The Well-Tempered Ear
Today – Monday, March 22 — is Day 6 of the 2021 online Bach Around the Clock festival. The program features string, keyboard, percussion and vocal music with some interesting transcriptions
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By Jacob Stockinger
Yesterday – Sunday, March 21 — was the actual birthday, the 336th, of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
But the 10-day virtual and online celebration being held by Bach Around the Clock (BATC) continues.
Here are the pieces and performers that will take place.
The Ear is especaially pleased by some of the transcriptions, which offer more proof of just how indestructible and versatile Bach’s music remains.
Particularly interesting is the string quartet version of the famous cantata “Wachet auf” (Sleepers, Wake) and the Three-Part Inventions or Sinfonias transcribed for marimba, and played by Sean Kleve (below), a UW-Madison graduate who performs with the critically acclaimed experimental Madison-based percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion.
Monday’s program is available starting at 8 a.m.
Click here and scroll down to Day 6 to view.
Performers
• Minuet 2 in G Major, Anh 116; Suite in G Minor, BWV 822; Gavotte from Double Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1043, I. Vivace. Suzuki Strings Sonora Ensemble
• Cantata 140: “Wachet Auf” (Sleeper, Wake), arranged for string quartet. St. Croix Valley String Quartet: Janette Cysewski and Debbie Lanzen, violins; Dianne Wiik, viola; and Joel Anderson, cello.
• French Suite No. 3 in B Minor for keyboard, BWV 814: Sarabande, Anglaise, Menuett and Trio. Kris Sankaran
• Sinfonia 1 in C Major, BWV 787; Sinfonia 7 in E Minor, BWV 793; Sinfonia 10 in G Major, BWV 796; Sinfonia 11 in G Minor, BWV 797; Sinfonia 15 in B Minor, BWV 801. Sean Kleve, marimba. (You can hear Glenn Gould playing the original version of the first Sinfonia in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
• Chorale: We thank Thee, Lord, for sending. Katie Hultman, soprano, and Kenneth Stancer, organ
Live and Recorded Evening Program at 7 p.m.
Click here and scroll down to Day 6 to view.
BATC audiences will remember pianist Lawrence Quinnett (below) from his exquisite renderings of selections from The Well-Tempered Clavier, at the 2018 Festival.
Quinnett, on the piano faculty of Livingstone College, returns in 2021 to give a brief talk on his approach to ornamentation in the six French Suites, as a prelude to his live performance of Suite No. 5. The floor will open for questions, followed by Quinnett’s recorded performance of the remaining five Suites.
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Classical music: A good pandemic project for the Beethoven Year is to follow Boris Giltburg as he learns and posts all 32 piano sonatas in one year
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By Jacob Stockinger
There are a lot of ways that musicians are celebrating the Beethoven Year of 2020 – the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer (below).
One of the most interesting ways also makes for an engaging and ongoing coronavirus pandemic project.
The prize-winning Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg (below in a photo by Sasha Gusov) is learning all 32 piano sonatas in one year.
It is a formidable challenge, not only because most of the sonatas are technically and musically difficult, but also because the pianist says he has played only nine of the 32 sonatas before.
Giltburg’s videos feature not only fine playing and interpretations, but also a very readable and informative diary he writes that includes notes – also available in German on the website — about the sonatas and about what the process of learning and playing them has been like.
His approach works and makes you a vicarious participant in the major undertaking.
He posts performances of the sonatas every few weeks. He is learning and posting them in chronological order so you get a sense of the evolution. Giltburg is now up to Sonata No. 9 in E Major, Op. 14, No. 1.
Here is some background about Giltburg from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Giltburg
And here is a link to more background at his personal website where you can also find information about his other recordings for Naxos (he is known for his Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Prokofiev) and concerts: https://borisgiltburg.com
But the heart of the project is at Beethoven32.com where you can find the sonatas starting from the first.
The Ear likes hearing them this way.
Listening to them one at a time and reading about them seems a less overwhelming way to become familiar with what is called “The New Testament” – as compared to the Old Testament of the 48 preludes and fugues in Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”
The Ear finds the playing first-rate and the sound quality excellent with great close-up videos of the keyboard and Giltberg’s playing.
Here is a link to the main website, which is easier than hunting for individual sonatas on YouTube: https://beethoven32.com
The Ear suggests starting at the bottom with Giltberg’s introduction and then working your way up one at a time, allowing time to appreciate both the music and his diary notes.
To get you started, here his introduction to the project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeBrn_kwvfg
And below is his performance the Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1.
Let us know what you think of Giltberg as a Beethoven interpreter and what you think of his sonata project.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Summer begins today with Make Music Madison. Plus, both American pianists have advanced in the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition
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By Jacob Stockinger
The summer solstice arrives this morning at 10:54 a.m.
That means today is when Make Music Madison takes place. Wisconsin’s capital city will join more than 1,000 other cities across the globe in celebrating live music-making of all kinds that is FREE and mostly outdoors.
Here is a link to the site with a map of various artists and venues – some 400 events in about 100 venues — and well as times around Madison:
http://www.makemusicmadison.org
Here is an earlier post with more details about the worldwide event:
But that’s not the only news today.
Last night, the 24 piano contestants in the preliminary round of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were trimmed down to 14 semi-finalists. (It was supposed to be 12, but the jury couldn’t agree on 12.)
And the good news is that both Americans — Sara Daneshpour (below top) and Kenneth Broberg (below bottom, in a photo by Jeremy Enlow), who performed a recital last season in Madison at the Salon Piano Series held at Farley’s House of Pianos — made the cut. The next round starts very early today, given the 8 hours ahead time difference between here and Moscow, and runs into the afternoon.
Here is the complete list of the piano semi-finalists:
https://tch16.medici.tv/en/news/piano-first-round-results/
Of course, pianists aren’t the only ones who might be interested in the competition that became well known in the West when Van Cliburn won the inaugural competition in 1958.
These days, competitions are also going on in violin, cello, voice, brass and woodwinds as well as piano.
What’s more, the entire competition is being live-streamed on Medici TV, and all the performances, from the preliminaries through the finals, are being streamed in real time and also archived. Plus, it’s all FREE. Thank you, Medici!
Here is a link. You’ll find archived performances, which go up pretty fast, under replays. The Ear has found that the sound is excellent and the website pretty self-explanatory and easy to navigate. Check out the preliminary recitals with music by Bach, Haydn. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and of course Tchaikovsky. Here is a link:
Today being the first day of summer, you’ll probably get to hear “Summer” from “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi.
But given other news, something by Tchaikovsky seems especially appropriate. So here is the “June” Barcarolle, or boat song, from the solo piano suite “The Four Seasons,” which features one piece for each of the 12 months in the year. You can hear “June” in the YouTube video at the bottom.
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Classical music: Bach Around the Clock marks Johann Sebastian’s 334th birthday next Saturday with a FREE 12-hour celebration. Here is the full schedule. Plus, Parry Karp plays all-French cello music on Thursday night
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ALERT: This coming Thursday night, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW-Madison cellist Parry Karp, of the Pro Arte Quartet, will perform a FREE all-French recital with longtime piano partner Eli Kalman of the UW-Oshkosh. The program includes the Cello Sonata by Claude Debussy; the Cello Sonata by Albéric Magnard; “Granada” from “Foreign Evenings” by Louis Vierne; and Cello Sonata No. 1 by Camille Saint-Saens. For more information, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/faculty-recital-parry-karp-cello-and-eli-kalman-piano-2/
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By Jacob Stockinger
The event is coming a couple of weeks earlier than the actual birthday on March 21.
But next Saturday, March 2, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m., the annual Bach Around the Clock will celebrate the 334th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
At 10 p.m., there will even be a birthday cake for the birthday boy and for those who are still there celebrating the Big Bang of classical music.
The FREE informal event – complete with interviews, snacks and beverages – will take place at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street on Madison’s near west side close to Randall Elementary School.
How do you like your Bach?
Sung? Played on instruments?
As originally scored? As arranged and transcribed?
Played by students? By adult amateurs? Or by professionals?
Whatever you are looking for and love to hear, chances are good you will find it on the schedule. There will be all of the above, and more. There will be cantatas and concertos, suites and sonatas, preludes and fugues. (You can hear the instantly recognizable and frequently played Prelude No. 1 in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The whole event will be streamed live locally and beyond.
To get an idea of what will happen from previous events, go to the previous blog post, which has a lot of photos, or use this blog’s search engine:
For more information, here is a link to the home website that has both the full schedule and a link for streaming as well as other information about free parking as well as how to participate in and support the event.
Here is the specific link to the full schedule, with names of performers and pieces:
https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule/
Take a look. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations about what others should attend and listen to? Leave a COMMENT if you want.
The Ear wants to hear.
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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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Classical music: Here are the Top 10 things to know about Handel’s “Messiah.” The Madison Bach Musicians will perform it with period instruments this Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
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ALERT: Tomorrow on Tuesday, April 5, there will be two on-air events about the Madison Bach Musicians’ performances of Handel’s “Messiah”: On Wisconsin Public Radio’s Midday program on WERN (88.7 FM) noon-12:30 p.m., MBM director Trevor Stephenson will be Norman Gilliland’s guest. They’ll play and discuss selections from “Messiah.” Then MBM will perform two arias from “Messiah” live on the CBS affiliate WISC-TV Channel 3 “Live at 4” program 4-5 p.m.
By Jacob Stockinger
This coming Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the Madison Bach Musicians will perform the well-known oratorio “Messiah” by George Frideric Handel (below). The performances feature period instruments and historically authentic performances practices.
Here are the details:
FRIDAY: 6:45 p.m. lecture followed by a 7:30 p.m. concert
SUNDAY: 2:45 p.m. lecture followed by a 3:30 p.m. concert
Both performances are at the First Congregational United Church of Christ (below), 1609 University Avenue, Madison, near Camp Randall Stadium.
The forces and period instruments MBM has assembled for this event are similar in many respects to those used by Handel in the world premiere of “Messiah” in Dublin in April of 1742.
For more information, including a complete list of performers, visit:
http://madisonbachmusicians.org/april-8-10-2016/
The concerts feature an all-baroque orchestra ─ with gut strings, baroque oboes, natural trumpets and calf-skin timpani ─ plus eight internationally-acclaimed soloists, and the Madison Boychoir (part of Madison Youth Choirs), which will collaborate in the “Hallelujah” Chorus and Amen, under the direction of early-music specialist Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill), professor of bassoon at the University of Wisocnsin-Maidson School of Music.
![Marc Vallon 2011 James Gill (baroque & modern)[2]](https://welltempered.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/marc-vallon-2011-james-gill-baroque-modern2.jpg)
Pre-concert lectures at both events will be given by MBM founder and artistic director Trevor Stephenson (below), who is as entertaining as he is enlightening.
Advance-sale discount tickets are: $33 general, $28 students and seniors (65+). They are available at Orange Tree Imports, Farley’s House of Pianos, Room of One’s Own, and Willy Street Co-op (East and West)
You can also buy advance sale tickets online at www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are $35 general, $30 students and seniors (65+), Student Rush: $10 on sale 30 minutes before lecture (student ID required) Visit or call www.madisonbachmusicians.org at 608 238-6092.
To prepare you to appreciate the oratorio, here is Trevor Stephenson’s Top 10 list of things – a la David Letterman — that you should know about it:
TOP 10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT HANDEL’S ‘MESSIAH‘
#10. Its title is “Messiah” not “The Messiah”
#9. Handel, at 56 years of age, wrote Messiah in just 24 days in the late summer of 1741.
#8. Some of the pieces ─ like “For unto us a child is born” and “All we like sheep” ─ Handel borrowed or adapted from pieces he had composed earlier, usually by laying the new text over the existing musical material. This technique, known as “parody,” was employed by most composers as a way of recycling good musical material.
#7. The original words to the tune we know as “For unto us a child is born” were (Italian) “No, di voi non vo’ fidarmi, cieco Amor, crudel Beltà” — meaning roughly “No, I won’t trust you, blind Love, cruel Beauty” (Hear the YouTube video at bottom.)
#6. Messiah premiered in 1742 in Dublin, Ireland two weeks after Easter (March 25 that year) on April 13. By uncanny dumb luck, this 2016 period-performance of Messiah by MBM will also take place two weeks after Easter (March 27) on April 8 and 10.
#5. Handel divided this oratorio into three parts. Part I: a world in need of salvation; the promise that salvation is on the way; arrival of the savior in the world; Part II: Christ’s passion and crucifixion, descent to hell and resurrection, beginnings of the church, triumph of truth over death (Hallelujah); Part III: Faith and the world to come; the awakening of all souls (The Trumpet Shall Sound), paean to the Lamb of God; closing, majestic meditation on Amen.
#4. In a baroque orchestra the string instruments use gut strings—made from dried and carefully processed sheep intestine. Gut strings assist in the performance of baroque music in two important ways: 1) because gut as a material is very supple, the tone it produces is naturally “warm” in an acoustic/aesthetic sense; therefore, vibrato is not necessary in order to produce a pleasing sound and the player’s attention can focus more on pitch. 2) Gut strings, because they are very textured, produce a natural friction with the hair of the baroque bow which ensures that the instant the player’s bow hand moves the pitch is in the air. This optimizes the sense of directness in performance.
#3. The harpsichord and organ were used as continuo instruments in baroque music. MBM will be using both instruments in the upcoming Messiah performances. 18th-century keyboard tunings were generally of the un-equal/circulating variety known as Well Temperaments, as in “The Well-Tempered Clavier” of Johann Sebastian Bach. In these tunings, every tonality has a unique acoustic color, ranging from the transparently clear and harmonious keys (C major, A minor and other keys near the top of the circle of fifth, unencumbered by accidentals), then shading all the way down to the lugubriously opaque and gnarled keys in the basement of the circle of fifths, like G-flat major and E-flat minor. Notice in Messiah the contrast between the acoustical openness of the initial Sinfonia in E minor (one sharp) and the rigid density of the passion-of-Christ choruses near the beginning of Part II, “Surely, He hath borne our griefs” and “And with His stripes we are healed” both in F minor (four flats). 18th-century temperament will bring such differences into keen relief.
#2. Messiah was very successful and greatly admired in Dublin at its premiere. When Handel led performances of it in London several months later, the reception was much cooler. Nevertheless, from there on the popularity of Messiah grew steadily and it was performed often in Handel’s lifetime under his direction. Though much of Handel’s music was widely published in his lifetime, Messiah was not published until a few years after Handel’s death in 1759.
#1. In Messiah, the balance between the sense of play and sense of purpose is unrivalled (though a different animal in many ways, a blood brother of Messiah in the movie domain might be The Wizard of Oz). Indeed, it is almost as if in Handel’s world, these two elements — play and purpose — do not oppose, but rather fuel each other. Handel’s descendent in this regard is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose also could consistently fuse melodic joy with harmonic and theatrical pacing, pushing scene after scene ever-higher until it seems the roof opens to the realms of limitless joy.
Tags: Amen, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Bassoon, CBS, Cello, Channel 3, choral music, Christ, church, Classical music, concerto, crucifixion, David Letterman, Dublin, Early music, Easter, George Frideric Handel, God, gut strings, Hallelujah Chorus, harpsichord, historically informed performance practices, Ireland, Jacob Stockinger, Jesus, Johann Sebastian Bach, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Boychoir, Madison Youth Choirs, Marc Vallon, Messiah, Messiah Part II, Midday, Mozart, noon, Norma Gilliland, Oboe, Orchestra, Passion, period instruments, Piano, salvation, savior, strings, symphony, temperament, The Well-Tempered Clavier, timpani, Trevor Stephenson, Trumpet, trumpets, tuning, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vibrato, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Well-Tempered Clavier, WERN-FM 88.7, WISC, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wizard of Oz, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Two concerts of great music by Bach and Schubert are on tap for Saturday afternoon and Saturday night
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ALERT: Although it is listed on the Events Calendar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, there is NO concert TONIGHT by UW Symphony Strings.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear wants to draw your attention to two smaller but very worthwhile concerts this Saturday.
GRACE PRESENTS
This Saturday afternoon, from noon to 1 p.m., the Grace Presents concert series offer harpsichordist Trevor Stephenson in a FREE lecture-performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.
The FREE concert takes place at Grace Episcopal Church, 116 West Washington Avenue, on the Capitol Square.
Writes Stephenson who is the founder and director of the Madison Bach Musicians: “In the lecture, entitled Odyssey of the Soul, I’ll discuss the large-scale structure of the WTC – how it tells a story from the beginning of beginnings in C major out to the final frontier (and edge of tonality itself) in B minor.
“I’ll also talk about and demonstrate how 18th-century Well Temperament is made and how Bach (below) integrates the variety of its sound colors with the expressive message of each piece that I’ll be playing.”
The program includes: Prelude and Fugue in C major; Prelude and Fugue in C minor; Prelude in C-sharp major; Prelude and Fugue in E-flat/D-sharp minor; Prelude and Fugue in F major; and Prelude and Fugue in B minor.
The harpsichord that Stephenson (below, in a photo by Kent Sweitzer) will play was made in Madison in 1999 by Norman Sheppard (sheppardkeyboards.com). It is modeled on a 4-octave Flemish instrument of 1669 by Couchet.
MOSAIC CHAMBER PLAYERS
The Mosaic Chamber Players will give an all-Schubert program this Saturday night, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Meeting House of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed First Unitarian Society of Madison. The concert will conclude the group’s 2015-16 season.
The Mosaic Chamber Players will be performing two of Schubert’s late works: the Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, D. 929 (you can hear the haunting and lovely slow movement played by violist Isaac Stern, cellist Leonard Rose and pianist Eugene Istomin in a YouTube video at the bottom); and the rarely heard Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C Major, D. 934.
There will be a reception following the program.
Tickets are $15, $10 for seniors, and $5 for students. Only check or cash will be accepted.
The Mosaic Chamber Players (below, from left) is made up of pianist and founder Jess Salek; violinist Laura Burns (below middle); cellist Michael Allen; and violinist Wes Luke. The various members play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra,the Rhapsodie String Quartet; the Ancora String Quartet; the Willy Street Chamber Players; the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Youth Choirs and other local ensembles.
The chamber music group has been praised as “among the finest purveyors of quality chamber music in Madison” by critic John W. Barker on The Well-Tempered Ear blog.
Tags: Ancora String Quartet, Arts, Bach, Baroque, Capitol Square, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, Couchet, Early music, Eugene Istomin, fantasy, Flemish, Franz Schubert, fugue, Grace Episcopal Church, harpsichord, Isaac Stern, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Leonard Rose, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Youth Choirs, Mosaic Chamber Players, Music, octave, Piano, Prelude, Rhapsodie String Quartet, Sonata, temperament, Trevor Stephenson, trio, tuning, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Well-Tempered Clavier, Williamson Street, Willy Street Chamber Players, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, YouTube
Classical music: The Madison Symphony Chorus performs a medley of choral music this Sunday at 2 and 4 p.m. Plus, a FREE harpsichord recital of music by Bach, Handel and Scarlatti is at noon this Friday.
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ALERT: This week’s FREE Friday Noon Musicale, to be held from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Meeting House of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive, Trevor Stephenson — the founder and director of the Madison Bach Musicians — will play harpsichord music by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Domenico Scarlatti.
He will perform on his own four-octave, crow-quilled 17th-century-style Flemish instrument and will talk about the well-tempered tuning of this instrument, the composers’ lives and the concert repertoire. Selections are from Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier,” Scarlatti’s Sonatas and Handel’s “Keyboard Suites.”
By Jacob Stockinger
Some groups perform more in tandem or as adjuncts to other groups than by themselves. This seems especially true of choruses.
But this weekend, the Madison Symphony Chorus, which normally performs with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, will have the spotlight to itself. (You can hear the chorus sing as part of the MSO’s Christmas concert in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Twice on the same day.
Here are the details:
On this Sunday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., director Beverly Taylor and the Madison Symphony Chorus (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) will present a “Memories” concert in Promenade Hall at the Overture Center for the Arts.
Taylor (below) is the longtime assistant conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the director of choral activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
The concerts will feature an array of musical styles, including classical music selections from Johannes Brahms and contemporary American composer John Corigliano, a collection of Swedish, Norwegian, Scottish and Mexican ethnic tunes, traditional spirituals and gospel music, and nostalgic songs from the Tin Pan Alley era by Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, and Fats Waller.
Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) Principal Pianist Daniel Lyons will accompany much of the music.
Tickets are $20, and are available: at madisonsymphony.org/chorusconcert; at the Overture Box Office (201 State Street); or by calling (608) 258-4141.
Formed in 1927, the Madison Symphony Chorus gave its first public performance in 1928 and has performed regularly with the MSO ever since.
The Chorus was featured at the popular Madison Symphony Christmas concerts in December and will join the MSO April 29 and 30, and May 1 for Carmina Burana, the colossal modern oratorio based on medieval Latin songs by 20th-century German composer Carl Orff.
The Chorus is comprised of more than 125 volunteer and amateur musicians from all walks of life who enjoy combining their artistic talent. New members are always welcome.
Visit madisonsymphony.org/chorus for more information about the chorus and the program for this concert.
Tags: amateur, Arts, Bach, Carl Orff, Carmina Burana, choral music, chorus, Christmas, Classical music, Cole Porter, conductor, Early music, ethnic music, Fats Waller, Flemish, Folk music, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Gershwin, Gershwin, gospel, Handel, harpsichord, Ira Gershwin, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John Corigliano, Latin, Madison, Madison Bach Musicians, Madison Symphony Chorus, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Medieval, Mexico, Music, Norway, nostalgia, Orchestra, Overture Center, Piano, Scarlatti, Scotland, Sonata, spirituals, Suite, Sweden, Tin Pan Alley, Tn Pan Alley, Trevor Stephenson, tuning, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, volunteer, Well-Tempered Clavier, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Bach and the H-Bomb. The Ear celebrates five years of writing his blog by offering a poem about thermonuclear weapons, Edward Teller and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Yesterday, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, marked the fifth anniversary of The Well-Tempered Ear blog, which this past June surpassed one million hits and now has over 1,800 daily posts and 6,200 comments. Thank you, all, for your loyalty and your participation. The results have exceeded my wildest expectations or hopes.
To mark the occasion, I thought I would do something different, something I have not done before: Offer a poem of my own from a personal project: A collection of poems I often write about the piano pieces that I am myself playing or listening to. Maybe a reader out there who likes the poem will know, or even be, a literary agent or a publisher of some kind who would be interested in seeing the poem, and others like it, reach a larger audience. The YouTube link at the bottom to the music in question adds a certain unusual attraction.
This particular poem is based on historical fact, but I have of course taken some liberties. It is like historical fiction, only in the form of poetry.
The poem concerns Johann Sebastian Bach (below top) and the late Hungarian-born and controversial theoretical physicist Dr. Edward Teller (1908-2003, below bottom), who was the model for Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick’s famous 1964 satirical movie of the same name. Teller developed the Atomic Bomb, created the Hydrogen Bomb and proposed Star Wars.
Here is a photo of the young Dr. Edward Teller, whose mother was an accomplished concert pianist, playing the Steinway piano that he bought at a hotel auction in Chicago, while his wife Mici looks on:
If you wish to check out more biographical information, including his being named Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1960, here are some links:
http://www.webofstories.com/play/edward.teller/7;jsessionid=2C9ABDC3269E3F2ABC31706C137871EA
Here is a biography with a video clip at the bottom of the web page of Edward Teller playing the first movement, in an overheated manner, of the “Moonlight” Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven at his home at Stanford University, California, in 1990, when he was 90 years old. He died there of a stroke at 95, two months after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush.
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tel0bio-1
At bottom is a link to a YouTube performance by Friedrich Gulda –- a famous jazz musician but also an important teacher of classical piano titan Martha Argerich — of the Bach prelude and fugue in question.
I hope you like the poem and find it rewarding. If you do, let me know, and perhaps I will post some more in the future.
DR. EDWARD TELLER PLAYS BACH
By Jacob Stockinger
Late at night, when he is not in his lab
Building the world’s first atomic bomb,
Dr. Edward Teller is back in his barracks.
He thinks through his fingers
As he pedals with his fake right foot,
Practicing and playing on the century-old Steinway
He had shipped to the high New Mexico desert.
The physicist’s taste runs to Mozart and Beethoven.
But tonight he is working on Prelude and Fugue No. 8
In E-flat Minor and D-sharp Minor,
from Book I of Johann Sebastian Bach’s
“The Well-Tempered Clavier.”
Since childhood, his mind has been held captive
By only two things: the music of mathematics
And the mathematics of music.
This slow, melodious and mournful
Music, he finds, is solidly, stolidly built.
The paired-up pieces match,
Mirror-like in their linkage
Like fission and fusion,
Like Bombs A and H.
Bach and bombs seem compatibly ingenious,
Old equations for a new beauty.
He likes how the main melody at the core
Radiates and grows, outward and inward,
Down and up, across treble and bass.
The multiple voices echo in a chain reaction of sound,
Like the counterpoint of nuclei and electrons,
And the dialogue of chalkboard equations.
The transparent thickness of Baroque beauty
Suits his scientific bent and emotional need,
His taste for a stately and elegant destruction
In which he can lose himself and others.
He knows that the two pieces remain something of a mystery,
The only ones Bach wrote in those keys,
Obscure keys that no one used back then.
But rarity equals a kind of originality
and that attracts Teller, who is still thinking up
“The Super,” his own word for an even
more powerful thermonuclear device.
That is what he now calls apocalyptic energy,
When he is not playing Bach.
And especially when he is.
© Jacob Stockinger
Tags: Arts, atom bomb, atomic bomb, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Chicago, Classical music, Dr. Strangelove, Early music, Edward Teller, Friedrich Gulda, fugue, George W. Bush, Hungary, hydrogen bomb, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Man of the Year, Martha Argerich, Moonlight Sonata, Mozart, Music, New Mexico, physics, Piano, Prelude, Presidential Medla of Freedom, Sonata, Stanford University, Stanley Kubrick, Star Wars, Steinway, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Time magazine, Well-Tempered Clavier, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music education: Prize-winning Korean conductor and pianist Myung Whun Chung records an album of music that rewards and encourages piano students.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Spring is the time for year-end piano recitals, for piano teachers and students to show off their stuff as the school year ends.
If you are looking for something to give a young piano student -– or, for that matter, even an older piano student -– The Ear can’t think of a better gift than a new album from ECM Records.
It is the debut recital of solo piano works by the prize-winning Korean conductor and pianist Myung Whun Chung (below), whose fabulously musical family includes a famous violinist sister and a cellist brother with whom he recorded many famous trios by Antonin Dvorak, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn and others. (Below, he is seen conducting at the BBC Proms.)
Here is a link to his biography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myung-whun_Chung
And here is a taste with some description from ECM:
http://player.ecmrecords.com/myung-whun-chung–piano
The CD features great sonic engineering. The piano sound is clear and upfront, not overly resonant and not percussive. The treble and bass are well-balanced. And the playing seems relaxed and natural, never tense or forced, whimsical or neurotic.
The album contains a variety of 10 pieces for different levels of playing, though most are for advanced beginners or intermediate students. As Chung explains at the bottom in a YouTube video, he made this album not for pianists, but for young people. We need more of that kind of caring and music education.
“Fur Elise’ by Ludwig van Beethoven and Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Autumn Song” lead on to more difficult works like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” as well as two Impromptus from Op. 90 (E-flat Major and G-flat Major) by Franz Schubert and two Nocturnes by Frederic Chopin.
The simpler “Traumerei” from “Scenes of Childhood” by Robert Schumann, which the great virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz always used as a signature encore, leads to the underplayed as well as harder and longer Arabesque by the same composer. (Below is Myung Wha Chung recording at the piano in a photo by Rainer Maillard for ECM Records.)
So there is a variety of learning levels built-in as a teasing incentive to push on to the next one.
But such playable beauty is its own incentive.
The CD makes clear that great music is not necessarily hard or virtuosic music. Chung’s “Fur Elise” is not rushed, but instead beautiful and unrushed Beethoven at his best.
I also like the way Chung opens the recital slowly with Claude Debussy’s “Clair de lune.” It proves an engaging and inviting way to set the mood, to calm the often hectic and nervy experience of a solo recital. (Below, Chung is seen playing on stage at the plush and warmly Old Word-elegant Teatro La Fenice in Venice in a photo by Sun Chung for ECM Records.)
You can see why Chung won second prize at the Tchaikovsky International Competition and why he guest conducts so frequently. He is a born musician. This is fine playing, not over-pedaled. Good rhythms and very fine tempi rule the day. And Chung demonstrates a fine use of rubato, or flexible tempi and timings, as well as a legato singing tone.
The album also serves as a reminder to piano students that there is more to music, and to possible professional and even prominent careers in music, than solo playing. The many famous conductors who went on from playing the piano include George Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein and, locally, both John DeMain of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Madison Opera, and Andrew Sewell of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
This CD reminds The Ear of the albums “My First Recital” and “My Second Recital” albums by the late Ruth Laredo. They too also had all good pieces, all very well played. The Ear thinks we could use more albums that help show how great musicians started and then got great. As for music education and music appreciation, it serves a similar purpose to Leonard Bernstein’s great “Young People’s Concerts.”
Sure, I would have liked to hear something included by Johann Sebastian Bach, who is so essential to learning music — maybe one or two of the Two-Part Inventions that most piano students get to know. Or maybe one of the easier Preludes from “The Well-Tempered Clavier” or a movement from one of the French or English suites.
But then you could also ask for some of the easier Chopin preludes, mazurkas or waltzes, or maybe a Brahms Waltz.
Maybe those will come in a sequel, and maybe by next spring’s recital time.
One can hope –- and listen to this lovely recording while waiting.
But for this lesson, in any case, Myung Whun Chung — seen below in photo by Jean Francois Leclerq for ECM Records– gets a gold star.
Tags: Arts, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Chung, Classical music, English Suites, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, French Suites, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John DeMain, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, mazurkas, Music, Music education, music lessons, Myung Wha Chung, Myung Whun Chung, opera, Piano, piano lessons, Prelude, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, recital, Ruth Laredo, Tchaikovsky International Competition, Two-Part Invention, Waltz, Well-Tempered Clavier, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Young People's Concerts, YouTube
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