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ALERT: This Sunday, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society’s Virtual Chamber Music Festival begins online. It is called “Bach’s Lunch” and will send out short concerts every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday through Sunday, June 28, when a grand finale is planned. It is FREE. But you have to sign up by emailing crownover@bachdancinganddynamite.org
By Jacob Stockinger
This past week the Rainbow flags (below) have started flying, including at the Wisconsin state Capitol.
Last year was the 50th anniversary of the riot or uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York City that eventually gave birth to a worldwide movement to insure that queer people deserve and will receive human rights.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Pride, which started with parades and marches to celebrate that initial victory and the start of a global gay liberation movement that continues and widens today.
On this first weekend in June 2020, it seems fitting to recall the many LGBTQ composers and performers in classical music.
The gay rights movement has opened the closet doors not only of individual lives today but also of historical figures. When The Ear was taking piano lessons and started going to concerts and listening to recordings, and learning about classical music, the subject remained shrouded in silence and secrecy.
You could read and hear about Tchaikovsky (below top) and Leonard Bernstein (below bottom, in a photo by Jack Mitchell) – to take a very popular composer and a renowned composer-conductor — but no one mentioned the role of homosexuality in their lives and careers.
So here are several lists that may teach you something new about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer musicians – both composers and performers.
Some of the calls seem very iffy to The Ear. For example, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin (below and in the YouTube video at the bottom) lived at a time when a homoerotic friendship did not necessarily mean a queer sexual identity. But one way or the other, historical proof and documentation can be hard to come by. And clearly there is much more to find out about the past.
Take a look. No longer is such information a rarity. From both the quantity and quality of the entries, at least you will see how scholars are taking new looks and undermining the heterosexual assumption that has wrapped so many historical and even contemporary figures in a wrong or mistaken identity.
Freedom, acceptance and respect are not zero-sum games in which one party can win only if another party loses. There is enough of each to go around.
So enjoy the information, whether it is new or not, and the respect it should inspire for the central role of LGBTQ people in the arts both past and present.
Here is a pretty comprehensive alphabetical list from Wikipedia of LGBT composers, both living and dead. It includes Chester Biscardi (below), who did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You don’t have to click on each name. Just hover the cursor arrow over the name and you will see a photo and biographical blurb:
And here is a list, also in alphabetical order and also from Wikipedia, of LGBT musicians and performers, not all of them classical. It works by clicking on sub-categories that include nationality – though one wonders if musicians from extremely homophobic countries and cultures are included:
And here is a similarly selective list from radio station WFMT in Chicago of 15 LGBT composers — including Corelli, Handel (below) and Lully — you should know about:
Finally, here is a list from the Spotify streaming service that features many samplings of actual pieces by historical and contemporary queer composers:
If you have questions, comments or additional names and information to add — The Ear doesn’t see the acclaimed pianist Jeremy Denk listed — please leave word in the Comment section.
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Paul Badura-Skoda, the celebrated Austrian pianist who was equally known for his performances and his scholarship, and who was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison in the mid-1960s until 1970, died this past Tuesday at 91.
A Vienna native, Badura-Skoda was especially known for his interpretations of major Classical-era composers who lived and worked in that city including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
He was the only pianist to have recorded the complete sonatas by those composers on both the modern piano and the fortepiano, the appropriate period instrument.
If memory serves, Badura-Skoda’s last appearances in Madison were almost a decade ago for concerts in which he played: the last piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert; a Mozart piano concerto with the UW Chamber Orchestra; and a solo recital of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin at Farley’s House of Pianos.
But he also performed and recorded Bach, Chopin and Schumann among others. And Badura-Skoda was also renowned as a conductor, composer, editor and teacher.
You can find many of his recordings and interviews on YouTube. Normally, this blog uses shorter excerpts. But the legendary Paul Badura-Soda is special. So in the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear Badura-Skoda’s complete last recital of Schubert (Four Impromptus, D. 899 or Op. 90), Schumann (“Scenes of Childhood”, Op. 15) and Mozart (Sonata in C Minor, K. 457). He performed it just last May at the age of 91 at the Vienna Musikverein, where the popular New Year concerts take place.
One is that The Ear could not find any obituaries from such major mainstream media as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. But each had many other feature stories about and reviews of Badura-Skoda’s concerts over the years in their areas.
The other noteworthy thing is that none of the obituaries mentions Badura-Skoda’s years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in the 1960s, where he helped to raise the profile and prestige of the School of Music. Getting Badura-Skoda to join the university was considered quite an unexpected coup.
So here are two links to UW-Madison press releases that discuss that chapter of his life and career.
Here is an archival story from 1966 when Badura-Skoda first arrived at the UW-Madison:
And here is a press release that came from the UW-Madison News Service eight years ago on the occasion of one of Badura-Skoda’s many visits to and performances in Madison:
It would be nice if Wisconsin Public Radio paid homage with some of Badura-Skoda’s recordings since a complete edition was issued last year on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
If you wish to pay your own respects or leave your memories of Paul Badura-Skoda and his playing, please leave something in the comment section.
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
This past weekend, this whole past month, the Rainbow flags (below) have been flying openly and high.
We saw all sorts of major Pride parades for LGBTQ rights as well as the 50th anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City that eventually gave birth to a worldwide movement to ensure that queer people receive the human rights they deserve.
Since today is the last day of June, of Pride month, it seems fitting to recall the many LGBTQ composers and performers in classical music.
The gay rights movement has opened the closet doors not only of individual lives today but also of historical figures.
So here are several lists that may teach you something new about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer musicians.
Some of the calls seem iffy, unconvincing or overstated. Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin, for example, lived when homoerotic friendship did not necessarily mean a queer sexual identity. But one way or the other, historical proof and documentation can be hard to come by. And clearly there is much more to know about the past.
But take a look. At least you will see how scholars are undertaking new research and often undermining the heterosexual assumption that has wrapped so many historical and even contemporary figures in wrong or mistaken gender identity.
And if you find someone missing, please leave the name and appropriate information in the comment section.
Freedom, acceptance and respect are not zero-sum games in which one person or group can win only if another one loses. There is enough of each to go around. All can celebrate pride.
So enjoy the information, whether it is new or not, and the respect it should inspire for the central role of LGBTQ people in the arts both past and present.
Here is a pretty extensive and comprehensive list, in alphabetical order, from Wikipedia of LGBT composers, both living and dead. It includes Chester Biscardi (below) who did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Pauline Oliveros who did a residency at the UW-Madison several years ago. You don’t have to click on each name. Just hover the cursor arrow over the name and you will see a photo and biographical blurb.
And here is a list, also in alphabetical order and also from Wikipedia, of LGBT musicians and performers, not all of them classical. It works by clicking on sub-categories that include nationality – though one wonders if musicians from extremely homophobic countries and cultures are included.
Here is a more selective list from The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine, of 18 queer composers — including Corelli — who made history and you should know about:
And in the YouTube video at the bottom is a Pride concert — 1 hour and 43 minutes long — recently held in New York City at the Greene Space, and hosted and recorded by radio stations WQXR and WNYC.
It features music by queer composers and performances by queer artists. Metropolitan Opera star Anthony Roth Constanzo performs. Also playing are pianists Steven Blier and Sara Davis Buechner, who have performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, respectively. The New York Gay Men’s Chorus sings. The Ear found the concert timely and moving.
If you have questions, comments or additional names, please do leave word in the comment section.
Is there a better way to greet the New Year than to take a look back at the past year?
2016 was a year of big losses: composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (below top), conductor Sir Neville Marriner (below middle) and early music pioneer and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt (below bottom) among the many whose names you might recognize.
What better way to start 2017 than to recall the figures we lost and hope that the coming year is kinder.
Here is a list from WFMT, the famed classical radio station in Chicago. It includes pictures and quotes along with dates:
And here is an entry from, of all places, Wikipedia that includes an exhaustive and detailed list of important events, performances and compositions as well as of classical musicians who died.
It seems as good a summing up as any that The Ear has seen, and demonstrates just how prolific the composers of new classical music are:
Which is why The Ear has included the Funeral March movement from the Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” by Ludwig van Beethoven on a YouTube video below that features an intriguing graphic arts representation of the music.
We are lucky: We have the music even when we no longer have the musicians.
This past week -– on Tuesday to be exact -– we celebrated the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was born in 1756 and died in 1791.
It was his 259th birthday.
For all his fame, familiarity and popularity, Mozart is a curiously underestimated composer. His best work is so sublimely beautiful that it is easy to overlook how different and revolutionary it was in its day. Mozart changed music, and we don’t always appreciate that fact.
But one of the most interesting celebrations that The Ear saw came from BBC Music Magazine. It asked 10 celebrated Mozart performers — including pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, conductor Sir Neville Marriner, pianist Dame Mitsuko Uchida, conductor Sir Roger Norrington and singer Barbara Bonney — to name their favorite work.
It covered the range of Mozart’s enormous output: piano music, string quartets, operas, symphonies, violin works, operas and of course choral works. And the website provided generous sound samples of the works.
At the bottom is a YouTube video of one of my favorite Mozart works — the Piano Sonata in C minor, played by Daniel Barenboim. It was also a favorite of Ludwig van Beethoven who seemed to use some of it in the slow movement of the familiar “Pathetique” Sonata.
Classical music: Legendary Austrian pianist and scholar Paul Badura-Skoda dies at 91. In the 1960s, he was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison School of Music
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IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Paul Badura-Skoda, the celebrated Austrian pianist who was equally known for his performances and his scholarship, and who was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison in the mid-1960s until 1970, died this past Tuesday at 91.
A Vienna native, Badura-Skoda was especially known for his interpretations of major Classical-era composers who lived and worked in that city including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
He was the only pianist to have recorded the complete sonatas by those composers on both the modern piano and the fortepiano, the appropriate period instrument.
If memory serves, Badura-Skoda’s last appearances in Madison were almost a decade ago for concerts in which he played: the last piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert; a Mozart piano concerto with the UW Chamber Orchestra; and a solo recital of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin at Farley’s House of Pianos.
But he also performed and recorded Bach, Chopin and Schumann among others. And Badura-Skoda was also renowned as a conductor, composer, editor and teacher.
You can find many of his recordings and interviews on YouTube. Normally, this blog uses shorter excerpts. But the legendary Paul Badura-Soda is special. So in the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear Badura-Skoda’s complete last recital of Schubert (Four Impromptus, D. 899 or Op. 90), Schumann (“Scenes of Childhood”, Op. 15) and Mozart (Sonata in C Minor, K. 457). He performed it just last May at the age of 91 at the Vienna Musikverein, where the popular New Year concerts take place.
Here are links to several obituaries:
Here is one from the British Gramophone Magazine:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-has-died-at-the-age-of-91
Here is one from WFMT radio station in Chicago, which interviewed him:
https://www.wfmt.com/2019/09/26/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-dies-at-age-91/
Here is one, with some surprisingly good details, from Limelight Magazine:
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/paul-badura-skoda-has-died/
And here is his updated Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Badura-Skoda
But you will notice a couple of things.
One is that The Ear could not find any obituaries from such major mainstream media as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. But each had many other feature stories about and reviews of Badura-Skoda’s concerts over the years in their areas.
The other noteworthy thing is that none of the obituaries mentions Badura-Skoda’s years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in the 1960s, where he helped to raise the profile and prestige of the School of Music. Getting Badura-Skoda to join the university was considered quite an unexpected coup.
So here are two links to UW-Madison press releases that discuss that chapter of his life and career.
Here is an archival story from 1966 when Badura-Skoda first arrived at the UW-Madison:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=turn&entity=UW.v67i8.p0011&id=UW.v67i8&isize=text
And here is a press release that came from the UW-Madison News Service eight years ago on the occasion of one of Badura-Skoda’s many visits to and performances in Madison:
https://news.wisc.edu/writers-choice-madison-welcomes-badura-skoda-again-and-again/
Rest in Peace, maestro, and Thank You.
It would be nice if Wisconsin Public Radio paid homage with some of Badura-Skoda’s recordings since a complete edition was issued last year on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
If you wish to pay your own respects or leave your memories of Paul Badura-Skoda and his playing, please leave something in the comment section.
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