Last Wednesday, along with Nicole and Katherine, I sat down in Lefrak Hall for a piano concert by Stephanie and Saar during free hour. Over the past few days, I have tried to come up with the best ways to describe the performance and compare it to previous ones that we have seen as a class. Because I do not have as extensive a musical background or vocabulary as many of our more experienced classmates, I am not capable of the type of analysis that many of you are, but I will try to explain what I found interesting.
The first thing I found interesting was hearing Professor Smaldone’s composition. I have never know a composer before this semester, and it was very cool to hear one Professor’s Smaldone’s works for the second time. While hearing a piece from Mozart or Beethoven can be very captivating, I think it is much more special to hear pieces of music written by composer that you know on personal level. It’s a much different feeling to be able to put the notes that you are hearing into the larger perspective of the composer’s personality. As we discussed in class after visiting the MoMa, you can appreciate so much more about a single work of art if you’re able to compare to it other works made throughout the artist’s career. Although I have only heard two pieces by Professor Smaldone, I am starting to get an idea of his general style. His piece that was performed by Stephanie and Saar was distinctly different from the other pieces they played. The piece was divided into 6 separate sections (Introduction, Out of Eden, Sonata, Secret of the Earth, Django’s Lick, Epilogue), which at times, include series of slow notes with pauses of silence that caused you to contemplate the message of what you were listening to.
Another thing that always catches my attention at every concert that we see is the way that the composers choose to name their works. I’m not exactly sure what Professor Smaldone was trying to convey by the names of each section of his piece, but I definitely felt like a “Secret of the Earth” was being subtly portrayed at times. Another name that stood out on the program was a piece titled “CcHhOoPpIiNn nNiIpPoOhHcC,” which is one of the most bizarre palindromes that I’ve ever seen. It didn’t really make sense to me until Katherine pointed out that it refers to Chopin.
One the most enjoyable parts was at the end of the concert, when the two pianist sat at the same piano and began to play. Overall, this concert was a very pleasant way to clear my mind in the middle of the day, and I hope to go to more of these in the future.
Thanks for the comments. Don’t worry about the “lack of experience.” You are building lots of experience with the events we are seeing this semester.