Conservatorium of Music
Thursday Concert Class
Thursday Concert Class
| Sonata 'Undine', Op. 167 | Carl Reinecke (1824 - 1910) |
| I- Allegro II- Intermezzo. Allegretto Vivace III- Andante tranquillo IV- Finale. Allegro molto agitato ed appassionato, quasi presto | |
| Kim Falconer, Flute | |
| Leigh Harrold, piano | |
| Carl Reinecke's Sonata in E minor is based on the German romantic tale found in the 19th century novel Undine. Written by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque in 1811, the novel made a great impact on it's readers and it is no surprise that the story became the inspiration for music, ballets, plays, art, and poetry. Undine is a water spirit who falls in love with a mortal man. However the man cheats on Undine with his ex-fiancee leaving Undine heartbroken. Undine is forced by an enchantment to kill the man for revenge, even though she is still in love with him. | |
| Sonata for Alto Saxophone & Piano | David Maslanka (1943 - -) |
| 1 - Moderato | |
| Emily Clarke, Alto Saxophone | |
| Leigh Harrold, piano | |
| Strongly influenced by music of the past – Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Allan Pettersson – the Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano alternates between an innocent stroll in the park, and a fierce breaking of tonal and formal boundaries. The three movements are personal adaptations of old forms – the first a sonata, the second an ABA song form, and the third a rondo. Each movement has a turbulent, eruptive quality that takes this music away from its historical models and makes it very much a music of our time. The Sonata has become a standard piece in the saxophone repertoire. | |
| Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 | Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) |
| grave and fuga | |
| Mi Yang, violin | |
| Bach’s set of six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for the violin represent the unchallenged peak in solo violin music, both in technique and in expressive variety. The three sonatas follow the four-movement sonata da chiesa pattern, while the three partitas include dance forms. Each sonata has a fugue as its second movement, and in each case this is not only a tour de force, The Second Sonata, in A minor, opens with an improvisatory Grave which leads directly into the fugue, a movement which allows flowing episodes between the strictly fugal passages, where Bach’s invention is at its incredible best. | |
| Chopin Ballade No¡¤4 Op¡¤52 | Fr¨¦d¨¦ric Chopin (1810 - 1849) |
| Sijia Zheng, Piano | |
| Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52, was composed in 1842 in Paris and Nohant and revised in 1843. The work was dedicated to Baroness Rothschild, wife of Nathaniel de Rothschild,[2] who had invited Chopin to play in her Parisian residence, where she introduced him to the aristocracy and nobility. According to Robert Schumann, this Ballade was inspired by Adam Mickiewicz's poem The Three Budrys, which tells of three brothers sent away by their father to seek treasures, and the story of their return with three Polish brides | |
| Gargoyles Op 29. | Lowell Liebermann (1961 - -) |
| III | |
| Edward Dixon, Piano | |
| American Composer Lowell Liebermann's Gargoyles for solo piano is dedicated to pianist Eric Himy who premiered the first performance in 1989. The work contains four movements: two comparatively calm middle movements bookended by a nightmarish Presto and Presto Feroce. This third movement, marked Allegro moderato, provides some well needed respite before the intensely virtuosic finale. This particularly movement is characterised by gentle, placid arpeggios and a 20th century harmonic vocabulary that is familiar enough to be heard coherently, yet alien enough to pique the listener's curiosity with its calm beauty. | |
| Miroirs | Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937) |
| Alborada del Gracioso | |
| Edward Dixon, Piano | |
| Around 1900, Maurice Ravel joined a group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians referred to as Les Apaches or 'hooligans', a band of 'artistic outcasts'. To pay tribute to his fellow artists, Ravel began composing Miroirs in 1904 and finished it the following year. This 'Morning song of the Jester' is heavily saturated in spanish folk idioms with rolled chords highly imitative of strummed guitars. The piece also features some highly virtuosic techniques including rapid repeated notes and double glissandos. | |
| Piano Trio No. 1 Op. 8 | Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) |
| Connor Taylor, Piano | |
| Zamarah Morley - violin, Katherine Fazzolari - cello, Connor Taylor - piano | |
| Shostakovich was only 17 when he wrote this Trio dedicated to Tatyana Glivenko with whom he began a long distance relationship. It shows signs of a student's work in its rambling form and Romantic spirt mixed with chromatic moments. There are also many hints of the more mature Shostakovich. HIs instructors did not appreciate these moments however, one such professor describing his displeasure with young composers “obsession with the Grotesque,” a comment which Shostakovich apparently took with some satisfaction. | |
| Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K457 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) |
| I. Molto Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegro | |
| Ann Nguyen, Piano | |
| The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed and completed in 1784, with the official date of completion recorded as October 14, 1784 in Mozart’s private catalogue of works. The title page bore a dedication to Thérèse von Trattner, who was one of Mozart’s pupils in Vienna. Her husband was an important publisher as well as Mozart’s former landlord. The sonata was composed during the approximately 10-year period of Mozart’s life as a freelance artist in Vienna after he removed himself from the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1781. | |