On recitals and such...

Firstly, I would like to say that I love recitals and espically well-done ones. I do, howver, think that recitals could be improved a hundred times if I were the only person allowed to attend them...

Things that bug me that are not just good recital etiquite but good etiquite:

     * People who leave their cell-phones on when they go to a recital or some other performance.

     * People who ANSWER their cell-phone durring the above...

     * People who play with their bright blue annoying-arse phone durring the above...

     * People who apparently make calls? I didn't hear her talking but she had it to her ear....

     * Candy wrapers... Wait untill the between sections when applause will cover it PLEASE.

     * Coughing... If I can hold back my caughs with tears in my eyes till applause you can too gosh darnit!!!! I don't CARE if you are 80 years old with one lung!!! :D

     * Talking... If you talk durring a song or between songs in a section you should be shot on the spot and then the concert should continue. Your body can be removed durring the break between sections.


Things that the average person might not know but anyone who is trained in music ought to know or be killed and should be explained to your family before a recital:

     * If you come to the recital and it has already started please wait QUIETLY out in the loby or whatever serves as an anteroom untill you hear applause, then enter and quietly take your seat. Do not do otherwise!

     * Only applaud at the end of a section. The singer may finnish a song or movement and have silence, but do not applaud untill the last song of the section. When in doubt wait untill the rest of the audience applauds. But so you know, the sections are generaly outlined in the program with spacing lines.

     * Do not EVER applaud untill the last note or chord has died away into silence or at least apparent silence, let the sound live and die in it's time; this is the conclusion of the song, not the creation of the last note or chord. To do otherwise destroys the music and you must be executed out back with a piano.

Ok, thats just a small list - i'm sure I could find more.

Me? A music snob? Never!


Now I shall discuss the recital I attended tonight.

It was a tripple recital, which had been planned as a double. Let me explain... No, is too much; let me sum up: Andrew's recital had to be cancled because Mrs Vail got sick and couldn't play for him so he was added onto the program tonight.

So we have a double recital with Tony on Clarinet and Danielle, a soprano, singing. And a tuba added in there due to a rescheduling that had to occur.

Now... I love Drew and all and I understand that it was a necessary thing because of the circumstances.... And while I would not listen to tuba recitals often, he is a good player and I enjoy hearing him play. However... I feel that the insertion of him into this program greatly damaged the integrity of what I feel was a beautifuly designed program over-all...

Perhaps if we could have had drew play first and then the other recital as a whole in and of itself things would have sat better with me...

Now... With the standard undergraduate recital design I wouldn't have cared much. Most undergrad recitals simply include the songs in the required languages from the required periods, and those songs are chosen for that main reason. A group of songs may have a theme, but the overall program does not. And when you do a double recital with a voice and an instrument it's even less so...

But the recital we would have had... I look at the program and realize what a thing of beauty it was...

It would have opened with a clarinet concertino, which I missed, but I am sure was beautiful. Then Danielle would have sing three songs: An aria from Florindante by Handel, a german lied by Beethoven, and an italian song by Mozart.

The Handel aria expressed the joy brought to the singer by her beloved and the thankfulness to the "gods." The second one, "Ich Liebe Dich," literally, "I love you" was, of course, a love song but it was not your happy everything is peachy love song, it expresses the wonder of going through sorrow with a lover and the joy that comes through that. The italian song was another song of love expressing the wonder of being totaly in love with someone, to the point where it is like chains on one's heart.

Next the clarinet played a beautiful fantaise and then the soprano sang two more songs, both about love but about love in pain, and the pain of being sepperated from one's lover or losing one's lover. (these were french, by Duparc)

Then tony was joined by another soprano, stephanie, for Der Hirt Auf Dem Felsen (the shepherd on the rock) which is a beautiful song of a shepherd singing on the highest rock over a vally, lamenting being so far from his beloved.

Thus ends the exquisitly programed section. Following that were two gershwin pieces on the clarinet and three spirituals by danielle. Now.. I would have rather not had those on the program either, but hey, it was better than most are, program-wise... And I did enjoy the contrast in american music that it presented.

However.. after each set of tony and danielle was thrown in a tuba number... Tuba music doesn't fit the flow of the rest of this and it totaly ruined it for me... Ah well, i could see it in my mind at least. And Dr. Roberts was pleased that I noticed the thread :)


I have one more gripe...

Why do they print the heading "Program Notes" over a section of what is only translations? I can see if you had some program notes and some translations rather than saying, "Program Notes and Translations," simply saying, "Program Notes." But... If there are no program notes at all, and only translations should not we call it, "Translations"?


- posted by Nick @ 4/14/2003 11:04:00 PM | 0 comments