On April 4th, I made my way to the music building to see Megan Miskill perform her Junior Music recital. Her concert was shared with a violin player, Trevor Corneliusen, but for this paper, I will only discuss Megan's performance. She sang three sets of pieces: Schubert, Faure and Mozart. Each set was contrasting, yet featured her lyric soprano voice beautifully. Nick Williams was her accompanist.
             The first section of her concert was the Franz Schubert pieces. Schubert, a romantic composer, wrote pieces that focus mainly on nature, love, and unrequited passion. Megan sang Im Fruhling, Die Sterne, and Heimliches Leiben. Im Fruhling and Die Sterne both have a lighter tone color than Heimliches Leiben does. The texture of the first two pieces were lighter and had a sooth melody and softer dynamics. Although they both are melodically and harmonically complex, they still maintained a very positive, happy, feel. Both the first and the second of the Schubert pieces are very cyclical. The form of the first is ABABAA and the form of the second is AAAA. In the second, the melody is exactly the same except for a few accidental notes that were either flat of sharp. The third piece in the Schubert section, Heimliches Leiben, contrasts the first two pieces greatly. It is rhythemically different, starting slowly and then gradually speeding up. The dynamics get louder as the piece gets more passionate. There are bigger, more emotional chords and by the end, the pianist was pounding on the keys. In the second and third verses there is a climax because that is where the most passion is. It is as if the singer has reached a point of complete desperation. It was interesting to hear some more Schubert because we had just studied him in class. One can really get a sense of what romantic composers are like when one looks at the translated lyrics to Schubert's songs.
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