Conservatorium of Music
Thursday Concert Class
Thursday Concert Class
| Keyboard Sonata in D Major K. 484 | Domenico (Giuseppe) Scarlatti (1685 - 1757) |
| Jonathan Morrison, Piano | |
| Domenico Scarlatti is regarded as one of the most important and prolific composers for the keyboard. This lively and jubilant piece comes from the composer’s staggering output of 555 sonatas. It features large leaps in the left hand, which is a common characteristic of Scarlatti’s keyboard music. | |
| Prelude and Fugue in D major op. 87 no. 5 | Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) |
| Jay Brendan Del Rosario, Piano | |
| One of Shostakovich\\\'s 24 Preludes and Fugues, widely thought to be written in response to Bach\\\'s Well-Tempered Clavier. The Preludes and Fugues employ great use of dissonance throughout, moving away from the strict dominant modulations seen in Bach\\\'s writing – this particular work features lovely chromatic movements to different modes, and the harmonic structure is what cohesively ties the prelude to the fugue. Both the prelude and the fugue feature vast textural differences between the left and right hand, almost as if in conflict for most of the work. | |
| Transcendental Étude No. 3 | Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) |
| Jay Brendan Del Rosario, Piano | |
| Liszt\\\'s \\\"Paysage\\\" is a rather slow study, almost uncharacteristically less virtuosic. As it\\\'s nickname suggests, the work aims to capture a pastural landscape, conveyed by the slowly moving bass and diatonic chordal movement. The work builds throughout, first having an excursion to Db major, then returning to F major with a heightened harmonic rhythm. The climax of the work suddenly shifts to using chromatic mediants, using a chain of beautiful interrupted cadences to modulate downwards chromatically. | |
| Brejeiro | Ernesto Nazareth (1863 - 1934) |
| Jay Brendan Del Rosario, Piano | |
| Nazareth's most popular work, Brejeiro is a spry and upbeat tango. The left hand plays a syncopated stride, building to a modulation to the dominant. The repeated A section in 6/8 and 2/4 are improvisations by myself, adding a little extra colour and thematic variety to the work. | |
| Sonata in A minor K 54 | Domenico Scarlatti (1685 - 1757) |
| Amber Chong, Piano | |
| One of 555 Sonatas by Scarlatti: influenced by Spanish music and instruments. | |
| Etude Op.10 No.12 | Fryderyk Chopin (1810 - 1849) |
| Sarah Bouquet, Piano | |
| Known as the "Revolutionary Etude", this is the final work in Chopin's first set, Etudes Op.10, dedicated "Ã son ami Franz Liszt" ("to his friend Franz Liszt"). The technique explored in this piece is the performance of relentless semiquaver passages with the left hand as well as coordinating cross rhythms with the right hand. | |
| Ice cream man | Tom Waits (1949 - ) |
| Ice cream man | |
| Mark Dunbar, Guitar | |
| Ice cream man | |
| I hope that I don\\\\\\\'t fall in love with you | Tom Waits (1949 - ) |
| I hope that I don\'t fall in love with you | |
| Mark Dunbar, Guitar | |
| I hope that I don't fall in love with you | |
| Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D.965 | Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) |
| Ben Curry-Hyde, Clarinet | |
| Yuhao Yan - Piano, Margie Francis - voice | |
| Written during the last months of his life, Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is a setting of a number of stanzas from three different texts describing nature and love, both favourite themes of Romantic poets. | |
| Ariel | Ned Rorem (1924 - ) |
| V. Lady Lazarus | |
| Ben Curry-Hyde, Clarinet | |
| Yuhao Yan - Piano, Margie Francis - voice | |
| The final movement of Ned Rorem’s Ariel cycle, a setting of five of Slyvia Plath’s Ariel poems, the final works she wrote. A sobering insight into how Plath saw her own life and works, Rorem’s overall setting gives a more hopeful approach to the texts. | |
| Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in D# minor, BWV 877 | Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) |
| Rachel Shindang, Piano | |
| Book 2 No. 8 of Bach\\\'s 48 Prelude and Fugues. | |
| Étude no. 1 \\\\\\ | Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) |
| Rachel Shindang, Piano | |
| Debussy Étude no 1 | |
| Etude No. 11, \"Pour les arpeges composes\" (For written arpeggios) | Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) |
| Sophie Zhu, Piano | |
| Early in 1915, disheartened and disappointed by the World War I and gravely ill with cancer, Claude Debussy still managed to compose. His 12 Etudes would be his last important works for solo piano, and considered his crowning achievement. "Pour les arpèges composés" (For Composed, or Written-out, Arpeggios), is easily the best-known of all the etudes, and redefines the arpeggio to include a variety of non-harmonic tones. | |
| Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, Op.26 | Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981) |
| III. Adagio mesto, IV. Fuga: Allegro con spirito | |
| Ray Liang, Piano | |
| The third movement extensively employs the usage of tone rows, as heard from the opening bars. Though Barber originally planned to finish his sonata here, Vladimir Horowitz, who premiered the work, insisted that it needed a more bombastic climax. So the story goes, a furious Barber completed the final fugue movement the next day. | |
| Piano Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.35 | Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849) |
| III. Marche funèbre: Lento IV. Finale: Presto | |
| Ray Liang, Piano | |
| The famous 'Marche funèbre' movement is often used as the namesake for this sonata. The movement opens with an alternating left hand ostinato, which is seen as mimicking that of a funeral bell. The fourth and final moment is not too disimilar from Chopin's Prelude Op.28 No.14, consisting of parallel octaves played with the left and right hands. Garrick Ohlsson remarked that the movement extraordinarily seemed to be so far ahead of its time, something which "truly looks to the 20th-century and post-romanticism and atonality". | |
| Étude No. 3, Un sospiro | Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) |
| Yunqi Ou, Piano | |
| The third of the Three Concert Études by Liszt in D-flat major, and is usually known as Un sospiro (Italian for "A sigh"). | |
| Etude Opus 25, no 12 in C minor (Ocean) | Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849) |
| Phillip Lin, Piano | |
| One of the etudes in his opus 25 set and the last etude composed in this set. It was dedicated to À Madame la Comtesse d\\\'Agoult and is often called referred to as "Ocean" due to the structure of the pieces and melody. | |
| Etude Tableaux Opus 33, no 3 in C minor. | Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) |
| Phillip Lin, Piano | |
| One of his etudes composed for his Opus 33 set of the Etude Tableaux sets, which is commonly referred to as "picture" pieces. | |