I attended the faculty recital featuring Professor Cara Dailey and Ross
Erickson at the University of Evansville on September 22 nd 2015. Professor
Dailey performed on flute and Professor Erickson on percussion. The concert took place in Wheeler Concert Hall, a small yet elegant concert hall. The concert overall was quite enjoyable; both musicians performed fantastically demonstrating a beautiful command over their respective instruments. The recital was formal in nature, but had a very casual feeling about it. The two musicians played pieces from several different musical eras. There were two pieces from the Baroque era, two from the Romantic, and two modern pieces. The two musicians alternated, between each piece, and for a grand finale performed…show more content… The piece is split by two tempos. The first is slower, “andante” as the first part of the name of the piece would suggest. The second part is fast and upbeat, it was warmer, and according to the professor should evoke an image of spring time. The piece as a whole is incredibly expressive it emotes a feeling of floating or flying. The piano and the flute play to one another like they were in a conversation with one another. Overall the piece was incredible to listen to, truly beautiful, and very relaxing. The piece was very much a full embodiment of the Romantic era. Both voices played freely and independent of each other and yet they were very much playing together. The light and free feeling of the piece champions the new ideas of expression of the
Romantic era. It had sections of homophony showcasing both the flute and the piano. The piece was also had several polyphonic sections where the piano and the flute were playing entirely independent of one another. The movement ended with first a piano cadenza and then a cadenza for the flute. The two endings is another example of Romantic ideas of the lack of traditional form and freedom of the music.
The fourth piece performed by Professor Ross Erickson was “Variations…show more content… The flying tempo and overly syncopated rhythms make it incredible to listen to. The use of four mallets makes the instrument a chordal one and made for very rich four part chords. It also allowed for tense dissonance. The instrument allows the performer, Professor Erickson, to create his own homophonic and polyphonic textures. The piece was ultra expressive of emotion. Which seems to fit the theme that as music evolves it gets more and more expressive; resulting with music of the modern era being more expressive than any previous era. The eccentricism and energy of the piece made it exciting to listen to, and definitely achieved its goal of establishing the marimba as a serious instrument.
The last piece of the concert was a modern sonata featuring both
Professor Dailey and Professor Erickson.The piece was written for flute and percussion in 1966 by Ingolf Dahl. The piece was entirely free and expressive with a mixed meter of times that would make most any musician cringe. The piece was made up of four movements that seemed to get progressively more complicated as they progressed. The piece used polyphonic textures to paint