The Well-Tempered Ear
The Madison Bach Musicians will open its new season with a virtual online concert of Haydn and Mozart this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement, about a promising contrast-and-compare concert, from the Madison Bach Musicians:
The Madison Bach Musicians (MBM) will start its 17th season this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, Oct. 3 and 4, with a virtual chamber music concert and livestream event featuring the irrepressibly joyous, witty and poised music of Classical-era masters Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).
The performances features period instruments and historically informed performance practices.
See details near the bottom about the schedules and how to buy tickets.
Performers are violinist Kangwon Kim and cellist James Waldo (on gut-strung period instruments), fortepianist Trevor Stephenson, and soprano soloist Morgan Balfour — winner of the 2019 Handel Aria Competition. (Below top is Kangwon Kim; below middle is James Waldo; and below bottom is Morgan Balfour.)
The broadcast will begin with a 30-minute pre-concert lecture by MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below, in a photo by Kent Sweitzer) illuminating the program’s repertoire, the lives of Haydn and Mozart, and the aesthetic aims of the period instruments.
While most of the pieces on the program are buoyant and full of celebration, the concert will begin with a pensive and melancholy work commensurate with our current pandemic times.
Mozart composed the Sonata in E minor for violin and fortepiano in 1778 at the age of 22 while on tour in Paris. His mother, who was with him on the tour, became suddenly ill and died unexpectedly. This sonata is the only piece of instrumental music Mozart ever composed in the key of E minor, and its blend of gravitas, sparseness and tenderness is heartbreakingly poignant.
Mozart’s Piano Trio in G major, composed in 1788, shows him at his sunniest and most affable, with one brilliant and catchy tune after another suspended effortlessly — at least in Mozart’s hands! ― within the balance of Classical form.
The program’s first half ends with five of Mozart’s songs. Mozart truly loved the soprano voice, and he lavished some of his greatest writing upon it. The set includes perhaps his best-known song, Das Veilchen (The Violet)―which is also, oddly enough, Mozart’s only setting of a text by the German poet Goethe.
The second half of the concert is devoted to the music of Mozart’s near contemporary, Joseph Haydn, who was just 24 years older than Mozart.
Though the two composers came from very different musical and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Haydn (below) was lower working class, rural, and musical but not professionally trained.
Mozart (below) was urban, solid middle class, musically trained, sophisticated, and ambitious.
Both managed to carve out successful careers in the fertile musical culture of Vienna and its environs. They certainly knew each other and even made music together on occasion, playing in string quartets — with Haydn on violin and Mozart on viola.
Haydn composed two sets of English Canzonettas (songs) during his visits to England during the early 1790s.
The Mermaid, with its flirtatious beckoning, stretches the confines of the parlor setting (where this music was most likely performed) and suggests a cabaret environment. Fidelity, on the other hand, stays within the parlor style, emphasizing how the bond of devotion can overcome physical separation. Haydn brilliantly interweaves stormy, naturalistic episodes with declarations of unbending loyalty.
The concert will close with Haydn’s mercurial Piano Trio No. 27 in C major. Also composed during his London visits in the 1790s, this trio is the first of a set of three dedicated to the London-based virtuoso pianist Therese Bartolozzi. The Presto finale―with its unbridled high spirits―is a supreme example of Classical Era cheeky, theatrically conceived wit. (You can hear the finale in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
SCHEDULE AND TICKETS
As a result of public health guidelines in response to Covid-19 that do not allow for an in-person audience, we will livestream our concert from Grace Episcopal Church, downtown on Capitol Square, on Saturday evening for at-home viewing. (Below are Trevor Stephenson and Kangwon Kim rehearsing in masks at Stephenson’s home.)
The event will begin with a pre-concert talk by Trevor Stephenson at 7:30 p.m., and after the 8 p.m. concert, the musicians will remain on stage to answer questions submitted by our audience.
On Sunday, starting at 3 p.m. we will rebroadcast the Saturday evening recording and follow that with a live question-and-answer session with our musicians from their homes.
After purchasing tickets for $15 per household, you will be sent a link to access the performance. The recorded lecture and video will be available for up to 72 hours after they take place.
To purchase tickets, go to: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/oct-3-4-haydn-mozart/ or to: https://madison-bach-musicians.square.site/product/haydn-mozart-oct-3-4-livestream/54?cs=true
For information about the Madison Bach Musicians’ full season, go to: https://madisonbachmusicians.org/season-overview/
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Classical music: The fourth annual Schubertiade at the UW-Madison takes place this Sunday afternoon – with some important changes
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By Jacob Stockinger
The fourth annual Schubertiade – a concert to mark the birthday of the Austrian early Romantic composer Franz Schubert (below top, 1797-1828) – is now a firmly established tradition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music (below bottom, in Mills Hall, which is rearranged for more intimate and informal on-stage seating.)
Over the past there years, the Schubertiade has become a popular and well-attended event. And with good reason.
Every time The Ear has gone, he has enjoyed himself immensely and even been moved by the towering and prolific accomplishments, by the heart-breaking beauty of this empathetic and congenial man who pioneered “Lieder,” or the art song, and mastered so many instrumental genres before g his early death at 31.
But there are some important changes this year that you should note.
One is that the time has been shifted from the night to the afternoon – specifically, this Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. in Mills Hall.
Admission is $15 for adults, $5 for students. (Below is this year’s poster, mistaking this year’s event of the third, with a painting by Gustav Klimt of Schubert playing piano at a salon musicale.)
After the concert, there is another innovation: a FREE reception, with a cash bar, at the nearby University Club. There you can meet the performers as well as other audience members.
The program, organized by pianist-singers wife-and-husband Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes (below), will last a little over two hours.
Usually there is a unifying theme. Last year, it was nature.
This year, it is friends Schubert knew and events that happened to him. It is called “Circle of Friends” and is in keeping with the original Schubertiades, which were informal gatherings (depicted below, with Schubert at the keyboard) at a home where Schubert and his friends premiered his music.
Performers include current students, UW-Madison alumni and faculty members. In addition, soprano Emily Birsan, who is a graduate of the UW-Madison and a rising opera star, will participate.
For more about the event, the performers and how to purchase tickets, go to:
http://www.music.wisc.edu/2016/12/19/schubertiade_birsan2017/
Here is a complete list of performers and the program with the initials of the perfomer who will sing the pieces:
Performers
Emily Birsan (EB), Rebecca Buechel (RB), Mimmi Fulmer (MFulmer), Jessica Kasinski (JK), Anna Polum (AP), Wesley Dunnagan (WD,) Daniel O’Dea (DO), Paul Rowe (PF), Benjamin Schultz (BS), singers. Bill Lutes (BL) and Martha Fischer (MF), pianists.
Program
Trost im Liede (Consolation in Song ), D. 546 (MF, BL)
Franz von Schober (1796-1882)
Der Tanz (The Dance), D. 826 (AP, RB, WD, PR, MF)
Kolumban Schnitzer von Meerau (?)
Der Jüngling und der Tod (The Youth and Death), D. 545 (PR, BL)
Josef von Spaun (1788-1865)
4 Canzonen, D. 688 (EB, BL)
No. 3, Da quel sembiante appresi (From that face I learnt to sigh)
No. 4, Mio ben ricordati (Remember, beloved)
Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782)
From the Theresa Grob Album (November, 1816)
Edone, D. 445 (WD, MF)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803)
Pflügerlied (Ploughman’s Song), D. 392 (BS, MF)
Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis (1762-1834)
Am Grabe Anselmos (At Anselmo’s Grave), D. 504A (JK, MF)
Matthias Claudius (1740-1815)
Mailied (May Song), D. 503 (DO, BL)
Ludwig Hölty (1748-1776)
Marche Militaire No. 1, D. 733 (MF, BL)
Viola (Violet), D. 786 (EB, BL)
Schober
Ständchen (Serenade), D. 920A (RB, DO, WD, PR, PR, MF)
Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872)
Epistel ‘An Herrn Josef von Spaun (Letter to Mr. Joseph von Spahn), Assessor in Linz, D. 749 (EB, MF) Matthäus von Collin (1779-1824)
Intermission
Geheimnis (A Secret), D. 491 (EB, MF)
Johann Mayrhofer (1787-1836)
Des Sängers Habe (The Minstrel’s Treasure), D. 832 (PR, MF)
Franz Xavier von Schlechta (1796-1875)
An Sylvia, D. 891 (MF, BL)
Shakespeare, trans. Eduard von Bauernfeld (1802-1890)
Nachtstück (Nocturne), D. 672 (DO, BL)
Mayrhofer
Das Lied in Grünen (The Song in the Greenwood), D. 917 (MFulmer, BL)
Johann Anton Friedrich Reil (1773-1843)
8 Variations sur un Thème Original, D. 813 (MF, BL)
Cantate zum Geburtstag des Sängers Johann Michael Vogl, D. 666 (AP, DO, PR, BL) Albert Stadler (1794-1888)
Ellens Gesang No. 3, Ave Maria, D. 839 (EB, MF)
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), from The Lady of the Lake, trans. Adam Storck (1780-1822)
An die Musik, D. 547 (You can hear it performed by the legendary soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and pianist Gerald Moore in the YouTube video at bottom)
Schober
Everyone is invited to sing along. You can find the words in your texts and translations.
Here is a link to a story in The Wisconsin State Journal with more background:
And if you want to get the flavor of the past Schubertiades, here are two reviews from past years:
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