On Friday, April 19, von der Mehden Recital Hall hosted a classical chamber music concert. The first performance began without an introduction: “Galliard Battaglia, SSWV 59″ by Samuel Schiedt, edited by Robert King. The composition called for two trumpets played by Ashton Tyler and Aiden Thompson, a French horn played by Nathan Michaud, a trombone played by Andrew Rozzi and a bass trombone by Benjamin Burnham. The piece sounded like something you might typically hear in a royal court. Despite the general elegance, the blaring on the trombones added an underlying sense of abrasiveness which was unexpected. It was a short and sweet piece, not overstaying its welcome but instead welcoming the audience to the night.
The next two pieces, the “Waltz” and “Romance. ‘Andantino’” from Sergey Rakhmaninov’s “Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17,” were played by pianists Grace Nieh and Thomas Tarutin. It began as a detailed cascade of notes, where you could track the main melody but there were many confounding notes which added a layer of unpredictability. Later on in the composition, there was a part where an extremely high note was played, expanding the melody even further. The rendition of the waltz was entrancing.
There was a short pause for the “Romance. ‘Andantino’” portion so that the pianists could get to the next page. It started off softly but drifted away into somberness. Midway through the second part, the piano playing was both heavy and light simultaneously. The music shifted between somberness and joy; but, after an incredibly moving moment — that couldn’t be done justice in words without listening to the piece yourself — it became apparent to question what the composer was going through while writing this piece. It certainly didn’t sound like the contemporary sense of the word “romantic,” but perhaps rather losing someone you loved. The piece ended solemnly but also subtly triumphantly, leaving the audience to piece together the loose ends.
The next composition performed was “Piano Trio No. 5 in C Major, K. 548” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The trio consisted of Tony Daise on the violin, Miranda Hodgkins on the cello and Noah Medina-Pinango on the piano. Similarly to the opening performance, this piece began sounding like something you would hear in a royal court. The violin was like a leaf elegantly fluttering in the consistent wind of the piano, and the cello was like a small tree swaying in said wind. There was a sinister moment, however, which ended the bright and cheerful sound of the beginning. There was then a part where the violin, cello and piano repeat the same leitmotif, or recurring progression of notes. The violin eventually becomes the center of the performance while the piano and cello lay the foundation. The piece ended cheerfully despite the eclipse of the sinister moment.
The next piece was “Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44” by Robert Schumann. Krystian Pawłowski and Antonio Avilés Figueroa were on violin, Adrian Yemin played viola, Lucas Flood played cello and Nieh played the piano. There was a beautiful moment before the rendition of the composition started where the instruments harmonized in key. The violins, viola and cello work well as a single stringed unit, the body of sound juxtaposing the timbre of the piano successfully and pleasantly. There were intense moments where the piano led the other instruments into heaviness and harshness, but then the composition found a middle ground between elegance and harsher tones. Despite the saddening development in the composition later on, it ended positively.
Eric Ewazen’s three-movement composition, “Roaring Fork,” was the final performance of the night. Sarah Swenson was on the flute, Nina Montague was on the oboe, Abigail Levine was on the clarinet, Alexander Molina was on the bassoon and Nathan Michaud was on the French horn. They were standing instead of sitting like the other performers. The performance was also prefaced by a harmonization. The bright oboe and French horn usage in the first part, titled “Maroon Creek,” gave each of the instruments their own time in the center of the movement.
The second movement, “Columbines (Snowmass Lake),” sounds like the musical equivalent of winter. It’s incredibly ominous and foreboding compared to the first part, which was relatively cheerful. At one point, the flute sounded a bit like the flute from “Morphogenetic Sorrow” by Shinji Hosoe for the visual novel series “Zero Escape.” The movement ended softly and bittersweetly.
The third and final movement, “At the Summit (Buckskin Pass),” began with the French horn sounding like a straight trumpet played during a war in the Middle Ages. The bassoon was sometimes very heavy, even heavier than the French horn. This piece is an odd middle ground between the first two parts since it’s more cheerful than the second but more dismal and grounded than the first part. This composition is like an emotional journey and may have been composed to represent a physical journey from one place to another. After the piece concluded, the audience applauded all of the performers.
In an interview on his personal experience with music, Figueroa, a second-semester violin performance student, said “Music has been there my entire life. It’s been there since I was 4. When I was a kid, I had music classes six days a week and in high school I had music classes seven days a week. I am the first person in my family to play an instrument.”
Juan Martín Abrales, a second-semester digital media and design major and a friend of Figueroa chimed in on why UConn students should go to more recitals and concerts: “It shows you another side of UConn. You have free access to these concerts. Listening to music in a room is a totally new experience and UConn students should take advantage of that.”
Mariangel Quiros, a second-semester digital media and design major and another friend of Figueroa and audience member, added on “I feel like there’s undervalued talent because you know there’s a story behind athletes’ lives, but the music students have been practicing for so long to perform at a concert. Like how we appreciate basketball players, we should appreciate music players.”