Ellie Bolander MUS 115 Randall October 24, 2013

Organ Recital Review 1. Tyler Boehmer Trio Sonata II, mvmt 1 (Johann Sebastian Bach) Tylers piece was quick and highly ornamented. He had good left and right hand correlation and independence. His legato was good, but not great (unless the piece was meant to be played non-legato, then he played very nice non-legato). He had bad pedal technique, his knees were not only open but they were angled out and he played with flat feet. He didnt utilize stop changes at all which was good, the piece was light and bouncy, as well as a trio where it sounds like three instruments are playing at once so a stop change would have ruined that sound. 2. Anna Judkins Finale (Andante) from Sonata 6 (Felix Mendelssohn) Annas piece was slow and reverent. Her technique was okay, she spotted her feet as she played but played with the outsides instead of her toe. Her breaks were good, not too long or too short, and she had good legato. The whole piece is very legato so she did well. ASomething noticeable was that she played the song as if she were playing on the piano, so her hands were delayed and didnt always play together. 3. Valerie McDougal Prelude in C (Felix Mendelssohn) Valeries piece was very loud, minor, and fast. Her posture was very stiff the whole time she played. Her shoulders were very tense and though she moved a lot her movements were jerky. Her foot posture was good, though. She played the pedals quickly and with great exactness, and watching her feet move so fast was impressive. A couple of times she played with the outsides of her feet, but her pedal playing was fantastic. 4. Matthew Beesley Cantabile (Cesar Franck) Matthews piece was very, very slow. It was played in solo style, with the swell being the loudest and the great and the pedals were simply sustaining the background accompaniment. He played with great legato, but took too long of breaks in some parts. This piece utilized many drastic stop changes and they were all very smoothly executed.

5. Emily Smith Choral in B Minor (Cesar Franck) Emilys piece began slow but then increased in speed and volume dramatically. Her pedal posture was great because she played with her feet pointed inward. The piece was played very articulately. There was great legato in the pedal and she had a very good light touch in the keys, breaking at the right times. The piece was very heavy in the pedals but light on the manual and she did a good job making that distinction with good independence. 6. Melanie Randall Final from Symphonie 3 (Louis Vierne) Melanies piece was very fast and very dynamically dynamic, changing from piano to fortissimo time after time. The pedal technique was fantastic. Pedals were played with the big toe and knees were together. The pedal part was so fast and all over the place but very few notes were missed which was impressive. The articulation was very good, with clean breaks and fast fingers. The legato was also very good in places where legato was required. 7. Kymberly Stone Litanies (Jehan Alain) Kymberlys piece was odd. It was very fast and dissonant. The breaks were good and very clean. She had good posture and played with lots of movement and emotion, more than normal for a classical organ piece. At one point during her performance it felt like the tempo was lost. The melody was lost and the notes seemed to be all over the place. It was an interesting piece and an interesting but impressive performance. The composer I chose to look up was Cesar Auguste Franck. He was a French composer, born in 1822. Some of his best works were his organ pieces. He revered Bach and often used dominant discords of high intensity in his music because he was inspired by Wagner and Liszt as well. His songs also make many full stops and breaks, which some music theorists suggest are too many breaks and make his songs sound choppier than they should.