Birr, Diane

Cohen, Pablo

Dimaras, Charis

Godwin, Angus

Southard, Elizabeth

English

Ithaca College

Ithaca CollegeDigital Commons @ ICAll Concert & Recital Programs Concert & Recital Programs11-12-2006Faculty Recital: Angus Godwin, baritone, ElizabethSouthard, soprano, Diane Birr, harpsichord, CharisDimaras, piano, Pablo Cohen, guitarAngus GodwinElizabeth SouthardDiane BirrCharis DimarasPablo CohenFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/music_programsPart of the Music CommonsThis Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Concert & Recital Programs at Digital Commons @ IC. It has been accepted forinclusion in All Concert & Recital Programs by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ IC.Recommended CitationGodwin, Angus; Southard, Elizabeth; Birr, Diane; Dimaras, Charis; and Cohen, Pablo, "Faculty Recital: Angus Godwin, baritone,Elizabeth Southard, soprano, Diane Birr, harpsichord, Charis Dimaras, piano, Pablo Cohen, guitar" (2006). All Concert & RecitalPrograms. 1186.http://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/music_programs/1186ITHACA COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MUSIC f\lh. FACUL1Y RECITAL AngusGodwin,baritone Elizabeth Southard, soprano* Diane Birr, harpsichord, piano Charis Dimaras, piano Pablo Cohen, guitar Hockett Family Recital Hall Sunday, November 12, 2006 4:00 p.m. ITHACA Chario Para Ninhar Aruanda Bia ta ta Vier Emste Gesange PROGRAM I. Denn es gehet dem Menschen II. Ich wandte mich III. 0 Tod, 0 Tod, wie bitter . IV. Wenn ich mit Menschen My Lord What A Momin' Honor! Honor! Ev'ry Ti~e I Feel The Spirit INTERMISSION Don Quichotte a Duldnee I. Chanson Romanesque II. Chanson Epique III. Chanson a Boire Bei Mannem, welche Liebe fiihlen (Die Zauberfl.6te) La d darem la mano (Don Giovanni) Cortigiani, vil razza (Rigoletto) 0 Glory! Witness His Name So Sweet *Guest Artist Jayme Ovalle Paurillo Barroso arr. by Laurindo Almeida Johannes Brahms · (1833-1897) H.T. Burleigh (1866-1949) Hall Johnson (1888-1970) ' H.T. Burleigh Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Edward Boatn1-"-(1898-198 \... H. T. BurleigR Hall Johnson Program Notes Johannes Brahms (1833-97). Vier ernste Gesang Brahms composed his first set of songs, op. 3, in 1853. In 1886, Brahms composed his final set of songs: Vier ernste Gesanger op. 121. On 8 May 1896, Brahms wrote to his publisher Simrock: "To celebrate my birthday I really must give you a little pleasure-as I did to myself on that day, by writing myself a few small songs" f.\vins, 733). Completed on 7 May 1896, Brahms's sixty-third and last birthday, the . r-r ernste Gesang, are "a tremendous solo cantata, or even ... a sort of solo '"'~ oratorio" (Geiringer, 261). The choice of texts for the Vier ernste Gesiinge sets them apart from Brahms's other solo songs: he selected texts from both the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus) and the New Testament (Corinthians). These texts may have been selected as his final farewell to his own life and that of Clara Schumann, who died on 20 May 1896, two weeks after the composition of the songs. On 7 July 1896, Brahms wrote to Clara's daughter Marie: When in the near future you receive a volume of "Serious Songs," do not misunderstand that shipment. ... I wrote them in the first week of May; similar texts often occupied me . . . . Deep inside a human being there is often something that speaks and germinates almost unbeknownst to us, and which occasionally may ring out as poetry or music. You cannot play through the songs, because the texts would affect you too deeply now. I ask you to consider them quite literally a funeral offering to your beloved mother and to set them aside" (A vins, 737-8). The contrasting Andante and Allegro sections of "Denn es geht dem nschen" use Ecclesiastes 3: 19-22. The song begins with a piano ostinato in ves under a reiterated dominant pedal. At the Allegro, when the text refers to dti'st ("Es fahrt alles an einen Ort; es ist alles von Staub gemacht"), Brahms changes to triple meter with swirling triplet arpeggios. The texture becomes chordal for "Wer weiss ob der Geist des Menschen aufwarts fahre" (Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward), and the music expresses doubt when the bass line descends for "aufwarts fahre" (goeth upwards) and ascends for "unterwarts unter die Erde" (downward to the earth). The text for "Ich wandte mich" is drawn from Ecclesiastes 4: l-3. With its expression of hopelessness, this is the shortest song. It opens with a descending arpeggiation in octaves of the tonic triad from 3 to l, and the song is permeated with descending arpeggios of triads and seventh chords. As in the first song, Brahms turns to a chordal texture to emphasize specific text: "die schon gestorben waren" (which are already dead) and "ist besser, als alle Beside" (which hath not yet been). The mode changes to major with the text "das unter der Sonne geschieht" (that is done under the sun). The emotive climax of the work occurs.in "O Tod, wie bitter hist du," which 15 Ecclesiasticus 41: l-2. Brahms mirrors the bitterness of death through a cross . ~ tion between c and c-sharp on the second iteration of "O Tod." This e minor song, saturated with a descending third motive, imitation, and inversion, is the most contrapuntal of the four. The song changes to major mode on "O Tod wie wohl thust du" (0 death how welcome thou art), almost as an apostrophe to death first as enemy and than as friend; with the change to major mode, the descending thirds associated with "O Tod" are inverted to ascending sixths. Curiously, Robert Schumann's Clara theme (C-B-A-GI-A) creeps into the accompaniment under the text "Diirftigen." The fourth song, "Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelzungen redete," uses I Corinthians 13:1-3, 12-13. Karl Geiringer wrote that this song "glorifies lbc, power of love in the words of the incomparable Epistle to the Corinthians. Ther( · the musician, who was nearing his end, made a last confession: that even the terrors of death are vanquished by all-conquering love" (261). Composed in E-flat, the middle section, "Wir sehen jetzt durch einen Spiegel" (For now we see through a glass), is an Adagio in the chromatic third-related key of B major with triplet arpeggios in the upper voices of the accompaniment. On the text "Nun aber bleibet Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe, diese drei" (Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three), the melodic line is an arch spanning nearly two octaves (A2-G4), with descending leaps of a tenth and ascending leaps of an eleventh. The "big five of song" in the Romantic era-Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, and Faure-came to a close in Vier ernste Gesiinge. In 1896 in Vienna, Berg was eleven, Webern thirteen, and Schoenberg twenty-two. Each in his own way would challenge all that Brahms believed was eternal in music: tonality and lyric melody. Maurice Ravel 1875-1937). Don Quichotte a Dulcinee In the summer of 1932, Maurice Ravel began to set three texts by Paul Morand that were commissioned by film director Georg W. Pabst for the renowned Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) to sing in a film version cf Don Quixote. Howe1 by the summer of 1933, Ravel's health had declined precipitously, and he was too1n with ataxia and aphasia to complete the songs on time. He requested Jacques lbert, who was composing the rest of the film music, to write these three songs as well. Despite the progress of the debilitating aphasia, Ravel persisted with the composition of the songs, and in a 22 April 1934 letter to Lucien Garban (one of the last letters Ravel was able to write), he mentioned that he had given the completed manuscript of Don Quichotte a Dulcinee to Martial Singher (1904-90), who had won premiers prix in both opera and opera-comique singing at the Paris Conservatoire in 1930. In a 3 September 1965 letter to Arbie Orenstein, Singher wrote: Ravel gave me the manuscript of the songs after a lunch in the house of a common friend . .. . To a young singer with only three operatic seasons to his credit, and very little concert experience, it was a staggering and unbelievable event. . .. I surrendered the manuscript to Durand publishers .... Very soon (November?) I was called upon to record the songs, ... and the songs were performed directly with orchestra, before being published or performed with piano arrangement, for that recording. Ravel was present at the recording session and made several remarks about wrong notes, tempi, and dynll?r for the voice and the instruments . .. . Ravel was gracious enough to ask me wheth~ would be pleased if he dedicated them to me. Actually blushing, I answered that I had not served him well enough or Jong enough for deserving such an honor. He laughed lightly and said, "In this case, would you care to choose one of the three songs as being your favorite?" I chose "Chanson epique," and he decided to dedicate it to me. But he was already unable to write the dedication with his own hand, and I saw my name in print on the song when it was published. He commented later that "of course, I had chosen the right one!" (Orenstein, 506-7). Don Quichotte a Dulcinee was Ravel's last complete composition. When it was premiered on l December 1934 by Singher with Paul Paray conducting the Colonne Orchestra, the songs were greeted with universal acclaim, even by the French critics had distained most of Ravel's earlier works. The songs illustrate three aspects of Don Quixote's character: lover, warrior, and drinker. Each song is addressed to Don Quixote's beloved Dulcinea; each song is written in a different Spanish dance rhythm. Ravel's mother, Marie Delouart (l 840-1917), was a Basque, and "among his earliest memories were the Spanish folk melodies sung to him by his mother, and through her, he inherited a love of the Basque country, ... as well as a deep sympathy for the music of Spain" (Orenstein, 2). "Chanson Romanesque" is a quajira (alternating meters of compound duple and simple triple) with Don offering to perform all sorts of impossible feats to please Dulcinea. The asymmetric phrases and dance rhythm in the piano seem to suggest a reality at odds with Don Quixote's fantasizing. "Chanson epique," a Basque zortzico in quintuple meter, begins with parallel six-four chords that evoke organum as Don, before the altar of the Madonna in lier blue cloak, implores the blessing of Saint Michael and Saint George on his sword of chivalry. "Chanson a boire" is a strophic drinking song with the brilliant cross rhythms of the Basque jota. Don's bacchanalian refrain of "I drink to happiness" incorporates a musical representation of a hiccup. These stylized folk songs were Ravel's last creation, and it is ironic that, -is health was deteriorating, the songs conclude with a drink to happiness. W. A. Mozart (1756-91) Don Giovanni, KV 527 When Mozart and his wife went to Prague in January 1787, they discovered that his Le Nou.e di Figaro, KV 492, had been a stunning success there. In a 15 January 1787 letter to Baron Gottfried von Jacquin, Mozart wrote: "For here they talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played, sung or whistled but Figaro. No opera is drawing like Figaro. 'Nothing, nothing but Figaro. Certainly a great honor for me" (Marshall, 268). Before Mozart left Prague in February 1787, Pasquale Bondini (l 737-89), the Prague impresario, offered Mozart a commission for a new opera buffa for the following fall. Giovanni Bertati's Don Giovanni provided Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, "the framework for the first half of his act l and the second half of his act 2" of the Don Juan legend (Heartz, 164). In the 29 October 1787 premiere, Bondini's wife Caterina, who sang Susanna in the first Prague production of Figaro, was cast as Zerlina. After the premiere, which Mozart conducted, he wrote to von Jacquin (4 November 1787) that his new opera "was l ived with the greatest applause" (Marshall, 269). The Pragerpostamtszeitung • ~ rted on 3 November that when Mozart entered the pit, "he was received with· three fold cheers, which again happened when he left it" (Deutsch, 303). In Act l, Don Giovanni comes upon a village green where Zerlina and Masetto are celebrating their forthcoming marriage. When the audacious Don Giovanni sees Zerlina, he instructs Leporello to take everyone else to his palace and entertain them. Giovanni stays behind with Zerlina and quickly makes love to her and proposes marriage. Shyly, Zerlina avoids him at first, but he finally gains her hesitant acquiescence in the charming duet "Laci darem la mano." Die Zauberjlote, KV 620 Composed primarily in June and July 1791, Die Zauberflote was premiered on September 1791 in the Freihaustheater auf der Wieden (replaced by the Theater an der Wien) in Vienna. For the first time, Mozart was writing "for a lower-class public than that at the court theater .... The music he wrote ... outdoes any other from his pen in its folklike simplicity" (Heartz, 256). The librettist for Die Zauberflote was Emmanuel Schikaneder, a friend of long standing to Mozart. Schikaneder was an impresario, actor, singer, and director; the part of Papageno was conceived for him. During one of the performances, Mozart went backstage and during Papageno's aria with the glockenspiel I felt a sort of impulse to play it myself. Well, just for fun, at the point where Schikaneder has a pause, I played an arpeggio. He was startled, looked behind the wings . and saw me. When he had his next pause, I played no arpeggio. This time he stopped and refused to go on. I guessed what he was thinking and again played a chord. He then struck the glockenspiel and said, "Shut up." Whereupon everyone laughed. I am inclined to think that this joke taught many in the audience for the first time that Papageno does not play the instrument himself (Marshall, 270). "Bei Mannern, welche Liebe ftihlen" occurs in Act l. Papageno, having been gi~ a picture of Pamina by the Three Ladies, encounters Pamina, the daughter of Queen of the Night, in the palace of Sarastro where she has been taken by Monostatos and placed in chains. Papageno tells Pamina who he is and about her mother's efforts to rescue her. Somehow the conversation between the two turns to love. Papageno regrets that he is without a sweetheart and the two indulge themselves in a charming duet about the magic power of love, "Bei Miinnern, welche Liebe." Gioseppi Verdi (1813-1901). Rigoletto ln March 1950, the Teatro La Fenice commissioned an opera from Verdi for production during Lent the following year. Verdi settled on Victor Hugo's drama Le Roi s'amuse, which had been produced in Paris seventeen years earlier. Rigoletto, an opera of intrigue, treachery, and revenge, was premiered at the Teatro La Fenice on 11 March 1851. Verdi wrote the opera in six weeks, and it was an instant success. The Duke of Mantua is a man who cares little about his responsibilities, and he passes his time in passionate love intrigues. Rigoletto, a hunchback, is the Duke's jester who aids his master and devises cunning ruses·for his unscrupulous master to debauch the wives and daughters of his couriers. On the other hand, Rigoletto ke. the existence of his beautiful daughter Gilda a secret, fearing her loveliness woura lead to the ruin of her innocence. However, after Gilda is seen by the Duke in church, she is abducted by his courtiers and brought to the palace for the Duke. In Act 2, when Rigoletto enters the palace looking furtively for Gilda, a page appears with the message that the Duchess wishe& to speak with her husband. From the evasive replies of the courtiers, Rigoletto determines that the Duke, ostensibly out hunting, is in the palace, probably with his daughter. Confronting the courtiers, Rigoletto demands that they return his daughter. As Rigoletto lunges toward the \ of the Duke's chambers, the courtiers bar his way, and he breaks forth into a ~ge denunciation of them and all they stand for in the intensely dramatic aria "Cortigiani, vii razza dannata." Sources Mary I. Arlin 21 October 2006 Avins, Styra. Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters. Trans. Josef Eisinger and Styra Avins. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Davis, Peter G.: "Singher, Martial (Jean-Paul)," Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 15 October 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com>. Deutsche, Otto. Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965. Eisen, Cliff and Stanley Sadie: "Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 23 October 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com> r ) nger, Karl. Brahms: His Life and Works. 2ru1 ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc. 1961. · . Heartz, Daniel. Mozart's Operas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. · Kelly, Barbara: " Ravel, Maurice," Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 15 October 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com> . . Landon, H. C. Robbins. 1791: Mozart's I.Ast Year. New York: Schirmer Books, 1988. MacDonald, Malcolm. Brahms. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1990. Marshall, Robert L. Mozart Speaks: Views on Music, Musicians, and the World. ""- New York: Schirmer Books, 1991. Michel, Gerard. Jacques lbert, l'homme et son oeuvre. Paris: Seghers, 1968. Orenstein, Arbie. A Ravel Reader. ~ew York: Columbia University Press, 1990. November 13 14 4:00 15 8:15 16 7:00 27 4:00 8:15 28 4:00 8:15 29 7:00 30 8:15 December 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 7:00 8:15 8:15 8:15 8:15 7:00 8:15 7:00 8:15 1:00 3:00 7:00 8:15 7:00 8:15 8:15 7:00 8:15 October 24 February 2 March20 Concert Calendar 8:15 Composition Premieres II Master Classes: United States Military Academy Band United States Military Ac;ademy Concert Band and Ithaca College Concert Band Lt. Col. Timothy J. Holtan and Mark Fonder, conduct~ FaC4}ty Recital: Jairo Geronymo and Diane Birr, piano; r l assisted by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festiva1 The Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series Master Class: Canadian Brass Canadian Brass: /osef Btugstaller and /eroen Berwaerts, trumpets; Bernhard Schully, ham; Eugene Watts, trombone; Charles Daellenbach, tuba Master Class: David Ross, bassoon Guest Recital: David Ross, bassoon; Fred Klemperer '70, violin; Heather Fais-Zampino, viola; Walden Brass, violoncello Flute Ensemble; Amy Theimann, graduate conductor Opera Workshop; Mark Kaczmarczyk, director Woodwind Chamber Ensembles Piano Ensemble; Jennifer Hayghe, coach Guest Recital; Eileen Russell, trombone Chamber Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra; Jeffery Meyer, conductor Wind Ensemble; Steven Peterson, conductor John Whitwell, Colonel Arnald Gabriel 'SO HDRMU '89 Visiting Wind Conductor; Susan Waterbury, violin Piano Chamber Ensembles; Charis Dimaras, coordinator ,"'rr Symphonic Band; Elizabeth Peterson, conductor John Whitwell, Colonel Arnald Gabriel '50 HDRMU '89 Visiting Wind Conductor Concert Band; Mark Fonder, conductor John Whitwell, Colonel Arnald Gabriel '50 HDRMU '89 Visiting Wind Conductor String Chamber Ensembles Jazz Workshop; Steve Brown, musical director Alex Meixner, trumpet; Rick Hirsch, saxophone All-Campus Band; Richard Edwards, conductor Madrigal Singers; Choir; Choral Union; Lawrence Doebler, conductor; Chorus; Janet Galvan, conductor Brass Choir; Keith Kaiser, conductor Vocal Jazz Ensemble; Lauri Keegan, musical director Collaborative Piano/Instrumental Duos; Charis Dimaras, director Percussion Ensemble; Gordon Stout, director Jazz Workshop; Steve Brown, musical director Early Music Ensemble; Nicholas Walker, director Percussion Ensemble; Conrad Alexander, director Ithaca College Concerts 2006-7 (admission charge) Prague Chamber Orchestra Turtle Island Qua.ttet &: Assad Brothers Imaniwinds 

Faculty Recital: Angus Godwin, baritone, Elizabeth Southard, soprano, Diane Birr, harpsichord, Charis Dimaras, piano, Pablo Cohen, guitar

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Faculty Recital: Angus Godwin, baritone, Elizabeth Southard, soprano, Diane Birr, harpsichord, Charis Dimaras, piano, Pablo Cohen, guitar

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