Concert Report
Jeremysha Williams November 30, 2010 MUS 121. 15 Concert Report #2 On October 19, 2010 at 7:30pm, I attended the Faculty Recital held in the Tullibody Recital Hall on the campus of Alabama State University.
The program listed performers including: Ms. Brenda Luchsinger: french horn, Dr. Joel Jones: piano, and guest artist, Dr. Nicholas Kenney: french horn. The seats in the recital hall were full and the stage looked nice with a microphone, piano, and music stand set up ahead of time.
The first to enter onto the stage was a french horn player: Ms. Brenda Luchsinger. She was dressed in flower-looking blouse, black skirt, and black dress shoes.
She played a piece by Daniel Schnyder called Le Monde Minuscule, which is a collection of five short unaccompanied pieces for solo horn. Next Ms.
Brenda Luchsinger was accompanied by Dr. Joel Jones, who took his seat at the piano. Dr. Jones was dressed in a black suit. The two played a piece by Camille Saint-Saens called Morceau de Concert, which is translated into concert piece. According to the progam, the first movement is an allegro theme and variations which showcases a mixture of the horn’s melodic and technical characteristics.
The second movement is an adagio which displays the lyrical capabilities of the horn.
During the second movement, Saint-Saens showcases the low register of the instrument and one of the horn’s extended techniques known as hand-stopping – a form of muting the instrument with the player’s right hand, which alters timbre. The third movement begins with a flowing cantabile section which quickly transforms into the most technically-challenging sections for the player, with its fast tempo and four-octave range. The piece was by Bernhard Krol called Laudatio, where the unaccompanied horn is a free flowing chant which uses the half-step as the main thematic element.
Ms. Luchsinger and Dr.
Jones were accompanied by Dr. Nicholas Kenney, who was also dressed in a black suit. They played the piece by Richard Bissill called Time and Space. This piece was meant for two horns and and piano. The next piece was by Paul Basler called Serenade, which was written for horn and piano.
According to the program, the piece contains deep spiritual and personal messages of completion and anticipation. The next piece was by Sigurd Berge called Horn-Lokk, which reflects his deep interest in Norwegian folk music.
Finally, they played another piece by Paul Basler called Majaliwa, which was for horn and piano and was commissioned by and written for a horn duo. I really enjoyed the recital. Though each performer took his or her turn on stage, Dr. Jones was on stage the most because he played the piano with many of the other performers.
I could really tell that they loved playing their instruments and have a lot of experience with them. Overall, there was a lot of variety in this program, it was really the total opposite of what I expected and i loved it.
