Saturday, May 13, 2017 • 3:00 p.m ​

Laura Adkins

Graduate Recital

DePaul Concert Hall 800 West Belden Avenue • Chicago

Saturday, May 13, 2017 • 3:00 p.m ​ DePaul Concert Hall

Laura Adkins, oboe Graduate Recital Mozart Concerto Orchestra Jonathan Hannau, piano & organ

PROGRAM

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Concerto in C Major, K. 314 (1777) Allegro aperto Adagio ma non troppo Rondo: Allegretto

Mozart Concerto Orchestra: Oboe: Erik Andrusyak, Ian Egeberg Horn: Sarah Ference, Fiona Chisholm Violin I: Carmen Abelson, Samantha Spena, Kyle Dickson Violin II: Kelsey Ferguson, Rachel Brown, Cody Hiller Viola: Michael Zahlit, Nicholas Jeffery Cello: Joshua Dema, David Sands Bass: Daniel Meyers

Liza Lim (b. 1966) Gyfu (2011)

Intermission

Laura Adkins • May 13, 2017 Program

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) Sonata in A Minor, TWV 41:a3 (1728) Siciliana Spiritoso Andante Vivace

Jonathan Hannau, organ

Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013) Sonate (1947) . Grave Scherzo. Vif Final. Assiz allant

Jonathan Hannau, piano

Laura Adkins is from the studio of John Dee. This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Music.

As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you.

Laura Adkins • May 13, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Concerto in C Major, K. 314 Duration: 20 minutes Written in 1777 for Salzburg oboist Giuseppe Ferlendis, Mozart’s only oboe concerto was thought, for over 130 years, to be a lost masterwork. In 1920, Mozart scholar Bernhard Paumgartner discovered a set of old orchestral parts, in which he recognized the melodies of the Flute Concerto No. 2 in D Major. This set of parts was, however, written in the key of C Major, and the bass part was (helpfully) marked “Concerto in C/Oboe Principale.”

Mozart had presented the Flute Concerto in D Major to amateur flutist Fernand de Jean in early 1778, perhaps attempting to pass it off as brand new, instead of a transcription of the previously-composed oboe concerto. De Jean was likely not fooled, as Mozart only received half the original commission fee.

The three movements, in the typical fast-slow-fast structure, are Classically elegant and charming, while also managing and expressive jubilance. The first movement is in the expected sonata-allegro form, though the orchestral introduction presents a theme that the soloist references, at times perhaps irreverently, but never actually plays.

The nostalgic second movement is in the subdominant key of F Major, as is typical of Classical Era slow movements. The long melodic lines would not be out of place in an operatic aria. The third movement is a spirited rondo, whose main theme is folksy and joyful. Mozart later transplanted this theme into the aria “Welche Wonne, welche Lust,” in which Blonde sings to the audience of expectant bliss.

Laura Adkins • May 13, 2017 Program Notes

Liza Lim (b. 1966) Gyfu Duration: 9 minutes Liza Lim is an Australian-born composer currently working in the UK. She has a formidable international presence and appeal, and this is visible in her works. Her pieces focus on cross-cultural practice, interconnectedness, and individual voices within a global culture. Here, Lim weaves Arabic scales into an overarching structure drawn from Viking pictography.

The Arabic scales require microtonal variations of the typical Western scale (playing notes “in between” the smallest Western interval). Lim also makes use of oboe multiphonics (fingering combinations that produce multiple pitches at once) at crucial structural climaxes.

Lim’s note on Gyfu: ​ Gyfu (gift) is part of a series of pieces with titles drawn from Viking runes. The cross-shaped pictogram (X) denotes concepts of exchange, hospitality, partnership, and ecstatic union, amongst other meanings. Musically, the piece comprises sequences of ‘folding and unfolding’, a rhetorical device of repeated phrases that criss-cross. Two Arabic scales, or maqam, are referred to in the ​ ​ work: Sabā, denoting emotions such as longing, sadness, sensitivity, and pain, and Sīkah, denoting love.

I first discovered this piece while at the 2016 Darmstadt New Music Festival, studying with Peter Veale, for whom the piece was written.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) Sonata in A Minor, TWV 41:a3 Duration: 5 minutes Telemann’s talent as a multi-instrumentalist was not uncommon in the Baroque era, and is obvious in the way he writes his sonatas. Though Telemann wrote this work specifically for oboe and organ, it could easily be

Laura Adkins • May 13, 2017 Program Notes played on flute or violin (another common characteristic of Baroque pieces, in part because publishers could sell “versatile” works more quickly). That being said, the piece is full of opportunities for the oboe to demonstrate its unique variety of articulations and tone colors.

The first movement is a lilting Siciliana, passionately mournful, despite being ​ ​ written 100 years prior to the Romantic era, when became foremost in the minds of composers and concert-goers. The dotted rhythms are typical of a Baroque Siciliana, though this movement does not ​ ​ necessarily invoke the pastoral feeling that many of its counterparts in Baroque operas do.

The second movement is, predictably, a change of pace: an aptly-named Spiritoso, whose ascending 16th note passages drive the movement ​ continually forward. The third movement - an Andante in the relative major ​ key - offers relief from the melancholic minor key of the previous two movements. The long, sweeping melodies provide ample opportunity for ornamentation on the part of the performer. The short, Vivace finale returns ​ to the key of a minor, spiriting the listener along through a brief, triumphant phrase in a major key, back to a resolutely minor ending.

Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013) Sonate Duration: 13 minutes Music critic Paul Griffiths described Henri Dutilleux as “proudly solitary. ​ Between Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez in age, he was little affected by either, though he took an interest in their work [...] But his voice, marked by sensuously handled harmony and color, was his own.”

Rejecting the (pejorative) notion that French music was essentially frivolously charming in nature, Dutilleux nevertheless maintained a close relationship with tonal music. He did not take to any particular school of

Laura Adkins • May 13, 2017 Program Notes thought, instead probing the spaces between the compositional extremes of his contemporaries. His later style grew increasingly modernist, and he came to hate his early works, especially the third movement of this sonata, which he called, “too light in nature.”

Dutilleux does indeed coax markedly different colors and affects from the oboe and piano (both separately and as a single unit) throughout the three movements of this sonata. The first movement plods through its slow, ​ elegiac opening, rising to a climax of repeated high Fs as the oboe cries out in pain, frustration, and perhaps anger, before falling back to a dark, covered ending on a held low E.

The second movement immediately propels the listener into an unstable, irregular beat pattern. Even as the oboe winds its way to a high, soaring melody, the piano accompaniment remains furtive and unsettled. The third movement, as Dutilleux said, is much lighter in nature. Written in a rough ABA form, the middle section recalls the intensity and strife of the second movement, before the return of the A section offers a tonal release from the searching modernity of the rest of the work.

Notes by Laura Adkins.

804 West Belden Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 773.325.7260 music.depaul.edu