The Well-Tempered Ear
Today’s Just Bach concert starts the 10-day Bach Around the Clock festival that runs through March 26. All events are free and online. Here are the lineups
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today — Wednesday, March 17 – brings the free monthly Just Bach concert that is online for 30 minutes.
This year that concert will also serve as the opening event of the annual Bach Around the Clock (BATC) festival to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Here is a link to the lineup of the Bach Around the Clock events. As of this writing, many of the special morning and evening guests and events are listed. But the daytime programs and performers are listed only for today, tomorrow and the final concert. The Ear understands the rest of the listings will be up by the end of today: https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule
There might be frequent additions, changes and updates, so it is best to check back often.
The Ear has heard that, as usual, the festival will include students, amateurs and professionals; young people and adults; individuals, smaller chamber music ensembles and larger groups; and many well-known and neglected works from many genres.
Those genres include vocal and choral music; keyboard music for clavichord, harpsichord, piano and organ; string music for violin, viola and cello; wind and brass music; and much more.
Daily festival concerts will be posted starting at 8 a.m. Central Daylight Time and evening segments will begin at 7 p.m CDT. All events and concerts will be posted and available during the entire festival.
As for today’s Just Bach concert, here is the announcement from Marika Fischer Hoyt (below), the artistic director of Bach Around the Clock and a co-founder and co-director of Just Bach:
Greetings from Just Bach! We hope this finds you well, and ready to experience more of the timeless beauty of Bach, this month in music for organ and strings.
Our concert TODAY opens with a welcome and program overview from me. We figure when Just Bach and Bach Around The Clock join forces, the Master himself (below, in a cutout, in a photo by Barry Lewis) is summoned.
Today’s program opens with organist Mark Brampton Smith (below) playing two Sinfonias from Cantata 35.
These are arrangements of two dramatic organ concerto movements, and Mark brings off the virtuosic passages with flair, while the strings provide a spirited accompaniment.
Then the strings take center stage – in arrangements for string quartet — bringing a yearning melancholy to the slow Andante movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, BWV 1047, and energy and excitement to Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048.
The program closes with our popular chorale sing-along, “Befiehl du deine Wege” (Commend Your Ways), BWV 271. I will introduce the piece and the text, and my sister, soprano Barbara Fischer, will sing it — with Mark on the organ.
We encourage viewers to sing along by following the chorale sheet music, which will be displayed on the computer screen.
Do you have a question for the performers? Would you like to listen in as they chat about the program? Please join us for a half-hour live Zoom post-concert reception tonight, March 17, at 7 p.m. The link is posted on the Just Bach website: https://justbach.org/concerts/
As regular performers on Luther Memorial Church’s weekly “Music at Midday” concert series, Just Bach presents half-hour programs starting at 8 a.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and then remain posted. Remaining dates this semester: March. 17, April 21, and May 19. Our concerts are posted on the Just Bach and Luther Memorial YouTube Channels: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcyVFEVsJwklHAx9riqSkXQ
Viewing the concerts is free, but we ask those who are able, to help us pay our musicians with a tax-deductible donation at: https://justbach.org/donate/
Today’s performers include members of the Madison-based early music group Sonata à Quattro (below in photo by Barry Lewis) and are: Christine Hauptly Annin and Aaron Yarmel, violin; Marika Fischer Hoyt, viola; Charlie Rasmussen, cello; Mark Brampton Smith, organ; and Barbara Fischer, guest soprano.
Dave Parminter is the videographer and Barry Lewis is the photographer.
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Classical music: UW Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra plus soloists will perform Brahms and Mozart this Saturday and Sunday nights. On Friday night, the Choral Arts Society Chorale performs a holiday program.
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ALERT: The Choral Arts Society Chorale of Madison, under director Mikko Rankin Utevsky, will perform “Frostiana: Songs for a Winter’s Night” this Friday night at 7 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1904 Winnebago St. Admission is $15, students $10. The program is: Brahms, “In stiller Nacht”; Barber, “Sure on this shining night”; Lasso, “Matona mia cara”; Victoria, “O Magnum Mysterium”; Gendel, “It was my father’s custom”; Myers, “The Winter’s Night”; Leontovych, “Shchedryk“; and Thompson, “Frosting.”
For more information, go to www.ChoralArtsMadison.org
By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend the UW-Madison campus and community Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra (below) will perform the rarely heard “Schicksalslied” (Song of Destiny) by Brahms and the “Great” Mass in C Minor, K. 427, by Mozart.
The performances are in Mills Hall on Saturday night at 8 p.m. and Sunday night at 7 p.m.
Writes conductor Beverly Taylor (below):
The “Schicksalslied,” Op. 54, by Brahms (below) is a heartfelt, 16-minute work that sets Friedrich Hoelderlin’s poem about the yearning and loss of beauty, and suggestion of hope for the future.
“The work starts with gorgeous, muted harmonies; goes into a passionate whirlwind in the middle; and then ends with an orchestral recollection of the opening themes.
“If the work were longer, it might be performed more often. It is a real jewel of Brahms’s repertoire.” (You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Adds Taylor: “The C minor Mass, like the Requiem, was unfinished by Mozart (below) —we are not sure why. It contains vibrant writing for the chorus, including several movements for double chorus, and some of the finest solo music he ever wrote.”
The soloists will be sopranos Sarah Richardson (below top) and Chelsie Propst (below second), tenor Wesley Dunnagan (below third), and baritone Matthew Chastain (below bottom).
Tickets are $15 for the public, $8 for students.
For more information about obtaining tickets and for more about the works and performers, go to; http://www.music.wisc.edu/event/choral-union-symphony-orchestra-2/
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