The Well-Tempered Ear
New York Times critics choose 10 online classical music concerts to stream in February, starting this Thursday
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By Jacob Stockinger
As they have done for previous months during the coronavirus pandemic, the classical music critics for The New York Times have named their top 10 choices of online concerts to stream in February, which is also Black History Month, starting this Thursday, Feb. 4.
Also predictably, they focus on new music – including a world premiere — new conductors and new composers, although “new” doesn’t necessarily mean young in this context.
For example, the conductor Fabio Luisi (below) is well known to fans of Richard Wagner and the Metropolitan Opera. But he is new to the degree that just last season he became the new conductor of Dallas Symphony Orchestra and its digital concert series.
Similarly, the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg (below top, in a photo by Saara Vuorjoki) and the American composer Caroline Shaw (below bottom, in a photo by Kait Moreno), who has won a Pulitzer Prize, have both developed reputations for reliable originality.
But chances are good that you have not yet heard of the young avant-garde cellist Mariel Roberts (below top) or the conductor Jonathon Heyward (below bottom).
Nor, The Ear suspects, have you probably heard the names and music of composers Angélica Negrón (below top), who uses found sounds and Tyshawn Sorey (below bottom). (You can sample Negrón’s unusual music in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Of course, you will also find offerings by well-known figures such as the Berlin Philharmonic and its Kurt Weill festival; conductor Alan Gilbert; pianists Daniil Trifonov and Steven Osborne; violinist Leonidas Kavakos; and the JACK Quartet.
Tried-and-true composers are also featured, including music by Beethoven, Schnittke, Weber, Ravel and Prokofiev. But where are Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Handel? No one seems to like Baroque music.
Here is a link to the events with links and descriptions. All times are Eastern: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/arts/music/classical-music-streaming.html
Do you have other virtual and online concerts to suggest? Please leave details in the Comment sections.
Tags: #African-AmericanComposer, #AlanGilbert, #AlfredSchnittke, #AmericanComposer, #AngelicaNegron, #AnthonyTommasini, #AntonioVivaldi, #BaroqueMusic, #BavarianStateOpera, #BerlinGermany, #BerlinPhilharmonic, #BertoltBrecht, #BlackComposer, #BlackHistory, #BlackHistoryMonth, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #CarlMariavonWeber, #CarolineShaw, #ChamberMusic, #ClassicalSymphony, #ConcertSeries, #ContemporaryMusic, #CoronavirusPandemic, #CountertenorSinger, #COVID-19, #DallasSymphonyOrchestra, #DallasTexas, #DaniilTrifonov, #DetroitMichigan, #DetroitSymphony, #DetroitSymphonyOrchestra, #EasternTime, #FabioLuisi, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FranzJosephHaydn, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GeorgPhilippTelemann, #HamburgGermany, #HannahKendall, #HelmutLachenmann, #JACKQuartet, #JacobStockinger, #JohannSebastianBach, #JohnHoliday, #JohnStorgards, #JonathonHeyward, #JoshuaBarone, #KurtWeill, #LatinoComposers, #LeonidasKavakos, #LivingComposer, #LudwigVanBeethoven, #MagnusLindberg, #MarielRoberts, #MauriceRavel, #MetropolitanOpera, #ModernMusic, #MotherGoose, #MotherGooseSuite, #MunichGermany, #MusicCritic, #NDRElbphilharmonieOrchestra, #NewMusic, #NewYorkTimes, #OnlineConcert, #OnlineFestival, #OperaMusic, #OrchestralMusic, #PercussionEnsemble, #PercussionMusic, #PianoConcerto, #PuertoRico, #PulitzerPrize, #RichardWagner, #RiseandFalloftheCotyofMahagonny, #SeattleSymphony, #SergeiProkofiev, #SethColterWalls, #SoPercussion, #SteveOsborn, #StringQuartet, #TheEar, #TheMet, #TheThreeopennyOpera, #TheVoice, #TVShow, #TyshawnSorey, #ViolinConcerto, #VirtualConcert, #VirtualFestival, #VocalMusic, #YouTubevideo, #ZacharyWoolfe, abolitionist, African American, African-Amercian, Alan Gilbert, Alfred Schnittke, America, American, Angelica Negron, Anthony Tommasini, Antonio Vivaldi, Arts, audience, avant-garde, Bach, Barone, Baroque, Baroque music, Bavaria, Bavarian State Opera, Beethoven, Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Bertolt Brecht, black, black composer, Black history, Black History Month, blog, Brecht, Carl Maria von Weber, Caroline Shaw, cellist, Cello, Chamber music, chance, Classical music, Classical Symphony, colorful, comment, composer, computer, Concert, concert series, concerto, conductor, contemporary, contemporary music, context, coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, countertenor, critics, Dallas, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Daniil Trifonov, dergee, description, details, Detroit, Detroit Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, digital, Eastern time, enchanting, Europe, European, event, Fabio Luisi, Facebook, Facebook post, Facebook posting, February, female, festival, Finland, Finnish, forward, Franz Joseph Haydn, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, German, Germany, Gilbert, Hamburg, Handel, Hannah Kendall, Haydn, Helmut Lachenmann, Heyward, Hispanic, History, JACK Quartet, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Holiday, John Storgards, Jonathon Heyward, Joshua Barone, Kavakos, Kendall, Kurt Weill, Latina, Latino, Leonidas Kavakos, like, Lindberg, link, living composers, Ludwig van Beethoven, Luisi, Magnus Lindberg, Mariel Roberts, Maurice Ravel, Metropolitan Opera, modern music, Mother Goose, Mother Goose Suite, Munich, Music, music critic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Negrón, new, New Music, New York Times, online, opera, Orchestra, orchestral music, original, originality, Osborn, Overture, percussion, Percussion Ensemble, performers, Pianist, Piano, Piano concerto, post, posting, Prokofiev, Puerto Rico, Pulitzer Prize, Ravel, reliable, reputation, Richard Wager, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Roberts, Romantic, Schnittke, Season, Seattle, Seattle Symphony, section, Sergei Prokofiev, series, Seth Colter Walls, share, Shaw, singer, Singing, So percussion, Sorey, Steven Osborn, Storgards, stream, String quartet, suffragist, suggestion, Suite, symphony, tag, Telemann, Texas, The Ear, the Met, The Threepenny Opera, The Voice, time, Tommasini, Trifonov, TV, TV show, Tyshawn Sorey, United States, Violin, Violin concerto, violinist, virtual, Vivaldi, vocal music, Wagner, Weber, Weill, win, women, Woolfe, young, YouTube, Zachary Woolfe
Classical music: What pieces and performers first hooked you on classical music? Here is what hooked critic Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Every once in a while, it’s good to look back and realize with renewed appreciation what pieces and performers first hooked you at a young age on classical music.
That is exactly what Anthony Tommasini (below), the senior music critic for The New York Times, did this past week.
You could call it nostalgia, but it really was more of a Proustian act of recovering lost time, without a lot of sentimentality but instead with a lot of clear-eyed adult analysis and appreciation.
He was born into a non-musical family, but the young Tommasini nonetheless found himself inexorably drawn toward classical music.
As a young pianist, he got hooked on some unusual repertoire, short pieces that are often overlooked today. Can you guess which pieces by which composer? They might surprise you.
And he favored certain well-known dramatic works by Beethoven (below) especially one particular piano sonata he attempted to play as well as a couple of other sonatas and one of the piano concertos.
Both sets of works, small and large, were performed by two of the Truly Great Pianists of his youth — Arthur Rubinstein and Rudolf Serkin.
Tommasini also write about his first opera that hooked him for life on opera. Care to guess which one by which composer? And where he heard it?
You may recall that Tommasini, a trained composer, is probably the most respected classical music critic in the U.S. today, along with Alex Ross of The New Yorker magazine.
And local readers may recall when Tommasini (below right) came to Madison to do a residency during the UW-Madison’s centennial celebration of the Pro Arte Quartet two seasons ago. He spoke articulately and passionately at the Wisconsin Union Theater, then did a Q&A with composer William Bolcom (below left) and UW piano professor Todd Welbourne (below middle) before the world-premiere performance of a commissioned work, William Bolcom’s Piano Quintet No. 2, with the Pro Arte Quartet and UW pianist Christopher Taylor:
Anyway, here is a link to Tommasini’s story, complete with a terrific and an unexpected anecdote at the end as well as recordings of the specific pieces form his youth that you should listen to:
It wasn’t the first time Tommasini talked about seminal classical works in his past. Here is another that involved Chopin:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/arts/music/anthony-tommasinis-musical-moments.html?pagewanted=all
Like Tommasini, I too was given to romantic drama, or even melodrama, as a young person. That, I suspect, is typical. Young people don’t generally first fall in love with the Baroque. I just adored Sergei Rachmaninoff‘s Prelude in C-sharp minor, called “The Bells of Moscow” by its fans and called “It” by Rachmaninoff who grew to detest the popular piece that he was always asked to play as an encore. And I too had to try my hand or hands at it, to play and perform it. And then it was Rachmanioff’s lush Piano Concerto No. 2 in a great old recording by Arthur Rubinstein and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner.
What pieces and performers first hooked you on classical music?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Alex Ross, Anthony Tommasini, Arthur Rubinstein, Baroque music, Beethoven, Bells of Moscow, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, Fritz Reiner, Ludwig van Beethoven, New York Times, New Yorker, Prelude in C-sharp minor, Pro Arte Quartet, Rudolf Serkin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Tommasini, WILLIAM BOLCOM, Wisconsin Union Theater
Classical music: Should soloists perform using a score or not? Which is more liberating for the performer, for the audience and especially for the music?
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By Jacob Stockinger
As he often does, the New York Times’ senior music critic Anthony Tommasini recently raised an important question:
After 200 years or so, are we starting to see a trend developing whereby the stigma of performing solo music with a score is disappearing and the use of scores is increasing in legitimacy? Many conservatories or schools of music even require students to perform without a score for a degree recital. But that may be changing.
Tommasini’s column had the perfect headline: “Playing by heart – without or without the score.”
And Tommasini drew on three specific recent examples of pianists: Alexandre Tharaud, who played Scarlatti and Satie’s “Le Boeuf sur le Toit” at Le Poisson Rouge with a score; Andras Schiff, who played both books of J.S. Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” without a score; and Emanuel Ax, who used a score for solo Bach but did not use a score for solo Schoenberg. I have also seen Christopher O’Riley and others use scores on an iPad with a foot switch to turn pages. (All of Tommasini’s examples are seen below. First is Alexandre Tharaud, below, in a photo by Ruby Washington of The New York Times. Tharaud’s playing is also heard at the bottom.)
Is this a healthy or unhealthy development? Well it seems to depend on the individual performer and certain kinds of music (generally you find Chopin played without a score, but Elliott Carter and other new music with a score.)
Here is a link to Tommasini’s think piece:
The Ear is of two minds.
On the one, hand I remember reading pianist veteran Murray Perahia (below) saying that although he loved playing chamber music and did so with a score, he felt most on top of the music when he memorized it and played it without a score. And the concerts I have heard by him all suggest he is right.
I’ll also bet that Murray Perahia has excellent nerves for performing, and a relative lack of stage fright of the incapacitating kind. He has the right temperament.
On the other hand, even a master like Sviatoslav Richter (below) spent his last years using a score – and many critics said with great results. Of course, he said he turned to the score because age brought a decline in his perfect pitch, which used to help guide him through scoreless performances without wrong notes. Plus, the ability to memorize deteriorates with age.
And I can’t deny it: There is something so basic, so elemental and essential, about seeing a musician sit down at a piano or a cello and or stand with a violin, and start making music without any music in front of him or her.
It just all comes from within. Yes it is showy and impressive, but it also inner and poetic. I feel like I am hearing more directly and personally from the performers and that the lack of a score allows for certain liberties of subjective interpretation. (Below is a photo by Ruby Washington of The New York Times of Andras Schiff recently playing J.S. Bach by memory at the 92nd Street Y.)
What do you think about playing with a score?
Should solo pianists, singers, cellists, violinists and others now feel that using a score is just fine?
I’ll bet that many of them don’t t really use the score They have already have the music memorized and simply find the score reassuring, as a kind of insurance against memory lapses and the like. (Below is a photo by Hiroyuki Ito of The New York Times of Emanuel Ax using a score to play some solo Bach before he played with an ensemble.)
But what about opera singers using a score?
What do you think?
If you are a performer, The Ear especially wants to hear from you.
And if are an audience member, I also want to hear from you about what you think of heating a performer play scoreless or with a score.
Classical music: New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini revisits favorite moments in music for him – and the moments by Puccini, Debussy and Brahms submitted by readers.
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By Jacob Stockinger
You may recall that several weeks ago, The New York Times‘ senior music critic Anthony Tommasini (below) wrote at length about some of his favorite moments in music. They are small moments from Chopin and other composers that he sometime heard as a child or young man, moments that have lasted him a lifetime. They still move him.
(You might remember that the articulate and droll Tommasini also came to speak in Madison last season at the Wisconsin Union Theater and in Mills Hall –- a photo is below with Tommasini on the right, composer William Bolcom on the left and UW pianist Todd Welbourne in the middle as a moderator — as part of the Pro Arte Quartet Centennial celebration at the University of Wisconsin.)
You may also recall that, in addition to the story about musical moments, Tommasini, a composer and Yale-trained pianist, posted four short videos explaining how and why those favorite moments work.
Here is the original story, which I posted on Thanksgiving Day, and also links to the four videos:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/?s=Tommasini+Favorite+moments
Then just a few days ago, Tommasini answered reader responses and wrote a follow-up story, after his first story and the first four short videos he did. He used reader responses to speak of other favorite moments and post some other clips about the pieces:
Part 5: “La Boheme” by Puccini (below);
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/musical-moments-part-v-la-bohme/
Part 6: “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy (below, the slow movement from his “Suite Bergamasque”:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/musical-moments-part-vi-clair-de-lune/
Part 7: “Intermezzzo” for solo piano in E-flat Major, Op. 117, No. 1, by Brahms:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/musical-moments-part-vii-brahms/
Are there special moments in music that resonate with you? Please leave their titles and composers in the COMMENT section here and maybe also on Tommasini’s blog posting.
Who knows? He might use your suggestions for the next installment.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Critics for The New York Times name their Top 10 online classical concerts for May
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Even as we wait to see whether concerts in the next season will be mostly streamed or live, the critics for The New York Times have named their Top 10 classical concerts to stream and hear online in May.
The Times critics have been doing this during the pandemic year. So perhaps if and when they stop, it will be a sign of returning to concert life before the pandemic.
Then again, maybe not, since The Ear suspects that many listeners have liked the online format, at least for some of the times and for certain events. So maybe there will be a hybrid format with both live and online attendance.
As the same critics have done before, they mix an attention to contemporary composers, world premieres and up-and-coming performers, including the Finnish conductor Susanna Maliki (below top) in a photo by Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times).
In a welcome development, the recommendations for this month also seem to mention more Black composers, performers and pieces than usual, including the rising star bass-baritone Davon Tines (below, in a photo by Vincent Tullo for The New York Times).
But you will also find many of the “usual suspects,” including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Bartok, Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen and Shostakovich. (On the play list is Schubert’s last song, “The Shepherd on the Rock,” which you can hear in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
You will also find dates and times (all are Eastern), links to the event and some short commentaries about what makes the concerts, programs and the performers noteworthy.
Here is a link to the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/arts/music/classical-music-streaming.html
Do you know of local, regional, national or international online concerts that you recommend? Leave word with relevant information in the Comment section.
Happy Listening!
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