FACULTY RECITAL In the Presence of Love Ethan Yichen Lee, countertenor Long Tang, piano Faith United Methodist Church Saturday, April 24, 2021 2:00 pm LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Adelaide, Op. 46 (1770-1827) FRANZ SCHUBERT Der Tod und das Mädchen, D. 531, Op. 7, No. 3 (1797-1828) Nacht und Träume, D. 827 FRANZ SCHUBERT Ständchen from Schwanengesang, D. 957, No. 4 (1797-1828) Du bist die Ruh, D. 776, Op. 59, No. 3 intermission ANTONIO CALDARA Selve amiche, ombrose piante (1670-1736) CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK O del mio dolce ardor (1714-1787) ANTONIO CESTI Intorno all’idol mio (1623-1669) ANTONIO LOTTI Pur dicesti, o bocca bella (1667-1740) GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Pena tiranna from Amadigi di Gaula, HWV 11 (1685-1759) Al lampo dell’armi from Giulio Cesare, HWV 17 Biography Ethan Yichen Lee is a diverse musician who has performed extensively in opera, Long Tang is a musician with diverse skills and interests. Since the age of four, oratorio, and chamber music and has won numerous awards as a vocalist and piano piano playing has been her most treasured activity despite all the other enterprises accompanist. The Yangtze Evening Post described him as “Lee is like a rising star, she pursued prior to establishing herself as a professional musician. Long acquired who has become one of the most outstanding countertenors in China.” her master's degree in accounting at twenty-two and worked as an accountant for the esteemed public accounting firm Ernst & Young. She has also worked as a freelance As an active performer, Lee has recently appeared in leading roles such as Cesare in translator with nine well-reviewed books published in China. Meanwhile, music has Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, never been absent from her life. In high school, she was a keyboardist in the orchestra of Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Nero-Caligula in Ilya annual school musicals, a pianist at weekly masses, and a prize winner at state-level Demutsky’s Black Square. Past performances include Purcell’s King Arthur, youth piano competitions. Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and Yang Ming’s Sister Jiang. Additionally, Lee has performed as a soloist with Sinfonia da Camera Chamber Orchestra, Concerto In business school, she initiated a chamber orchestra with fellow students and faculty Urbano Baroque Ensemble, and Estampe Trio. members who were as passionate about music and performed piano concerti together. While working as an accountant, she became an enthusiastic concert-goer and record In addition to Lee’s career as a vocalist, he has earned many achievements as a collector who saturated herself with the vast classical repertoire. She also read music pianist. Highlights of Lee’s piano accomplishments include the first places in solo history and musical styles in her hour of leisure. Eventually, she decided to turn her piano and piano accompanying at the Fifth Jiangsu Collegiate Music Competition. passion into the dedication and pursue music studies professionally so that she could enjoy and share music more informedly and build a solid foundation for the lifetime Lee earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education (piano concentration) from pursuit. In the course of her professional training, she further broadened her musical Nanjing Normal University (China), where he served as a teaching assistant in interest by learning to play the harpsichord, playing the organ for church services, and several music classes. He received a Master of Music degree in vocal performance being a piano accompanist. from Illinois State University and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance and literature at the University of Illinois under the tutelage of Ollie Long is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Watts Davis. Before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her Champaign, Lee taught at the University of Illinois at Springfield and Illinois principal teachers include William Heiles, Mia Hynes, and Douglas Buys. She has taken College. Lee also serves as a member of the National Association of Teachers of master classes with renowned pianists and pedagogues such as Logan Skelton Singing (NATS) and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). and Nelita True. Program Note Adelaide There is an abrupt change of mood and rhythm at ‘Laß auch dir die Brust bewegen’, but the Beethoven wrote “Adelaide,” a song for solo voice and piano, between 1794 and 1796, when he was in singer’s macho confidence is a sham; and though the thrice repeated ‘Komm, beglücke mich!’ his mid-twenties. The text of the song is a poem in German by Friedrich von Matthisson, to whom suggests sexual union (especially when voice and piano combine in triplet thirds during the Beethoven dedicated the work and to whom he wrote after its completion: “My most ardent wish will first repeat of the phrase), it loses all sense of conviction in the final repetition and peters away be fulfilled if you are not dissatisfied with the manner in which I have set your heavenly ‘Adelaide’ to in a heartbreaking decrescendo, as the singer realizes how unattainable his beloved has music.” The poem’s theme of yearning for an unattainable woman clearly appealed to the young become. Beethoven, who would make this theme the animating one of his love life. Du bist die Ruh The central melody of the song is clearly borrowed from the middle movement of Mozart’s Piano Schubert’s Du bist die Ruh, is one of the most romantic and emotional pieces in his collection. Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K. 478, written a decade earlier—so much so that a listener ignorant of the This passionate poem is by the inspirational German poet, Friedrich Rückert. The poem two compositions might, upon first hearing both, think Mozart’s a straightforward transcription of the expresses the true depth and pain of a familiar love. Schubert translates the text’s sensuality song. perfectly, with loving and gentle themes and simple form, thus creating a beautiful and moving song. Schubert uses a light and subtle approach in the accompaniment to enhance the “Adelaide” was one of Beethoven’s most popular songs during his lifetime and for decades after his sweetness of the lyric melody in the vocal line. This piece was written during the Romantic era death. Like most German art songs of Beethoven’s era, however, it is regrettably not well known which composers during this period sought to make the music as emotional and moving as today. possible. Der Tod und das Mädchen Selve amiche, ombrose piante Der Tod und das Mädchen is a very famous lied composed by Franz Schubert in February 1817 for Selve amiche, ombrose piante is one of the most popular songs written by Antonio Caldara, voice and piano. The text of this piece is derived from a poem written by German poet Matthias who is best known as a composer of operas, cantatas, and oratorios. Several of his works have Claudius. The text of this poem displays that it is a dialogue between a girl and death with death, libretti by Pietro Metastasio, the court poet at Vienna from 1729. trying to persuade the girl to die, similar to Schubert's other lied, 'Der Erlkonig'. This piece provides two sections, the passionate music of the fearful maiden and the slow soothing melody of death. O del mio dolce ardor O del mio dolce ardor is from the opera Paride ed Elena (1770). Paris, a prince of Troy, who Nacht und Träume sings this aria. As told in Homer’s Iliad, three goddesses ask Paris (a human) to choose which Nacht und Träume is a Lied for voice and piano by Franz Schubert, from a text by Matthäus von of them is the most beautiful. Paris chooses Aphrodite, and is rewarded with the love of the Collin, and published in 1825. The vocal line stretches into the void and lures moonlight, memories most beautiful woman in the world - Helen, queen of Sparta. He sings this aria upon arriving and spirits to visit our dreams. In the piano, slow unruffled semiquavers breathe steadily. There is on a beach within sight of Sparta, and the object of his affections. however a touch of lonely, resounding desolation on the diminished chord of 'Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht': we plead for night's return in order to live again in a better world, to recapture the joys that Intorno all'idol mio we once possessed. This is a theme of a number of Schubert's greatest songs. Many years before Freud, Antonio Cesti was a successful writer of operas who served in a number of musical positions the poet knew that sleep—the other side of the coin of death—is the key to our past joys and troubles. in several European countries. The opera Orontea was written while Cesti was employed at the court of the archduke in Innsbruck, Austria. The aira, Intorno all'idol mio, is sung bu Ständchen Orontea, the queen of Egypt, as a prayer for a restful sleep and sweet dreams for her lover, A similar melancholy informs ‘Ständchen’, the most celebrated serenade in all music. Schubert’s Alidoro. irresistible tune has led some singers and pianists to perform the song as euphorically as possible – but that is to misunderstand the poem, the music and the theme of these Rellstab songs. The song might Pur dicesti, o bocca bella begin brightly enough with staccato quavers that suggest a plectrum-plucked guitar (they only appear Antonio Lotti wrote about thirty operas, thus resulting in his status as one of the most popular in the four bar prelude, but the staccato marking should be observed throughout), the key, however, is opera composers of his day.