The Well-Tempered Ear

Gramophone names the 50 best classical recordings of 2024 — so far

May 2, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

The monthly Gramophone magazine, based in London, is probably the most respected classical music periodical.

In addition to feature stories — such as, in the May issue, a remembrance of Maurizio Pollini, an interview with Korean piano phenom Yunchan Lim, a roundup of summer festivals and an assessment of Edward Elgar’s choral music — it offers well-informed reviews of recent recordings.

Here is the latest collection of critics’ reviews that cover recordings released so far in 2024.

You will find an impressive variety of artists, some only being rediscovered — such as the songs of Louis Beytds in the YouTube video at the bottom — and genres among the 50 selections.

Still, this selection seems to be heavier on piano music than is typical.

The choices are also noteworthy for the number of small labels that are singled out for high praise.

Plus there are bonuses.

Don’t forget to check out the links to the full reviews for more information about the music, the performer and comparisons with other recordings.

And at the bottom you will also notice links to Gramophone stories about the Top 20 Recordings of Haydn, Ravel, Verdi, Bartok, Debussy and Stravinsky. 

That is a lot of music  to explore and check out, especially if you have a streaming service.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/the-best-classical-music-albums-of-2024-so-far


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Is the math-music link real?

February 27, 2024
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By Jacob Stockinger

The blog post before the last one was about solving the “beautiful mathematics” in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here is a link: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2024/02/18/solving-the-beautiful-math-in-bach/

But does a link between math and music really exist?

And if such a link does exist, how strong is it?

Can one discipline be used to teach the other?

Many readers have no doubt heard of how devoted Albert Einstein (below) was to his violin, even playing string quartets at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He said he thought about physics in musical terms and found his greatest joy in music. He also played duets with physicist Max Planck, who was an accomplished pianist as were Werner Heisenberg and Edward Teller. 

Dr. Francis Collins, the well-known geneticist and former head of the National Institutes for Health, is known for playing the guitar. As the 2020 winner of the Templeton Prize for scientific and spiritual curiosity, Collins accompanies  superstar soprano Renée Fleming in the Stephen Foster song “Hard Times, Come Again No More” in the YouTube video at the button.)

Locally, the late pioneering University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist Jim Crow (below) played the viola, even sitting in with the Pro Arte Quartet.

The Ear also knows of many middle schoolers, high schoolers and UW students, especially undergraduates, who pursue dual majors in music and math, science or medicine — often to pursue a more practical and better paying career than being a professional musician.

Personal anecdotes can be dramatic and convincing.

But anecdotes and evidence are not the same thing.

Here is a more formal study:

https://www.iflscience.com/is-there-really-a-link-between-math-skills-and-musical-skills-73069

What do you think?

Are math and music linked?

Do you know of other famous examples?

What has been your own experience with math and music?

If you are a music, math or science teacher, have you noticed such a link among your students?

What do students themselves — for example, those in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) — say about such a math-music link?

The Ear wants to hear.


Met operas start this Saturday at noon on Wisconsin Public Radio and in local cinemas. Check out the Top 10 rising opera stars

December 8, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

The new season of weekly live radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera starts this Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, at noon on Wisconsin Public Radio. It open the “Met Live in HD” season at noon at the Point and The Palace cinemas on Madison’s west side and Sun Prairie, respectively. Here is the “Live in HD” schedule: https://www.metopera.org/season/in-cinemas/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA98WrBhAYEiwA2WvhOj0HP5-xcXKDJFvUeS_2VO_wu0imdxy1aRnN-aFgYuC3yYL90dbf2BoCFKsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

The opening opera is the exotic, lyrically melodic and Romantic “Florencia en el Amazonas” (Florence in the Amazon, below and in the YouTube preview at the bottom) by the Mexican composer Daniel Catan.

It will be the first opera staged in Spanish at the Met in many decades. But you might recall that the Madison Opera and Madison Symphony Orchestras under John DeMain presented it in an outstanding production at the Overture Center in the spring of 2018.

Here is a review from this blog to remind you about the work and the local production:

And here is the complete schedule of Met radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons, which includes works by Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Wagner, Gounod, Terrence Blanchard, Anthony Davis and Jake Heggie among others. 

https://www.metopera.org/season/radio/saturday-matinee-broadcasts/

But The Ear thought you might also like to read and listen to what OperaWire sees at the The Top 10 up-and-coming opera singers, who just might be heard in this season’s or future productions at the Met.

The story has profiles with biographies, appearances in upcoming productions, here and in Europe, as well as singing samples from YouTube:

What do you think of “Florencia en el Amazonas”?

Which singers, productions and broadcasts do you most look forward to?

The Ear wants to hear.


What is the best classical Halloween music?

October 29, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

There is a lot of spookily appropriate classical music to mark Halloween, which is this Tuesday.

The British radio station ClassicFM has published its choice of the “20 scariest Classical music pieces” for Halloween. Here’s a link to the website, which has links to performances of the pieces:

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/scary-classical-music-halloween/

But much has been left out from J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D  minor to Beethoven’s “Ghost” Piano Trio, from the finale of Chopin’s “Funeral March” sonata  to Philip Glass’s film score for “Dracula” (below):

At the bottom is a YouTube video that has another selection that offers 2.5 hours of Halloween music, maybe something you want to play while you pass out goodies to trick-and-treaters.

Do you have a favorite piece of classical music that particularly expresses the mood or atmosphere of Halloween?

The Ear wants to hear. 


Italian opera diva Renata Scotto dead at 89

August 17, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

World-famous soprano and opera director Renata Scotto (below) died yesterday — Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023 — in her home town in Italy. She was 89.

As an opera diva, Scotto was popular with both the public and the critics. She was known for a fiery temperament and for outstanding acting as well as singing. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Scotto singing the well-known and sublime Puccini aria “O mio babbino caro” from “Gianni Schicchi”  at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.)

Here is an obituary for the Associated Press:

https://apnews.com/article/renata-scott-soprano-death-39a56fb590f69073ef0d892f61e3c189

And here is a Wikipedia entry with more specific history and background plus extensive lists ion her recordings and videos:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renata_Scotto

Did you ever hear Renata Scotto in a live performance?

What did you think of her singing and acting?

Did you have a favorite role that you liked her in?

The Ear wants to hear.


A canceled Russian diva sues the Met. Who should win?

August 8, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

Soprano Anna Netrebko — singing in France in 2020 in the Getty Image below and singing the famous aria “Sempre libera” from Verdi’s “La Traviata”  in the YouTube video at the bottom — is a world-famous Russian diva and longtime opera star.

But ever since Russia’s war on Ukraine started, she has defended the so-called “special military operation”  — complete with war crimes and human right violations — and announced her continuing support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Like other nationalistic arts figures who have done the same — including the conductor Valery Gergiev and the pianist Denis Matsuev — her  career has suffered as she has seen concert appearances disappear and canceled or withdrawn.

Now she has filed a suit against the Metropolitan Opera and its general director Peter Gelb — whose Canadian wife Keri-Lynn Wilson has conducted tours of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. Netrebko is seeking $360,000 in damages and restoration of her fees for her upcoming cancelled performances.

Here is a story with the basics: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66413874

And here is a blog column by lawyer and Georgetown University professor Jonathan Turley (below) — a well-known legal analyst with a large public reputation for television and radio commentaries.

He supports Netrebko’s lawsuit in the name of free speech and artistic expression. He argues against cancelling her appearances and withholding payment because contracts have already been signed. And he compares such sanctions to loyalty oaths.

What do you think about artistic performances being canceled because the artist supports Russia’s war on Ukraine and Vladimir Putin?

Should athletes who act similarly be barred from competition, including the upcoming summer Olympics?

Do such cancellations fall under the heading of justified sanctions or illegal broken contracts?

Who do you think should win the lawsuit?

The Eat wants to hear.


Did incompetence and political correctness kill the UW Choral Union?

June 26, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

It’s time for some answers.

The taxpaying, music-loving public is owed that much.

But for the past two weeks, administrators in the University of Wisconsin’s Mead Witter School of Music have stonewalled concerns expressed by the public and alumni.

The school has continued its censorship of social media with a dismissive silence, and offered no specific explanation or reason why the campus-community, town-and-gown UW Choral Union (below) needs to be killed off after 130 years.

But ever since The Ear broke the story, which has only drawn outrage and anger, sources — who asked to remain unnamed — have offered reasons for the very unpopular move by a public university. The Ear can say  now that multiple sources agree in their allegations.

If you need to catch up, here is a link to the original blog posting and comments on June 12:

So the time has come to pass along what the sources say to the general public.

Now it is up to the School of Music to confirm or deny that what the sources say is true.

IS IT INCOMPETENCE?

Everyone who works with her or studies and performs under her has nothing but praise for Mariana Farah (below), the new Director of Choral Activities, as a person, colleague and teacher.

She has been singled out especially for her excellent, outstanding work with small choirs — a cappella choirs and choirs that use piano accompaniment, like the UW Choral Union.

But sources say she has no experience or very little in conducting an orchestra in combination with a large choir.

That is why the Choral Union’s performance last April of Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Laudab Sion” (Praise Zion) was conducted not by Farah, but by Oriol Sans (below), the highly praised conductor of the UW Symphony Orchestra. That also explains why the two shorter choral works were included in a symphony concert along with Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

If that is true, it seems a major disqualification for her current position — an oversight, mistake or deliberate policy decision by the administration and the faculty search committee that is hard to understand. 

If The Ear recalls correctly, the UW has never had a choral director who could not conduct orchestras and also teach graduate students to do the same.

If that is true, it seems like Farah is simply not yet experienced enough to lead a major choral program in a Big 10, world-famous university and a very highly rated music school.

Perhaps the school could arrange for conducting the Choral Union to go to Sans. But choral union members say he is more interested in the instrumental orchestra than in the choir. Besides, Sans has plenty of his own duties including teaching, rehearsing and conducting UW Symphony concerts, and accompanying the prize-winning opera program at the UW.

Or maybe the school could hire outside conductors — maybe bring back former director Beverly Taylor who is still working with the Madison Symphony Orchestra — to fill in, although that seems unlikely given budget constraints.

IS IT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS?

So what explains why Farah now heads the choral department at the UW?

Sources say much of the blame has to do with political correctness. 

Farah was desirable because is Brazilian and a woman of color who is interested in exploring new and alternative repertoire — not the great chorus-and-orchestra masterpieces by “dead white men” like Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi and Brahms. And apparently that is what the School of Music wanted too when it hired her over other candidates.

These are serious allegations that the sources are making.

The timing is also unfortunate. This is the last week of duties for the current director of the School of Music, Susan C. Cook (below), who oversaw the hiring of Farah.

Her successor, Dan Cavanagh (below) from Texas, takes office this Saturday and will possibly walk into a major scandal or conflict that he will need to resolve right away.

In addition, some Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature are strong critics of  “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” in the academic world. And this move feeds right into their concerns about shortchanging students and the public when it comes to basic skills and customary benefits.

That means the UW School of Music might be facing even more severe budget cuts.

But if the allegations are true, the administrators at the School of Music will have brought their misfortune upon themselves.

The Ear and the public are waiting to hear what the School of Music says besides the ill-timed, secretive announcement and banal, vague generalities about resources and core mission that they first offered.

Do you know anything more about the situation?

Do you have an opinion as to whether the decision should be reversed and the Choral Union should continue to exist?

Leave a comment in the Comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.


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UW-Madison School of Music kills off the venerable campus-community Choral Union 

June 12, 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music will end the long-lived campus-community Choral Union (below at the top, with soloists and the UW Symphony Orchestra at the bottom) starting this fall. You can hear an excerpt from Handel’s “Elijah” performed in the old Mills Hall in the YouTube video at the bottom.

The news, dated June 1, was posted quietly and anonymously on the school’s website. As The Ear understands it, members of the Choral Union were not contacted directly. They just had to find it. Plus, the summer seems a suspicious and inauspicious time for the announcement. Student, faculty and community members are on vacation. In addition, the new director Dan Cavanagh (below) will take over the office from Susan C. Cook in a little over two weeks, on July 1. No word on how he stands about the move.

Here is the music school’s website posting: https://music.wisc.edu/choral-ensembles/

It doesn’t come as a complete surprise to The Ear, since performances were reduced from two semesters to one semester shortly after Mariana Farah (below) became the new Director of Choral Activities in 2021 after the retirement of Beverly Taylor, who continues to serve as the choral director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

Student, alumni and community protests are already coming in expressing the resolve to reverse the decision.

Little wonder since the Choral Union was founded in 1893 and is one of the oldest on-going organizations on campus. It is hard to think of a better embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea. That concept is that the public university is to serve the taxpaying public that funds it — and these days community engagement is still supposed to be a high priority.

The Choral Union also seems like an exemplary educational program that gets soloists, the choir of students and the public, and the symphony to work together on a major project that also raises money for the music school.

Over many years, the Choral Union performances have also provided much of the most memorable music-making The Ear has ever heard at the university — or in the city. Works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Verdi, Faure and Benjamin Britten, among others, come to mind.

Here is the exact text, which is vague about any reasons for the cancellation of the 130-year-old Choral Union: 

Choral Union Update (June 1, 2023)

“Starting Fall 2023, the Mead Witter School of Music will no longer offer Choral Union. This change will allow the School of Music to devote resources to our core mission of serving UW–Madison students as well as to focus our public programming around new goals. 

“The School of Music and its choral program deeply value and appreciate the partnerships we have formed over the years with the Madison-area choral community. And we recognize that ending the Choral Union may be disappointing to some. 

“We hope that community members who participated in the Choral Union will continue to partake of the many opportunities available to engage with the School of Music such as choral concerts and the multitude of performances, lectures, and workshops we offer every year.” 

The negative reactions and feedback have already started. Here is one example:

The oldest organization at the UW-Madison has been canceled with an unsigned email and no public input?

This can’t be right.

The Choral Union is a beloved institution. 

We won’t let it go like this. We need to know what the issues are and solve them.

Let the discussion begin.

–Janet Murphy, alto member of the Choral Union, 2008-present

Spread the word. Should you or others wish to express an opinion of support or opposition, here are some email addresses and phone numbers:

General office:music@music.wisc.edu; 608.263.1900

School director Susan C. Cook: director@music.wisc.edu; 608.263.1900

Director of Choral Activities: mariana.farah@wisc.edu; 608.263.1900

What do you think of the UW killing off the Choral Union?

What would you like to know about the decision?

Would you like the UW School of Music to reverse its decision?

The Ear wants to hear.


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Going live! Here are some links to newly announced summer concerts and 2021-22 seasons

June 15, 2021
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By Jacob Stockinger

Get out your datebooks.

Now that the pandemic is fast abating, at least locally, music groups and music presenters in the Madison area have been announcing a return to live music and their new seasons and summer events in a relentless way.

The Ear had been out of commission since mid-May until this week. But in any case, The Ear was overwhelmed and just couldn’t keep up with a separate post for each one.

Still, he thought it might be helpful to be able to check the dates, performers, programs, tickets and other information in one place.

Remember that the Madison Early Music Festival is no more. It has been absorbed into the regular music curriculum at the UW.

Please know that many groups – including, but not limited to, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music (below is the UW Symphony Orchestra — masked, socially distanced and virtually streamed — during the pandemic), University Opera, Edgewood College, Just Bach, Grace Presents, the Salon Piano Series, the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Bach Around the Clock, the Festival Choir of Madison, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir and the Madison Bach Musicians – have not yet released details of their new seasons.

But most of their websites say that an announcement of their new season is coming soon.

There are also some trends you may notice.

Many of the groups are raising prices and persistently seek donations as well as subscribers, no doubt to help make up for the loss of revenue during the pandemic.

The Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra have reduced the number of concerts or start later.

Some have simply rescheduled events, like the Wisconsin Union  Theater closing its season with soprano Renée Fleming. And the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new season is largely the same one they were planning to have to celebrate the Beethoven Year in 2020-21.

The Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, the Middleton Community Orchestra and the Willy Street Chamber Players all have pop-up concerts and scheduled outdoor concerts in parks. Some have also scheduled individual mini-concerts or personal sessions.

If you look at programs, you will see an emphasis on Black composers and performers by almost all groups. (The Madison Symphony Orchestra has scheduled “Lyric for Strings” by George Walker, below. You can hear it performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

What is most disappointing is that no group seems to have announced a special concert or event to pay homage to the public ordeal, health care workers and victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ear keeps thinking a performance of a suitable requiem (by perhaps Mozart, Faure, Brahms, Verdi or Britten) or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would have been an appropriate way to start the in-person season and, at the same time, acknowledge the more than 7,000 deaths in Wisconsin and almost 600,000 deaths in the U.S. and almost 4 million worldwide as of now. Maybe even Barber’s overplayed Adagio for Strings would suffice.

Finally, very few groups seem to be offering online virtual concert attendance as a possibility for those listeners who found that they actually enjoyed at least some the  music in their own homes and at their own times.

IN ANY CASE, HERE IS WHAT HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE OR IS STILL ON TAP. CHECK IT OUT! 

Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in free live and for-pay recorded concertshttps://bachdancing.org

Middleton Community Orchestra’s summer concerts at Fireman’s Park (below) in Middleton: https://middletoncommunityorchestra.org

Madison Bach Musicians summer workshops (below): https://madisonbachmusicians.org/2021-summer-chamber-music-workshop/

Concerts on the Square with limited paid admission at Breese Stevens Field (below): https://wcoconcerts.org/concerts-tickets/concerts-on-the-square

Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers): https://madisonsymphony.org/concerts-events/madison-symphony-orchestra-concerts/

Madison Opera and Opera in the Park (below): https://www.madisonopera.org/oitp21/; and https://www.madisonopera.org/21-22/

Wisconsin Union Theater: https://union.wisc.edu/visit/wisconsin-union-theater/seasonevents/concert-series/

Willy Street Chamber Players (below) at Orton Park: http://www.willystreetchamberplayers.org/2021-summer-concert-series.html

If you know of more entries or have observations to make about these, please leave word and, when possible, a link in the comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.


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It’s Thanksgiving Day. Conductor Marin Alsop, NPR, WQXR, WFMT and Wisconsin Public Radio offer music suggestions. What piece would you choose to mark the holiday?

November 26, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Today – Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020 — is Thanksgiving Day.

Right now, the U.S. has had more than 12 million cases of COVID-19 with more than 260,000 deaths plus all the alarming signs and conditions that many more cases and deaths are coming in the next several months.

We might be sad that we can’t be with the family and friends we usually celebrate with. But we nonetheless have many things to give thanks for during this strange and tragic time.

We can thank the vaccine researchers; the doctors and nurses; and the other health care workers who take care of Covid patients, even those who don’t observe precautions and bring on their own illness.

We can thank all kinds of people on the front lines — food and transportation workers, for example — who help protect us and care for us.

We can thank the friends, family and others who stay in touch and help get us through these trying times.

And we can thank technology that makes isolating a lot less unbearable because we have telephones, radios, TVs, CD players, computers, cell phones and virtual online ZOOM meetings and gatherings and various other events including live-streamed concerts.

For The Ear, music has never meant more or brought more comfort than during this difficult year. He is giving thanks for that as well as for the other people and things just mentioned.

So what music should we celebrate this year’s emotionally complicated and mixed Thanksgiving holiday with?

Well, you can Google sources and go to YouTube to find compilations of music appropriate to the holiday. (See one playlist lasting 90 minutes in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Famed classical radio station WQXR in New York City has five suggestions for being musically grateful: https://www.wqxr.org/story/top-five-expressions-thanks-classical-music/

And WFMT in Chicago is offering 20 suggestions based on holiday food: https://www.wfmt.com/2019/11/25/a-complete-thanksgiving-feast-in-20-food-inspired-pieces/

But here are a couple of other suggestions, some local.

Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) is always a reliable source. And tomorrow is no exception.

If WPR programming stays true to past patterns, music by American composers will be emphasized.

Plus, starting at 10 a.m. WPR will broadcast performances from the Honors Concerts (below) by middle and high school students around the state and who participate in the Wisconsin School Music Association. This year, for the first time, the performances will be virtual. But as in past years, they are sure to be moving and even inspiring.

Other fine suggestions from the world-famous conductor Marin Alsop  (below), a Leonard Bernstein protégée, who recently spoke for 7 minutes to NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon. 

Here is a link, but you should listen rather than just read the transcript if you want to hear the musical samples: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/21/937448472/this-thanksgiving-put-on-some-music-to-soothe

Do you like any of those suggestions? Were any new to you?

What piece of music would you choose to express gratitude on this particular Thanksgiving?

The Ear wants to hear.

 


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