The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Today is Sept. 11, 2020. Here is music to mark the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks during the coronavirus pandemic. What would you choose?
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CORRECTION: The Virtual Gala fundraiser for the Handel Aria Competition started last night, and will end on Thursday, Oct. 1 – NOT on Oct. 11, as mistakenly stated in yesterday’s blog headline. Here is a link with more information: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/09/10/classical-music-the-worldwide-virtual-and-online-gala-fundraiser-for-the-handel-aria-competition-starts-today-and-runs-through-oct-10-donations-will-be-matched-up-to-2000/
By Jacob Stockinger
Today marks 19 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
For the basic information, here is a Wikipedia summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
There are many ways to remember and honor the dead and the injured in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and Shanksvillle, Pennsylvania. And in past years, The Ear has offered many different ones.
There are the well-known requiems by Mozart, Brahms, Verdi and Faure; passions by Bach; and other works.
There are also the pieces especially composed for the commemoration, including “On the Transmigration of Souls,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning work by John Adams that incorporates police tapes and phone calls, and Steve Reich’s “WTC 9/11.”
But this year there is the coronavirus to deal with and complicate the commemorations.
Here is a story from NBC News about how the official commemorations, both real and virtual, will be affected by the pandemic.
And somehow in such circumstances, it feels like back to basic is a good approach.
So here, in the YouTube video at the bottom, is the most universal piece of mourning that The Ear knows: American composer Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” as played by Leonard Slatkin conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
It serves to mark 9/11 but perhaps also the more than 190,000 American deaths so far from the Covid-19 pandemic.
You can find other versions and other pieces on YouTube:
What piece would you want to hear to mark this sad and solemn occasion?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Today is Sept. 11. Here are 10 pieces by 10 different composers inspired by the terrorist attacks of 2001
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Sept. 11, 2018.
That makes it the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Two of the attacks took place on the Twin Towers (below) of the World Trade Center in New York City.
One took place on the Pentagon (below) in Washington, D.C.
And one, with an unknown target but perhaps either The White House or The Capitol, was thwarted on board Flight 93 when passengers forced the plane to crash in a field (below) in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In past years, The Ear has chosen certain pieces to play or link to.
This year he found a list of 10 pieces of new music, with photos of the composers and short paragraphs of background as a program note, on the website for Classic FM digital radio.
Some of the pieces and the composers he already knows – and suspects you do too. They include John Adams, Steve Reich, Joan Tower, Eric Ewazen, Ned Rorem and John Corigliano.
But there are also quite a few new titles and names, including Robert Moran, Anthony Davis, Howard Goodall and Michael Gordon. (You can hear Howard Goodall’s “Spared” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
You can find recordings on YouTube.
Here is a link to the story to help you to listen in remembrance – although silence is also perfectly appropriate:
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/memorial/classical-music-inspired-911/
Of course, lots of old music and historic composers can be suitable without being new music directly inspired by 9/11.
So please tell us: What music would you play to mark the occasion?
Leave your choice and the reason for it in the COMMENT section along with, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance.
Tags: #AnthonyDavis, #ChoralMusic, #ClassicFM, #DigitalRadio, #EricEwazen, #Flight93, #HowardGoodall, #JoanTower, #JohnAdams, #JohnCorigliano, #LivingComposer, #LivingComposers, #MichaelGordon, #NedRorem, #NewMusic, #NewYorkCity, #RadioStation, #RobertMoran, #September11, #ShanksvillePennsylvania, #SteveReich, #TerrorAttacks, #TerroristAttack, #TheCapitol, #ThePentagon, #TheWhiteHouse, #TwinTowers, #WashingtonDC., #WorldTradeCenter, #YouTubevideo, Al-Qaeda, Anthony Davis, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Capitol, Chamber music, choral music, Classic FM, Classical music, Compact Disc, composer, digital, Early music, Eric Ewazen, Flight 93, Franz Schubert, George Frideric Handel, historic, Howard Goodall, Jacob Stockinger, Joan Tower, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John Adams, John Corigliano, Living composer, living composers, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Michael Gordon, Mozart, Music, New Music, New Rorem, New York City, NPR, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Radio, Robert Moran, Sept. 11, Sonata, Steve Reich, symphony, terror attacks, terrorism, The White House, Twin Towers, United States, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, vocal music, White House, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, World Trade Center, YouTube
Classical music: Today is Sept. 11. What music would you listen to, to commemorate the terrorist attacks on that day
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By Jacob Stockinger
The news today will be filled with Hurricane Irma, Hurricane José and Hurricane Harvey as well as the wildfires raging out west.
But today is also Sept. 11, 2017.
That makes today the 16th anniversary of the deadly terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in the Twin Towers in New York City (below top); the Pentagon in Virginia, close to Washington, D.C. (below middle); and that thwarted hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, which passengers forced to crash in a field in Pennsylvania (below bottom) before it could reach the Capitol or White House.
During the September 11 attacks, 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 others wounded. These immediate deaths included 265 on the four planes (including the 19 terrorists), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon.
A lot of music could be played to mark the occasion.
At bottom, in a YouTube video, is “On the Transmigration of Souls,” a piece by the American composer John Adams that was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic specifically to mark the event. It ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize.
It uses both an orchestra and a chorus, and it incorporates voices and sounds, actual recordings and tapes, from the events of that day. It all makes for a moving tribute.
But other music, in smaller forms and in many other styles, would also be appropriate.
What piece would you suggest?
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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
Classical music: Pianist Aldo Ciccolini, who popularized the music of Erik Satie, is dead at 89.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Did I come to know the pianist Aldo Ciccolini through the music of Erik Satie?
Or did I come to know the music of Erik Satie through the playing of pianist Aldo Ciccolini (below in his later years)?
It says something to me – something very Sixties and very dear – that the two were, and remain, inextricable for me. (Once discovered, the more soulful music of Erik Satie (below) even found its way into popular culture and rock music through groups like ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears.”)
And the public’s taste for Satie continues. Satie, as played by Pascal Roge, was recently featured on the soundtrack to the documentary film “Man on Wire,” about Philippe Petit and his historic tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in New York City.)
And maybe it was that way for you too.
Last Saturday night, Aldo Ciccolini, a prize-winning concert pianist, a prolific recording artist and a renowned teacher whose students included Jacques-Yves Thibaudet, died in his sleep at the age of 89.
There is not much for The Ear to say except that Ciccolini did for me what the greatest artists do: Use beauty to hijack me from the ordinary world and elevate me in an unforgettable way.
I am pretty sure that I and many others did not know the beautiful, graceful and contemplative “Trois Gymnopedies” until the young and handsome Ciccolini’s perfectly paced recordings of those pieces, and of Satie’s complete works, received worldwide circulation and acclaim.
Perhaps the same goes for the music of Camille Saint-Saens, another of Ciccolini’s specialties.
Ciccolini was Italian, but he had an uncanny flair for French music, which remains under-appreciated even today — including the music of Francois Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Gabriel Faure — even if the works of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy have fared much better.
I think Ciccolini understood that special French hybrid of clarity and mystery, of rationality and passion, of Descartes and Baudelaire. (You can hear Ciccolini’s incomparable playing of Satie in a popular YouTube video at the bottom which has a lot of reader comments.)
Anyway, here are three obituaries with lots of great background information.
From NPR (National Public Radio):
From The New York Times:
From the BBC:
http://www.classical-music.com/news/aldo-ciccolini-1925-2015
Tags: Aldo Ciccolini, Arts, Asnières-sur-Seine, Baroque, Baudelaire, BBC, Chamber music, clarity, Classical music, Claude Debussy, Compact Disc, concerto, Couperin, Debussy, Descartes, Erik Satie, Faure, France, French music, grace, graceful, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition, Madison, Man on Wire, Music, Music conservatories of Naples, mystery, New York Times, NPR, Pascal Roge, Passion, Philippe Petit, Piano, popular culture, Rameau, rationality, Ravel, reason, Rock, rock music, Saint-Saens, soul, Twin Towers, YouTube
Classical music: What music will you listen to on Memorial Day? The Ear offers several stirring stories about music and Memorial Day, from Walt Whitman and the Civil War through World War II to the Twin Towers and the War of Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2014
My Mom always referred to it as Decoration Day
I liked that name. It seemed to fit the occasion better.
To be honest, The Ear has always liked the idea of honoring military service, but is much less inclined to celebrate unabashed militarism with parades and flag-waving (below is a photo of a Memorial Day parade in Chicago).
I think of Memorial Day as a sadder, more introspective and memory-driven holiday, as well as the traditional start of summer -– which, especially after a Wisconsin winter like the last one, is nothing to apologize for.
In any case, here is a link to an informative but very accessible history of the holiday that also highlights the important difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
But putting history aside for a moment, how would you celebrate the holiday artistically, especially musically?
That is what The Ear wants to know.
Every year, the excellent blog “Deceptive Cadence” on NPR offers its musical take on Memorial Day. This year is no different and NPR has chosen some moving words and music that you should check out:
But over the past years, The Well-Tempered Ear has also offered previous blog posts – some offering suggested listening, others seeking it — that still seem relevant and still invite readers to participate.
Here is one from last year:
And here is a link to memorable 2011 posting, which made a lot of suggestions for composers and specific works, then asked for reader feedback and also featured the moving version of Sir Edward Elgar’s beautifully poignant “Nimrod” Variation from the “Enigma” Variations (heard in the original orchestration at the bottom in a YouTube video that has almost 2,5 million hits and features Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Norah Jones in her “Hymn to America,” both used convincingly and touchingly in Ken Burns’ mammoth documentary film “The War”:
Finally, here is a stirring story, much of it previously unknown to me, about the history of “Taps” that appeared on NPR:
What music comes to your mind and heart when you think of Memorial Day?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Arts, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Civil War, Classical music, Daniel Barenboim, Decoration Day, documentary, Edward Elgar, Gulf War, Iraq, Jacob Stockinger, John Adams, Ken Burns, Korean War, Korrean War, Memorial Day, Music, Naval Hymn, Norah Jones, NPR, On the Transmigration of Souls, Second World War, Taps, The War, Twin Towers, United States, Veterans Day, Vietnam War, Walt Whitman, Wars, Wisconsin, World Trade Center, World War I, World War II, YouTube
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