The Well-Tempered Ear
A biopic about Vivaldi is in the works
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By Jacob Stockinger
The baroque master and violin virtuoso Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741, below) composed the most recorded piece of classical music of all time: “The Four Seasons.”
The work was composed around 1720 and published in 1723, but because Vivaldi died in poverty and his music fell into obscurity, it was not rediscovered and recorded until 1939. And scholars are still finding manuscripts and rediscovering works by the prolific composer who has some 500 concertos and 40 operas to his credit.
The Roman Catholic priest with flaming red hair who was admired by J.S. Bach and who taught at an orphanage for girls in Venice, Italy, has been the subject of numerous biographies, critical studies and even novels, including mystery novels.
But now — after a 20-year delay since the script was completed and submitted — Vivaldi is about to hit the Big Screen in a biopic.
Last year saw “Maestro” about Leonard Bernstein and his wife. And a movie about opera diva Maria Callas is in the works with Angelina Jolie in the title role.
It seems a trend that might perhaps help attendance as concert organizations still are struggling to recover from the Covid pandemic. One wonders if we will see more Vivaldi programmed in response to his increased visibility and publicity his music will get thanks to Hollywood.
For more background and details, here is a link to the story on Classic FM:
Which is your favorite of the four violin concertos that make up “The Four Seasons”?
And what about Vivaldi’s other pieces, including the glorious “Gloria”?
The Ear particularly likes Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins. It is in A minor, RV 523, and you can hear the first movement played by Simon Standage and Collegium 90 in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Do you recommend a particular work by Vivaldi?
What is your favorite piece — choral, operatic, instrumental — by The Red Priest?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Is impromptuing the impromptu ok?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Recently, The Ear heard an unusual version of the very familiar Fantaisie-Impromptu for solo piano by Chopin.
It was played by the 35-year-old, prize-winning Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov (below). You can hear his performance in the YouTube video at the bottom.
What made it unusual is that the pianist took liberties and added passing notes or runs and a melodic overlay to part of it.
It seemed odd at first.
Why mess with Chopin, who was such a meticulous crafter of beauty?
But when you think about it, it makes a certain sense.
It is, after all, an impromptu. And an impromptu is based on and suggests improvisation.
So why not impromptu the impromptu? Why not add some extra spontaneity or variation, since many impromptus take the form of a theme with variations and elaborations.
These days performers are even expected to elaborate the Baroque repertoire, especially Bach and Handel. And it is becoming standard practice to do so with Mozart’s piano sonatas and concertos.
Now the Fantaisie-Impromptu is by far the most popular of Chopin’s four impromptus, no doubt in part because its lovely middle section melody inspired the classic Vaudeville pop song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.”
But the Fantaisie-Impromptu, the last composed, is The Ear’s least favorite of the four impromptus that Chopin wrote. And Chopin apparently didn’t like it much either. He wanted it to remain unpublished and destroyed.
It made me want to know: What might the same pianist do with the other three great impromptus by Chopin?
Or the famous ones by Schubert and the less famous ones by Fauré?
Listen to the 5-minute performance and tell The Ear what you think of the ornamented version that Kolesnikov plays?
Which one of four is your favorite Chopin impromptu?
What impromptus by Schubert and Fauré do you especially like? Would changing the score work with them?
What other impromptus by other composers do you suggest listening to and playing — and perhaps even ornamenting?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Remember Marika with Bach Around the Clock 2023. The FREE five-day, in-person and online birthday celebration begins today
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NOTE: You can see and hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Final Forte concert with four youth concerto finalists at 7 tonight on PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio. For complete information, including other airings, go to these websites: https://madisonsymphony.org/education-community/education-programs/young-artist-competitions/the-final-forte/ and https://pbswisconsin.org/the-final-forte/
By Jacob Stockinger
The seventh annual Madison-based Bach Around the Clock festival — a celebration of the March 31 birthday of composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1756, below) —- will start today and run through Sunday both in-person and online.
All events and streaming are free and open to the public.
As usual, it will feature professional and amateur performers of all ages and levels of proficiency in all kinds of repertoire and arrangements, including Bach on the Marimba.
It begins today, Wednesday, March 8, at noon with a Bach motet sung in Luther Memorial Church, 1021 University Ave.
The live portion, which will also be live-streamed, will end on Saturday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with continuous performances at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street on the near west side.
Then on this Sunday, March 12, the virtual online festival will premier.
For more details — including a full schedule with times, venues, pieces, performers and other links — go to:
Home
The Ear thinks of the entire festival as a life celebration and memorial not just for Bach but also for his avid local advocate, violist Marika Fisher Hoyt (below).
Hoyt — who was also a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Bach Musicians, the Ancora String Quartet, Just Bach and Sonata à Quattro — died Feb. 21 from cancer. She was one of the kindest and most caring persons, one of the hard-working and most energetic, talented musicians, that The Ear has ever known and worked with.
After Wisconsin Public Radio abandoned BATC in 2013, Fischer Hoyt rescued it in 2017, raised money and support, and expanded its offerings and performers as well as took it into a virtual online format as well as remaining an in-person event.
You can find many tributes online. You can also plug in her name on this blog’s search engine to get some idea of her overwhelming and inspiring contributions to the area’s cultural life. In 2017, The Ear named her Musician of the Year:
Classical music: For reviving and securing Bach Around the Clock, The Ear names Marika Fischer Hoyt as “Musician of the Year” for 2017
But the best tribute of all will be to listen to Bach’s extraordinarily inventive and beautiful music — her abiding passion and the gift she never stopped wanting to give to others — with Marika in mind.
You can also find videos from past BATC’s. But she once told me that the piece she loved most is the St. John Passion. So a YouTube video of the final chorus from that oratorio is posted at the bottom.
Have you attended or heard BATC before?
What did you especially like and would you recommend the event to others?
Did you know Marika Fischer Hoyt?
What would you like other people to know about Marika?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Music con Brio starts an annual Black Composers project with a FREE virtual concert
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement from Carol Carlson, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Madison-based Music con Brio (below), who is a violinist and holds a doctorate in music from the UW-Madison:
Hello friends,
Happy summer! I hope you are able to enjoy some rest, relaxation and fun in the sun.
I am emailing you because Music con Brio embarked on an exciting new project this year, and I want to share it with you.
In an effort to diversify our repertoire and guest artists, we have launched our new “Music by Black Composers” project. Last winter, our staff chose four pieces of music by Black composers and made student-accessible arrangements of them.
We then taught these new pieces during our online lessons this spring. On May 8, we gathered together outside at the Goodman Community Center, with four phenomenal local Black guest artists, to professionally record all four pieces.
And now, in lieu of our regular Community Concert Series this year, we are thrilled to present our first-ever Virtual Community Concert!
Click on the link to YouTube video at the bottom to watch and hear the 12-minute performance. Once there, click on Show More to see the composers, pieces and performers.
We are incredibly proud of our students and staff for all their hard work making this so successful. I’m sure you will enjoy their performance!
Please do feel free to pass the video along to anyone else you think might be interested in watching it.
And if you feel so inclined, we would really appreciate a donation in support of this work, which we plan to do every year from now on. To support Music con Brio and our Black Composers project by making a secure, tax-deductible donation, go to: https://www.musicconbrio.org/donate/
Thank you so much for your support! We hope to see you at a live concert again sometime soon!
If you wish to know more about Music con Brio, go to: https://www.musicconbrio.org
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The Ear is back
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear is back!
For the first time since the May 18 posting about the season’s last concert by Just Bach, The Ear can post a new entry.
For three weeks, The Ear struggled to correct the situation, but to no avail. But then yesterday everything suddenly seemed to fall into place and new postings became possible.
Some readers and subscribers have contacted The Ear to ask if he was ill or something disabling had happened. Thank you for your concern.
But let me reassure you. The absence and silence were due simply to the technological glitch on the WordPress.com platform.
In some ways, though, the involuntary sabbatical was welcome. It provided The Ear with an opportunity to consider whether he wanted to continue the blog after the past 13 years.
After much consideration, The Ear has decided to continue, at least for the time being.
But the blog will see some changes.
Stay tuned and The Ear will explain more in detail.
In the mean time, thank you for continuing to subscribe and read the blog. It has been gratifying to see both the loyalty of the readers, many of whom used the hiatus to explore the archives.
And if you have any comments or suggestions to make about the blog, please leave them in the Comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Pianist Jeremy Denk combines first-rate playing with innovative programs. He performs a virtual online recital this Friday night for the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
Jeremy Denk (below) is not only one of the top pianists on the concert stage today. He is also one of the most interesting and thoughtful pianists when it comes to original, innovative and eclectic programming.
Denk will display his talents again when he performs his third solo recital in Madison this Friday night, Dec. 11, for the Wisconsin Union Theater.
The concert of music by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Missy Mazzoli is at 7:30 p.m. and will be preceded by a public Q&A at 7 p.m. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, both the discussion and the concert will be virtual and online.
Access to the online posting is $20 for the general public, $17 for Wisconsin Union members, and $10 for students.
Denk’s performance, which is part of the Theater’s 101st Annual Concert Series, will include “Papillons” (Butterflies), Op. 2, by Robert Schumann; Three Romances, Op. 21, by Clara Schumann; “Bolts of Loving Thunder” by the contemporary American composer Missy Mazzoli (below); and Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 119, by Johannes Brahms. (You can hear Denk play the lyrically introspective first intermezzo of Brahms’ late Op. 119 in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
To purchase tickets to Denk’s performance, visit https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/jeremy-denk/
Ticket buyers will receive an email from the box office approximately 2 hours before the event begins that will contain their link to view the performance. Anyone who purchases a ticket within 2 hours of the event’s start time will receive their email within 15 minutes of purchase.
To The Ear, Denk’s well-planned and fascinating program seems like a probing contrast-and-compare, narrative exploration of the musical styles and close personal relationships – a kind of love triangle — between Robert and Clara Schumann (below top); between Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, whom Robert Schumann championed; and between Brahms and Clara Schumann, who also championed Brahms (below bottom) but rejected him as a lover and suitor after the premature death of her husband Robert.
One of America’s foremost pianists, Denk is a winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and the Avery Fisher Prize, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the United States, Denk has performed with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra and frequently performs at Carnegie Hall. Internationally, he has toured with the world-famous Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and performed at Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.
Denk’s talents include writing about music. Some of his stories about music have been featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review as well as in The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Guardian. Many of those writings form the basis for a forthcoming book.
His passion for composing both music and writing compositions is evident in his music-based blog “Think Denk” — “to think” in German is “denizen” — which dates back to 2005.
“Jeremy Denk is one of the greatest pianists of our generation,” says WUT director Elizabeth Snodgrass. “While many pianists specialize in a particular period or composer, Jeremy is a musical omnivore whose wide-ranging interests span centuries and styles, and he is exceptional at playing all of them. As The New York Times said, he is ‘a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs.’”
Proof of that can be found in the program “c. 1300-c. 2000” he toured with and recorded last year for Nonesuch, which features a sampling tour of 700 years of keyboard compositions.
Said a critic for the Boston Globe: “Denk has “an unerring sense of the music’s dramatic structure and a great actor’s intuition for timing.”
This performance was made possible by the David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Endowment Fund.
Learn more about Jeremy Denk at: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website
For more information and a video clip of Denk playing different Brahms, go to: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/jeremy-denk/
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Salon Piano Series offers a free video of pianist Maxim Lando playing quiet Beethoven to ease the burden of the pandemic
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following note from the Salon Piano Series to post:
During these uncertain times, we appreciate remembering time spent together enjoying music.
Please take a break from your day to see and hear the young, prize-winning pianist Maxim Lando (below) perform the theme-and-variations third movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109, “Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo” (Slowly, very singing and expressive).
The 15-minute video – posted and viewable now- — was recorded live at Farley’s House of Pianos, as part of the Salon Piano Series, on Nov. 17, 2019.
Over the years, you have supported Salon Piano Series with your attendance, individual sponsorships and donations. We look forward to bringing you world-class musical performances in our unique salon setting again soon.
For updates and more information, go to: https://salonpianoseries.org
Here is the Lando video:
Editor’s note: Here is a Wikipedia entry with more impressive information about Maxim Lando’s biography and many concert performances around the world including China and Russia as well as the U.S.: https://maximlando.com
If you want to hear the entire Beethoven Sonata, you can hear a performance by Richard Goode in the YouTube video below.
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Can American film director Ron Howard make a sensitive and accurate biopic of Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang? Or is it a cultural appropriation that deserves to be condemned?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The self-appointed PC diversity police have struck again.
This is getting silly and tiresome, insulting and embarrassing.
Some advocates of cultural diversity are crying foul over the latest project of the American and Academy Award-winning Hollywood film director Ron Howard: making a biopic of the superstar Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang (below).
The script will be drawn from the pianist’s bestselling memoir “Journey of a Thousand Miles” — which has also been recast as an inspirational children’s book — and the director and scriptwriters will consult with Lang Lang.
It seems to The Ear a natural collaboration, as well as a surefire box office hit, between two high-achieving entertainers. Check out their bios:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Lang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Howard
But some people are criticizing the project in the belief that because Ron Howard (below) is white and Western, he cannot do justice to someone who is Chinese or to Asian culture.
Here is an essay, found on the website of Classic FM, by one objector. She is Chinese film director Lulu Wang (below), who says she has no interest in doing the project herself: https://www.classicfm.com/artists/lang-lang/pianist-biopic-ron-howard-faces-criticism-lulu-wang/
Talk about misplaced alarm over “cultural appropriation.”
Don’t you think that Lang Lang will have a lot to say about how he is depicted?
Do you wonder if Wang thinks cultural appropriation works in reverse?
Should we dismiss Lang Lang’s interpretations of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Bartok simply because he is non-Western and Chinese rather than German, French or Russian?
Of course not. They should be taken on their own merits, just as the interpretations of any other Asian classical musician, and artists in general including Ai Weiwei, should be.
But however unfairly, cultural appropriation just doesn’t seem to work in reverse.
Mind you, The Ear thinks that cultural appropriation is a valid concept and can indeed sometimes be useful in discussing cross-cultural influences.
But it sure seems that the concept is being applied in an overly broad and even misdirected or ridiculous way, kind of the way that the idea of “micro-aggressions” can be so generously applied that it loses its ability to be truthful and useful.
Take the example of the heterosexual Taiwanese movie director Ang Lee. He certainly proved himself able to depict American culture in “The Ice Storm” and the gay world in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Let’s be clear. The Ear is a piano fan.
But if he objects to the project, it is because he doesn’t like Lang Lang’s flamboyant playing, his Liberace-like performance manners and showmanship, and his exaggerated facial expressions.
Yet there is no denying the human appeal of his story. He rose from a young and suicidal piano student (below) who was emotionally abused by his ambitious father – shades of the lives of young Mozart and Beethoven and probably many other prodigies – to become the best known, most frequently booked and highest paid classical pianist in the world.
Yet not for nothing did some critics baptize him with the nickname Bang Bang.
Still, the Curtis Institute graduate does all he can to foster music education, especially among the young and the poor.
And there is simply no denying his virtuosity. (See Lang Lang playing Liszt’s Paganini etude “La Campanella” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
So there is plenty to object to about Lang Lang the Piano Star besides the ethnicity of Ron Howard, who also did a biopic of opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, in telling his story.
What do you think?
Is it culturally all right for Ron Howard to direct a film about Lang Lang?
Do you look forward to the movie and seeing it?
What do you think of Lang Lang as a pianist and a celebrity?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Did Beethoven and his Fifth Symphony foster racism, exclusion and elitism in the concert hall? The Ear thinks that is PC nonsense. What do you think?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Controversy has struck big among classical music critics and fans — just in time for the Beethoven Year that will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth this December. Plans call for celebrations by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the UW-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, and others.
At question is what seems yet another fallout and dust-up from the Black Lives Matter movement and the current struggle to foster social justice and racial equality.
In some ways, it all seems inevitable.
Now the history-denying advocates of cancel culture are suggesting that Beethoven (below) and his music – especially the popular Fifth Symphony (you can hear the famous opening in the YouTube schematic video at the bottom) – fostered white privilege and the rise of racism, sexism and homophobia in the concert hall.
That seems like quite an accusation for a single composer and a single piece of music that was premiered in 1808.
The assertion is food for thought. But not much.
In the end The Ear finds it a stretch and a totally bogus argument. He thinks that Beethoven attracted far more performers and audiences than he repelled. Others, including famed critic Norman Lebrecht in his blog Slipped Disc and a critic for the right-wing newspaper The New York Post, agree:
https://slippedisc.com/2020/09/beethovens-5th-is-a-symbol-of-exclusion-and-elitism/
The Ear also thinks it is political correctness run amok, even for someone who, like himself, advocates strongly for diversity of composers, performers and audiences – but always with quality in mind — in the concert hall.
Just because Beethoven was such a great creative artist is hardly cause to blame him for the inability of other artists to succeed and for non-white audiences taking to classical music. Other forces — social, economic and political — explain that much better.
Yes, Beethoven is a towering and intimidating figure. And yes, his works often dominate programming. But both musicians and audiences return to him again and again because of the originality, power and first-rate quality of his many works.
Beethoven himself was deaf. That would certainly seem to qualify him as inclusive and a member of an important category of diversity.
No matter. The writers are happy to blame Ludwig and his work for exclusion and elitism. They argue that people of color, women and LGBTQ people have all felt alienated from classical music because of Beethoven’s legacy.
Of course, there is elitism in the arts. People may be equal, but creative talent is not.
And clearly, Beethoven was a towering and intimidating figure – more for the quality of his music than for the simple fact that it exists. Such exclusion and elitism have to do with other factors than the composition of the Fifth Symphony.
If The Ear recalls correctly, when he died Beethoven was given the largest state funeral up to that time for a non-royal, non-politician or non-military person.
And how do you explain that Beethoven’s music, so representative of Western culture, appeals deeply to and attracts so many Asians and Asian-Americans, and became both banned and symbolically central to those opposed to Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China?
But these days being provocative can become its own reward.
You can read the analysis and decide about its merits for yourself, then let us know what you think in the Comment section.
Here is a link to the opinion piece in Vox Magazine, a free online journal: https://www.vox.com/switched-on-pop/21437085/beethoven-5th-symphony-elitist-classism-switched-on-pop
What do you think about the idea that Beethoven played a large and seminal role in fostering an elitist and exclusive culture in classical music?
Did you ever feel alienated from classical music because of Beethoven or know others who have?
What is your favorite Beethoven composition?
The Ear wants to hear.
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The Well-Tempered Ear 
Watch ‘The Last Repair Shop’ — the Oscar-winning short documentary about music education
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By Jacob Stockinger
The beautiful and animated face of the young girl comes on the screen with a violin, smiles and says simply, “I love the violin.”
And we as viewers fall in love right then and there.
“The Last Repair Shop” just won the 2024 Oscar for Best Short Documentary. The 40-minute film, released in 2023, is now available to watch on YouTube.
It is a feel-good, feel-guilty story about the last shop to repair free musical instruments offered students in the Los Angeles public schools. But it is also a meditation on things that are broken– and not just musical instruments but also people, schools and politics.
It is really a story about growing up; about adults making art matter to young people; about the role of public education at a time when it keeps getting attacked by ideologues as well as stingy legislatures, city councils, school boards and, ultimately, voters.
Here is a capsule summary: “Since 1959, Los Angeles has been one of the few United States cities to offer and fix musical instruments for its public school students at no cost.
“Those instruments, numbering around 80,000, are maintained at a Los Angeles downtown warehouse by a handful of craftspeople.
“The film profiles four of them, each specializing in an orchestra section, as well as students whose lives have been enriched by the repair shop’s work. The film concludes with a performance by district alumni.”
It sounds irresistible — and it is.
Here are some more background and particulars — including other awards and honors — from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Repair_Shop
If you don’t have time right now to watch the whole film, the two-minute trailer is at the bottom. But if you go to YouTube yourself, you can also read the heart-warming and perceptive comments from other viewers:
What do you think of the movie?
How did you react?
And what do you think about the importance of music education in schools?
The Ear wants to hear
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