The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The coronavirus pandemic sparks a surge in piano sales
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By Jacob Stockinger
Have you or someone in your family used the COVID-19 lockdown and staying at home to practice, play or learn the piano?
You’re not alone.
A year ago, stories in the media tracked how pianos were quickly becoming a thing of the past in American homes. People were giving pianos away for free and for the cost of moving.
But then the coronavirus pandemic arrived, along with lockdowns, online learning and sheltering at home.
National news media discovered some unexpected good news, especially since public concerts have been canceled: The pandemic has brought a renewed interest in playing the piano at home – and in buying them.
The Ear wanted to find out if that same trend holds true in Madison.
“It does,” says Tim Farley, who — with his wife Renee — owns and operates Farley’s House of Pianos on the far west side near West Towne Mall. (The top photo from the store is from the Better Business Bureau. The two owners are seen below bottom in a photo from Isthmus newspaper).
“It’s weird,” he adds. “We had to close. When we re-opened, we cut back on hours and staff. Like many others, we figured there would be an end to business for a while.”
But just the opposite happened.
“Our sales are up about 34 percent compared to a year ago,” Farley adds. “We’re happy how things are going.”
Most of the sales increase has been in digital pianos, Farley says, although a lot of excellent acoustic pianos have also been sold, including a Hamburg Steinway.
Part of what accounts for the increase, he speculates, is that teachers inspire students to want better instruments.
Farley’s sells new and restored pianos (below), and also has an extensive teaching program, with online lessons during the pandemic. (For isolation practicing ideas and advice, see the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The Ear wonders if the same trend is happening in Europe and especially Asia — particularly China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan — where so many great young pianists are coming from and winning international competitions.
For more about the national picture in the U.S., including background history, information about prices, increases in online sales and the demographics of buyers, you should read this oustanding story by music critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times:
Here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/arts/music/piano-sales-coronavirus.html
Have you bought a piano or another instrument during the pandemic?
Are you using the down time to return to practicing and playing a piano or another instrument?
What would you like to say about making music during the pandemic?
Has making music helped you weather this odd period of time?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music education: The all-student Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) performs music by Mozart and Aaron Copland this coming Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
This coming weekend, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below in a photo by Steve Rankin) performs “Interplay,” featuring music by Mozart, Copland and Grieg.
There will be two performances.
The first is on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church (below), 203 Wisconsin Avenue, off the Capitol Square.
Then on Sunday, Aug. 5, MAYCO will perform at 12:30 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery 3 at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art as part of the monthly “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” series, which can be STREAMED LIVE by going to: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-8-5-18/
Admission for the Saturday performance is $10 at the door; students by donation. The Sunday performance is FREE, and reservations can be made by going to the above link.
For more information, visit www.mayco.org or www.facebook.com/madisonchamberorchestra.
ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA
MAYCO is a free summer festival ensemble dedicated to providing an intensive small orchestra experience for advanced high school and college musicians.
Founded in 2010 by music director Mikko Rankin Utevsky, the orchestra prepares a full program over the course of each one-week summer session, culminating in a public concert (below is a photo by Dennis Gotowksi of the concert this past June).
For The Ear, Utevsky (below top) and his general manager and concertmaster-wife Thalia Coombs (below bottom) answered some questions about the concerts:
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROGRAM?
The orchestra will be joined by guest soloist Trevor Stephenson (below), who is the artistic director and keyboard player of the Madison Bach Musicians. On fortepiano, he will solo in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, sometimes nicknamed the “Jeunehomme” Concerto. (You can hear the lively, tuneful and infectious last movement of the Mozart concerto in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Stephenson has led workshops on historical performance practices with the orchestra in past seasons, and we’re delighted to work with him to bring one of Mozart’s weirdest and wildest youthful masterpieces to life.
The ballet suite from “Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copland (below) is one of the defining works of his classic American sound, juxtaposing the pastoral beauty of the countryside with his trademark rhythmic vitality. We are performing the original chamber version, in which the clarity of texture illuminates the intricate internal structure of the piece.
Two high school students from our Conducting Apprenticeship Program will lead Grieg’s affecting miniature, “Last Spring,” for string orchestra. Cellist Elizabeth Strauss and violinist Monona Suzuki (below, in 2013) are this year’s Apprentices.
WHY IS THE CONCERT CALLED “INTERPLAY”?
We wanted to highlight the sense of conversation and interaction present in the two major works on this program.
The Mozart concerto is remarkable for the degree of interplay between soloist and orchestra. From the opening bars they are constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other’s sentences. It’s what gives the piece its unique sense of drama.
There’s a truism that Mozart made everything he wrote into an opera, and it’s certainly evident here: the melodies could have been lifted straight out of “The Marriage of Figaro.”
In the Copland work, it’s more about the intricacy of texture and the sense of playfulness in the way the various parts interact.
This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board; and by Dane Arts, with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
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Classical music: Master pianist Richard Goode performs music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Alban Berg in a MUST-HEAR recital this Saturday night at the Wisconsin Union Theater
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By Jacob Stockinger
He may not have the instant worldwide name recognition and box-office appeal of, say, Lang-Lang or Martha Argerich.
But in The Ear’s book American pianist Richard Goode (below) is nonetheless a superstar.
That is because Goode is a chameleon in the best sense.
Whatever he plays — live or on recordings — feels as if someone with a deep understanding and a natural affinity for the unique qualities of that specific composer and work is at the keyboard.
His Bach always sounds so Bachian. His Mozart always sounds so Mozartean. His Beethoven always sounds so Beethovenian. His Schubert always sounds so Schubertian. And his Brahms – for which he won a Grammy – always sounds so Brahmsian. (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear Goode discuss how he deliberately chooses a selective repertoire that he can return to again and again.)
Whenever you hear Goode, you come away thinking, “Now that is how the composer meant his music to sound.” Goode just disappears into the music.
Goode, who co-directed the venerable summertime Marlboro Music Festival for 14 years until 2013, always puts himself at the service of the music, never the other way around as so many other firebrand virtuosos do.
Goode, a shy man who collects books and fine art, is not given to flamboyance or theatrics. His interpretations always seem exactly right, never exaggerated and weird but both beautiful and emotionally convincing. He is, in short, a complete musician — recitalist, soloist in concertos and chamber music partner — and not just a great pianist. His is a quiet, self-effacing virtuosity.
You get the idea.
And you can sample such superlative musicianship for yourself this Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. when Goode returns to perform a varied recital in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
This is a performer and a program that no serious fan of the piano – professional or amateur, teacher or student — should miss.
On the program of music from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, are: a selection of Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, by Johann Sebastian Bach; Alban Berg’s Sonata No. 1; Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101, which Goode, who has recorded all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, says is his favorite; the Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1, and the Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 50, No. 3, by Chopin.
Wisconsin Public Radio host Norman Gilliland (below) will deliver a free pre-concert lecture at 6 p.m.
Tickets run from $20 to $47.
Here is a link to more background and information about obtaining tickets:
https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/richard-goode-piano/
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