Student Recital Series 2024 – 2025 Season
Sara M. Snell Music Theater Saturday, November 16th at 2:30 PM
Emma Fusco, flute and piccolo
Dr. Keilor Kastella, piano
Partita inAMinor, BWV 1013 (1722–23)
I. Allemande
III. Sarabande
Atalanta (2022)
Annelise Herschbein, oboe
Jovany Rivers, bass clarinet
Ricky Chui, harp
Lola Gehman, viola
Ballade for Flute and Piano (1903)
Homeland (2018)
Piccolo Italiano (2008)
I. Fellini was here
II. Ricordarsi
III. Polpettina
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Nicole Chamberlain (b. 1977)
Albert Périlhou (1846–1936)
Allison Loggins-Hull (b. 1982)
Gary Schocker (b. 1959)
Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1943) Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013)
Emma Fusco is from the studio of Dr. Brian Dunbar.
This program is presented to fulfill the senior recital requirement for the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance.
PROGRAM NOTES
Partita inAMinor, BWV 1013
Johann Sebastian Bach
Perhaps the most prolific period of instrumental chamber music writing in the life of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) was his tenure as music director at the Calvinist court of Cöthen from 1717-1723. Calvinism rejected the excessive musical displays of Lutheranism, therefore Bach had no formal church music duties during this six-year appointment. However, this was not to say that his patron, Prince Leopold ofAnhalt, did not enjoy music, thus resulting in ample requests for secular solo and ensemble works for entertainment purposes. Bach’s compositional output from this time included instrumental suites, sonatas, and partitas, the keyboard suites and inventions, the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the Brandenburg Concertos.
Simultaneously, the 18th-century baroque flute was quickly becoming one of the most popular instruments among amateurs and virtuosos alike Bach’s flute works, including the Partita inAminor and the six sonatas, were certainly composed for the latter. The technical demands of the unaccompanied Partita require the flutist to juxtapose melody with the illusion of harmony by quickly moving between registers. Bach adopted the form of this four-movement work from the French baroque instrumental dance suites. Though this work is commonly known as the Partita inA minor, the prescribed French title is Solo Pour la Flûte Traversière perhaps this is merely a nod to the French origin of the instrumental dance suite, or Bach could have composed this work with a particular French virtuoso flutist in mind. The “Allemande,” no longer danced by the 17th century, is a highlyornamented introductory movement. The moderate triple-time “Corrente” certainly portrays the idea of “running” with a steady stream of sixteenth notes. The third movement is a slow and dignified “Sarabande,” and the work concludes with a “BouréeAngloise,” a frequent Bach substitute for the more customary “Gigue.”
Program Note by Dr.Amanda Cook, D.M.A.
The origin of the city ofAtlanta’s namesake is a circuitous one, but it keeps returning to Atalanta.Atalanta was a Greek mythology character who grew up in the wilderness and famous for her skills as a hunter and speed as a runner.Another prominent figure inAtlanta history was former Governor Wilson Lumpkin whose daughter’s full name was MarthaAtalanta Lumpkin. InAtlanta folklore, it seems that Martha was up and running at an early age which concreted her nickname “Atlanta”. Governor Lumpkin eventually got his way, and the city was officially namedAtlanta.
The city ofAtlanta does share some qualities with the mythological characterAtalanta.Atlanta is often called the city in the forest. There are numerous parks and conservation wilderness areas within the city limits. Many Atlantans take advantage of the beautiful parks for a good run. The most popular race is the 10K Peachtree Road Race which occurs every Fourth of July which draws 60,000 runners from all over the world. Atlanta is a city teeming with trees and runners.
Atalanta for flute, oboe, clarinet, viola, and harp reflects the energy and whimsy of a vibrant city in the forest. Fun, intense, and fast paced music that exploits the athletic and virtuosic abilities of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians that make up Merian Ensemble. The piece incorporates a running pace that fluctuates with Atlanta’s rolling hills.Acity backdrop that morphs into the wilderness as the runner enters a nature dense park, and then back again as the runner returns to her urban abode. A musical adventure to facilitate a runner’s high without the sweat….well maybe not as much for the listener.
Program Note by Nicole Chamberlain
Atalanta
Nicole Chamberlain
Ballade for Flute and Piano
Albert Périlhou’s Ballade for solo flute or violin with piano accompaniment was commissioned as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1903, and it is dedicated to Paul Taffanel. Just like the myriad of works that were commissioned by the Paris Conservatory of Music for the purpose of competition, it remains a cornerstone of the flute repertoire from the French romantic era. Ballade is a one-movement piece that begins with an expressive line that showcases the flutist’s range. It then moves into a lyric, melodic Lent section before a blunt transition into a cut-timeAllegro that showcases the flutist’s technical ability in bravura style. The melody from the Lent comes back briefly in a different key before it transitions into another cut-time Allegro section. The final section is a flurry of ascending and descending scales before arriving at the big finish: a septadecatuplet ascension to the final note.
by
Homeland (2018) was written shortly after Hurricane Maria stormed through Puerto Rico in 2017. Maria represented the increasing strength of natural disasters and the intense, sometimes deadly, repercussions of climate change. While this was going on, there was also a rise of political and social turmoil in the United States, and global unrest throughout the world, including the Civil War crisis in Syria. For weeks, the news was flooded with these stories. With so many people throughout the world dealing with tragic domestic issues, I began to think about the meaning of home during a crisis. What does home mean when the land has been destroyed? What does it mean when there’s been a political disaster, or a human disaster? How does a person feel patriotic when they feel unwelcomed at the same time? Homeland is a musical interpretation and exploration of those questions. The flute opens with timbral trills representing troubled waters, then transitions into passages that are anxious and distorted. There is a moment of hope and optimism, a remembrance of past struggles that have been overcome, followed by an off-putting play on the Star Spangled Banner, representing an unraveling of patriotism. In the end we come full circle, still with unanswered and unresolved questions.
Commissioned by The Texas Flute Society for the 2018 Myrna Brown Competition.
Program Note byAllison Loggins-Hull
This is a fun survey of Italian musical styles for the piccolo with piano accompaniment, penned by one of the most active and successful composers in flute music, Gary Schocker. Riding on the success of his Sonata for piccolo and piano, Schocker delivers yet again with Piccolo Italiano, which is comprised of three movements: “Fellini Was Here,” “Ricordarsi,” and “Polpettina.” Piccolo Italiano is dedicated to Italian flutist and a Galway protégé Raffaele Travisani, whose gold piccolo inspired the piece, and also to Schocker’s wife, pianist Paola Girardi. Each movement is challenging yet playful in nature, and piccolo players will be glad to have a chance to experience more of Schocker’s fine work.
Program Note by Syrinx Music
Sonatine for Flute and Piano Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux’s familial musical roots began at least as early as his grandfather Julien Koszul, erstwhile director of the Roubaix Conservatory, and a close friend of Gabriel Fauré. In his youth, Dutilleux studied at the Douai Conservatory until enrolling in the Paris Conservatory in 1933. His cantata L’anneau de Roi earned him first prize of the Prix de Rome in 1938, an award that could not be entirely fulfilled due to the outbreak of war
Albert Périlhou
Program Note
Grace Playstead, B.M.
Homeland Allison Loggins-Hull
Piccolo Italiano
Gary Schocker
the following year. During that horrific conflict he served as stretcher bearer while continuing to expand his musical horizons, which included a stint as director of singing for the Paris Opera in 1942–43.
Following the war, Dutilleux served as head of music production for French Radio until 1963. Two years before that post ended he became professor of composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, a position he held until 1970. He was composer in residence at Tanglewood in 1995 and again in 1998.
Among the stylistic tributaries that fed into Dutilleux’s musical style is a strong feel for instrumental color that has been a keystone of French music at least as far back as Jean-Baptiste Lully, court composer for Louix XIV, who ruled French music with the same all-encompassing power as his employer wielded in matters of state.
It was while the war still raged in Europe that Dutilleux composed his Sonatine for Flute and Piano designed as a test piece for aspiring flutists at the Paris Conservatory.At this early stage in his career Dutilleux’s “voice” bore the lingering accents of Debussy and Ravel, inheriting both composers quest for textural clarity.
The work is laid out in three brief movements, Allegretto,Andante andAnimé. The piano starts things off with a quiet yet jaunty rising melody taken up and expanded by the flute before a subsidiary theme is presented.
Acadenza for flute leads into a touchingAndante whose darker mood is immediately established by slowly descending chords on the piano.
Such thoughts are swept aside in the sprightly concludingAnimé, driven by motoric rhythm and expressing bright optimism, a much-needed commodity during the bleak year of the Sonatine’s composition. Near the end of the piece the composer provides another deft and demanding flute cadenza.
Program Note by the Seattle Chamber Music Society
