727 that explore those darker, richer musical palettes, culminating in Bach’s ultimate exaltation of the underdog, the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.” (You can hear the Bach work in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Performers in the group for these performances are Consuelo Sañudo, mezzo-soprano; Christine Hauptly-Annin and Anna Rasmussen, violins; Micah Behr and Marika Fischer Hoyt, violas; Ravenna Helson and Eric Miller, violas da gamba; Charlie Rasmussen, cello; and Daniel Sullivan, harpsichord.

The program includes:

Fuga Prima, from Neue Artige und Liebliche Tänze (New-styled and Lovely Dances(1602) by Valentin Haussmann (1565-1614)

Sonata à 5 in G Minor, Op. 2 No. 11 (1700) by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751)

Mensa Sonora, Pars III (1680) by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704)

Sonata à 5 in E Minor, TWV 44:5 by Georg Friedrich Telemann (1681-1767)

Sinfonia from Cantata 18 Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee (Just as the Rain and Snow) (1714) by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

INTERMISSION

Sonata à Quattro II in C Major  “Il Battista” (The Baptist) (1727) by Antonio Caldara (1670-1736)

Lament:  Ach, daß ich Wassers gnug hätte (O, that I had enough waters) by Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703)

Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051 (1718) by J.S. Bach

Here is a link to the Facebook page of Sonata à Quattro with videos and photos as well information about the players and upcoming concerts: https://www.facebook.com/sonataaquattro/

The Madison concert will be followed by a reception of dark chocolate, mocha and cappuccino.


Posted in Classical music
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